Up on the lower reaches of the Greenwater where the shade of the mountain spooks the fiercest of heart; there was a man standing in the water. His hands were at his side, empty; his shoulders hung forward, defeated. He was starving because the fishing in his village was so bad.

None of them would go into the river because it only reminded them of death. So they just sat and became sick in their trouble, gnawing on moss and waiting to die.

But the man still went out into the river day after day, staring into the frigid pools for signs of life.

One day, the fish upstream spotted the man and felt sorry for him.  Among them, one decided to come downstream and give its life to take the man’s grief away.

The man caught the fish.

But before it died, it told him from where it came, and that it was not good for the man’s village to go hungry. So the fish gave the man some advice: to go and fish where the river runs hard.

The man’s eyes flooded with tears, because he was so thankful for this life in his hands.

After his village ate the fish, the flesh of it so hearty it made them bold, they ordered the man to do as the fish said: to go where the Greenwater runs hard, and bring back many fish so that they could eat.

So the man set out, but not to kill as they had ordered him to do.  The man was compelled by gratitude for the fish that had given its life. He wanted to give his tears back to the river where it runs hard.

As he waded upstream into darker channels draped over by hemlock laden with first snow, the rapids became relentless and the algae-vested rocks underneath him caused him to slip and cut his feet.  It felt as if the river was trying to push him back.

His village cried out for him to fall back to an easier place and fish there. But he knew that would be an ungrateful thing to do, so he pressed on. And the village became angry at his foolishness.

It was then that a stranger, wading up the same river, saw the man struggling and about to drown. So the stranger left her spot and came closer to the man. She knew they were both seeking the same place and she thought, “Why should one of us survive and another drown, both for a good thing. It is better that we get there together.”

The man saw the stranger coming to help and he was warmed; she was like the sun breaking through the impenetrable canopy. Together, they struggled against the rapids to get where the river runs hard.

But the villagers became even angrier than the crushing rapids, for they thought the two were wrestling against each other, and that the stranger was after their fish. And they cried out “Leave our man alone!”

The man did not know what to do. If he let go of the stranger’s hand, he would be punished by the river. If he held on, he would be punished by the village. And even though they held on to each other, when one slipped, the other would fall too. And things seemed to be getting harder because the clamor did not allow them to keep their heads together.

And the villagers pointed and said, “See, they are killing each other!” So, the man said to the stranger, “Let go, let me try and get my footing alone.”

And the two separated
….and the village cheered
……and the fish wept
where the river runs hard.

Sure enough, the man fell into the river, and by the time it tumbled him back to where the villagers were, he was drowned. And they caught him up like a dead fish and buried him. By the next day they were hungry and sick again and refused to go into the Greenwater, because it only reminded them of death.

On that very same day the stranger came into the village, for she didn’t know what had happened to her friend, and she knew that she alone couldn’t get to where they were going.

The villagers recognized her, and seized her, and killed her!

But before she died, they asked her, “WHERE IS OUR FISH?”

The stranger just pointed upstream and said, “Where the river runs hard.”

After a long time had passed, the Greenwater had grown to black and the limbs of the villager’s bodies had hardened to stone more dense than granite and ice. With sorrow they looked at each other, and with fear they looked behind their backs.

“Why did we kill the stranger?” they asked each other. “She may have come to dwell with us, and shown us where the huckleberries can be found in winter’s grave.”

In shame they took down their tents and temples, their flags and standards; everything they had that marked their time and place on the earth.  When it was all gone, their bodies sunk back in to the shale beside the riverbed, leaving behind only a pool of tears that rose to the surface from their weeping heads.

The bush closed in around where the village once laid; the guardian stands of alder rotted and snapped from age; until only a cavity of fungus and horseflies surrounded the pool of tears, and all memory of the village had vanished.

Even more time passed, and the fish upstream in the high reaches of the Greenwater, multiplied.
But the fish were still not happy with the way things were, and they did not think it was good for the village to die.

Because they were so many and dense, their unhappiness boiled the river into a raging cauldron, which in turn conjured up a great wind that roared and smashed against the sides of the canyon, making the river deeper and narrower and harder, even all the way down to where the village once lay.

And then the rains came and pounded the earth, as if the sea had been turned upside down and traded places with the sky. The crushing rain and the crashing wind were so powerful that together they cut new ravines and streams everywhere in their path, which included forging a channel between the river and the pool of tears.

It was only a small channel, but just large enough for one fish to make its way through.

On the night of a new moon, when the wind and rain subsided, the fish came downstream next to the village, for the fury of the wind and rain had made it good water there, a river running hard. They sent one among them through the channel to the pool of tears, and when the fish got there it called down to the villagers below.

“Rise up!” it shouted, “Grab hold of my flesh and renew the face of the earth!”

The villagers, submerged for so long in their sadness, were overcome with gratitude for this fish that had given its life, and all together they raised themselves above their tears and caught the fish in their hands.

And the fish in the river cheered,
…and for the first time the village wept
……with joy.

But before the fish died, the villagers asked of it,

“Fish, tell us where the river runs hard, so that we may give our tears back to the river in gratitude for your life.”

The fish just pointed its eyes right to where they were standing and said,

“Look!  The rains have brought you the river, and the river has brought you home. We strangers will dwell with you here forever, where the river runs hard.”

Copyright 1997 by Kalina Kucera. All Rights Reserved.