A SECRET RUNS THROUGH IT
And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
—Genesis 2:9
SEPTEMBER1994
Twilight lingers at the fifty-first parallel, painting the sky deep indigo as tiny stars begin to prick and shiver like gold dust in the heavens. It’s cold, winter’s frost already crisp upon the breath of the late-September evening. Mist rises wraithlike above the crashing white water of Plunge Falls, and fog hangs densely over the forest, playing peekaboo with the ragged peaks of the surrounding mountains. She moves carefully along the slime-covered rocks at the edge of the deep-green eddies and pools of the Nahamish River.
Stopping for a moment, she watches a cloud of small insects that have begun to dart just above the water’s mercurial surface. Peace is complete, a tangible thing that feels akin to a gentle blanket wrapped about her shoulders. She’s in the moment as she crouches down to her haunches and removes a wallet-size fly box from the front pocket of her fishing vest. She opens the silver box, listening to the thunder of the falls downriver. The wind hushes through the forest up along the ridge at her back. She selects a tiny dry fly that best matches the insects hatching over the water. Gripping the fly between clenched front teeth, she draws the line from her rod with her fist. With practiced movements she knots her fly onto the tippet attached to the leader at the end of her dry line. A silver hook nestles in the feathers, which are designed to fool the trout into thinking the fly is food. A smile curves her mouth.
Rising to her feet, she begins to cast—a great big balletic sequence of loops, her line sending diamond droplets shimmering into the cool air. She feels a punch of satisfaction in her belly as she settles her fly right at the edge of a deep, calm eddy, just where the current begins to riffle along the surface, where she’s seen fish rising for the hatch.
But as her fly begins to drift downriver, she senses something. A sentience. As if she’s being watched. With intent. She stills, but her pulse quickens. Her hearing becomes acute.
Bear?
Wolf?
Cougar?
She can no longer hear the others, she realizes. They’re upriver at a camping area near the boat pullout. She left them gathering around the fire, sipping drinks, waiting for their two male guides to prepare dinner, getting ready to laugh and eat and tell tall tales into the night. But she’d been hungry for a few last casts before full dark on this second-to-last day of their trip. It was a failing of hers—always wanting just one more of everything, not being able to stop. Perhaps it was not a good idea. She swallows, turns her head, looks up at the rocky bank. Nothing moves in the darkening shadows between the trees that grow shoulder to shoulder along the ridge. Yet she can feel it—a presence. Tangible. Watching. Malevolent. Something is hunting her—weighing her as prospective prey. Just as she is hunting the trout. Just as the fish are hunting the insects. Nerves tighten. She squints into the gloam, trying to discern movement in the shadows. A rock dislodges suddenly. It clatters down the bank, disrupting more stones, which rattle and knock their way down to the river and splash into the water. Fear strikes a hatchet into her heart. Her blood thuds against her eardrums. Then she sees it—a form. It shifts forward, becoming distinct from the forest. Human. Red woolen hat.
Relief slices through her chest.
“Hey!” she calls out with a wave.
But the person remains silent while continuing forward, picking a determined route down the bank, heading directly for her, something heavy in hand. A log. Or a metal bar. About the size and heft of a baseball bat. Unease slams back into her chest. She takes an involuntary step backward, closer to the water’s edge. Her wading boots slip on greasy moss despite the studded soles. She wobbles, steadies herself, and laughs nervously.
“You spooked me,” she says as the person reaches her. “I was just wrapping up here, and—”
The blow comes fast. So fast. She spins away, trying to duck out of the weapon’s reach, but her quick twisting motion sends her boots out from under her. Her rod shoots into the air. She lands with a hard smash on rocks and tumbles instantly into the river, entering with a splash.
The shock of cold water explodes through her body. It steals her breath. Icy water rushes into her chest-high stocking-foot waders; seeps into her studded wading boots; saturates her vest, her woolen shirt, her thermal underwear—the weight of it all dragging her down. She flails at the surface with her hands, trying to keep her head above water, struggling to grab at slippery rocks as the current moves her downstream. But her fingers fail to find purchase.
She gains momentum as the river sucks her toward its heart, where its currents muscle deep and strong toward the thundering boom of Plunge Falls, where mist boils thick above the tumbling water. She tries to kick, to swim, to angle back toward shore. But the Nahamish has other plans. It clutches at her with newfound glee, with impossible strength, tossing her about like a toy, drawing her down and into its churning bowels. Just as her lungs begin to burst, the current shoots her teasingly to the surface.
“Help!” she screams and gulps as her head pops out. She thrusts her hand up high out of the foam, pleading.
“Help!” She goes under again, swallowing water, gagging. Again, the river gives her false hope and shows her the surface. For a moment she manages to keep her chin above water. She can see the person on the bank growing smaller, face white under the red hat, dark holes where there are eyes. Behind the figure an army of black spruce marches along the ridge, sharp tips like warrior spears piercing the fog.
Why?It’s all she can think. It makes no sense.
The Nahamish tugs her back under, smashes her into a subsurface boulder. Pain explodes through her left shoulder. She knows it will take seconds before hypothermia completely steals her brain function, before she loses all motor coordination, all ability to fight, to swim. Wildly, clumsily, she struggles against the current. She must halt her ride downriver before she reaches the falls. But her hands have frozen into cramped claws. Her waders and boots drag her down as if a monster is pulling her by the legs from below, down, down, down into its lair, into a watery grave.
Lungs burning, she is roiled and bashed against more rocks. She no longer knows which way is up or down, which way to fight for air. As she starts to pass out, the river once more tosses her to the foaming surface and swirls her into a small bay. Her head rises, and she gasps maniacally for air. Water enters her mouth. She chokes as she is sucked under again. But she grabs for a fallen log wedged into the bank. This time her claw-hands find purchase.
Hold. Hold, dammit ... Hold.
Her heart pounds against her ribs. She digs her nails into soaked bark as branches trap her like a thing caught in a strainer. She can feel the spindly branches breaking, her grip slipping in the rotten log detritus. The river yanks insistently at her waterlogged waders.
Should’ve worn a life vest. Would it have even helped?
She manages to draw a breath, then another. Absurdly, she notices the indigo sky—the brighter points of two evening stars that hover like emergency flares. Planets, really.Jupiter? Venus? No idea.But they give her a sense of the universe, of her tiny place in it. A sense of hope.
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight ...It was nights like this—sitting at a campfire with her dad, who taught her to fly-fish when she was a little girl—that were the beginning of a journey that had led her to this point, to this river where she is now going to die.Life is like a river. Life is absurd. The only constant is the water of change.
She takes another breath, then manages to move her hands along the log. She gains a better grip, pulls herself toward the bank.
