Damnation Spring

by Ash Davidson

  “Chub?” his mom called.

  He waited.

  “Chu-ub?!” she shouted. Her voice boomeranged through the mist. “Chub!”

  The old dog broke free. His mom appeared, stumbling toward him, pulling him to her chest, hugging him too tight.

  “Please don’t hide from me.” She cupped his face in her hands. “I don’t want to lose you, Grahamcracker. I can’t lose you, okay?”

  He nodded. She was squishing his cheeks. The old dog plopped down, panting.

  When they finally got down to Damnation Creek, his mom stood at the edge. She toed a rock. It dropped off into the water and sank.

  “Do you know how?” Chub asked.

  “Sort of,” she said. “I guess we’ll learn, won’t we?” She gave a sad smile.

  “Sometimes Dad takes his shirt off,” Chub offered.

  His mom nodded, unbuttoned her cuffs, and rolled up her sleeves.

  “I should have brought my bathing suit,” she said, climbing into the waders, pulling the straps up over her shoulders. She stepped into the creek, looking down, watching her feet under the water, slowly crossing toward the new pipe his dad had laid.

  “Here?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder at him.

  “Farther,” Chub said. “There.”

  She hissed when she reached her arm in. Her shoulder, her ear, the side of her head disappeared into the cold water. She took a breath and went under. The dog pulled, barking his ghost bark.

  “Wait!” Chub yanked the dog’s rope. “Mama!”

  He watched the spot where she’d disappeared. The creek gurgled. Coins of sunlight played across the surface. She burst up again, gasping, took a deep breath and stuck her head back under.

  Chub crouched at the creek edge, counting—One one thousand, two one thousand. Long grasses swayed in the current, velvet silt coating the rocks underwater, and there, between them, something glinted. He reached for it, stood up. His mom went underwater again. He tripped backward and sat on his butt. He forced the latch and pushed the flat side of the blade until the knife snapped closed into its handle, just like his dad had taught him.

  “Chub?” his mom asked.

  He looked up. She stood knee-deep in the creek, water running down her hair. In her hand was a wad of wet leaves, and—magically—she was smiling.

  July 30 COLLEEN

  She turned sideways in the bathroom mirror, cupping the little swell of her belly. Today she would do it. She would make a space.

  One by one, she opened Rich’s dresser drawers, piling his clothes on the bed. Denims, work shirts, half a dozen pairs of wool socks. She paused, making sure she still heard Chub in his room.

  The bottom drawer was a jumble—boxer shorts, an old cap, two pairs of suspenders, a waxed paper envelope with a decayed tooth inside, the wooden box with the carved lid, wedged in so tightly she had to get down on her knees to maneuver it. She angled it this way and that, a light sweat on her brow, jolting backward when finally it came loose. She set it down on the floor beside her and there, underneath it, pressed against the bottom of the drawer, sat Rich’s old handkerchief, navy blue embroidery in the corner: RG. It was folded so neatly that the creases held when she picked it up. She let it fall open: a smear of red lipstick. Tears sprang into Colleen’s eyes. The smell of the bonfire—Smoke follows beauty—wafted out from the folds.

  Her stomach lurched, a dry heave. She picked up the wooden box, got a sleeve of saltines from the kitchen cabinet, filled the kettle, and set it to boil. She sat at the table eating the crackers, lifted the carved lid off the box.

  She’d removed the first few photographs when Chub tromped in.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  Chub shook his head.

  “Look at this.” She held the image between her palms to keep from sullying it. “It’s your uncle Lark, when he was young, see?” Lark stood beside a young woman seated with a dark-haired baby in her lap, a boy of four or five standing between them. “That must be his wife,” she said, turning the photo over, as though something might be written there. She hadn’t known Lark had had children.

  “What else is in there?” Chub asked, reaching for a cracker.

  She picked up a yellowed newspaper clipping: Rich young, ax midswing. Del Norte County log-splitting champ Richard C. Gundersen.

  “Look, it’s your dad. Look how young he is.”

  “His hair is all curly,” Chub said, touching the old newsprint.

  There was a thick stack of them clipped together—Richard C. Gundersen, first place, tree-climbing competition. Richard C. Gundersen, grand prize, chainsaw competition.

  She examined each one gently. You never told me this. She leafed through the rest of the papers, pulled out a manila envelope.

  The kettle whistled.

  “Chub, could you turn that off, please?” Chub walked to the stove and turned the knob. “Other way. Thank you.”

  She stuck her hand in and slid an old photograph out of the envelope: a man holding a toddler up to a giant tree, the child’s hands pressed to the bark, a lopsided grin on his face.

  “Chub, look,” she said. “It’s your dad, when he was a baby. Look at him.” She held the photo up beside Chub’s face. He looked so much like him. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” Chub asked.

  “Nothing, Grahamcracker.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I’m just happy.”

  She turned the envelope over. There, in smudged carpenter pencil: Lark’s herky-jerky scrawl, the writing of a man who, aside from signing his name, hadn’t put more than a hundred words to paper in his life. Not a lot of guys are born to do something.

  A piece of paper fell out into her lap. She unfolded it, read it once, then again.

  “What’s that?” Chub asked.

  Her hands trembled. “It’s a deed.”

  “What’s a deed?” Chub asked.

  “It means—your dad’s land, it’s—” she stammered, the paper so flimsy in her hands. “It doesn’t matter.” She picked up the clippings of Rich again, traced his profile with her finger. Chub leaned against her, waiting, though the box was empty.

  “Where are your binoculars?” she asked.

  Chub shrugged.

  “Go get them.”

  They crossed the highway and followed the dirt path down the cliffside, wind bending the grasses, bowling them over. It whipped her hair, flapped the folds of her clothes. Chub reached for her hand. A rock ricocheted down, loosed by the memory of Rich walking ahead.

  The sides of the path glowed electric, the lit-from-within green of new life. Wind snapped her hair from behind her ears, an effort just to open her eyes into it.

  Here was Rich, leading her down to Diving Board Rock the first time, the stone slab jutting out over the gray ocean.

  They came to the end of the path and here was Rich, lowering himself to one knee, so nervous he dropped the ring in the grass and crawled around, looking for it.

  Here was Rich, hands around her belly, when she was pregnant with Chub.

  Flashes of memory, Polaroids pinned to a clothesline, moments that would end always with the feeling of having missed the last step: he is not here.

  She sat down in the grass. Chub climbed into her lap.

  “What do you see?” she asked, batting at the binoculars until he lifted them to his eyes and looked out at the water.

  She bounced him in her lap, as she had when he was small, inventing their singsongs.

  “I was walking down the street, and I saw a man with green eyes.” She bobbed her knees to the old rhythm. “I said, ‘Hey, mister, where’d you get those beautiful green eyes?’ ”

  Chub was quiet.

  “Hey, mister,” she whispered. “Where’d you get those beautiful green eyes?”

  Chub lowered his binoculars and tipped his head back against her. His bangs fell away, exposing the pink scar, his forehead, his sharp little chin, his cheeks with their dimples, and there, looking up at her, w
ere those eyes, serious and changing, Rich’s eyes, flecked with bits of brown and gold, leaves floating in a pool of green water—his beautiful, beautiful eyes.

  A Scribner Reading Group Guide

  Damnation Spring

  Ash Davidson

  This reading group guide for Damnation Spring includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Introduction

  For generations, Rich Gundersen’s family has chopped a livelihood out of the redwood forest along California’s rugged coast. Now Rich and his wife, Colleen, are raising their young son near Damnation Grove, a swath of ancient redwoods on which Rich’s employer, Sanderson Timber Co., plans to make a killing. In 1977, with most of the forest cleared or protected, a grove like Damnation—and beyond it 24-7 Ridge—is a logger’s dream.

  But logging is dangerous work, and Rich wants better for his son, Chub. So, when the opportunity arises to buy 24-7 Ridge—costing them all the savings they’ve squirreled away for their growing family—he grabs it, unbeknownst to Colleen. Because the reality is their family isn’t growing; Colleen has lost several pregnancies. And she isn’t alone. As a midwife, Colleen has seen the suffering of other women with her own eyes.

  For decades, the herbicides the logging company uses were considered harmless. But what if these miscarriages aren’t isolated strokes of bad luck? As mudslides take out clear-cut hillsides and salmon vanish from creeks, Colleen’s search for answers threatens to unravel not just Rich’s plans for the 24-7, but their marriage too, dividing a town that lives and dies on timber along the way.

  In prose as clear as a spring-fed creek, this intimate, compassionate portrait of a community clinging to a vanishing way of life amid the perils of environmental degradation is an essential novel for our time.

  Topics and Questions for Discussion

  1.Lark says of Rich, “Not a lot of guys are born to do something.” What is Lark referring to? In your opinion, what role does a sense of “destiny” play in Rich’s decision to take a risk on 24-7 Ridge?

  2.Consider the role Daniel played in Colleen’s young adulthood. Why does she feel drawn to him when he first returns to Klamath? To Colleen, what does Daniel represent in her life?

  3.In the beginning of the novel, Colleen is reeling after her latest miscarriage and feels resentful of her sister, Enid, who now has six children—including her youngest, the miraculously docile Alsea. How does Colleen’s notion of Enid as the luckier of the two become more complicated as the novel progresses? By the end of the novel, how has the sisters’ relationship to one another changed?

  4.On page 50, Daniel’s words replay in Colleen’s head: “People think it’s just about trees, or it’s just about fish. By the time they realize it’s about them, it’s too late.” How does the interconnectedness of people and the environment play out in the novel? Do you think Daniel’s prediction—that the risks of environmental degradation will be evident only once it’s too late—comes true for the community of Klamath? Why or why not?

  5.Throughout the novel, water—flood waters, mudslides, contaminated creeks—poses as much a danger to all Klamath residents as the occupational hazards of forestry do to the loggers. How do you understand the role of water in this story?

  6.Rich observes about Merle’s husky, “A dog wasn’t a man. It didn’t choose which sonofabitch owned him.” Consider the subsequent revelations about Eugene’s actions in light of Rich’s observation. In your opinion, is Eugene’s financial dependence on Sanderson a justification for his behavior, or not?

  7.Consider Colleen’s reluctance to tell Rich about the tap water collection jars, and Rich’s insistence on keeping the news about his purchase of 24-7 Ridge a secret from Colleen. Why do you think these characters repeatedly hesitate to confide in one another? In your opinion, what are some events and developments that finally lead to more openness between them, and why?

  8.On page 295, Pete says to Rich “[A] woman’ll lift a car if her kid’s under it.” Mothers—and in particular Helen and Colleen—are among the most vocal and active in the effort to uncover the truth about the health implications of Sanderson’s herbicide sprays. Why is this? What role does motherly love and heartbreak play in driving the investigation forward? How might the novel have been different if the experiences of the women in the community were less central?

  9.During his speech at the hearing, Rich says “You scratch a logger, you better believe you’ll find an ‘enviro-mentalist’ underneath.” What does Rich mean by this? What do the loggers, the Yurok fishermen, and the environmentalists have in common? How do their perspectives differ?

  10.At the dentist’s office in Coos Bay, Rich is finally relieved of the toothache he’s had since the beginning of the novel. In addition, he at last finds closure to his relationship to Astrid. How do you understand his relief in this chapter? What—in addition to a rotting tooth—do you think has been plaguing him all this time?

  11.By the final chapter, how would you characterize Colleen’s relationship to 24-7 Ridge? How has it changed over the course of the novel? What do you imagine Colleen will do with the land now?

  Enhance Your Book Club

  Supplemental reading:

  1.A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights by Carol Van Strum

  2.The Last Stand: The War Between Wall Street and Main Street over California’s Ancient Redwoods by David Harris

  3.From the Redwood Forest: Ancient Trees and the Bottom Line: A Headwaters Journey by Joan Dunning

  Supplemental viewing:

  1.“The People vs. Agent Orange,” available on PBS’s Independent Lens beginning June 28, 2021

  2.“American West(s): How the Yurok Tribe is Reclaiming the Klamath River,” available on the High Country News YouTube channel

  3.“Tending the Wild: Keeping the River,” available on the KCET YouTube channel

  For a full list of additional resources, please visit ashdavidson.net/true-stories

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My mom trekked, through forests and clear-cuts, down to the ocean with me on research trips, and showed me the way to our creek. My dad taught me to use a chainsaw. But outside of family anecdotes, I knew very little about the long shadow herbicides had cast across timber country. I’m grateful to Patty Clary at Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, who first pointed me in the right direction and recommended A Bitter Fog, Carol Van Strum’s true account of the grassroots struggle to stop the spraying of 2,4,5-T. David Harris’s The Last Stand: The War Between Wall Street and Main Street over California’s Ancient Redwoods and James LeMonds’s Deadfall: Generations of Logging in the Pacific Northwest offered a window into timber-industry politics and life working in the woods. I’m grateful to Lucy Thompson’s 1916 history of Yurok life along the Klamath from before genocide and colonization, To the American Indian: Reminiscences of a Yurok Woman; to Grave Matters: Excavating California’s Buried Past by Tony Platt for background on the legacy of massacre, plunder, and grave robbing in the region; to the work of a number of journalists, especially Anna V. Smith at High Country News for her reporting on the Yurok Tribe’s continuing legal work on behalf of the Klamath; and to Yurok Today: The Voice of the Yurok People for making their informative newsletter available online. Rangers at Redwood National and State Parks provided information on burl poaching, and Neil Levine talked me through the legal basics of takings. Thank you to Jan Wortman and the Requa Inn for a wealth of knowledge and useful tips, a view of the river, a quiet meeting place, and the best pancakes on the North Coast. I owe a kidney to Amy Cordalis for her generosity, expertise, and careful review, and for taking time away from her writing and her life’s work—carrying on her family’s legac
y of defending Yurok sovereignty and protecting the Klamath River and Yurok lifeways—to help me see what I was missing. My deepest gratitude to the loggers, mill workers, and community members of Klamath and Requa, California, who helped me find my way, especially the late Yurok advocate Robley Schwenk and Stace Fisher, for patiently answering my questions and for sharing knowledge and experiences I couldn’t find in any book. Any and all errors are my own.

  I got two miracles: my agent, Chris Parris-Lamb, a true marathoner, whose guidance and sharp eye improved every page, and the honorable Kathryn Belden, this book’s editor and its midwife, who says the hard thing in the gentlest way. The two of them, with Nan Graham, changed my life. At the Gernert Company, I’m indebted to Rebecca Gardner and to Sarah Bolling for her insights and her expertise in the art of summary, and to Rebekah Jett at Scribner, editorial chiropractor, whose adjustment brought a key plot point into alignment.

  It took me a while to get here, and I racked up debts along the way:

  To the Flinn Foundation, for opening the door to the world, and to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and MacDowell, for giving me the space and the freedom to write like it was my job.

  To my teachers at Iowa: Kevin Brockmeier, Ethan Canin, James Alan McPherson, and especially Lan Samantha Chang, who builds us all up, and to Deb West, Jan Zenisek, Kelly Smith, and Connie Brothers, who ran a tight ship despite an unruly passenger list.

  To Dr. Karen Butterfield, Dr. Penelope Wong, Janeece Henes, Gloria Elio, Kelly Shushok, Fletcher Lathrop, and a number of generous writers who also taught, especially Mike Levin at FALA, and Paige Kaptuch, Kate Leary, and the late Jon Anderson at the University of Arizona.

  To the staff of Prairie Lights, the Java House, Late for the Train, and the Tourist Home (Shelby!), where chunks of this book took shape, and to Gary at Technology Associates in Iowa City, who recovered what I lost.

  To the magazine editors who first plucked me out of the slush, especially Valerie Vogrin at Sou’wester and Paul Ketzle at Quarterly West.