My cousins and I stood on the concrete patio that was used to gut and scale salmon outside my grandparents house on a holiday that I do not recall. A few remaining scales glistened below our feet before the sun ducked behind the incoming clouds. We were grouped together at the door because an aunt or uncle had called us over to share a special treat for playing outside while grownups sat inside and visited. There were fifteen of us.
We played in their yard. The chickens clucked in their henhouse. A big dog was taking a nap in the sun on their back deck and the little dogs mirrored him on the other side of the sliding glass door. In the Spring gooseberries would grow and grandmother’s snapdragons would be forced to confront each other. From the end of the grassy yard we could see the mountains abruptly ascending on the other side of the river.
On the patio, we jumped and waited excitedly, to get our treats. Our heads bobbed up and down like smolts preparing for a journey to the ocean. The sky grew dark and the clouds gathered to warn of rain. A lightning bolt ripped through the crisp air. It flashed in between the carport, where the dry winter wood was stored, and our group. The surprise gave us energy that superseded the sugar we had originally gathered to receive. If we feared our closeness to death, it did not show on our faces.
Tacoma was a brave fisherman who had married Olympia after her first husband died. He and Olympia never had biological children together but they adopted one, and had about thirty children combined before they had met. Most of them had grown and had their own children. There were eighty-two grandchildren. Tacoma still fished, despite his years on the earth. Many of his and Olympia’s children spent time fishing with him. Sometimes he fished on the big river from a boat with nets that were held up with buoys. Sometimes he perched on scaffolding fastened to the cliffs of the small river to fish. The small river contorted about in twists and turns, and collided over sharp rocks. When the salmon spawned, they thrashed up the small mountain river to find their birthplace. Tacoma had climbed down over the cliffs and to a pulley that hung a box about forty yards over the dangerous rapids. He and his dachshund climbed into this box, and pulled themselves through the air. They then scaled the side of a mountain to arrive at the wooden scaffolding. He stopped to remember his brother, and his youngest stepson. The salmon jumped in frenzied hypnosis below with no concept of their impending death. Tacoma lowered a long pole into the water, with a net that he had made himself, at the end. He carefully pulled up a beautiful, large salmon. It slipped and flipped inside the net. Its strength tore a hole that Tacoma would repair later. He crossed the river again the same treacherous way he arrived. He and Olympia prepared the Salmon for their family. While he was away, Olympia was told by a small Gray Jay that she would become the spirit of a mountain soon. She wanted to ensure comfort for her husband, and their family throughout the year of grieving. They buried her on a mountaintop, overlooking the great river. Each time Tacoma and the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren ate the salmon, they remembered their grandmother on the mountain.
They bark and yap loudly to greet us at the door. These little dogs keep them company after the family disperses. My plate is full. Huckleberry pie, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and salmon. The couch is covered in a rainbow of granny squares. I wonder if my wife and I will have dogs when we grow old. Then I wonder who they’ll greet.
I wrote this for a class. The assignment was to mimic a book we had to read by N. Scott Momaday called The Way to Rainy Mountain. If you can’t tell, the first part is a personal recollection, the second is like a legend, and the third is written in the perception of my father. There are usually parallels in Momaday’s writing that link these three together. This is all loosely based on some events and people in my family-but it is definitely fictional. This style makes it easy to reflect on and tie together death and life. In this particular story I’ve used the life cycles of salmon to mimic generations of my family.