Riders of the Tides

By Fredrick Cooper

When the facts of a murder do not lead to a culprit people love to hypothesize and, if the creative stars are aligned, an exciting story is born. Such is the case with Pacific Northwest author Fredrick Cooper and his book, Riders of the Tides, a vivid novel that masterfully entwines a 150 year-old murder case with the present and delivers a stirring read.

Riders of the Tides is a family saga set in the Pacific Northwest, filled with adventure and mystery. Real life pioneer Ben Armstrong was one of the 44 men who petitioned the U.S. Congress to form the Washington Territory and was murdered. Due to a lack of evidence, the case was never solved.

Riders of the Tides begins with Ben, who he was and how he died. The story then leaps to the present where some of his personal belongings find their way to one of his descendants, Earl Armstrong, a tribal forester. Earl begins a journey into the past in hopes of solving the mystery but during his pursuit of the truth he angers someone also linked through time to Ben and his demise. Will Earl end up meeting a similar fate to his great, great grandfather?

Riders of the Tides seamlessly weaves together past and present, nature and humanity, Native American spiritualism and family. The entire novel is written beautifully, each character and scene so vibrant they become cinematic in the reader’s imagination. Historical fiction lovers, mystery connoisseurs, residents of the Pacific Northwest, those enthralled with the building of the Oregon Trail and the New West, all will relish every word of this captivating book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fredrick Cooper
• Release date: Sep 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9780988198371

Fredrick Cooper

Fredrick Cooper is an award-winning author, environmental engineer, a native of the Pacific Northwest and a member of the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe. In addition to being a writer, he spends his spare time on his boat cruising in Alaska and British Columbia or in his workshop where he expresses his creativity through traditional Native American woodcarving. He is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and Oregon Authors and currently working on a second sequel to his Earl Armstrong series. His debut novel, Riders of the Tides, was recognized with: a 2013 IPPY award for Best Regional Fiction: West-Pacific Region; a 2014 Beverly Hills Book Award finalist in the new fiction category; and Honorable Mention in the 2014 Hollywood Book Awards General Fiction category.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Palux River, Oregon Territory

March 1849

The Big Fish moved slowly to hold itself against the current of the tan-colored water. His resting place was under a giant spruce log that had long ago fallen across the first pool of the river above tidewater. He worked his massive jaws, tasting the freshet caused by an early-morning rain. The taste was familiar to the Big Fish. He was born in these waters and had made the long trip to and from the cold ocean of the north three times previously to seek out the females that, like him, had returned to the headwaters of the Palux River. The Big Fish knew there were females ahead of him, sleek smallish forms that slipped over the falls that would soon run fast and white with froth. But the water level of the Palux had not raised enough for his large body to make the ascent.

A mist hung over the cascade, obscuring the upstream pools like a stage curtain hides an impending scene and withholds a mystery soon to be revealed. The mist gradually faded accompanied by a dappling of raindrops on the water’s surface. The Big Fish knew that the time to begin his ascent was approaching. He was growing weary of his annual migration out into the sea and his return each spring. His left flank bore a large scar from the sharp teeth of a swift sea lion. Here in the river of his birth there was a sense of security, and he looked forward to being in the gentle water that lay just upstream. There, he was the powerful one.

Nearby were other returning fish. Some were salmon—the blue-black sockeye, soon to turn red, and the fearsome-looking dog salmon with its toothy extended lower jaw. Having spent weeks attempting to reach the spawning beds in the forest glens above them, some of the salmon were already darkly mottled with white spots on their scaly sides. Some were not to achieve their goal, their fate sealed by their inability to adjust to freshwater or their want of strength to overcome the falls. Others were steelhead like him; instead of dying, these sleek, bright sea trout returned to the sea.

None of the others could match his size and strength. The smaller fish avoided him, fearing they’d become his meal, but he had stopped feeding once he had left the saltwater of Shoalwater Bay days before and would not eat again until he finished his task in the spawning pools above the falls. From there he would become a rider of the tides, seeking out sand shrimp and anchovies amongst the wide tide flats and eelgrass. Behind him, the wind off the Pacific Ocean was pushing hard across the spit, a narrow stretch of grass-covered sand dune separating the ocean from the nutrient-rich shoals of the bay. The flood tide had strengthened with the wind and was quickly rising over the dark shoals and into the river’s mouth, covering vast areas of oysters and sand shrimp that hurriedly pulled in the freshened seawater and filtered its plankton and algae.

Here in the deep pool, life played out in many ways. Crayfish crawled slowly and cautiously along the bottom, moving from the protection of one mossy rock to another, threatening each other with their large claws and backing away from larger opponents. Small schools of juvenile salmon and trout were tossed about in the swirling eddies, creating an occasional flash of silver as one of them would roll. These flashes delighted the hungry blue-and-white kingfishers perched on the log above the Big Fish, and they would dive into the schools before returning to their perch to swallow their shiny catch. A few cutthroat trout darted about near the head of the pool, grabbing the bright orange eggs that drifted down from the vast spawning beds.

On the riverbank were the huge trunks and spreading branches of spruce, hemlock, and cedar that towered over the clear waters of the Palux. Once above the open tide flats, the water was cool and comforting thanks to the forest, where only an occasional ray of sun penetrated the dense tree canopy, encouraging a new generation of giants on the bones of those that had fallen. These trees of the Northwest rain forests were some of the largest in the world, with trunks so huge that two man creatures could extend their arms around the base and not touch each other.

Not far downstream a young Indian boy made his way along a well-used trail close to the riverbank. He wore a loose-fitting cape fashioned from strips of cedar bark and trimmed with dog hair, and carried a basket his mother had woven from spruce roots. His feet were bare and muddy from the poor condition of the trail, but the boy seemed not to care. He was deep in thought; earlier in the day, he had been scolded by his teacher at the missionary school his father made him attend. The teacher was upset that he had not worn the shoes he had received on the first day of class. And the teacher insisted on calling him by an English name—George—rather than by his Indian name. He would have to ask his father why this should be so.

The boy peered down into the dark water of the pool below the falls. He could see a few salmon move suddenly to the far side of the river and crowd under a large log. The boy’s face brightened at the sight of the salmon as he pulled the cedar cape tighter around his shoulders and continued up the trail.

The river level rose steadily on the rocky shoreline, and the Big Fish made his decision. He moved quickly over the gravel bar at the head of the pool, scattering the juvenile salmon that mistook his movement as hunting for food. He headed for the base of the falls. The cascade was not high, maybe six or seven feet during the summer, but in the late winter and spring months, when the rains came steadily for three or four days at a time, the torrent was swift and treacherous. Only the stronger fish could fight the current and move upward over the cascade. He knew where to start his ascent and which areas to avoid. If he chose wrongly he could become stranded in a pool apart from the main flow of the river or be forced back and have to attempt it again. Part of the falls was covered with debris carried down by winter floods that could cause serious injury or death to the migrating fish. The Big Fish saw that the falls were the same as he remembered from his last trip to the spawning pools above. He increased his speed, heading for a deep area between two large rocks. His powerful tail beat furiously in the current and in seconds he was up over the cascade and into the calm water of the first pool. It was large and wide, extending upriver several hundred yards. The bottom was bright with sand and gravel sparkling like diamonds in the diffused light. And the females were there up ahead in the clear water.

He surged forward into the slowing current, gliding left to avoid the tight branches of a newly fallen spruce tree. He found that he had to turn back to the right, then left, as there were more branches. He did not remember the barriers of branches and swam cautiously through a narrow opening. Only then did the Big Fish see that the way forward was fully blocked. It was not tree branches but sticks driven into the gravel bottom that were now tight all around him. He looked up through the surface of the pool. There he saw the small man creature grinning at him.

"Ah, skookum salmon! the Indian boy called to the Big Fish caught in his father’s trap. You will please Quiack, my father. Maybe he will trade you for a warm Cayuse cape made from the hide of the great bear, or maybe the new white men who have come to the rivers and forests will offer him pieces of copper and iron."

The boy turned to stare into the forest where a small figure carved from a cedar log looked back at him. Then he raised the fish in both hands. "Thank you, Watchman of my father’s fish trap. You have brought me a skookum fish."

The small wooden figure observed all that took place at the spawning pools above the falls of the Palux. It was not a tall carved figure like the totems near the mouth of the river. It stood maybe only four feet tall and had the torso of a slender man. Its features, weathered from years of exposure to the elements, were also human-like, with large round eyes set under an exaggerated brow, a flat nose, and a mouth with large lips. One of its arms had broken off over the years and the lower part of the figure was slowly decaying from the forest moss that now covered its legs. A ragged ring of woven cedar bark graced its neck. But like other Watchmen, he remained a powerful spirit and had served the boy’s father, who was the chief of the Lower Chehalis Band, and several generations before him. The spirit figure enjoyed guarding the fish trap, but it knew things were about to change. Like the fate of the Big Fish in the new world of the white man, it would not be long before the Watchman became part of the living forest floor, the river and the vast ocean beyond, achieving its destiny as one of the riders of the tides.

The Indian boy placed the Big Fish in his basket and headed back down the stream bank, happy and anxious to find his father.

Chapter 2

Montesano, Washington Territory

September 1857

Red Strahl lifted his half-finished mug of beer, took a sip, and scanned the article describing the positions of politicians and industrialists residing far from where he sat in a small hotel on the coast of the Pacific Northwest. The lead article of the Montesano weekly newspaper bore a headline that read: Statehood for the Oregon Territory? The writer emphasized that statehood was a clear outcome of Manifest Destiny and important to the nation. Red recalled the meeting he and his business partner, Ben Armstrong, had attended several years before to rally and sign a petition for the creation of the new Washington Territory. The article ended with a question: If Oregon achieves statehood, will Washington be far behind?

Red let his eyes drift from the newspaper to the young man across the table. Every few minutes the man would open his pocket watch and snap it shut with a loud click. The two had finished their dinner in the saloon adjoining their hotel and an early evening crowd of fishermen and loggers had gathered around them, engaged in their own conversations punctuated with bursts of laughter or a loud guffaw. The air in the room was heavy with wood smoke, pipe tobacco, and the rank smell of wet wool clothing. The rainstorm had not ceased since the two men had arrived from Astoria on the coast packet at midday.

Red was about to make a comment about the statehood issue when the fidgeting young man stood and put on his coat, glancing towards the long bar on the other side of the room. Time to go see that stubborn partner of yours, the young man said, stuffing his watch into a pocket of his vest.

Red savored the last of his beer before slipping on his damp coat, pulling up the collar as he followed the younger man across the saloon. Leaving through the hotel entrance, they hurried along a boardwalk towards the river in the approaching darkness. A row of unpainted, clapboard buildings on the far side of the street was barely visible in the steady rain.

Their departure from the saloon was hardly noticed by the crowd of men. But a lone man standing near the far end of the bar, dressed fully in black, had watched them leave. His face was broad and pockmarked, with dark bushy eyebrows and piercing eyes set above a nose that had been twice broken; his arms had the strength of an oarsman. As he placed a black bowler hat on his head, he swept his hair back and momentarily touched a disfigured ear. A few minutes later, he slipped silently out a side door without notice. He didn’t hurry. He knew where the men were going.

***

Two lanterns, set on either side of the office door, swayed in the wind, their dim yellow light reflecting off the streaks of rain that fell in billowing silver sheets. The accompanying wind tore at a sign above the office door, which opened with the departure of the two men. Red Strahl, his face showing a dark frown accentuated by an old scar across his brow, raised a hand in a silent farewell. He pulled his coat close under his chin and headed across the mill yard. The second man lingered in the doorway and shook his fist angrily while shouting over the howling wind at someone still in the warmth of the small office.

Armstrong, these are my final words. You now report to me as the senior executive. You may have some say over the source of logs but only because of that damn Injun woman. I want our lumber production increased over the next few months or . . .

The man’s final words were lost on the wind as it gusted across the muddy yard. But the words of the third man who remained within the office were strong and firm from years of hollering at his sawyers over the noise of saws, log carriages, and flapping drive belts in the adjoining millworks.

You know what you can do with your new production plan, Cox? I’m not going to change my mind and let you cut more trees in that valley just to ship more lumber to your father’s docks. So go back to San Francisco and tell that to your father. And close the damn door!

Cox slammed the door shut and hurried to catch up with Red. Strahl, you’ve got no say about this now. You wanted out. So leave well enough alone. You agreed to sell your interest to my father and he offered a damn good price. We can finalize the papers to transfer your shares tonight. I’ll meet you at the hotel, but first, I want to look over these loaded wagons and see what Armstrong has been up to.

Red glanced at the two wagons covered in tarpaulins standing like two phantoms on the edge of the dark yard, then back at the office, and finally at Cox standing before him. He started to say something but knew this was not the time. He turned his back on the man and strode up the road toward the lights of the town, leaving Cox standing in the mill yard with the rain dripping off the rim of his bowler.

Until that afternoon Red Strahl had been one of three partners of the first major sawmill on the north coast of the Oregon Territory. But young C. C. Cox had made him an offer on behalf of his father, J. W. Cox, the third partner and the one who had made up the remaining portion of the initial investment to build the mill five years earlier.

Red knew that Benjamin Charles Armstrong was as stubborn as a Scotsman could be. He even owed this particular Scotsman his life. Yes, the three partners had argued before over business issues, but they always came to some kind of middle ground. This change in production ordered by Cox was another matter. It didn’t help that Red had accepted a very generous offer from Cox earlier that day. Red needed money to buy land and build a home in Astoria for his new family. Cox knew this.

Back in his office, Ben Armstrong walked over to a small stove in the center of the room. He opened the grill and tossed in a few pieces of bark from a box next to the stove. The clang of the cast-iron door rang in his ears, feeding his growing anger. Cox didn’t know a damn thing about lumbering.

Casper Red Strahl, his longtime friend, wanted out, and was probably being forced to sell. Red and he had known each other for nearly all of the ten years since this son of a Scotsman had walked into the Oregon Territory, heading together for the Jacksonville goldfields where the two had been partners in a successful gold strike back in 1849.

He had ultimately found his way north to Grays Harbor, traveling by Indian canoe, and discovered a land rich in timber. In the Puget Sound area further to the north, men like Pope, Talbot, and Simpson were getting rich shipping lumber to California and the Sandwich Islands. The San Francisco region was reeling with gold fever, its entrepreneurs expanding and hungering for more lumber. Ben had decided years ago that he would build himself a mill. His family had been lumbermen in the forests of the border region of Scotland, cutting timber for the shipyards at Glasgow and Edinburgh. When ship-building collapsed, his father decided to make his way to the untouched western forests of the Americas. His fortune never came to pass, with his life taken by the mid-west cholera epidemics of the 1840s. Ben had vowed to make his father’s dream come true. All he needed was access to good timber and capital to build his mill.

After spending nearly a year at sea due to some unfortunate circumstances, he and Red thought they had made the right decision bringing in J. W. Cox of San Francisco. Cox wanted to make quick, easy profits and invest in a venture that his son could eventually manage. He was never a friend like Red. They had simply needed his investment money. As long as the Cox family remained in San Francisco and one of the brigs traveling up and down the coast reached their dock every three months with a load of lumber, Ben and Red would be free to run the mill as they saw fit.

Now Cox’s spoiled son was here and wanted to make production changes that would nearly double the mill’s output. Ben could not totally disagree—the local market was growing, and their mill now had a healthy backlog of orders from as far away as Seattle—but doing so came at the expense of cutting more timber in an area that Ben had made a promise never to touch. He had been married to Mary, a Lower Chehalis Band Indian and the daughter of Chief Quiack, for five years; they were expecting their second child. The timber Cox was insisting he log was located in her family’s traditional lands. Logging these forests would not sustain the additional shipments to San Francisco without severe consequences to Chief Quiack’s hunting and fishing livelihood.

Ben slumped down in his chair and stared at the small panes of the office window until his eyes were no longer focused on the rain that whipped past. He scanned the small office and its odd assortment of furnishings, articles of his business mixed with artifacts he had accumulated since coming west. On the wall next to the door hung his set of oilskins and a battered wide-brimmed felt hat with an insignia pinned to the front that read: Republic of Lower California. On a wall behind him hung his old powder horn and a sketch of several Indian canoes pulled up on a beach. It had been drawn by James G. Swan, a friend who had been living with the local Indians when he first traveled by canoe up the coast looking for good timber. Other objects were displayed on his desk.

To many, these artifacts were useless in this hard land that was growing softer year by year with its appetite for the conveniences of places like Seattle and San Francisco. But for Ben, each item brought back a memory, a story that someday he would share with his grandchildren. Each object raised ghosts of his past, of traveling overland west to the Oregon Territory, of the goldfields of southern Oregon, the unforgiving sea and hot deserts of Lower California, and finally here amongst the tall trees of the coast of the Washington Territory, a place he had helped settle. Together, he and Red had worked their sluice boxes to find gold, and had been shipmates, pulling their oars after whales off the Sandwich Islands. He remembered the lifeless eyes of Indians and Mexicans who he had helped slaughter in Lower California in the name of Manifest Destiny. Good times and bad, but together they succeeded.

Here in the valley of the Chehalis River, Ben Armstrong had finally found happiness. He had established a successful lumber mill, he had a wife and two children, and he had an adopted son named Unck, a Cayuse Indian boy. He had promised his dead friend that the boy would be raised to survive in a white man’s world. Ben had endured hardships and struggled to gain his part of this emerging country. He had stuck by both his father’s dream and the wise counsel of the old chief, Mary’s father, to respect the land and its inhabitants.

His eyes drifted to a closed desk drawer. One of Ben’s favorite objects was an old wood carving that he and Unck had found while wandering along the banks of the Palux River. He kept it at the office and was afraid to show it to his wife because he knew she would insist that he put it back where he had found it. Ben was pretty sure it was a remnant of a Watchman figure, which supposedly had supernatural powers and was sacred to the Indian people. The figures were used to mark favorite fishing spots or sacred places. Unck had whispered the name but refused to talk much about it. Ben’s thoughts became unsettled knowing he wrongly kept the artifact in his possession. Now trouble had entered his life like he had never known. Mary, your father is a wise old chief. He trusted me and you with his land, and someday it will be the responsibility of our sons. Your family has hunted the forests of the Palux River Valley and fished its streams for generations, and whether it was the Watchman spirit or Nature, the land supported them. I have tried to honor that request. But now what can I do? The mill really does need a bigger supply of logs. His thoughts were interrupted when the noise of the southwester outside brought his senses back to his small office and the situation he faced. Over the din of the storm, the faint sound of a door banging loose in the mill drew his attention outside. That mill foreman had left the shed doors unlatched again.

He pulled out the gold pocket watch that hung across his stomach on a chain and then slid his chair back against the wall. I’m late for dinner, too, he thought. He would have to make the rounds to the far side of the mill near the log pond before heading home. His saws were the best to be found and could cut a six-foot-diameter log into timber. They had to be protected from this rain.

Ben grabbed his old campaign hat and put on his rain slicker without bothering to fasten the front. As he left the office, the blowing rain bit his face and streamed down his neck, soaking the top of his wool shirt. In the yard just outside the office were two wagons stacked high with cut lumber wrapped in canvas tarps. He would check the loading slips for the two wagons first thing in the morning. These wagons were loaded with studs, siding, and finished materials for Judge Sidney Ford’s new place over on the Puget Sound near Olympia. On the very day the judge had married Ben and Mary, Ford had encouraged Ben to put together house- and commercial-building kits for settlers moving into the area.

Ben took down one of the lanterns and hastened along the boardwalk to reach the shed doors on the far side of the mill. Turning quickly around the corner of the office building he failed to notice a small figure peer out from under the canvas covering one of the wagons in the yard.

Around the corner, a walkway attached to the side of the millworks hung out over a log pond. Ben could just make out the remnants of a large log raft drifting back and forth against a row of wooden piles, taking on the ghostly shape of a large school of fish moving slowly in a stream. He nearly slipped on the wet planks but regained his footing by grabbing the wooden railing with his free hand as he started up the cleated walkway towards the sawyer’s shed.

There were two large doors over a steep ramp that began below the surface of the pond. The ramp was used to pull logs into the building and onto the carriage that guided them under the huge circular saw blade. The far door was secured while the closest one swung in the wind, banging forcibly against the building. Ben entered the darkened room that reeked with the smell of fresh sawdust and machine grease. The dim light of the lantern played across the room, creating odd shadows from the large belts that powered the saw and now hung limp over his head. Glistening in the flickering light were two rows of greased conveyor chains with grappler lugs that ran the length of the ramp into the dark waters of the pond over twenty feet below the floor of the saw room. The floor and ramp were covered in bark debris. Several of his mill hands had been injured by slipping or being hit by logs that flipped over as they were brought up the ramp. It was a dangerous place to work.

Ben hung the lantern on a hook and climbed into the conveyor to reach for the swinging door. As he waited for the door to swing inward, the sound of the wind muffled the footsteps of the man in black as he stepped out from behind a piece of machinery, reached for the lantern and turned it down. Ben swore under his breath as he attempted to grab the door and secure it in the semidarkness.

From the corner of Ben’s vision, the dark form of a man appeared and suddenly two hands pushed hard against his left shoulder, throwing him against the unsecured door. His hat was knocked from his head.

Hey! Watch out! Ben yelled as he slipped on the loose bark debris in the bottom of the chute. He hung on to the shed door as it swung open in the wind and struggled to regain his footing. Losing his grip on the wet wood, he fell onto the chain conveyor. Sliding rapidly down towards the pond, he tried to grasp first the edge of the wooden chute and then the chain, but with each attempt his hands became further covered in grease and mud. His rain slicker and the gold chain of his pocket watch snagged on one of the chain lugs, only to tear free as his downward momentum increased.

He twisted his head upward and yelled, but his cries for help went unanswered by the shadowy figure standing in the doorway. Ben glanced down at the dark, frigid water; a large cedar log had been pushed into position for the chains to grab when the saw was started by the morning crew. He took a large breath just as his feet hit the log. A sharp pain ran up his left leg from a broken ankle and caused him to scream as his body twisted. His head smashed against a heavy chain used to tether the massive floating log. Unconscious, Ben Armstrong’s body slipped slowly below the surface, his rain slicker waving back and forth like the tail of a large fish moving against the current.

The man at the top of the chute listened for any sounds from outside the dark room, and then hurried along the walkway back to the front of the mill. As he left the yard he thought he saw a shadow inside Ben’s office. Not wanting to reveal himself, he scurried into the dark curtain of rain back towards town.

From the window of the office, Unck watched the man splash through the rain-sodden yard and waited for Ben to reappear. When he did not, the boy slipped outside and hurried around the far side of the mill from where the man had come. As he entered the shed his eyes searched the dark reaches of the room and he shouted Ben’s name wildly. There was no answer. He saw a glint from a small object near the top of the chain conveyor. He reached down to pick it up and discovered the object was the brass insignia fastened to the front of Ben’s favorite hat. Unck looked down at the dark water as fear rose within him. With the tears on his cheeks being washed away by the rain, he made his way back to the office. No one was inside. Afraid that the other man might return, the boy receded to the farthest corner of the office behind a file cabinet and slumped to the floor, his sobs uncontrollable.

With the passing of the storm, Unck took Ben’s traveling bag down from atop a filing cabinet and gathered Ben’s possessions. He moved to the desk and found the Watchman wrapped in a piece of rabbit fur; he placed the figure in the bag. When he was satisfied that everything that represented his friend had been removed, he went to the door to watch the mill yard for a few minutes, then headed up the road toward the Armstrong home. Mary, pregnant with a second child that Ben would never see, and Old George, the tribal shaman, would know what was to be done.

Chapter 3

Washington Coast

April 1997

With a quick jerk, Earl Armstrong gave the steering wheel of his ’78 Volvo station wagon a turn to the right, then left, in a struggle to remain on the road. The seafood company truck that had suddenly appeared out of the sheets of rain sped by. For what seemed like an eternity, water was thrown over the hood by the oncoming semi. The wipers stalled, then recovered, and finally Earl could see the road again. There were a few seconds of panic as he felt his right tires rattling on the graveled shoulder before he had the wheels back on the pavement.

Damn, that was close, Earl muttered. He hated driving the Pacific Coast Highway during a downpour; the accompanying southwest winds caused the rain to sweep across the highway, obscuring oncoming vehicles and at times the road itself. Bet that was Sammy’s truck, he thought. Probably on his way south to San Francisco with another load of oysters from Goose Point. Earl had grown up with Sammy, a full-blood Indian, and they had been friends for a while back in high school in Ocosta. Together they were the best blockers on the senior varsity football team. Then Sammy had moved back to his res near Chehalis and Earl didn’t see him again until a few years ago after graduating from the UW with his master’s degree and starting his forestry job with his own tribe in Tokeland. Sammy had married his high school sweetheart and had two kids and a great job delivering fresh Northwest seafood to Indian casinos in California.

Earl was part Indian himself, although you really couldn’t tell. His hair was dark and straight but his complexion was light. He figured it must be his Scottish genes. It had been three years since Earl had been hired by the tribe to be its first forester; a pretty good job for someone twenty-eight years old. He enjoyed being outdoors, having the opportunity to inventory timberlands and watch over the shipments to the mills. In his spare time he hiked or was out on the bay in his kayak.

He had left Astoria an hour before and was heading for Bay Center on the shore of Willapa Bay where he lived. On his forester’s salary he could only afford a small house, but it was on a big lot, and the view of the bay had made the sale. The Northwest Association of Foresters had a quarterly meeting in Astoria and some changes to logging practice regulations had been discussed. After the meeting Earl had done some shopping for new work clothes and wandered into a sporting goods store where he’d purchased a new personal flotation jacket for kayaking on the bay. It was late afternoon before he cleared town and crossed the bridge over to the Washington side of the Columbia River.

The weatherman on the radio had predicted heavy rain showers this evening and had been one hundred percent right on. With the approaching twilight, the late-spring rain shower gradually eased until Earl could see past the faded white line at the edge of the road. He passed through some logged-off hills and descended towards the Palux River and surrounding farmland,