JESS
The lilt of Jess’s cell phone ring startled her. She was up at Eagle Rock, checking licenses and fish tags. The early spring river was high and full, new dogwood blooms laced the dark understory of the forest, and the cries of returning buzzards meant the fish were in the river. Six months had gone by since the meeting at Martin’s house and Suzie’s crazy request. Jess had been kept out of the negotiations for the settlement agreement with PowerCorp and had focused her time on other projects that could have an impact on salmon. The environmental groups continued to meet, and she heard from Suzie now and then that they did have a plan and were going to bring a lawsuit against PowerCorp and Jess’s employer, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
When she answered her phone, it was Rich. “Jess, I just got word that there’s police action up at the Green Springs dam. I need you to check it out. Sounds a little crazy—could be dangerous. Be careful.”
“Sure, Rich.” Jess felt her stomach drop and almost said the Earth in Mind kids’ names out loud. She had been hoping they had dropped their plan to actually blow up the dam. Even though she was determined to try to undermine PowerCorp any way she could, she still could not support such a criminal action.
“I’ll head right up there. Is anyone hurt?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so, but I don’t know how badly. Call me and let me know as soon as you get there.”
Miko was wandering down by the edge of the river, and Jess called to him in a frantic, high voice. He turned quickly and ran for the truck.
Jess parked in the gravel parking lot near the dam. A sheriff’s car and a PowerCorp truck were already there. The whipping sound of an ambulance echoed off the canyon walls as it made its way up from Penden Valley. She slipped on the gravel as she ran down the road to a clump of brown-and-red jackets and looked down at Mink’s crumpled body, twisted into the forest loam.
“Oh my God. What happened?” Jeff appeared at her side then, and she was glad he was there. He put his arm carefully over her shoulder and moved her away from the injured boy.
“It looks like he was trying to secure some rope and he fell from a cedar. Stupid kid. We found a radio and other supplies that make this look like a pretty sophisticated attempt at blowing up the dam. There’s some stuff in his pack that says he’s from the Earth in Mind group that was at the meeting with you and Martin. Jess, please tell me you had nothing to do with this.”
Jess pushed away from Jeff and walked toward the dam. There was nothing she could do to help Mink. She wondered where the other boys were. The sounds of the sirens grew louder and bounced off the stained, wet concrete into the canyon below. She heard Jeff turn and walk away. Jess reached out and held on to one of the old stones from the river like a hand. She sat down on the cool, wet bank and started to cry. The sirens stopped, and she could hear the hum of the turbines from the power station like a steady growl across the water.
PIAH
Piah stood on the top of the cliff edge overlooking the river valley below. A pair of osprey whistled their cries to each other as they circled in the uplifts of air currents from the basalt cliffs. The dark green of the fir forest below her filled in the crevices of the ancient valley. She could smell the water gathered into the careful folds of the watershed. Her hand rested on the trunk of a sinewy, hundred-year-old cedar next to her. She closed her eyes and caressed the tree, feeling into its slow expansion, its tender reaching for the sky. The bark furrows reflected the land around the tree and the meandering furrows of river canyons and streambeds. The cedar blended with the land around it, rose up from the basalt cliffs like an expression of the woven, turning river in the canyon below. Piah could feel the rhythm of the river’s current in the bark of the tree and felt her own pulse blending with the same current.
Moving away from the tree, she came close to the edge of the cliff. The osprey had flown off, chasing something they had spied farther downriver. Piah heard something coming up behind her, moving heavily and deliberately through the brush. She moved back from the cliff edge and leaned once again against the tree, sliding to sit in a soft area beneath it. Through the forest, she recognized Mian, a young boy from her tribe. He had just come down the mountain behind the cliff and had with him some stones he was going to use to set up a vision-quest site.
This cliff side was where her people came when it was time to begin a vision quest for a rite of passage into adulthood. They brought stones from a place high above the tree line and made a circle where they remained alone, still, without food or water, for as many days as the number of stones they had brought down from the hills. The elders of the tribe, the spirit woman and man, guided the boy or girl in the ceremonies they would need to pass through one kind of life into another.
Piah sat looking at Mian, with his rocks and his slightly surprised expression. She knew his mother and family well and knew that they were pleased with his severance time. His hair had grown long and was blowing wildly around his face. She was amused by the sight and covered her smile with her hand. As they regarded each other in silence, Piah could see in the depths of his dark eyes a kind of knowing curiosity. Slowly standing, she turned to leave, giving him a small, quiet bow for his journey. It was his time to communicate with the spirits, ride waves of hunger, and struggle with tempting dreams and the flood of visions that would overcome him.
Piah remembered her own time on the cliffs and carried the mark of that time tattooed on her face. The women in her tribe quested in the same way as the men, their visions valued with the same intensity and focus. Her spirit guide was the river; she was the riverkeeper of the tribe and would spend her life listening to the stories of the water and taking them back to her people.
She walked back to the oak grove, where the medicine wheel was laid out in a clearing. She felt moved to leave Mian an offering from the river that he would find when his quest had ended. He seemed unusual, easily startled and fearful in ways she was not used to seeing. What she saw in Mian’s eyes seemed to reflect the message or warning from Tenas: “There is much coming . . .”
Piah felt uneasy and afraid. She trusted that Mian would return to his people and tell them of his visions, which would give them guidance and power. And she knew he would need the river in some way. She found a small stone and some sticks to make her symbol. She sat in the circle of the medicine-wheel stones and let herself drop into a familiar visionary place. She closed her eyes and waited.
She felt the cool pull of the river like a friend coming to ask her to play. She dove off the cliff of her spirit place and let the images rise around her. The blue light of the river spirit became a vortex of swirling visions around her: people she knew, animals playing, the sunlight flashing on the river itself.
Then she said, “River, I come to you with questions. I am leaving an offering for the boy questing here. Is there a guiding spirit or image I can call for him?”
The river spiraled blue in front of her and opened into a cave. She walked in carefully because she was walking into total darkness. The cave was just large enough for her to stand in, and she felt carefully along the walls to make her way through the passage. She called to her power animal, a river otter, to be with her and felt its sleek fur brush by. The cave wound opened to a luminous pool of water that was the color of pearl or moonlight. Her power animal dove slickly into the pool and disappeared. She did the same, and the water felt thick and smooth, like diving through the fur of an animal.
She landed on her feet in another chamber, one that looked like a building she had never seen before. Her power animal looked up at her, urging her to follow. The shapes of what looked like trees made by humans amazed her. There were stone people, larger than life, holding strange things and staring down at her. She wanted to stay and explore this very strange place, but she felt the impatient demand of her power animal beckoning her to move on.
They entered another large room. This one was even stranger than the first. The walls seemed to glow from within, and a sligh
t haze hovered just above the damp floor. She stopped for a moment, gathering herself. In the center of the space was a bright silver bowl. She walked over to it and reached through the haze to touch its cool edge. Her hand looked odd to her, as if she were wearing a robe made of soft white skins, unlike anything she had ever felt or seen.
The fog in the room began to swirl in low spirals, and she stood close enough to the bowl to see what was happening on the inside. The bowl reflected back her image, then shifted into an opening that seemed to appear beneath the floor of the room. She watched and waited for what was coming to her. There was an image of a man—though not a man she had ever seen before. He had hair on his face, and his skin was light colored. He turned his head quickly to face her, and a sharp burn of fear shot through her.
She brought herself back to where she was sitting, in the tall spring grass in the center of the stone medicine wheel. Her breathing was rapid, and she felt dizzy. Who was that man, and what did he have to do with Mian’s quest? she asked herself. She shuddered and stood to leave, without making an offering for Mian. She decided to keep to herself what she had just experienced—it was incomprehensible.
She walked slowly down the mountain to the river, gathering wood for the evening fire as she went. She felt the familiar hum of life moving around her, the day ending, and the shift toward night just beginning. She was haunted by the image of the man, the room she’d been in, and the sense that something in the fabric of her life was beginning to tear.
JESS
Jess had heard from Martin that Mink hadn’t said anything that would incriminate her, but they had found his pack, and in it copies of the engineering specs from the ODFW office. She was glad that Martin could be with Mink at the hospital while he healed from a serious fracture in his leg and a broken arm. Martin had told Jess how the police had started questioning Mink as soon as he regained consciousness.
When she got to work after hearing from Martin, she knew there would be accusations. She flopped into her chair and turned on her computer, her back stiff with apprehension. She knew she had crossed the line, and she waited for Rich to call her into his office.
“Jess.” Rich’s low voice echoed through her phone intercom. She picked up without answering. “I need you to come to my office.” Each word was like a steady, sad order.
She stopped off at the restroom on her way to Rich’s office. Her face in the mirror looked shocked and weary. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, dimming their brightness. She was giving up, getting out, being thrown out. She ran her damp hands through her hair and thought of cutting it short, to reflect these changes that meant the end of everything. Jeff would be finding out now, just as Rich had. She knew it would ruin their relationship. Her chest felt as if a piece of metal had pierced it, and she had no way to remove it. Not now. She didn’t want to.
Everything in Rich’s office seemed brighter, surreal, as if she were in a place she had never been before. For a moment, she felt panicked, but she also hoped that, in some obscure way, maybe Rich didn’t know or suspect her.
His face was pale, and he stared into the glow of his computer screen, not looking at her. Jess felt something like shame rise in her, and she sat quickly, looking down at her hands.
“I got a call this morning. There was a police investigation, and, Jess, they found engineering specs that came from this office in their materials. Jess, you’re the only one who could have given those drawings to them. Someone almost died there—this was about as stupid as it gets. I’m really surprised you would have had anything to do with this.”
It was almost a question. Jess sat silent and looked at him.
“I know this is still at the investigation level, but the evidence is, well, strong enough that I have to ask you to pack up your office.”
His voice cracked when he finished, and Jess felt a little sorry for him.
She answered, “Okay, I get it. I’m sorry, Rich. You know how much this work means to me.” The instant she had seen Mink’s body lying on the ground, she had known that this moment would be next for her.
Rich turned away to his computer screen, and for a second she felt like lying, telling him that she hadn’t done it, but she felt cornered and protective of her friends, of the beauty and importance of what they were trying to protect, and understood the burden of her choice.
When she got back to her desk, she found she was locked out of the office data files. Her work would be confiscated and her email files handed over to the investigators. They wouldn’t find anything incriminating—she knew that. Whoever had gotten into her computer would have been good enough to make sure there were no tracks left. Still, she was the logical source by association, and she felt that accusation draping over her shoulders like an old cloak.
Her cell phone rang loudly, and she saw Jeff’s number. She let it go to voice mail. She took a long, deep breath, holding it in until the message tone on her phone finally chimed. Then she went to the copy room to find some empty boxes.
She left with her photos, some papers, old highlighters, and a tangle of paper clips. Why was it called getting fired? Fired—as if she were being kilned like pottery, melted like glass, changed into something else, hardened.
Rain was pouring from the deep-gray sky as she got into her truck. The engine came to life slowly. She turned to look behind her as she backed up, and the twisting motion seemed to wring tears from her—gripping her with loss, the river again taking away a part of her, pulling it into the swirl of its dark downstream current.
She dug into her pocket for her cell phone and called Suzie. “It’s me. I’m coming over.” She knew her friend would be home, though still asleep. Her body ached for Jeff—she knew what his message to her would say without even checking it. She also knew he would leave.
The rain stopped, and she rolled down her window. The fall air rushed into the cab of her truck and cooled her face. As she waited at a red light, she felt as if she were crossing a threshold. This would be a different kind of time—there was no doubt about that. Then the light changed, and she paused for a moment, before driving through the intersection and making a left turn up the road to the hill, to Suzie’s house.
JEFF
In the conference room at PowerCorp, Jeff sat back heavily in his hard plastic chair. Mack looked over at Jeff and said, with an accusatory sigh, “Hey, guys, I just got the report about those kids who tried to blow up the Green Springs dam. They were some eco-terrorist group—I think you know about them, Jeff—called Earth in Mind. Bunch of radical hippies from Eugene. God—, stupid kids.”
Jeff tried to mask his concern that Jess might have been involved “Yeah I know about Earth in Mind… What does the report say?”
“Well, as far as I can tell, based on a search of the Earth in Mind office, Jess was most likely the one providing them with confidential engineering specs on the construction of the dam. Or at least we know that the specs came from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife offices. Someone’s computer. . .”
“Yeah, I’m not sure what to make of it. I know Jess loved working with those kids and helped them out in the past. I absolutely did not know what she was up to with this . . . shit.”
“Well, Jeff, I’m sure someone will have a few questions for you. Too bad—I hear she’s a good at her job.”
Jeff shifted in his chair and looked over at Mack, noticing the rugged lines in Mack’s face furrowing with concern. Jeff wondered how much to say right now; if he revealed too much, he could put Jess at risk.
Jeff rubbed his eyes, and an image of Jess, sitting on the riverbank alone while paramedics hustled to fight for the boy’s life, rose up in his mind. He felt sure that she was worried about more than the boy. “No, the kid fell from a tree, that big cedar up on the hill above the dam. God, if they had been able to blow it up, what a fucked-up mess that would have been. Shit.”
Mack looked over at Jeff. “This could be good press for our side—do ya think?”
“Well, the timi
ng is interesting, for sure. It’ll be easier to raise the public against a radicalized enviro position, but we’ll have to be sensitive to the hurt kid at the same time.”
“I’ll let you work on that, Jeff. Thanks. Get in touch with Sally in PR—she’ll be in contact with the sheriff’s office for the details.”
Jeff looked out the window. He thought of calling Jess, finding out for sure that she’d had nothing to do with this, but part of him didn’t want to know. He stood and walked out into the afternoon sun. He sat in the cab of his truck and felt as if he had fallen into the space between two entirely different worlds. What this could do to him, to his career, to his love and respect for Jess . . . The thought of losing her almost caused him to gasp. His love for her was raw, seamless, and fueled with a kind of desire he had never known. But this Jess, this reckless shadow of her, was someone he didn’t know.
Holy fuck. The woman he had been living with—sharing intense lovemaking, breakfast, and walks—wasn’t who he thought she was. He fell into a chasm of shock and anger. Jess had, according to the reports, been more involved with Earth in Mind than anyone had thought. When the kid, Mink, had been hurt and the explosives confiscated, the investigation had revealed myriad plans—mostly sloppy-kid plans, but they had the necessary engineering specs, which could have come only from the ODFW. And, most likely, only from Jess. How could she have been so careless? He knew she hated what was going on, and they had spent hours arguing over what to do, what was best for the river and the salmon. He had been hoping that they could find a way through this. But now . . .
Jeff got back to his office and called Jess’s cell phone. He knew she wouldn’t answer, but his hands shook anyway while he constructed a message. He looked down at the photo of the two of them on his desk, then left his voice mail: “Jess, I need to talk to you. I just heard from Mack about the accusations . . .” He paused “Is it true? Call me. I need to know what’s going on.”
The Same River Page 8