The Same River

by Lisa M. Reddick

  PIAH

  Mist from the two rivers swirled into the sun-warmed air around Piah. Standing on the large boulders near where the Nesika crashed headlong into the Tokatee River, she held her hands over her head, sending a blessing from her heart down into the mingled rivers.

  This was where her family made their winter home. Standing along the banks, Piah remembered the many times she had been here with them. She remembered her younger days, when she had played along the bank even when the elders warned her to stay out of the cold, racing water of the colliding rivers.

  This was a sacred place, a place of force and reconciliation, of resistance and resolve. The water here had a strong voice and taught her and her people much about strength. When Piah became an adult, the river spoke to her here, showing her how the relationship between the waters could be invoked and resolved: the force, the release, the joy of coming together, the kinship, the water’s inseparability from itself, and the way the blending of the water and the sky carried snow back and forth from the ocean. Like the beating of her heart and the breath in her chest. The flow of blood and birth and death.

  A vision of the night Libah was born, a year earlier, rose up in the mist by the crashing rivers. It had been a late night in the beginning of the winter season. The moon had been full, and the silver light had seemed to keep the forest still and the night animals somehow quiet.

  The elder women who helped with birth tended a small fire and massaged Piah’s back and rolling stomach as the waves of labor broke through and over her. They sang to her the old songs of the birthing time and encouraged Piah to give a voice to her pain. Piah trusted them but was still afraid of hurting. She had tended births before but didn’t know about the pressure, the force of separating from one she had been so close to. Then, like a wind from all the women who had birthed before her, Piah released Libah into the arms of her grandmother. The women’s voices blended together to welcome the new girl into their family. Piah knew by their song that she had a daughter. Libah, named for the river, had come.

  Now, Piah felt, in the misty, crashing current of the rivers, the coming and going of life. Her sister, taken so young, and now her daughter, given by the same force, had done the same sacred dance of living and dying. Piah had learned this from the animals and plants they lived with. Their lives wove together into a kind of fabric that reflected the time of year, the need for food, and the power and beauty of living. She imagined the softness of that blanket around her now, holding her and her family, protecting them, keeping them safe from harm, and teaching them how to take care of each other.

  She saw a blue heron feeding in the shallows. She watched it picking along, staring hard at the still surface of the pool. It darted into the water and came up with a flashing catch. Piah smiled.

  Suddenly, she felt as if someone were watching her. Her skin rang with alarm, and she turned to look behind her. No one was there. She put down her basket and stood tall, letting her long, dark hair fall over her shoulders and back. It wasn’t an animal—Piah could sense them—but this presence was one she didn’t know. She walked slowly away from the water’s edge, toward the camp at the intersection of the rivers, but still there was no one. She reached her hand out into the air as if trying to touch something or someone invisible. She could feel a presence reaching toward her. It needed help, it was in pain, and somehow, as Piah felt that pain echoing her own suffering from the death of her sister, Tenas, she wanted to help.

  JESS

  Jess sat at her desk, reflecting on what Uncle Robert had said. Her cell phone rang, startling her. It was Suzie. She thought of not answering but was too curious not to.

  “Hey, Suzie, what’s up? I’m not sure you should be calling me at work . . .”

  “Oh, yeah—whatever. I really need to talk to you about something. Can you come by after work?”

  Jess hesitated. “Okay, just for a bit. I’ll have to stop by my place and get Miko.”

  She felt sick knowing what Suzie was going to ask her for. Her mind twisted around the possibilities, and she knew she just needed to focus on her work for the day. Thinking of Jeff, she looked at the pictures on her desk: Miko and Jeff from last summer, up on the Nesika. They had gone backpacking, in the Boulder Creek Wilderness that bordered the land just along the river, before the power project began. It had been a beautiful weekend, their newish relationship starting to take hold and the soaring in her heart as they fell more and more in love. Leaning back in her gray plastic office chair, she thought of the meeting the night before, of the dam, of the decision, and now of the betrayal by so many . . .

  Just then, Rich knocked lightly, looking down on her over her cubicle wall. “Hey, Jess, how’s it going? I was wondering if you could meet with me later today to talk more about what’s going on. I know this is such a shock to both of us. Do you have time around one thirty this afternoon?”

  “Sure, Rich. And I want you to know that I did go to the Nesika Watershed Council meeting last night. There are some pretty upset people who were as sure as I was about the dam coming down. I’m hoping that’s news that will mean something to you.” Jess realized she sounded snarly, but she didn’t care. This was affecting too many layers of her, professional and personal.

  As she turned back to her computer, she began to sense the precarious edge of her place in the ODFW. This new landscape in which she found herself could be dangerous. She wanted guidance, she wanted assurance, and she missed her dad. He had always been her champion, his life, like hers, torn open by Monica’s death. Even though the shadow of this loss sometimes consumed his heart, he always supported her, challenged her, and cheered her across the finish lines of her life. She looked over at the pictures of him and remembered all the hours she had spent fishing with him and just being close to him and to the river.

  “Why don’t we go for a walk, Jess?” Rich said. He held open the back door of the building, and she felt the afternoon sun warming her as they walked down the familiar dirt path through the brown grass field next to their office. The oak trees were rustling, sending leaves drifting into the breeze. The world as she knew it was falling away from her with each step. She could hear Rich walking on the path behind her, what was left of summer drifting in the gold light around them.

  There was an old bench under a myrtlewood tree on the bank of the Nesika. They sat there together for a moment in silence. Then, leaning forward onto his knees, Rich sighed and looked over at her. “I know this is rough for you, but we really need to find a way to make it work. One of the things I’ve learned is that plans don’t always play out like you expect them to, and you sometimes just have to take what’s best and go from there.”

  Jess tensed and took a minute, before responding, “And sometimes you don’t. Rich, don’t patronize me. You know as well as I do that the only reason this is now the plan is that some corporation has lobbied some politician who called Mark Rey and told him what the plan was. This is so shortsighted and so ridiculous that there’s no way you can tell me that somehow this has become the right thing to do!” Her hands were shaking, and her heart pounded in her chest. She stared hard into the folding light of the afternoon river and tried to steady her breathing.

  “You know, Jess, this is really like a game, and we have to figure out what the next move is. They didn’t say they would do nothing for the salmon, for the dam. There will be changes—just not the ones we wanted. I want you to know, Jess, that I wanted this as much as you did. Taking out that dam would set a precedent for other decisions all over the country. It sucks. It really does.”

  Jess imagined the salmon and steelhead that had once migrated through the murky green depths of the river in front of them, glistening as they let themselves go with the current, trusting their birth waters to take them downstream into the unfamiliar, salty world of the ocean.

  She stood up quickly and started walking back to the office, with Rich close behind her. Just before they got to the front door, he stopped, turned to Jess, and said, �
��Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

  When Jess stopped by her house after work, she hoped Jeff wouldn’t be home. He wasn’t there. She grabbed Miko’s leash and left quickly. She pulled into Suzie’s cluttered driveway and sat still in her car, breathing and clearing her mind. Then Jess got out, walked to Suzie’s front door, and, without knocking, opened it.

  Miko bounded into the kitchen in front of her. Suzie was waiting at the kitchen table. The house smelled like old coffee and pot smoke.

  “Jess, honey, come in! How was work today, dear?”

  “Ha ha. You know how work was today—don’t even go there. I’m so sick of all this game playing and indecision. It makes me completely crazy.” Jess sat down heavily in the red kitchen chair across from her friend.

  Suzie smiled. “It’s all just so fucking nuts. It must be crazy for you and Jeff. I mean, really, Jess, what a guy to pick!”

  “It’s rough. Mostly we avoid talking about it. I’m just so mad at him—at everyone—and I really do want to help you and Martin and those kids, but I’m just not sure what I can do.”

  “I guess it depends on how much you like your job, and why.”

  “Suzie, you’re asking me not only to lose my job but also to break the law. How can you do that? I’m not like that—I’m just not. You already know that about me.”

  “Okay, okay. I do know that, and I’m sorry. These kids are crazy and probably not reliable at all. But, you know, when you make a list of all the possibilities, you have to admit that this could be one of them. Maybe not the safest or the wisest, but damn, Jess, it could certainly be the coolest!”

  Miko whined at the back door to be let out. Jess got up to let him out.

  “All I need is your password.” Suzie let that drop in the air behind Jess, as Miko barked madly at the squirrels, both real and imagined, in the backyard. Jess followed him out and shut the door behind her.

  The sun was beginning to set behind the low hills that lined Penden Valley. Miko’s fur seemed to blend with the fawn-colored grass that covered the slope behind Suzie’s house. His bark echoed down the hillside as Jess sat down in the shade of one of the oaks.

  Her thoughts sank into a kind of vortex. How hard she had worked on this issue—with Jeff, with the others—and how assured she had been going into the meeting that it would be a simple settlement procedure to fund the removal of the Green Springs dam. It was all she could think about: what the restoration projects would be like; the media coverage; and her own role in restoring the Nesika and saving the salmon, steelhead, and trout from their inevitable slide into extinction.

  She felt as if she were entering a maze with no clear instructions. It was a treacherous and dangerous place, and she glared into the possibility of it. Her fury leaped up in her, and she clenched her hands tightly in her pockets and closed her eyes against the bright intensity of the setting sun in her eyes. Maybe she could get away with it—if the kids could get it done and clear out of there, no one needed to know they even had the engineering specs.

  With that, she turned a corner in the maze and found her way to an opening, with a kind of clarity that surprised her. It was as if she could suddenly see that the systems she had always depended on were failing. Her throat tightened, and she fought back tears, feeling more kinship with the oak than with anyone around her.

  Leaning back against the trunk of the old tree, she opened her eyes. The alarm calls of the squirrels and Miko’s excited barking echoed off the hillside. She sank into the softness of the brown summer grass and the familiar scent of the lowland black oaks. They had no idea what she had been through, what she knew about this river. She had seen it in her dreams, in her research, and in her restless quest for what was right for the river, the salmon, and the lives that depended on them. If she couldn’t save her sister, she would save them.

  “Miko!” Jess called out, and he came bounding over to her. They walked back inside, into the kitchen. Suzie was still sitting at the table.

  Jess sat down across from her and said, “It’s ‘miko1220’—all lowercase.”

  Suzie smiled. “Just a sec—let me write it down. This is going to work, you know.” But the glint in her friend’s eyes made Jess uneasy. Knowing what she had just done and considering the possibility of being caught caused her to imagine Jeff as a weak part of corporate greed and injustice. Her love for him and her commitment to the river twisted inside her. She took Miko and left.

  PIAH

  The smoke from the campfire floated through the trees like an early-morning mist. It was time for Piah to be initiated as a woman. She sat in the comfort of the small ceremonial lodge where many women before her had sat and chanted the songs that called the spirits to guide them on this part of the journey.

  The drumming of the elder women grew louder, and Piah braced herself for what was going to come next. It was midsummer, and the air was still and bright. The Nesika flowed freely and lively through the canyon below their summer camp. The birdsong had quieted, and the only sound coming from the forest was the low hum of insects.

  Piah had looked forward to this day when she was younger. The older women of her family all had tattoos of three lines from their mouth down to their lower chin area. These marks were made after the birth of the women’s first child. Each tattoo represented three spirits: the spirit of the sky, to help them with their vision and to be able to recognize the changing seasons and the cycles of the moon; the spirit of the earth, to teach them about gathering food from the plants that grew above- and below-ground, and to be able to communicate with the animals that gave them their bodies for food; and the spirit of the underground, the unseen world, where the spirits offered visions and guidance for their families.

  Piah waited with her feathers and her newly tanned elk-skin clothing, bracing for the pain and listening for the song that would call her into the circle of women. She could tell through the small smoke hole that the light was shifting toward the end of the day when she finally heard it. She stepped slowly from the small house and into the arms and cries of the women in her family. They had prepared a small space for her to sit, a large stone covered with cedar branches and fur. She recognized her mother; Lamoro, the healer; and the shaman, who was wearing the mask of the bear and making low, growling-humming sounds behind a nearby tree. Piah sat carefully in her place and joined the chanting.

  The tools were laid out on a bed of flowers gathered from the fields surrounding their camp. One was a sharp shell that had been traded from the coastal tribe. It was marked with the blood of her mother. There was a bowl of ash from burned willow branches that Lamoro had prepared. Piah shivered when she saw them. She had heard stories that the pain could be intense but would ease in a few days. Piah closed her eyes and lay back on the furs and branches that covered the stone. She steadied her breathing and held very still. Smoking cedar branches were waved above her, and the cedar’s heavy, sacred essence filled her lungs and made her eyes water. She braced herself and clenched her fists. She would not cry.

  The first nick of the blade was surprising; it felt like a bite. The women’s singing grew louder still, and Piah felt their hands on her shoulders and legs. Each nick of the blade caused more pain, and Piah had to fight the urge to cry out. She connected to the power in her, the power of the lineage of women who had been marked in exactly this way, as silent tears ran down her face. As they worked on the first tattoo, Piah called the sky spirits. A large bird came to her—a bird she knew, that lived near the Nesika. It was an osprey and landed in the tree above her. The osprey cried out, and Piah felt welcomed by the spirits in the sky.

  When the first line was done, Lamoro spread the ash of the willow into the wound. She held her hand over the mark and cried out, in a high-pitched song, to the sky spirits to enter Piah’s body and guide her through her life. The ash burned into her, becoming part of her for the rest of her life.

  Piah was learning from the pain. As each mark was made on her face, images floated aroun
d her and accompanied her on this journey. What was happening to her was initiating her as one of the women in her tribe who was ready to take on the responsibilities of children and caring for the elders. An image of a white flowering plant, a sacred plant used for both medicine and food, rose up in a mark from the earth. The elderberry would become a teacher for Piah, and she would spend days learning about the healing and nourishing properties of her plant teacher. Soon, her face became numb to the cutting, and Piah felt as if she were floating above the circle of women.

  But when Lamoro started on the final chin mark, Piah became afraid. She wasn’t as familiar with the underworld spirits and didn’t know what would come to her. Her eyes began to water, and her pain mingled with a kind of sadness. Like a large hand, the underworld spirits pinned her to the ground. The singing shifted, and Piah opened to who or what would be her guide from that world. Her sister, Tenas, appeared before her. With Tenas was another being, someone older, with a large staff and long, braided hair. Tenas stopped in front of Piah, and the spirit guide stepped forward. She looked over Piah, put her hand on Piah’s heart, and said, “I will be your teacher and your guide. I am bound to you by this mark.” Piah felt a strong desire to be with Tenas, to run to her, but her sister faded into the dark underworld forest. Her guide sat next to her.

  Piah’s eyes were uncovered, and she felt the light slide into her awareness. Her chin burned, and she tried to steady her breathing. Lamoro and her mother were at her side, and the singing and drumming began to fade. Lamoro handed her a bowl of water and helped her stand. Piah turned and went back into the ceremonial lodge, where she would spend the night getting to know her guides and learning even more from the pain and the healing. She was excited to have been marked this way, to finally be a woman; she would now look to become part of the circles of women providing nourishment, healing, children, and teaching. She set her bowl of water in the middle of the lodge, curled up on the elk fur, and slept.