The Same River

by Lisa M. Reddick

  “What I’m saying, Jeff, is . . . you know, there are lots of reasons the fish populations are declining. We just need to emphasize some over the others. I need you to work with Beth in PR on a press release. She’s expecting your call. The sooner the better on this, Jeff.”

  Pushing off Jeff’s desk, Mack raised himself up to his full height and looked down at him with a kind of dominant male posture that Jeff resented. When Mack had left him alone again, Jeff closed his eyes, leaned forward, and put his head down on his folded hands. He felt a crushing weight bear down on his abdomen, and the fluorescent lights in his office suddenly seemed oppressive and too bright. He needed air.

  He got up and walked out to his company truck, POWER-CORP INTERNATIONAL painted on its door in large, excited blue letters, a piece of a power company ultimately controlled by a corporation in Scotland that had bought PowerCorp in the past year. What a contrast—the people who had the most power over the river, and the decisions made about the continued use of the river, were in a foreign country, away from the community of people who worked, lived, and played near the Nesika.

  He thought of Jess’s small nonprofit, Water Walkers; he imagined her working late into the night, gathering information for the lawsuit. Getting that suit going was what had really brought her back, he thought, given her mind a renewed focus. He sighed, thinking about her long road back, her constant fighting with her body, and the continued unpredictability of her mind. It seemed to him as if some part of her had stepped to the side and was now always watching, like a hunter waiting for something to jump out at her from the brush; she had a new look in her eyes, sharp and fearful. If she knew about his conversation just now with Mack, if she knew what was being asked of him . . . He imagined her claws growing sharp and the twitch of her tail; she would show him no mercy. Her instincts to protect the river, the salmon, and something much deeper had become too strong.

  The steering wheel felt cold in his hands, and he realized he was gripping it and just staring out the windshield. He shook himself and started his engine. It was early in the day, and he needed to check the monitoring system up on Lynx Creek Station 9. There had been some unusual fluctuations there, and he wanted to make sure that nothing was out of line. The new system they had installed in the Green Spring power station was working well, but the population counts of the returning salmon and steelhead were still declining at an alarming rate. The automated system determined the flow of the Nesika, the computer, a synthetic brain, overrunning the river’s natural fluctuations.

  Jeff drove fast up the Nesika highway and turned up a dirt logging road that led to an overlook once used by the Molalla people who had lived in the high river valley for thousands of years. He sat near the ancient rock piles and looked down the fir forest, laced with red vine maples, into the basalt-walled river canyon. His work over the last year had been hard, but he believed that because of it, the relicensing agreement between the Forest Service and PowerCorp had been well crafted. There were mitigating measures in place that he would be in charge of carrying out to help protect the salmon. What he had come to realize was that even though there was sound science backing the design of the fish ladder and the resulting restoration of habitat upstream from the dam, the actual implementation had more to do with PR for PowerCorp than it did with the actual improvement of habitat. His hope had been that it could be both: PowerCorp could keep the dam, and the salmon habitat could be restored in ways that would help increase their numbers and improve the overall health of the river. But the more he realized that the intention had more to do with PowerCorp’s bottom line than with saving salmon, the closer he got to seeing things the way Jess did.

  Jeff leaned back against the river stones and looked down into the valley below. He imagined the hands that had stacked these stones, what message they were meant to send, and why someone would have carried such heavy stones up this steep hillside. The brown fall grass around him was damp, and a blue jay called out from a low branch in the oak tree above him. He breathed in the cool air and stood up, walking to the edge of the overlook. The blue jay squawked and followed him. Looking out, he shuddered. He knew now that too much was being asked of him. This time, he couldn’t justify the decision to leave in the Green Springs dam. His job, his work, had always been important to him. As he looked at the stillness of the water above the dam and the potential for that to become a native habitat again, he knew that he couldn’t lie about what was happening to the salmon. Choosing his job over Jess and letting her go had been devastating for him, but he knew why: he had always been the one to hold together his family, be the responsible one who could steady and support his mom. After his dad had died, watching his mother being swept into darkness by her grief had been horrible for Jeff. He wondered if this was why he had chosen his job, instead of supporting Jess, instead of trying to help her as she had been swept away.

  He walked back through the tall grass to his truck. He would call Jess and find out if her uncle Robert was around these days. He had moved up to Portland and was living in a beautiful house overlooking the vast Columbia River. His last book had been a cry against the continued use of factory like solutions for a hugely complex problem. Jeff knew Robert was working on the lawsuit with the environmental groups, but he was also a well-respected scientist in his field. Jeff’s heart lifted as he thought about having a reason to call her.

  He changed his mind about doing the measurements and made his way down to the Nesika Lodge to have lunch. Anticipating home-baked blackberry pie and coffee felt good to him. He walked in and sat at a table looking out at the old apple tree in the small yard behind the restaurant. The twisted branches had just lost their leaves and still held on to a few small apples. Dark-eyed juncos chased each other through the web of branches and sunlight. Jeff remembered sitting here with Jess a year earlier—her animated smile, her nervousness, the curve of her back as she leaned down next to the river she loved, holding her hand for a moment in the current. Jeff had known in that moment that he still loved her, yet he dreaded the complications of their lives. That night, Jess had been attacked, alone on the bank of the same river she loved.

  The morning after the attack, Jeff got the call on his cell phone when he was just waking up, Deb still sleeping by his side. He instinctively jumped out of bed, grabbing his clothes while still talking to Mack. Deb startled awake, and Jeff could see her concern. He stopped suddenly, sitting down and orienting himself to the world he was living in now. The audible click as he closed his phone was like a crack of lightning through the room. Deb put on her robe and sat next to him, trying to comfort him, but he let her words fall between them as the intensity of his shock and his concern for Jess filled him in a way that was surprising. His instinct to go to Jess was too strong; with it came memories and images of their time together, the passion that had flowed constant and sure between them.

  Though he stayed away from the hospital and got news of Jess only through some of his coworkers at PowerCorp, Deb had been talking about going back to Alaska, and it had become the beginning of a widening separation in their relationship and future. Jeff wasn’t going to leave his job or Penden Valley—or Jess. Less than a month after the phone call, Deb had left for Alaska and Jeff had focused even more on his work and the plans for the mitigation necessary to keep the Green Springs dam in place.

  Now, at the lodge, he walked over to the bookcase, picked up a well-read copy of the Penden Times, and looked at the front page. Below a picture of a dog leaping in the air to catch a Frisbee was the headline “Salmon Population Continues to Decline; Several Species of Pacific Salmon Designated for ESA Listing.” He took the paper to his table and read quickly through the article. There were quotes from the report he had seen that morning. The reporter was careful to stay with the popular line “the reasons for this sudden sharp decline are unclear,” and alluded to solutions that were storybook and unrealistic. The world as we know it is ending, but don’t worry—we’ve got it handled! Jeff thought.
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br />   He put the paper down and sipped his coffee. The juncos raced through the branches of the apple tree. This article was what Mack wanted him to counter with science that didn’t exist. He imagined Beth in PR waiting for his call, her makeup replenished and her nails filed and colored to match her jacket. Pictures of her kids and husband decorated her desk; he imagined her smiling in recognition each time she looked at them.

  The waitress brought his lunch and he looked down at the plate: open-faced hamburger with lettuce, red onion, and tomato. He waited for a moment, taking it in, asking himself, How did we get here? What turns in his life had brought him to this moment, the salmon to this brink? He considered the shifts in the natural forces of life that shaped the contours of this lettuce, gave birth to the farm worker who harvested it, thought about the force that pushed the lion’s tooth into Jess’s brain.

  After his lunch, Jeff drove into town. He wanted to avoid the office and the impending call to Beth in PR. The valley opened up before him as he left the high basalt walls of the upper river canyons. He felt soothed by the widening valley and let the afternoon sun warm his face as he drove. He started heading aimlessly into town and found himself wandering toward Jess’s small house—of course. He instinctively wanted to be near her, to calm his fears and reorient his mind. He was afraid of her—of her response to him, of her searing rejection again. Right now it would be difficult for him to lose his job, and he knew that she would ask that of him, instantly.

  He sat in his truck just down the road from her driveway and waited. Should he go in? He was on company time and felt a slight nagging to return to his work. He changed his radio to the local rock station, turned his truck around, and headed back upriver.

  JESS

  Even while she was still in the hospital, Jess had known she needed help. Her recovery efforts in the hospital, coupled with the way her thoughts now swirled in her mind, coming and going like shadows across an open field, had convinced her that finding someone to support her in continuing her work was essential. She had reached out to a lawyer named Kathryn Michaels who worked for Planet Justice, had been involved in other issues surrounding the restoration of salmon, and had a reputation for being unafraid of taking on the savvy, overpaid attorneys from companies like PowerCorp. Even before the mountain lion attack, Jess and the others had known that they would need legal help, since negotiations had gone on without them and had resulted in a settlement agreement between PowerCorp and the state and federal agencies. There had been no consideration given to the opinions and conclusions of organizations like the Nesika Watershed Council and Jess’s own Water Walkers. The only move they had left was litigation.

  At their first meeting, Kathryn pointed out that they could take the lawsuit in many directions. One was that the Forest Service had made procedural mistakes in adopting the environmental impact assessment the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee had ordered, instead of conducting its own. The other, more dramatic option they could pursue was to attack the process head-on; there were actual signed agreements from the meetings that had created the original document that stated removing the Green Springs dam was the best option for salmon habitat restoration. Those meetings were what had led to the moment when PowerCorp executives had just gotten up and walked out of the room. And Jess still had the notes she had gotten from Rich the day before the mountain lion had attacked her. These notes contained directives by the PowerCorp officials on how and where to change the language of the watershed analysis. Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse, thought Jess.

  In creating Water Walkers, Jess had had to learn a lot about how the legal process worked. Laws were tools that she and others could use to try to overturn illegal and power-driven documents based on lies and profit. She leaned back in her chair, remembering how much all of this had mattered to her, and now more than ever she needed to find in herself a desire to take a stand, drawing from the certainty of her own mind, trusting what she knew from the science she had studied and her almost ancient passion to save what she could.

  Opening her email, she read the most recent one from Martin. Most of his subject lines started with the word “fuck.” He had sent her a chart that showed the Pacific lamprey eel was officially considered extinct in the Nesika. These eels were anadromous, like the salmon, migrating to the sea and back to their rivers to spawn, then dying. The Native people who had lived along the Nesika had depended on the eel as a major food source, and the smell of the eels’ rotting bodies on the hot summer rocks in the river in Jess’s youth filled the room.

  Closing her eyes, Jess felt the room fall away and time slip to the side. Since the attack, a door inside her had opened and visions had flooded through her from a place as deep as the source of the river itself. Now, a brightly colored salmon rose up before her and she reached out to touch it. The salmon was dying. Jess could see its gills working quickly and the death shiver running the course of its body. A beautiful coho, Jess realized, but then the coho became a sockeye, then a fat chum, and finally a shining silver steelhead.

  She rested and let the flood of images carry her. This was the death of salmon—not a particular salmon, but the salmon that had been swimming in the fast waters of the Pacific coastal rivers for more than ten thousand years. She reached out and picked up the body of the dying fish. Suddenly, its slick form became the body of her sister, and Jess opened her eyes. She looked back at her desk. Miko stirred and walked over to her.

  Petting his head, she said out loud, “Miko, sometimes I don’t know if I can keep doing this.” She shivered and got down on the floor next to him. He was so certain, next to her need to collapse into him. She breathed him in and let her head rest on his back. She needed to keep moving forward, toward what had been calling her since she was young. There seemed to be a deep fissure in the earth, and, like offended spirits, much of what had been wild was leaving. Jess could sometimes hear the shrill cry of the last Molalla woman leaving the river valley, herded like an animal up through the center of Oregon to a reservation. That woman had had no choice, but Jess did. She knew that even though she had much to do, her heart was steady and sure. Her mind moved through her thoughts differently now, but her convictions, her sense that what she was doing was what was best for now, stayed with her.

  The phone rang and brought Jess back into the room. Miko jumped up and went back to his cushion by the window.

  “Jess, it’s Kathryn. I was wondering if we could get together later this week and go over some of what I have for the opening brief. I think our case here is really good. Did you see the latest report on the overall decline of the salmon population? Scary stuff.”

  Jess shook herself. “Yeah, it really is. Sure, I can meet up with you later this week. I’m having lunch with my uncle Robert, who’s coming down from Portland to give a presentation at the community college. He may have some more stuff for us, based on these latest counts. What about the day after—say, Friday?”

  They agreed to meet at Kathryn’s office at two o’clock, and Kathryn said she’d be delighted if Jess brought Robert along. Before Jess hung up, she said, “Thanks, Kathryn. We really appreciate your taking on this case. Maybe sometime you can come down to Penden Valley and I’ll take you up to the Nesika. This spring should be amazing with the big snowpack in the mountains. The osprey will be nesting and the dogwoods blooming by late May. Just let me know.”

  “Thanks, Jess. I would love to bring my daughter down. You two would really like each other. You remind me of her in some ways.”

  Jess knew Kathryn’s daughter had just turned twelve and was very interested in her mom’s work, but Kathryn’s comment caused a stirring in her. Jess closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, and suddenly there appeared a vision of a girl who she knew to be her own daughter running ahead of her down a trail toward the white water of the Nesika, her short blond hair covered in a blue baseball cap . . .

  Jess quietly caught her breath, and Miko got up and came to her side. She shook her head and reac
hed for him to steady herself.

  “That would be great,” she told Kathryn. “And Miko loves kids. I’ll see you on Friday.”

  When she hung up, the shock of the sudden vision stayed with her. What was that all about? she wondered. Since the attack, she had been more open to sudden visualizations, but this felt like a visitation, as if an angel had suddenly stepped into the room and given her a message. She stood up, walked over to the back door, and looked out on her garden. As Miko charged out the open door to chase the squirrels running busily up and down a tree, she felt a bolt of loneliness move through her. She was glad she would be seeing her uncle tomorrow.

  And Jeff . . . She felt his presence near her, and she knew the girl in her vision was not just her daughter, but theirs. In the months after Deb had returned to Alaska, Jeff had moved toward Jess, then away again. She missed his affection, missed his cautious sensitivity, but there had been a chasm between them. Now, she knew that this vision was the first step toward crossing it, toward their returning to each other.

  Jess reached her hand up and brushed across her cropped hair. Since the attack she had left it short, like a nun, she thought—celibate, alone, and devoted. Now, the vision of the young girl had been a sign that life was trying to circle back through her, reach out into the next generation, to someone else who could hold the door open to watch the large bodies of whales and the small, colorful bodies of songbirds slide into extinction. What did that mean? Jess felt so uncertain, yet so compelled, the glaring contradiction of being drawn so strongly toward protecting the same nature that had almost killed her.

  She called Miko back into the house. “C’mon, Miko, let’s get out of here for a while.” She sat on the chair by the door and put on the shoes she used to use for running. Sadness filled her as she wondered whether she would ever run again, feel the adrenaline filling her muscles and sweat breaking out on her strong body. Miko wagged over to her and waited by the door. It was time, she thought, to begin to think of leaving the celibate order.