Our forest cottage sits on terraced property a few hundred feet from the river. Two seasons a year in an ancient tradition of migration, the river serves as a super waterway for salmon returning from the sea to their point of origin.
Arriving at the mouth of the river, the salmon will spawn a new generation in the cyclical nature of salmon birth and death. For osprey, hawk and bald eagle, the river is fertile hunting ground.
For beaver and marmot, the river is sheltered home. For deer, bear, bobcat and cougar, the river is a watering place. For our family, the river replenishes our well and provides fish for the table. The river sustains and connects us, fish and bird, animal and human.
Here in the wooded foothills of a dormant volcano, we have become familiar with the movement of wildlife by observation of river activity. Their world is as patterned and complex as ours and yet different than ours, for which we have gained a healthy respect and boundary. In the normal cadence of life in the forest, our day is their night, our night their day. We seldom cross paths in close proximity.
Before this week, I had only seen the coyote once, during the ice storm two winters ago. At dawn, I had bundled up to go out and bring in more split wood for the wood stove. Our world had been frozen over for days and we were burning more than the usual amount of wood to keep warm. I had misjudged the amount of wood needed to put off until late morning the task of replenishing the stack of wood next to the stove. Midway to the woodshed I stopped. I could feel before I could see that I was being watched. A coyote stood in the lingering shadow between night and day and stared without retreat. At the same moment I realized I was not alone, came a startling revelation of thought: the ice storm had disrupted the daily life of hunting and foraging for animals who relied on the forest for sustenance. I returned without completing my path to the woodshed waiting instead for a later time of day to venture out again. Letting the embers of our warmth momentarily die, I chose not to be coyote breakfast.
The unnerving lesson of the coyote learned was to expect the unexpected when expected conditions turn unexpected. That, and to stack wood nearer to the cottage. Now two years later, I have seen the coyote again, in the middle of the day, wandering at the river’s edge. I can understand where he gets his reputation for being a character of mischievous behavior, a symbol of trickery. Tail tucked under and moving with great caution, stopping to explore this and that, glancing from side to side often, he gives the impression he is up to no good. Our fall season has taken a turn for the cold and the wet and winter threatens to arrive soon. However, I do not see an imminent storm approaching to rival the ice storm of two winters ago when the coyote first made his out of the normal rhythm of forest life appearance. I do have to wonder, in observing the habits of animals who live life by nature and make nature their home, what does the coyote know that I do not know in things being not as they seem in present time. In mere days, I will learn what the coyote already knows and why the coyote appears unexpected again.
November is the second rainiest month of the year. Excessively, in the first week of this November, we receive an entire month of rain. The Pineapple Express, a Pacific Ocean subtropical jet stream from Hawaii, has stalled over the Pacific Northwest.
It is the kind of rain that saturates the earth, loosening the deep roots of towering trees, where wind can effortlessly push them crashing to the ground. It is the kind of rain that causes rivers to swallow up its banks, flood nearby meadows and swamp faraway fields.
Our river is swelling too quickly, raging too swiftly, mimicking the sound of a runaway freight train roaring down the tracks. We sleep restless not knowing how high the river will be by morning as the rain beats down in a white noise of water its continuous threat to overwhelm the natural sublime balance of our environment.
Rivers rise and rivers fall. Knowing this, we have built our cottage elevated and the river has given us no cause for worry in previous years. But the nature of this weather has conspired in calamitous formation with a subtropical weather pattern causing a glacier break of melted ice from the warming rain. This is not the weather pattern for northern hemisphere regions and the lack of any worry we felt in seasons before is worrisome now.
By morning, the rain nor river had abated. To measure how fast the river was rising, I chose a tree set back from the river as a stationary marker, a tree in a place where the river does not normally flow. At first, the river lapped at the base of the tree. Within an hour, the base of the tree was under water. I stood in the pounding torrential rain both watching the river waters continue to inch up the tree trunk and as silent witness to the procession of 60 foot, 80 foot, 100 foot fir trees pushed downstream by the meanness of a muddy churning raging crazed river. A car door went by, tilted on its side, with the passenger side mirror periscoping up from the wet in muted glimmer from the clouded light. Next came a hunter’s orange jacket and a bright red gasoline can. Then a wooden bench. Trees of unknown height, split and splintered in pieces. Unidentifiable debris. Swept by a river rushing madly to the sea, the remnants of loss and sorrow washed away with it.
In the middle of the rapidly moving river stood a coyote on one of the fallen trees, upright with nose down, concentrating I supposed with adept Phoenician skill a perfect balance as it rode the white waters of a river gone deliriously out of control. I watched until the coyote and the floating tree disappeared from sight round the bend of the river. Minutes later, we got word people who live upstream were being evacuated. Houses were being ripped in half and carried away by the swollen pride and power of water. It was time too, for us to go.
We live with our possessions every day without much thought to owning them. We see them, but we do not really look at them. In the immediacy of a time like this, when we must leave all that we own without knowing that we will ever see any of it again, a sentimentality of emotional attachment surfaces for all that we take for granted. Possessions become more than the nails, staples, fabric and glue that hold them together in functional presence. They hold stories of people and events. No time for lingering goodbyes now. No time to replace the regretful absence of every day acknowledgment in the importance of things. We each take what we can carry in one bag. We console ourselves that treasured memories stay safely stored in the heart. For now, it must be our noble truth. As long as we live, we can start again. Go. We must go now.
As we drive down off the mountain, I wonder if there is a safe place on this planet to live without the drama of an impersonal petulant nature. I have stood in the eye of a hurricane, outrun a tornado, felt the earth rock and roll beneath my feet, watched the plume of an erupting volcano, and vacationed in seaside towns that post tsunami escape routes. I have lived on an island, on a continent, on the coast and in the forest. If there is such a place to build a home where nature is eternally serene and gently kind in even temper, I have not made discovery of its location.
The river spared our cottage home from its flood. In returning home, I wondered how the coyote had fared in riding the raging white water of our stormy river. Rather than mischievous trickster, the coyote had been a warning by the curious departure from his usual coyote behavior of weather as mischievous trickster. Appearing in our day that is his night, the message was clear. Our world was about to be turned upside down. I speak coyote now.
Knowing what the coyote knows was first submitted to FieldReport. Unfortunately, FieldReport is now offline. Knowing what the coyote knows is being republished here.
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