“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too, Cliff. It seems like we’re always just ahead of our last disaster. Thank you so much for having me over today—I didn’t really want to push you into this, but I didn’t know who else to talk to.”
As she sat in the chair across from Cliff, his gray eyes looked sad and Barbara suddenly felt even more sorry for him, because she knew him, recognized his pain, understood his wounds, and felt the horrible echoes of loss ringing through every living room.
PIAH
As she dressed, she felt the call of the river, strong in her veins. Piah knew that this was her initiation into her role as the medicine woman for her people. The power of her visions showed her she was to pass on to the woman in the vision the wisdom and knowledge that her grief had given her. Libah’s death had torn Piah apart in unimaginable ways, and now she had to tend both to her own wound and to the wounds and losses of her people. She looked down at the blood dripping from her hand and felt the pain radiating through her skin. The pain in her body was her kinship with all of the life around her, before her, and after her. Her ancestors were standing behind her, and they were holding the gifts of their wisdom.
Piah sat near one of the stone piles and looked back down at the Nesika. The river looked different to her now—it was the grave of her young daughter. She stood and walked to the circle of stones in the clearing. Facing each of the directions, she asked the north for guidance, the east for ease and clarity of vision, and the south for the passion to move forward to keep living. And before the west she laid down her grief and asked for healing and the power to let go. In the center of the stone circle, she sat and accepted the gifts of her ancestors and felt the lure of the future, of the generations to come. She asked for courage to face the danger, the widening gulch of darkness, death, and loss.
All around her, the birds were calling to their mates to come and roost in their homes for the night. She could hear the padding of footsteps, the night animals coming out to hunt. She pulled out strands of her hair and left them in the circle as an offering to the spirits. Barefoot, hungry, and sad, but also empowered, she walked barefoot down the path toward the small lights of the night fires in her village.
JEFF
As he was leaving the house for work, Jeff felt as if something larger than he was moving him. For most of his adult life, he had tried to find a way to veer toward what he thought was right, the agenda he had set for himself. Now he felt a blending of purpose—not just that he was doing what he thought Jess wanted him to do, but that he was doing what had been waiting for him all along.
When he got to his office, he hesitantly checked his phone messages.
“Hi, this is Beth in PR. Mack said you’d be contacting me today about a press release he wants to get out? He has quite a deadline on this one. I’ll be in my office until about four thirty. I’ve got to pick up my kids from soccer practice by five. Give me a jingle!”
“Hi, Jeff, it’s Mack. Look, I was thinking maybe we should get the newspaper out here to do some photos of the gravel augmentation program. Those big piles of gravel make it look like we’ve been doing our hard work.” Mack’s rough voice trailed off into mocking sarcasm, and Jeff grimaced.
No other messages. Jeff sighed and switched on his computer. The door behind him swung open, and he felt the heavy presence of Mack Dempsey himself move into his office. Mack was with Ken Gamaika, the guy from ODFW who was in charge of tracking the mountain lion that had attacked Jess. Jeff smiled in recognition.
“Hey, Jeff. Ken came up this morning to meet with us about the press release you’re working on with Beth. He has some ideas and some information he wants to share with us about the impact of the hydropower system on the runs of salmon and steelhead in the Nesika. How’s that going?”
Jeff felt a sinking in his stomach and looked up at Mack from under his cap. Ken was someone Jeff had worked with before. He was a sloppy scientist, more interested in making his quota by giving tickets to unlicensed fishermen than in working on protecting the habitat of the Nesika.
“Well, I wanted to talk with you more about it first. I’ve been looking over the report, and where it references actual return counts in the Nesika, I don’t see how anything can be done. It really is as bad as it looks.”
Jeff felt the air leave the room, and Mack turned to look at Ken.
“Maybe we should go into the conference room, and I’ll call Beth in from PR so we can begin to draft a statement.” Mack turned and walked out of Jeff’s office. Ken stayed and locked Jeff with a look that was both demeaning and threatening.
“Jeff, you know there are always problems with return counts. We can’t claim for sure that the Green Springs dam is responsible for these low numbers. That’s all we have to say. PowerCorp is really vulnerable right now, having just undergone the relicensing of the project. We can’t back up now. There’s too much in the media that contradicts itself. We have world-class scientists breaking their necks trying to establish genetic differences between stocks of fish, while the Federal government sends out reports that hatchery salmon are the same as native fish. You know, Jeff, it really is all a story, and our interest is in preserving the power system in order to keep the lights on in town!”
Jeff swung around in his chair and looked up at Ken. “Ken, you know not one electron of power generated by this project lights one lightbulb in Penden Valley. This power goes into the grid and is bartered by power brokers whose names we don’t even know. Don’t try to feed me this bullshit about the community depending on the power this river generates. And I’m not going to lie anymore about what’s happening to the salmon. You and I both know the salmon is the canary in the coal mine and that, for all intents and purposes, with the populations diving the way they are, this fucking canary is dead. We have two choices: get out of the coal mine and let the ecosystem die a slow death, or stop what we’re doing, clear the air, and find a way to restore the oxygen.”
Jeff heard the sliding of chairs across the floor in the next room and knew that Mack and Beth were waiting for them. He stood up and brushed past Ken, who was looking down at his boots, smiling.
Walking into the conference room, Jeff felt as if he were entering a foreign country. He had worked so hard for this company and his career, and now he felt everything falling away from him. In a few hours, he would be meeting Jess and her uncle for lunch at the lodge. He sat at the hard plastic table under the bright, offensive lights. Beth looked almost exactly as he imagined her: wearing thick makeup that looked even thicker in the fluorescence; colored, stiff hair; and a stern look of self-importance that he immediately disliked. These were not his people; he was in the wrong place. He listened to Mack going over some of his ideas with Ken and Beth, and they sounded hollow. Jeff knew this was the old story—a story of deception, destruction, and greed. But finally, rather than playing his part in the drama, Jeff understood it as only one story of many. He was choosing to live according to another story—a story in which there was value in life, honesty, and interdependence.
“Mack, Ken, Beth, look—what you’re doing is unethical and possibly illegal. There are laws that have to do with how we make decisions and what we choose to do about the information we receive. What’s happening today is much bigger than trying to cover up a report about the salmon populations. If you hide this, something else will come up, and then you’ll have to hide that. While you’re dancing around, trying to put out these fires, the river continues to die. This decision you’ve made is extremely dangerous. It’s a violent blow to the salmon and the rivers they depend on for their survival. I can’t do this. I can’t continue to play this game with you or anyone else.” He stopped and let his words bounce around the sterile room.
Mack shifted his chair back and looked at Jeff with a small smile. “You know, I’ve always wondered about you. It doesn’t fucking matter if fish come from the river or the hatchery. Hell, it most likely doesn’t matter if there is a single goddamn fish in th
is river. We have to keep the turbines spinning, and we will. Don’t even think for a moment that some stupid report will have any effect on the decision to relicense the Nesika Project. I think it’s time you packed up, Jeff. I hoped you would work out. You’re a talented scientist. But we both know that if you’re climbing that girl’s tree, she’s going to have more than your ear on this one.”
Jeff felt his face grow hot, and he felt sick to his stomach. Being in this room, in the presence of people like this, drove home his conviction that he was making the right move. It was like waking up from a dream. The masks had come off.
“I agree with you, Mack. This is not the time for me to be working for PowerCorp. And you’d better fucking leave Jess out of this.” He stood up, knocking his chair back.
Jeff slammed the door to his office and sat down. He knew he could get some boxes from the copy room, and he looked around again, sorting out what was his and what belonged to the company. Looking through his files, he felt a sudden rush of anxiety. What was he going to do? He had a small savings account, and he still had the money that he had gotten when his father had died. He thought of his dad, of his warmth and concern for what was right. At times like this, Jeff felt the empty, lonely hole from his father’s death even more acutely. But now he was moving toward work that had to do with more than being right—he was certain his dad would understand, encourage him, and love Jess. So Jeff would begin to work with Jess and the others, trying to push the heavy door open, trying to find the opening in the dam, to begin to let the flow back into the waiting lives there.
As Jeff pulled out of the parking lot, he felt released from something that had been holding him down. He had packed his boxes and cleared the files from his computer, but not before emailing to Jess anything he had that he thought might be helpful for her case. He had time before he met her and her uncle for lunch, so he drove out to the trail to Lemolo Falls. He loved this place and had imagined getting married here one day. Lemolo: Chinook for “wild” or “untamed” . . . As he walked up the trail, he felt the heaviness leave his body, as if the rush of Lemolo Creek were washing away the debris of the past year, and laughed to himself. He could envision the wedding—at the base of the falls; simple, a few people—and could hear, blending with the rush of the water, a young girl laughing.
JESS
Jess smiled, glancing over at Uncle Robert as she drove her truck. She had seen him a few times since her attack, but this was her first chance to hear in-depth about how his work was going and how he might be able to help with the case. All along, she had known he was with her, encouraging her and sending her articles and updates to support her grant applications and research.
The day was cool and rainy, and the river was high and fast from the recent fall rains. When they reached the Nesika, Jess pointed out the now-abandoned osprey nest and a glimpse of the clear-cut that she had worked on with Martin the day of her attack.
Jeff had left for work earlier than usual that morning. She was concerned that something might happen to him there, a reprimand for not contacting Beth in PR, for not siding with the company, for not playing the game according to its rules. She would find out soon enough what had happened, when Jeff met them for lunch at the Nesika Lodge.
The lodge was warm and filled with the murmur of customers—fishermen, tourists, and local workers. Jess and her uncle sat a corner table and waited for Jeff. When he walked in, Jess felt a wave of relief and expectation carry her across the room to his arms. He hugged her close, and she felt the tension in his body relax. He didn’t look angry or upset anymore; he seemed relieved and determined. She breathed in the musky smell of his worn jean jacket and held him for a moment longer.
“Hey, you look all right. How’d it go?”
Jeff turned and greeted Robert, before sitting down. “Well, as I thought, when push came to shove, they shoved and I pushed. There was really no room to work with them—there never was. I’ve been deceiving myself for too long, trying to figure out how to cooperate with them and change them at the same time. Guess it’s not as simple as that.” He stopped and ordered a cup of coffee. “Anyway, Mack came in with Ken from ODFW to help me with the press release, and I said that I wasn’t going to do it. I even attempted to tell them why. Guess it wasn’t the time for them to hear it. I have my stuff in my truck and emailed some documents that might be useful to you—well, us—for the case.” He let out a long sigh, and Jess reached for his hand.
“Well, I know I’m not surprised,” Jess said. “I’m almost surprised they gave you time to pack your office.”
Robert turned to him and said, “Jeff, I had what was possibly the same conversation you had with the people at the agency when I quit. The story is the same everywhere, and it’s not because they’re trying to be mean. They really believe that what they’re doing is right and that they deserve to have it their way. Hell, just this morning I read that forty-one percent of the people in this country believe that the Iraq War was the right thing to do. People will and can believe in anything. And their arguments are not necessarily incorrect. We need power, we need dams, and it’s less clear to most of them that we need salmon or what role the fish play in our lives. Our job is to find a way to tell them that it really isn’t about being right or making decisions based on exclusively human need.”
Jeff shifted in his chair, and Jess checked him for his reaction. She had spent many years having conversations like this with her uncle, and she squeezed Jeff’s hand to connect with him and comfort herself. They sat in silence for a moment, until the waitress came to take their order.
Jeff looked up from his coffee cup at Jess and said, “Well, I know there are decisions we make, and sometimes we make the wrong ones. But today, after I left my office, I went for a walk up to Lemolo Falls. As I was walking up the trail, I realized that the water that flows through the creek reaches the Nesika just below the Green Springs dam. The creek is completely free from being restricted by dams or other obstructions. The rush of the water sounds different in some ways from the creeks upstream from the power project. And I wondered how it was that I could tell the difference.”
Jess looked up at her uncle and smiled. “Jeff, I guess there are some things we just know, and most likely have known for a very long time. Let’s figure out what we’re going to say to Kathryn tomorrow. We know what’s right for the Nesika, but we still need to make some sort of plan. There has to be a way to turn this decision around.”
JESS/JEFF
They walked up the trail together. It was late afternoon, and the fall sunlight played through the forest canopy and lit up the golden alders and twisting branches of the vine maples. A winter wren called out his song. Jess reached for Jeff’s hand as they turned into the clearing just before the hot springs. It was the middle of the week, and no one was there. Jeff looked down into her eyes and smiled, pulling her into him.
“Can I kiss you?” Jess cradled his face gently, and they kissed, long and hard. She loved the way his hand felt holding the back of her head, keeping her safe, supporting her in the ways she now needed him to. He stepped back and undid the top button of his jeans. An osprey cried out; her mate downriver answered her. Steam from the hot spring swirled in the slight breeze as Jess stepped out of her clothes. She felt something like shame twist through her and reached for Jeff’s hand.
“What is it, Jess? Are you okay?”
“Sometimes I feel a little dizzy, and you haven’t seen me like this in so much light.” She looked down at the scars on her leg, jagged from the cat’s teeth.
Jeff reached to her. “Jess, hey, what happened is part of you now. I know it must be hard for you not to feel like yourself, but you are so strong and so beautiful. Out here in this light, this is where you belong.”
They slid into the hot spring together. Jess loved the sulfur smell, the almost slick feeling of the water that came from deep in the earth. Below them in the canyon, the ever-present rush and cadence of the Nesika rose up and folded over the
m.
They sat in the spring in careful silence, allowing the life of the forest to embrace them. Jess let go into the center of the moment, remembering the passion and excitement they had felt here seemingly so long ago. Time had pushed and pulled them together and apart, but the vivid memory of what had been born then had stayed with them and held them in this place.
A young deer walked into the clearing next to the spring and grazed on the grasses at the edge of the forest. Jess thought about how she must always be vigilant now, aware of what might harm her.
Jeff moved toward her. She loved him so much, was so grateful for this moment.
“Jess, will you marry me?”
“Of course I will.”
The deer lifted her head for a moment and then went back to grazing.
PIAH
When she reached her village, she could smell salmon cooking and heard the low singing of her people’s night songs. She went to her small home and sat quietly near her mother. No one came to her, and no one comforted her. They knew that she was new to them, that she came with vision and power to guide them through this time of loss and healing. The willow bark had helped with the fevers, and fewer of her people seemed ill. As her village filled with a comforting calm, Piah sensed that she was holding her people, protecting them, and imagined a wide bowl of light surrounding them in the growing darkness.
Her father walked across the camp toward her, and Piah stood to greet him.
The Same River Page 20