Where Mercy Flows (27 page)

The first time I could remember my father in a torrential rage, it was by our creek that fed the river. Every odd year the
pink salmon came up the Stillaguamish River to spawn. They gathered near the mouth of our little creek, waiting for a good
rain. I could see them sometimes lurking beneath the dark water, tails swishing patiently, their steely bodies pointed like
torpedoes ready for launch. They would not survive their mission. They never did. It was all part of the great plan.

Personally, I didn’t think the plan was so great. In order to reproduce, the humpies had to die. Destiny lured them back from
the deep green waters of Puget Sound to their place of birth, to lay and fertilize soft red eggs in the gravelly bottom of
our shallow creek. By the time they got this far the fish had already lost their bright color and their flesh was slowly turning
to mush. The pinks got the name humpies because of the hunchbacks they got when they spawned. My father said they were beautiful
in the big water. He said their jaws weren’t hooked like that and they were smooth and sleek, and he went on about them like
he was describing a Rembrandt. He got that gleam in his eye that I saw sometimes in the middle of a worship service or when
a big fish was bending the end of his graphite rod.

Which may have had something to do with his reaction when we found the piles of dead fish strewn along the edges of our little
creek. We smelled them first. My father had been coaching me in fly-fishing finesse down at the river that afternoon. We came
up the trail by the creek, which would eventually bring us to the field behind the barn. I wrinkled up my nose. “Pee-yu!”

“What in the . . . ?” He tossed his rod to the ground and crossed to the creek bank in huge strides.

“What happened to them?” There were shoe prints going in every direction. Different sizes and different treads. The prints
at the very edge had filled up with water. A thick stick lay in the mud next to the mutilated carcass of a salmon. I answered
my own question. “The James Gang.”

My father seemed in shock at first. He looked like someone had punched him. Like his best friend had just hauled off and smacked
him in the face. The fish had been clubbed or kicked, their huge bodies dragged up onshore. My father stared down at a fish
as it shuddered. Its gills flinched slightly and he nudged it back in the water with his boot. The current prodded it gently
until it rolled belly up and drifted downstream. The culprits could not be long gone, though we knew by the smell that some
of the fish must have been lying in the October sun for at least a day. My father’s fists went tight. His jaw clenched and
the blood came to his face like when you blow on a hot coal.

Taking huge strides, he followed the overlapping footprints upstream to where they veered up the hill on the other side of
the creek. I didn’t hear what he sputtered as he splashed across the stream. I couldn’t follow where he crossed because the
water came up to my waist there. I backed out and found a wider, shallower crossing. He was way ahead of me now, crashing
through salal and ferns, climbing the hill where there was no trail. He parted the vine maples like the Red Sea, but they
closed in on me. Their wiry branches and scarlet leaves whipped at my face. I think he had forgotten about me. It was not
until I yowled in pain from a particularly stinging branch that he wheeled to face me.

“Samantha! You go on home!”

I stopped dead in my tracks. He turned back and I heard him thrash through the thick growth until he reached the top of the
hill. There was silence for a moment and then a barking dog. After a while there were voices and then shouting. The dog’s
barking grew frenzied. It was several minutes before I saw the shape of one of the James brothers at the top of the ravine.
It was Jared, the youngest. He was a year younger than me and two grades behind.

I retraced my steps as quickly and as quietly as I could, stepping gingerly on yellow leaves, finally crawling under branches
rather than call attention to my retreat. I tiptoed through the creek. Cold water squished from my jeans when I crouched behind
a hollow cedar stump. They were all headed down the hillside now. My father had rounded up the entire James Gang and was herding
the four brothers back to the scene of the crime. Jared seemed terrified. He ran as far ahead as he dared, apparently not
willing to allow too much space between himself and his older brothers. I couldn’t always see them through the trees, but
I could tell when someone was going too slow because of the furious ranting and shouts of my father. The older brothers finally
joined Jared in the clearing at the foot of the hill, their eyes darting nervously toward the Judge, who was on their heels.
Cameron, the oldest, who was sixteen, carried a metal bucket. The other two had shovels.

“All right, you terrors of the county!” My father’s eyes still flamed. “Get busy!”

The boys looked everywhere but at their piles of dead fish. Cameron dropped his bucket and crossed his arms. The others stood
frozen.

I heard the soft swish of branches again. Mrs. James came into view, but she just stood there, halfway down the hill.

“Who do you think you are?” my father raged. “Are you gods? Do you in your wisdom have some better plan? Where were you when
the river carved out this valley? Where were you when these fish burst from their eggs? Did you program them to make their
way to the sound, to grow and then return to the exact place of their beginning to repeat the cycle of life? Was all this
set in motion so that you could have a day’s lark?” At this Cameron rolled his eyes. One of the brothers scoffed. I could
see the veins pop out on my father’s head. He yanked the fishing knife from his belt and leaned dangerously into Cameron’s
face. Cameron shrank away, but the Judge grabbed the front of his shirt. “What makes you think you have a right to do this?
Answer me like a man! Make some sense of this destruction!”

Nathan, the fourteen-year-old, began to whimper. “Leave him be!”

Cameron’s eyes got real big and his jaw quivered. He looked pleadingly up the hill but his mother stood as still as a tree
stump with her arms crossed at her chest. The Judge’s voice went quiet and his eyes narrowed. “It’s not all about you, my
friend.”

He strode to the creek and began examining the salmon. “Which ones are from today?”

No one answered.

The Judge grabbed Ian by the collar and yanked him toward the creek. “Look at them! Which ones did you just kill?” The boy
hesitated. “Which ones?”

Finally, Ian pointed. “That one, I think. And those over there.”

“Come on.” The Judge hoisted a big female by the gills. Head to tail she came up high on his thigh. “Help me here. Bring that
bucket, boy!”

Cameron didn’t budge for a moment. The Judge looked straight at him and started to lower the fish to the ground. Something
made Cameron pick up the pail then. He brought it over just as my father poked the knife into a hole in the fish’s belly and
sliced it clean up to the pectoral fins. Red eggs spilled out like rubies. “Good,” I heard my father say. He stirred the soft
loose eggs around in the bottom of the bucket. “They’re ripe. These eggs are ripe.” He stood up and pronounced, “You want
to be gods? Get busy, boys! This is your golden moment!”

He made them paw through the dead fish. The females were not as ugly as the males. The humps on their backs were not so pronounced
and their snouts not as hooked. The younger boys began hauling the freshly killed females to my father, where their bellies
were slit and the eggs harvested into the metal pail.

I wanted to come out from behind my stump to see how many eggs were in the bucket. I would have liked to take a turn at slicing
the fishes’ bellies. But my father’s mood being what it was, I decided to stay put.

After demonstrating a few times, my father passed the knife to Cameron. He didn’t look the Judge in the eye. He fondled the
knife for a moment in his right hand and I thought my father was crazy for turning his back to grab another salmon. It was
a heavy one. He held it up by both gills while Cameron slit the belly and scooped its jewels into the pail.

“Is that a fresh kill? Bring me that one.” Ian complied, half carrying, half dragging a mottled male. “Good. Set it down there.
Now get me all the fresh males you can find.”

I was shocked at what he did next. My father hoisted the fish with two hands like it was a fire log. He held it over the bucket
and bent it up on both ends. A jet of white liquid shot out. When it finished squirting, he repeated the process with each
of the remaining humpies. Sometimes he ran his thumbs down the sides of the fishes’ bellies to force the last of the milky
substance out. By this time, the James brothers seemed as fascinated as I was. My father told them that the females were headed
upstream to lay their eggs and it was the males’ job to fertilize them. He stirred the contents of the pail gently while he
told them about the mysterious pull that caused fish to fight their way back to the exact stream of their origin to repeat
the cycle of life.

My hiding place was shady and cold and my clothes were wet. A flurry of golden leaves blew down from the cottonwoods. My father
and four fatherless boys digging holes like nests in the gravelly streambed, pouring fertilized eggs into the man-made redds,
became a scene I would carry with me forever, like one of those glass domes that you turn upside down to make it snow; but
it would snow yellow cottonwood leaves.

The Judge’s rage had receded back within its banks, just like the river after the flood.

Finally he stood and acknowledged Mrs. James for the first time. “Can you use some fish for your garden, Mrs. James?”

She nodded and shouted back, “That would be fine.”

The James Gang had to haul the stinky dead fish all the way up the hill and bury them among their mother’s pumpkins and dahlias.
When my father was satisfied that the job was well under way, he washed his hands in the creek. His shirt and jeans were stained
with blood. He retrieved his fly rod and the fishing vest that he had tossed aside and started up our side of the ravine.

I was inside the hollow of the old stump when I heard him trudge by. “Let’s go home, Samantha,” he said without breaking stride.

THAT WAS OVER a dozen years ago.

I lay in my hospital bed, listening to the sound of Lulu’s breath. It was four a.m. I had been glad to see the Judge, glad
that he had come all by himself just to be with me. It was a good visit, except for the part where I got upset about the secret
my family tried to keep from me. It was for my own good; I knew that. They didn’t want me to worry about TJ or that the mysterious
prowler might hurt one of them. It was fun to laugh with him—just my father and me, laughing over swaggering penguins on the
Discovery Channel as if there was nothing between us, never had been.

Why, after all these years, was I still hiding from my father? Maybe it was safe to come out now. Maybe he’d known all along
exactly where I was.

L
ulu had frog slippers with eyes that bugged out like headlights. They were a gift from one of her friends in the Wacky Widows
club, of which Lulu was president. She spoke often with the other three members on the phone, as they were planning a car
trip to Monterey in June. Lulu, the only one with a convertible, was to be the designated driver. I was intensely interested
in these conversations, partly because of the visual image I had of four wild gray-haired ladies partying their way south
in a topless red Mustang. I asked Lulu if she wasn’t worried about her hair flying off but she said she would tie it on with
a scarf. The most curious thing to me, though, was that not once, in any of her dialogues, did Lulu mention the possibility
that she might not be well enough to go.

So I was naturally concerned the morning that she refused to join the march of the pole people, which we normally undertook
right after breakfast. I finally pushed my IV pole with all its hoses and the monitor to which I was wired out into the corridor
to make my rounds. “Don’t take the corners too fast!” she called after me.

It felt good to be out of that bed. I walked slowly around the block and was considering a second lap past the nurses’ station
when I saw Donnie exit the elevator just ahead of me. He seemed surprised to see me standing there.

“Hey,” I said with a casual smile as if I had seen him just yesterday. My insides were immediately in turmoil, not sure whether
to be elated or to run for cover—or at least for some makeup and a hairbrush. I adjusted my mint-green robe.

“Hey, you.” He waited for me to catch up to him. The collar of his jacket was turned up and he carried heavy gloves. “How
ya doin’?” He looked at me like I was an accident victim lying on the side of the road. I hated that.

“Good. I’m doing great actually. I didn’t think I’d see you again. After all, you did say good-bye.” Hank from 412 approached
us, leaning on his pole. I reached out and touched his arm as he shuffled by. “You’re it!

“Cardiac-ward tag,” I explained to Donnie.

Donnie grinned. “I’ve come to bust you out of here.”

“Hah!”

“I’m serious. Where’s your room?”

I led him back to 417. Lulu smiled and nodded when we entered the room, but she did not reach for her strawberry blond hair.
“Lu, this is my friend Donnie.”

She left her head on the pillow. “Oh, very handsome. My goodness, girl. You been holdin’ out on me.” She feebly reached out
her hand and Donnie took it in his.

“Hello, Lu.”

“Lulu. You can call me Lulu—for long.”

“Oh. Okay.” Donnie didn’t get her little joke.

I caught my reflection in the mirror over the sink and my hand automatically combed through my bedraggled hair. “So, what’s
this talk about breaking out?”

“TJ wants his mom home for Christmas.”

I pushed my pole to the edge of the bed and sat down. Tears came to my eyes. “But the doctor said—”

“Forget the doctor. Your father said I was supposed to come get you.” Donnie started fiddling with my wires and hoses. “How
do we detach you from this thing?”