Not Dead Enough

by Warren C Easley

  Traffic was light when I reached Portland. Its handsome, compact center was cleaved east from west by the Willamette River and stitched back together by a series of eight bridges, earning it the nickname Bridgetown. As I cleared the river high atop the I-5 Bridge, I found myself wondering what an earthquake would do to the aging structure and quickly suppressed the thought. A reflex from my L.A. days, I suppose.

  I took the I-84 turnoff and headed east toward the Columbia River Gorge, a passage carved through sheer basalt cliffs that funneled the mighty river for over eighty miles. A low cloud cover had formed, but when I entered the Gorge the sun broke through and began playing off the whitecaps flecking the gray-verging-into-blue water. I played tag with heavily laden eighteen-wheelers for ninety minutes before The Dalles Dam came into view—its low profile set against the humped, treeless hills on the Washington side of the river. White water from half a dozen open floodgates cascaded down the center of the dam and stretched downriver like a huge, white tongue.

  I arrived at Celilo Village at quarter past one. It must’ve been a sellout crowd, because I had to park out near the highway and walk in on the frontage road. I knew lunch was scheduled for two, and the aroma of meat and fish being cooked over open fires greeted me at the edge of the village. Calling the place a “village” was a stretch, since what I saw was maybe a dozen manufactured houses jammed in on either side of a short dirt road off to my left. A single basketball hoop and a couple of dirt bikes leaning against the supporting pole were the only suggestions that kids lived there. On either side of the broad road, stakes and plywood forms gave me a sense of the shape of the village to come. It promised to be a real upgrade, but then again almost anything would be.

  I followed the rich aromas to the large wooden building that I took to be the longhouse. An elongated A-frame structure, it sported a set of huge, old-growth timbers that crossed at the roofline, tepee style. A small army of cooks was busy preparing lunch along one side of the building. I slipped into the front entryway, stood at the back, and scanned the standing-room-only crowd for Philip.

  I didn’t spot Philip but saw his father immediately. He was the one on stage wearing all the eagle feathers. He sat with the other tribal leaders next to an American flag and the four flags of the sovereign nations affected by the loss of the falls—Umatilla, Yakama, Nez Perce, and Warm Springs. Several white dignitaries sat with them, including a gray-haired man in military dress with lots of ribbons and medals. The brass from the Corps, no doubt. A man in a blue suit and red power tie stood at the podium, reading what I quickly realized was a proclamation from the Governor of Oregon. To my surprise, the words were refreshingly honest and forthright, and I found myself wanting to believe the promise that government had learned a lesson, that something like this could never happen today. I wondered.

  After a brief closing ceremony, the crowd emptied out and began queuing up for lunch.

  “Cal. Good to see you, buddy,” Philip said as he emerged from the throng and met me with a fist bump. “How long you been here?”

  “Oh, quite a while. Nice ceremony. Your dad was looking good up there.”

  Philip flashed a brilliant smile. He had turn-your-head looks but none of the vanity that could have generated. Black hair pulled back in a ponytail, a chin like a block of granite, and obligatory high cheekbones were all Paiute warrior. But his green eyes and narrow, almost delicate, nose came from his white mother. “Bullshit,” he said. “I saw you sneak in a few minutes ago.” He was still smiling. “Let me guess—car trouble?”

  I shrugged. “Give me a break. I did catch some of the Gov’s proclamation.”

  “Impressive speech, huh? Makes me confident that if you ever take our land again, you’ll do it with much more sensitivity.”

  “Well, don’t take our word for it. Make sure you get a signed treaty.”

  Philip threw his head back and laughed. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

  We piled our plates high with salmon, venison, corn on the cob, and salad and sat down at a table, joining another party of three. The man I sat down next to extended his hand and said, “Hello, I’m Jason Townsend,” and then introduced us to the other two. Townsend was tall and blond and strikingly handsome. His yellow V-neck sweater with a button-down underneath, chinos, and spotless jogging shoes signaled a failed attempt at dressing down, Oregon style. He looked vaguely familiar to me. I scanned my memory banks but came up empty. “So, what brings you two to the commemoration?” he asked as we tucked into our food.

  Philip looked at me to answer Townsend’s question. “Well, Philip’s a member of the Confederated Tribes at Warm Springs. I’m just here to pay my respects for the loss of the falls.”

  Townsend looked directly at Philip. “I’m truly sorry for your loss. Based on what we know today, we probably wouldn’t have built The Dalles Dam.”

  Philip lowered his fork and looked back, not quite knowing what to make of the man. “Yeah, well, it screwed up the best fishing hole in North America.” Townsend laughed at this, albeit a bit cautiously, and waited for Philip to continue.

  After a pause, I filled the vacuum. I was used to doing this for my laconic friend. “I wish I could have seen Celilo Falls with my own eyes. Imagine all the migrating salmon in the Columbia squeezed into one spot.”

  Townsend leaned in. “I wish I could have seen it, too. The pictures don’t do it justice. They say the roar of the falls shook the earth.” He looked at Philip again, but he didn’t respond. He’d spoken his piece. “Now we know the dams are killing off the salmon,” Townsend went on. “I think they need to go.”

  That rang a bell with me. Is this the guy who’s thinking about a run for the U.S. Senate, the guy who’s advocating dam removal? Wasn’t his name Townsend? I took another look at him. Could be. The other two are probably aides, I decided. The thin, well-dressed man across from Townsend, introduced earlier as David Hanson, said, “People in the Northwest don’t want to give up their cheap power, and they shouldn’t have to. We have so many new options now—solar, wind power, geothermal, wave. The dams can be phased out over time.”

  “That’s right, David,” Townsend added, coming in as if on cue. “I think we can find less ecologically damaging sources of power in the Northwest. But it’s going to take new leadership.”

  I glanced at the other aide, Sam DeSilva, and caught him rolling his eyes at the comment. Sam was short and stoutly built with a closely shaved head that glistened in the sunlight. He obviously wasn’t a true believer.

  I looked back at Townsend. “Philip and I are fly-fishermen. We daydream about free-flowing rivers. Does this dam-removal idea stand a chance?”

  Townsend squared his shoulders and looked me in the eye. “I think it does. It won’t happen overnight, and we can’t remove all the dams, but big changes always start with a dream.”

  We continued the conversation in this quixotic vein while we ate our lunches. I had to admit it felt good to think about the possibility of the Columbia River flowing freely again, but I still didn’t give the idea a snowball’s chance in hell. By this time, I was sure who Townsend was. I said, “You’re thinking about a run for the Senate, aren’t you? I read about you a while back.” Philip shot me a surprised look that turned pained. He put white politicians right up there with people who fish with dynamite.

  Before Townsend could answer, a reporter butted in and asked him for an interview. Philip took the opportunity to jump up and grab me by the arm. As we turned to go, Townsend slipped me a business card and said hastily, “Sorry for this, Cal. Great meeting you. I am running for the Senate. And I’m serious about the dams. Call me if you want to help.”

  Chapter Two

  As I caught up with Philip, he said, “Come on. I want you to meet my cousin.” He guided me through a crowd that had formed around a drumming circle to a booth fronted by a banner that read “Learn about Pacific Salmon.” There, a gro
up of Native American kids listened to a woman wearing a fringed buckskin dress trimmed in turquoise and white beads. She was tall and willowy with her hair in traditional braids that hung past her shoulders. The kids seemed to hang on her every word, even the older boys standing at the back, although their interest probably had more to do with her figure than the subject matter.

  “Okay,” the woman said, “I’ve been doing all the talking. Now it’s your turn.”

  The kids clapped and chattered excitedly.

  She looked at the younger kids sitting up close. “Who can tell me why the salmon is such a special fish?”

  A thin little girl wearing heavy glasses shot her hand up. “Um, they go back to have their babies in the same place they were born. Sometimes it’s a really long swim back to that place, but they never forget where it is.”

  “Very good. What are fish called that do this?”

  A boy in the second row called out, “Ana…uh, anadromous.”

  The woman smiled brightly. “That’s right. She looked at the boys in the back. “What do you guys think about a fish that swims a thousand miles up a river just to spawn?”

  A tall boy in gangbanger pants and a black tee-shirt said, “They’re damn tough.”

  The woman’s face lit up. “Wonderful point. Tell me more. Why are they so tough?”

  “Well, look at all the stuff they have to fight against—fishermen, dams, sea lions, pollution, people messing up their spawning grounds, stuff like that. But they keep coming back every year. My dad says there’s no quit in them.”

  I looked at those kids huddled around the woman, tough survivors, too. No wonder they have such a strong bond with the fish they hold sacred. After all, they’ve lived together along this river for thousands of years. And then I had another, less comforting thought. What if our stupidity wins out and we allow Columbia River salmon to become extinct? Could these people cope? Shit. Could I?

  The woman ended the discussion with an old Wasco story of how Coyote freed the salmon for the benefit of all the river peoples by fooling two old women who were hoarding the fish. The kids laughed and clapped when she told them Coyote did this by destroying a dam that was holding the fish captive. The irony of the story wasn’t lost on them. Not one bit.

  Philip and I waited in the back until she finished her talk, and the kids began to drift away. Philip waved and she came over to us.

  “Hi, Winona,” Philip said as he hugged her. “Meet Cal Claxton. Cal, this is my cousin, Winona Cloud.”

  Her face was unadorned with makeup, and her smile was as modest as it was brief, showing the hint of two honest-to-goodness dimples. Her eyes were almond-shaped and hazel-going-to-green. They regarded me with intelligence and obvious curiosity as she offered her hand.

  “I enjoyed your talk, Winona. You had those kids eating out of your hand.”

  “She knows her stuff,” Philip interjected, gazing at her proudly. “She has a PhD in biology from Stanford.”

  Winona showed another hint of a smile, and I thought she might actually be blushing.

  “What are you doing with your degree?” I asked.

  “I work for a nonprofit, Pacific Salmon Watch.”

  I nodded to let her know I’d heard of the organization.

  “I’m heading up a project on river habitat restoration. We’re working with the Columbia tribes on this. She glanced back at the booth, stacked with literature and decorated with photos and illustrations of salmon. Part of my job’s education.”

  “I liked the way you mixed the science with the Indian lore,” I told her.

  She smiled more fully, deepening the dimples. I thought of the sun breaking through somewhere in rainy Oregon. She said, “I grew up with that particular story of Coyote. It was my grandmother’s favorite.”

  “I’ve told Winona a little bit about what you do, Cal. I think there’s something she wants to discuss with you. I need to find my father, so I’ll look you two up later, okay?” Philip turned to leave but not before he gave me that look he has when he thinks he’s done something clever. God, I hate that look.

  We lingered in an awkward pause after Philip walked away. Finally, I said, “So, Winona, what did you want to talk to me about?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Would you mind if we took a walk? It will take a while to explain, and I’m not comfortable talking around all these people.”

  “Fine. I’m no lover of crowds. Can we walk to the river from here?”

  “Sure. The park’s not far.”

  We took the frontage road under I-84 and five minutes later were strolling through Celilo Park, a rocky spit squeezed between the railroad tracks and the river. The wind had picked up and cloud shadows darted across the water like schools of dark fish. Winona caught her skirt in a gust, laughed, and said, “One thing that hasn’t changed in the Gorge is the wind.” We found a picnic table partially sheltered behind a stand of gnarled cedars and sat down.

  “Where exactly were the falls?” I asked.

  “Out there,” she said, pointing west and downriver. Then she swung her arm southward. “The original village was over there. My grandfather, Nelson Queah, had a fishing platform right below the falls.”

  “Does he live in the village now?” I asked eagerly. I was dying to talk to one of the Celilo old-timers to hear firsthand what the fishing was really like.

  Winona drew her mouth into a straight line and looked out across the water. “No. He’s gone.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. He disappeared fifty years ago today.”

  “The day they flooded the falls?”

  “That night.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Chapter Three

  Winona looked out at the water as she began to speak. Whitecaps blanketed Celilo Lake now, glittering in the afternoon light like silver coins. Downriver, a low-riding barge slogged silently toward us. “I never knew my grandfather. He disappeared nine years before I was born. But I grew up on stories about him, told mostly by my grandmother. He was a man of principle and a political activist.” She smiled with a tinge of bitterness and waved a hand toward the water. “He fought hard to prevent this back in the fifties. He was a warrior, too, a Marine during World War II. He earned a Silver Star and a Purple Heart overseas. Italy, I think. When he came back he had no tolerance for the racism that was prevalent around The Dalles at the time.”

  I frowned and waited for her to continue.

  “My grandmother loved to tell about the time he went into The Dalles for a haircut shortly after being discharged. He waited patiently for his turn and was denied service. He refused to leave the shop, and when three men tried to throw him out, he beat the hell out of them, all three.”

  I laughed out loud, the scene playing in my head like a movie clip.

  Winona smiled, shook her head, and looked back out on the river. “He spent ninety days in jail for that. He was well respected in the village and became a member of the Celilo Fish Committee. The committee managed the fishing at the falls. You know—who could fish, where they could fish, that sort of thing. He also worked with the fishermen and the cannery to settle disputes. There was a lot of cheating going on at both ends. When the dam became an issue, he threw himself into opposing it. He wrote letters, gave talks locally, traveled all the way to Washington to testify at congressional hearings. He was uncompromising. He urged the tribes to refuse a buy-off from Washington. ‘Don’t trade the falls for money,’ he used to say. ‘You can’t put a price on the falls.’”

  “I think he was right about that. You must be very proud of him.”

  “I am. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  I raised my eyebrows and waited again, wondering where she was going with this.

  “That night, after the f
looding of the falls, my grandfather disappeared. Without a trace.”

  “Oh.” I nodded and waited for her to continue.

  “One man claims he saw him that night out by the river, stumbling around like a drunk. So the police assumed he got drunk, fell in what had become a lake, and drowned in typical Indian fashion. Case closed.”

  “They didn’t find his body?”

  She looked out at the lake. “No. The lake isn’t particularly deep, but the Narrows, where the river used to run, is a deep trench. And the turbines at the dam, of course…”

  “You don’t believe it was an accident?”

  “No. And neither did my grandmother. She had to live with the shame of the accusation—you know, just another drunk Indian—but she never believed it. Not for a minute.” Winona looked at the barge out on the lake and hesitated for a moment, as if weighing what to say next. “I…I didn’t know my grandfather, but I feel like his spirit lives within me. I know he didn’t die like they said.” She clinched a fist and put it to her chest. “And the anger I feel at him being remembered like that sits in my heart like a heavy stone.” Her eyes narrowed and the muscles along the line of her jaw rippled. She was right. I could sense the warrior in her.

  My prosecutor instincts kicked in. “Who was this witness?”

  “His name’s Sherman Watlamet, a Yakama.”

  “Still living?”

  “I think so.”

  I waited, and when she didn’t continue, said, “So, Winona, how can I help you?”

  “I want you to try to find out what really happened to my grandfather. I want to know the truth.”

  I started to laugh but caught myself. “Uh, that would be next to impossible, I’m afraid. Except for one possible witness, any physical evidence is probably long gone after fifty years. Besides, I’m just a small-town lawyer. What you need is a private investigator.”