Ricochet River by Robin Cody

Author:Robin Cody
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult Fiction
Publisher: Ooligan Press
Published: 2017-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

“You shoulda left ’em be,” Link said.

Which was right. Jesse and I had panicked at the millpond spillway. Those fish would die anyway, and some of them might spawn in lower Tom Creek before they did.

The part that got me, when I had time to think it over, was that these fish went against everything you learn. Darwin’s theory and all that. These Tom Creek salmon that made it out to sea and back—the fittest of their breed, you’d think—were the ones that couldn’t get past the millpond to spawn.

“Well that’s exactly it,” Link said. “Them lazy numbers upstream,” he said, “are gettin’ smaller ever since the millpond went in. Used to be they was a scrappy fish, bigger. Now they don’t have to get big. Ain’t nothin’ gonna bother ’em if they don’t leave.”

Jesse and I were helping Link clear the blackberry thicket from the south wall of the bunkhouse.

“You’re the smart one,” Link said to me. “Figure it out. Them fish at the millpond and up is the ones that survive. They breed more little runts and get smaller and uselesser every year.” He bent down to gather vines and carry them to the burn pile. But he didn’t walk away. “I don’t know this Darwin feller,” he said, scratching his ear. “Ask me, he’s got ’er bass-ackwards,” he said. “Plumb backwards. Them that tries, dies.”

“UN-natural selection,” I said, standing up.

“Survival of the timid,” Link said.

Jesse got a car. His license suspension was up, and Reno gave him the money. He skipped school one day and drove up after football practice in a red and white ’57 Ford Fairlane—a V-8 with automatic, overdrive, and dual pipes. It had scratches on the back right fender, but otherwise it was in excellent shape. The thing is, though, if you skip practice you have to come back with a limp or a dental excuse or at least a sad look on your face. Jesse showed up grinning, revving his engine. He never thought of those little things. Coach Garth decided to excuse him—What could he do? We needed Jesse—but Coach was whacked off.

I wasn’t too thrilled with Jesse myself.

At the barbershop, too, I heard some grumbling. “See that goofy Injun got hisself a Ford Fairlane. That’s where your taxes are going, Jake.”

“Never worked a day in his life.”

The difference between Jesse and the greasers—who had earned it, setting choker in the woods or rassling hay bales—was that Jesse picked up two traffic tickets in that first week with his car. One was for speeding past the school, which is officially a twenty-five-mph zone, though nobody observes it. Even log trucks rumble through at forty or so, and you can’t stop a log truck on a dime. But they got Jesse at forty-five. Not a warning, either, like Miles usually gives out. A ticket.

I say “they” got him. This wasn’t just a matter of Miles, the cop, having an eye out for him. Miles discusses all matters of law and order with—and takes his direction from—the barbershop morning coffee crowd.

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