A novel by Susan Lee Feathers. Copyright 2023
Chapter 1
“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free.”
Aldo Leopold, from the Foreword to A Sand County Almanac.
20,000 – 3,000 B.C.
The River People came from the north, over the land bridge between Asia and North America during the ice age. They were part of the Pacific Coastal language group that may have mixed with later groups from the plains. About 3,000 B.C., some of the River People migrated south. They eventually settled alongside a mighty river, so powerful and turbulent, it carried canyons to the sea. It flowed red and fast at its origin, reshaping jagged rocks to smooth boulders while carving its bed in the soft red and yellow limestone of canyons with each passing year.
There were many tribal groups that took up residence on this river. From time to time they warred among themselves to gain more land or to protect their hunting grounds. Eventually, territories were established and the River People came to occupy the portions of the river where it channeled into thousands of inlets, lagoons, and estuaries before giving itself to the sea: the delta.
For millennia, a riverine way of life was lived by the River People, adapted to fit the river’s seasonal flows and natural resources, such as the rich silt left behind on the riverbanks as spring floodwaters receded. The River People farmed in these muddy recesses, rich with minerals. They grew many varieties of beans, corn, and grains, melons and herbs. The rich soil and seasonal floods supported the growth of forests of mesquite trees, tall cottonwoods, and tangles of willows that provided a natural habitat for many animals and birds. The leguminous mesquite trees dropped thousands of seedpods each season. The bitter-tasting beans were roasted and ground to brew a drink, while the pod was ground into a sweet tasting flour. In modern times this flour was discovered to naturally maintain a person’s blood sugar level.
The river supported many varieties of fish, which the River People learned to spear and net with skill. Salmon, chub, mullet, and native trout provided lean protein, while the creatures in the mesquite forests—deer, wild turkey, quail, rabbit, and fowl—provided fatty proteins for quick energy. On the lagoons and in the marshes, the geese and ducks provided more delectable meals. Nothing was better than a succulent goose roasted over the burnt embers of mesquite logs, under long clear nights when the River People enjoyed telling stories, singing, and dancing.
Much of the River People’s ways and means were established by trial and error, preserved in their stories and songs, and handed down from grandparent to parent to child. It was a certain kind of wisdom about how to live on the lands on which they worked, loved, and thrived. And so it was for thousands of years and hundreds of generations of the River People.
Susan Feathers 