The Land Begins to Heal, Page 3

hunted by larger fish which Butch the salmon could not identify. Fishermen barely missed snagging him before he ran the terrible gauntlet through a family of bears camped out in the stream he was navigating.

  Finally, exhausted from fighting against the current and nature itself, he reached his destination to discover that it was not there. A church had been built where the stream should have been. In the non sequitur world of dreams, Butch walkedto the front of the church and tried to enter but couldn’t because Gerald Land blocked the doors. He told him that he wouldnot like what he saw if he went in there. Undaunted, and destined to complete his perilous mission, Butch the salmon crashed open the doors and entered the church. He discovered that a business meeting was taking place and they were crucifying a man he had never seen before on a cross made out of plastic binders.

  After his morning prayers Butch drank his second cup of coffee and checked his iPhone for email and messages. There was an email from Gerald. He pausedto pray before he opened it. “Dear Lord, let this email be good news from a good man and not let it be disappointing news from a coward. Amen.” At the same time he said “Amen” Butch tapped the screen with his thumb and brought up the digital messenger pigeon.

  Hi Butch. I didn’t sleep much last night, but after I prayed about it and talked to my wife, I knew I was supposed to help you. Ransom Rainey lives in Olympia, but he is currently working with the Department of Ecology up on the Elwha River,where they’re removing theold dams, so that is where you will find him. I told him you would come see him this afternoon, and he is expecting you around 1. I have included a map to his work as an attachment.

  Good luck Pastor.

  Gerald.

  Just as he had done the previous day with the old letter, Butch read the email three times to make sure he understood. He clicked on the map and saw that the “office” which Gerald referred to was on the Elwha river up near Port Angeles.

  Butch left his house a little after 10 in the morning.

  He would need two hours, at least, to get there.

  Butch was held up for forty minutes at the Hood Canal Bridge as a submarine traversed the channel. Finally the floating pontoons closed again after the invisible vessel passed through the gate and Butch crossed from the Kitsap Peninsula to the Olympic Peninsula in hiscobalt blue Honda Civic. He passed through the town of Sequim, the sunbelt of the Puget Sound, at a quarter after noon. He was running late so he put the pedal down to make some time as he rounded the long curve and headed due west at the very western tip of the lower 48 states.

  He moved slowly along Highway 101 into the heart of Port Angeles and then followed the map on his phone to the location nearby of what once was the Elwha Dam. He parked his car at a makeshift gravel lot beside portable buildings that were labeled with green and yellow signs, “Department of Ecology.” Butch could smell the marsh before he ever got out of his car. It was a sour yet sweet odor that was at the same time pungent and alluring. He walked to the edge of the lot and looked down on the river valley. Hundreds of tree trunks as wide as his car poked out of grey slime to a height of 8 feet. The top of each one had been cut flat with a chainsaw, like a slab, and the whole scene looked like a table for bumper pool that Olympian giants used in their leisure.

  In the spectacle Pastor Butch Gregory forgot why he was there, so he was startled when a voice from behind him said, “Pastor Gregory?”

  Butch pivoted and saw a tall thin man whose face was weathered and rugged like an adventurer from the past. He appeared to be about the same age as Gerald Land, but much healthier. It was evident this was a man who had spent most of his life outdoors. His hair was brown with flares of grey at the temples and along the ears. Hazel eyes were set beneath his wide brow. They were serious and the short cropped beard proclaimed wisdom in its silver sheen. A green weatherproof jacket with Department of Ecology patches on the sleeves hung on his torso and covered a brown button down shirt. Denim jeans and calf high rubber boots completed his uniform.

  “Yes, that’s me. Just call me Butch. You must be Ransom?”

  The man nodded his head.

  “I’d read about all of this in the newspaper,” Butch said as he pointed out over the scene beneath him, “but I confess I didn’t realize the scope of it until I stood here. What exactly is this process? What is the goal?”

  “Well, when human beings,” Ransom paused and corrected himself, “when Anglo human beings settled this area, they dammed up the river to produce hydroelectric power. That was great for settlement and prosperity, but it was terrible for the environment. The damming of the Elwha River destroyed the natural environment of the entire Northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula in the same way that constant construction and the Navy base are killing marine life in the Hood Canal. The result was a significant decrease in salmon runs, waterfowl, vegetation, and wildlife in general. We made the land sick.By tearing down the dam we can let the land heal. All of those tabletop trees were logged years ago and have been underwater all this time. The grey you see is the sediment and silt that had built up behind the dam for the past seventy years. When the dam came down, the silt spewed out and covered almost everything. Indeed, the silt was so voluminous that it kept hindering our progress and slowed us down. ”

  “Will it heal?”

  “The land? Yes, the land will heal but not during our lifetime. Nature is a great doctor, but a slow one.”

  “Will the salmon return just because the dam is gone?” Butch didn’t realize how curious he was about it until that moment. Memories of his dream flowed into his thoughts, but they were thoughts that seemed far away, like a car trip from his childhood. A trip he remembered taking but he can’t remember where he was going. That is how he remembered the dream. It was an emotional memory.

  “Some already have returned, but not many, not yet. We help them along with some hatchery salmon but it is not quite the same. In four or five generations we think there’ll be significant increases in wild native salmon in the river. And yes, it is really that simple. Once the dam is gone and the river flows naturally, the fish know where to go and the healing process takes over. The land heals.”

  Ransom Rainey’s voice was strong and clear and the passion he had for the project flavored his words with a directness that inspired Butch.

  “But you didn’t drive all the way up here to ask me about salmon, did you Pastor?”

  “No, Ransom, I did not.” He looked around and glanced back toward the temporary office building that was on the far side of the gravel lot. “Is there a place where the two of us can talk?”

  “Sure, let’s go into my office.”

  Butch followed Ransom toward the taupe building with sandstone colored trim. The artificiality of the building seemed out of place in the barren beauty of the river valley. Ransom’s office was down the hallway from the entrance as they walked past several other offices, all of which were empty.

  A metal desk sat in the middle of the room with a large computer tower and oversized monitor. The walls were bare except the back one where a detailed black and white map of the Elwha hung unceremoniously by thumb tacks. The only color in the room was the red markings made by a map pencil on the map of the river.

  Butch studied the man opposite him.

  He’d seen this type before—he’s the supervisor for this project, but he doesn’t belong behind a desk. This is not his comfort zone, he wants to be outside. That is where his heart is.

  Butch stared at the red pencil marks.

  Ransom noticed Butch looking at the map and said, “The red dots indicate where we’ve spotted native salmon. It doesn’t look like much, but it took many hours of research and investigation to get that data.”

  “I have found in my line of work that sometimes,” Butch said, “it is not the amount of data that matters, but the accuracy of the data you have.”

  “That is true. Now, what exactly brought you all the way out here to Mudvi
lle?”

  “The need for accurate data.” Pastor Butch reached inside his coat pocket and said, “I need to know what this means.” He plopped the ancient letter and the accompanying business meeting minutes onto Ransom’s desk. Ransom looked at it but did not pick it up.

  “I assume you already knew why I was coming because you’d talked to Gerald.”

  “No, not precisely. Gerry just said you were his friend and that you needed to see me. Of course, I guessed what it was about once he told me that you were the pastor of Sydney Community Church.” Ransom leaned forward with his elbows on the desk and his hands cupping his leathery cheeks. After considerable hesitation he inhaled, then exhaled loudly, leaned back away from the desk and asked, “What exactly do you want to know?”

  “Well, since I don’t know anything, and since I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel the Lord wanted me to be here, I would like to know everything. I think I’m supposed to find out what happened.”

  “That is what I was afraid of,” he stroked his beard. “I would almost rather you’d come here to scold me and then get back into your little shiny blue Japanese car and go home and leave it at that. I think I’d stand it better.”

  There was that feeling again—the gnawing in the bowels. Butch was startled at the spiritual