The Same River

by Lisa M. Reddick

  It started to rain. Piah heard others moving into their homes and heard the Nesika filling with the steady fall rain that would call the salmon up from their ocean homes into the river’s arms to nourish her family with their bodies. She wanted to tell her mother about her vision, about the necklace and the comfort of the promise from her spirit sister, and that she was concerned about what Tenas had said: “You don’t know what is coming.” She knew that her vision had been not just a protection blessing but something more.

  Her father came in and sat next to her. Piah had the necklace in her lap and decided that she should share her vision with her family and trust her father to help her discern its meaning.

  She held it out in her hands and saw the light from the fire reflected in the small, clear stones. “I went to see Tenas today—she came to me in a vision up near the falls. Tenas wants this necklace for Libah—to keep her safe. She said something was coming . . . I felt like she was warning me, but I don’t know what about.”

  Piah’s father carefully picked up the necklace from Piah’s palms. It looked tiny in his large hands, and he gazed at it tenderly for a long time, before asking, “This is from Tenas?” His voice cracked with sadness, and Piah’s mother moved closer to him. “It is a spirit necklace that is not from our kind of time. What did she say to you?”

  “She said that Libah will be the one who will know the songs and chants, who will become the one that we can follow, who will know what to do. But she didn’t say what was coming.”

  Her father shifted his weight and leaned against the fur-lined walls of their home. His dark eyes reflected the firelight and seemed to Piah to deepen with a blend of sadness and fear. The rain grew lighter, and Piah heard the rustling of the night animals in the dark forest around them. The call of a male wolf rolled down the canyon near the river and was answered by his pack in the distance.

  “This is an important message, and one we must tend to. In my own visions, there have been warnings as well—I can feel a tremble in the earth, a calling-out, a storm from an unknown horizon. It would have been a great effort for Tenas to come to you with this offering—it is a rare gift and one not to take lightly. It is for your baby, Libah, and a powerful blessing.”

  He began a slow chant that seemed to come from a time long before. Piah stood and carried Libah to his side. She held her while her father carefully placed the necklace over Libah’s small head. He kissed her forehead, and Libah reached out to him in response. Piah smelled the river and her daughter’s sweet, milk-washed skin. Her father’s chant held them like a protective, certain hand in their home, around their small fire, in the center of a dark, uncertain place.

  JESS

  As Jess drove through the rain to Martin’s house, she remembered her first Nesika Watershed Council meeting, when she was a junior in high school. Martin and his wife, Maia, had been sitting near the front of the community meeting hall at the Unitarian church, trying to contain their roving two-year-old son. Jamie had wandered over to where Jess was sitting and crawled into her lap. She had been babysitting for him since he was an infant. It had been only three years since Monica had died, and holding Jamie always helped her feel connected again to the substance of life.

  As she held him during the meeting, the present seemed to melt away and she heard a series of words ringing in her ears like an ancient chant:

  Watershed

  Nesika

  Salmon

  Fishing

  Public

  Interest

  Public

  Interest

  Public

  Land

  Salmon

  Salmon

  Salmon

  Martin came over to her and broke through her trance. She looked up at him and suddenly felt small, like his child. He squatted next to her and brushed his hand over Jamie’s sweet blond curls. Jess leaned away from him and let her gaze take in father and son, continuous and flowing with each other, Jamie’s body relaxing into his dad’s.

  “Thanks,” Martin whispered. “Hope he isn’t bothering you.” Jess shook her head no and felt Martin’s strength as he rested his hand on her shoulder.

  When Martin left, Jess found her way into the back bathroom of the old church. She splashed her face with cold water and looked at herself in the mirror. She was small, and her short hair, neither curly nor straight, was a mousy, uninteresting brown. She was wearing her favorite earrings, dripping down her neck like water droplets, a blue-green stone that was the color of the deep pools of the Nesika.

  After that meeting, Jess ran into Martin at the Saturday farmer’s market. She noticed Jamie first, running determinedly through the booths of fresh, colorful produce. The air was balmy for early spring, and the flowers in white plastic buckets seemed to want to leap out into new owners’ arms.

  “Jamie,” Martin called to his disappearing boy, “Jamie, come here a minute.” Jamie came running back proudly, carrying an unpurchased bright pink peony high in the air like a small flag.

  “He’s . . . well, he’s two. Hey, are you available next week to help us out with a project-planning meeting? We’re going to look at the plans the Forest Service has put forward to redo the boat ramp facilities at Heather Bend. Jamie, sweetie, stay here a sec . . .”

  “Um, yeah—when is it, again?”

  “Next Thursday at three. It’s going to be at my house—hopefully, Jamie will be napping and we can get something done.”

  The following Thursday, Jess walked up the uneven concrete steps to Martin’s front door.

  “Jess, come on in.” Martin’s house was strewn with papers and toys. A rocking horse with a crooked hat waited in the corner, and a fire truck was upside down in the middle of the floor. The living room smelled like a blend of garlic and nag champa, and a beautiful painting of Stonehenge hung behind the worn green-and-yellow floral couch.

  “Maia’s at work right now, and Jamie is sleeping, finally—I know he’ll be happy to see you when he wakes up. Want some tea?”

  “Love some—thanks. Ginger if you’ve got it.”

  Jess walked over and scanned the titles on the living room bookshelf: Edward Abbey; Barbara Kingsolver; books on Marxism, poetry, and tea making. She thought she could someday write a poem describing her friends by the titles of the books on their shelves. Martin handed her the tea and asked, “Have you read Mermaid, by Daniel Dennett?” He reached over her shoulder and pulled a volume from the shelf. “I loved it—here it is.”

  “We just read it in my Environmental Literature class.”

  The phone rang, and Martin went into the kitchen to answer it, calling behind him, “Come on in here, Jess—the plans are on the kitchen table.”

  Jess sat down at the table and ran her hand over the cool, smooth paper.

  Martin came back and sat in the chair next to her. “The others can’t make it. They just got a call from the daycare and they have to go pick up their sick kid—guess it’s just you and me!” With that, he began talking about the plans, which recommended a thorough environmental assessment, including an impact study on the down-migration of the fingerling salmon trying to navigate the falls above the proposed boat ramp.

  Jamie called out from the back room shortly, and Martin went to go settle the waking boy. Jess loved being in this house, where love and life moved to a familiar rhythm. Her home felt torn and wounded, filled with memories and the far-off sound of crying that never quite seemed to end.

  The car behind her honked, startling her into noticing that the light had turned green. Her headlights reflected off the wet pavement, and Jess followed them like a path through the intersection. She drove slowly up the steep hill to Martin’s house and his now-familiar driveway. She had learned a lot from Martin about how environmental groups worked and how she could use her love for the natural world for a good cause. To Jess, he would always be a warm refuge, a kind of love that she would hold dear and close to her heart.

  Suzie’s car was there already—a small gray Toyota w
ith a worn, upside-down bumper sticker that said WHY BE NORMAL? on the back bumper. Jess waited in her car a few moments before going in. What was going to happen? Martin’s anger and outrage when she had told him about the outcome of the meeting with PowerCorp would be mediated now, and Jess was certain he would have a plan.

  An old Volkswagen bus she hadn’t seen before pulled in behind her. Three young people got out and charged into the pool of light at Martin’s door—probably kids from Earth in Mind who had come down from Eugene for the meeting. Jess began to worry; these were the kind of kids who were known to try radical things, like blowing up dams. In that case, why would Martin want them here?

  Jess got out of the car, and as she got closer to them, she smelled marijuana and body odor wafting toward her.

  “Hey, guys. I’m Jess.” She reached out her hand.

  “Mink.”

  “Remedy.”

  “Butterfly.”

  Jess kept herself from snickering. These kids and their code names, she thought. “Did you come down from Eugene?”

  “Yeah,” said Mink, a tall, lanky boy with long blond dreadlocks. “Just heard from Martin about the problems with PowerCorp and the Green Springs.”

  “Let’s go in before we get soaked out here.” The rain was pressing down harder, and Jess reached for the door and opened it into the living room.

  Suzie stood up. “Hey, guys.” She looked like she might lick her lips at the sight of three young, strong, and not-very-clean young men. Jess made eye contact with her friend—back off, girl, they’re too young for you—and they both smiled.

  “Come in.” Martin gestured toward the couch. He brushed his hands along his gray-and-red flannel shirt, in a familiar nervous gesture, and Jess noticed that his eyes were downcast.

  Introductions rang out. Maia came in with a pot of tea and a plate of some kind of bread. Jamie, who was now a lanky young teenager, loped into the living room and flopped into a soft chair in the corner. The house smelled nice, like family, and Jess felt a tugging sensation low in her abdomen.

  Martin stood and poured some tea into a green-and-black MIND OVER MATTER ceramic mug. “This is great. Thanks, guys, for driving down on such a crappy night. We’ve fixed up the room in back if you want to stay over.”

  “Thanks, man, but we’re going to crash after the meeting at our friend Gina’s house. Do you know her? She works at the bagel shop here in town.” Suzie nodded in their direction; Martin looked into his tea and didn’t seem to be listening to the boy named Mink.

  Instead, Martin continued with what he wanted to say: “Okay, right. We’re getting together tonight to talk about what to do about the Green Springs dam removal project, as I like to call it. Those of us here at the Nesika Watershed Council have been working on this for a hell of a long time with the Nesika Fishermen, Trout Unlimited, and now you.”

  Jamie’s cell phone made a sound like a car engine, and he jumped out of his chair and darted into the next room with a hushed “hello.”

  Jess smiled to herself—how cute. Martin sighed and looked over at Maia, who just shrugged. He continued, “But, like I told you in the email, we’ve run into a wall with these motherfuckers at PowerCorp. Even though some of the best scientists have concluded that the best action for the salmon is to take out the dam, these folks somehow think they have the authority to simply change everyone’s mind. I guess what I would like to talk about is how we can get their attention. They claim they can’t take out the Green Springs because it’s what they call a reregulation facility, meaning it controls the flow from the whole fucking fluctuating system above it. Well, that’s bullshit—Jess here can tell you more about that. We want PowerCorp to know that they can’t bully us around, the way they do with the pansy-ass agencies. Sorry, Jess—you know what I mean.”

  “It’s okay—kind of an insult to pansies, though . . . I’m so committed to getting this dam out. You know that. And the longer I work for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the more I realize how ingrained it is in the pockets of PowerCorp. It seems like kind of a sad fantasy that I ever thought Mack and the others gave a rat’s ass about the Nesika, when they’re interested in only one thing. But I can’t do anything illegal. As mad and crazy as I’m feeling right now, I also need to be really careful.”

  Martin paced across the living room and looked absently into the space where his son had vanished with his cell phone. “Sure, Jess, we get that. But, you guys, you were part of some plan up on the McKenzie River—am I right? Something about the Clark Dam?”

  Remedy spoke up. “Yeah. We had a plan.” He looked over at Mink and smiled. “We were going to blow it up. You know, we got the stuff together, with some help, and yeah—like, boom!” He gestured wildly with his hands, startling Jess. Oh, fuck, she thought. This is exactly what I was afraid these kids would want to do. What twenty-year-old doesn’t want to blow something up these days?

  Suzie laughed and put her wool-socked feet on the table. “Ha! Boom! I get it. Wouldn’t that be freaking amazing? It’s what those fuckers deserve.” Of course Suzie would be up for this, Jess thought. Then Suzie added, “There’s no way they would pay to rebuild it . . .”

  Everyone shifted in their seats, as if a wave had washed through the room. Jess shook her head. Martin put his hands roughly into his jeans pockets and said, “Okay. We all know that’s one option, and Jess is right. But, guys, we can’t associate the Nesika Watershed Council with that kind of activity—it’s too dangerous, and for lots of reasons. But we could find a way—maybe act like we’re going to blow it up.”

  Remedy said, looking up at Martin from under his dark curls, “That won’t fuckin’ work—these pigs deserve to have this shit blow up. We’ll do it. We just need the engineering specs—you know, the drawings that show how the dam was made. We know a guy who knows how to look at them and point out where the weaknesses are.”

  Jess felt the room fall away from her. Still hoping they weren’t serious, she looked over at Suzie, who just smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Jess felt a shiver run down her back. Suzie was totally capable of inspiring a kind of renegade wildness in others.

  Jess felt cornered. Jeff was at home, trying to convince her that he could somehow fix things, and now her best friends were getting involved with this radical group and their reckless ideas. This was not something she could do. She wanted to run away from being part of this. But then she remembered her fight with Jeff the night before and knew she had to do something.

  “Wow. Well, Jess?” Martin looked over at her. “You’d be the one who could do that.”

  Jess stared at Suzie’s socks. “Martin”—her voice sounded higher, less certain, to her—“it seems too quick. Didn’t you hear what I just said? I could lose my job. Maybe we should give some other things time to work—”

  “C’mon, Jess. Wouldn’t that be so cool? God—that would fuck them up big-time. By the way, what’s Jeff saying about all this?” Suzie turned to the Earth in Mind guys and said, “That’s her boyfriend. He works for the power company.” She said it in an almost taunting voice that confirmed for Jess what Suzie thought of their relationship. Jess stayed quiet for a moment, then said, “He read the memo and seems cowed by his boss right now. They’ve already asked him to start revising our report, in support of a fish ladder.” Suzie let out a long sigh next to her. “And I don’t know, Martin—I just can’t see how this is going to work for any of us.” She turned to Mink and asked, “Have you guys ever done anything like this before?”

  “Nope. But we can—we almost did up on the McKenzie River, north of Eugene, but the company changed its mind and proposed a plan to decommission the Clark Dam. I sometimes wonder if they heard what we were about to do . . . But this time we have a solid plan. Don’t worry, Jess—we won’t let you get caught—but we really can’t do anything without the engineering specs.”

  “Jesus . . . I think we’d better talk about something else. I just don’t want to get involved with something like this. What if
one of you got hurt? No. It’s not a good idea,” Jess said.

  Martin looked down at the floor. “I know what you mean. But if we can make some threat, look like we really mean it . . . you know, kinda like you guys did up on the McKenzie. What do you think?”

  Butterfly, who hadn’t yet spoken, pushed back his rainbow-colored knit hat and cocked his head to the side like a large Labrador. “It only worked up there because we were really going to do it. We can stage something, but then they’ll pile on the guards and there’s no way anyone would get within a mile of that dam. So you just get us the specs, and we still have the stuff we got together to blow up the Clark.”

  “So, why don’t we just plow ahead with this and see what happens?” Mink interrupted, an edge of excitement in his voice.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. This is too dangerous. We were so close to the decision. I have the science, the reports. Martin, Suzie, please don’t push ahead with this. It’s too early.” Jess looked from Martin to Suzie; they were staring at each other. She thought of Jeff again—the layers of deception she would have to be willing to endure, to cover him with.

  “It’s okay, Jess—we can take it from here. I don’t want to jeopardize your job. You know that. And there’s Jeff. I’ve known him for so long—I don’t know how he survives working for those pricks,” Martin said.

  As he looked at her with concern, Jess stood up. “I should go. You guys just keep going. We all want the same thing, and I guess this is one way to go about it.” She looked at the three boys, sitting like Rodin statues on the crazy floral couch. She remembered the time she, Suzie, and their friend Leslie, at sixteen, had all stood in front of a large, old oak tree some loggers wanted to cut down in the center of town. They had held hands and sung Joni Mitchell songs as loudly as they could, standing between the loggers and the beautiful old tree. They had been arrested and taken to juvenile hall, and the tree had been cut down. Jess still had a piece of its trunk on her desk. A relic.