Damnation Spring

Rich is another point-of view character and the Gundersen’s breadwinner. A logger—a high-climber to be precise—Rich faces death each day at work. Still, “At fifty-three, Rich had already outlived every Gundersen on record” (21). His great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were loggers before him. His dad died on the job after an accident involving his friend Lark, who has become a mentor to Rich. Lark taught Rich how to climb. He also comes to Rich with the news that Jim Mueller might be willing to sell a piece of land near and dear to Rich’s heart, the 24-7 Ridge: “Someday you and me are going to fall that,” his father once told him (21); Rich feels fate at work and bets everything he owns on the ridge.

Rich is driven by a desire to fulfill what feels like his destiny, and to provide for his family’s future. He must wrestle with his conscience, as the moral cost of relying on Merle Sanderson for his roads becomes ever clearer. He has already broken his body for Merle—his back needs regular walking on from Colleen; he dislocates his shoulder—but as he gets sucked deeper into colluding with Merle, a rotting tooth worsens. This feels like an apt symbol for the price he is paying: an inner decay.

Over the course of the story, Rich comes to realize that while he might want to harvest the 24-7, what he needs is to keep his family safe, healthy, and together. The small concessions he makes to Colleen grow from the water filter, to the tanked water, to him making peace with his rival Daniel and eventually punching Merle in the face—roads be damned. The best way to protect his family to listen to his wife, like Daniel did, and to make sure their drinking water is safe and their home secure. Although Rich’s change might be tentative at first, he comes to find a new way to be a husband, a father, and a man in the changing community.

Rich’s death is a sad outcome for the decent and down-to-earth family man. But it is foreshadowed by Davidson, in her regular references to how dangerous his work is, and in moments where she talks about the treacherous landscape. For example, Lark describes how dangerous the ocean is to passing tourists: “‘That’s not a swimming ocean,’ Uncle Lark said. ‘That’s a drowning ocean’” (189). Life amid the primordial redwoods, is still precarious and can be short at any time.

Graham Gundersen is affectionately known by his parents as “Chub,” or “Grahamcracker,” as he reaches school age. He favors his father in looks, as Colleen notices one day at her sister Enid’s house: “He grinned, proud of himself, eyes turning from green to blue, Rich’s eyes set in a small, round face” (28). It is these same eyes that Colleen looks into at the very end of the novel, in which she sees her dead husband but also hope for the future.

Chub is very much a boy in the mold of his loving parents. He looks out for his friend Luke, for example, when bullies at school taunt him over his ill mother, and when grown-up “bullies” persecute Luke’s family, going so far as to burn down their house. Chub even wants to donate his favorite toy to Luke, his hobbyhorse Brownie, because “All his toys burned up” (368). However, his sensitive streak, makes him an easy target for his cousin Wyatt, whose bullying will eventually endanger Chub’s life.

Davidson uses Chub as a point-of-view character, too, leaning on him at times when the reader should see how messy and cynical the adult world can be—like when Eugene colludes with Merle to poach burls, or chaos unfolds at the public hearing. In that scene in particular, Chub has to contend with his mother’s spiraling emotions, something Davidson can convey neatly via Chub’s physical bond to her. Her fury becomes felt: “Chub reached for her hand, but she snatched it away” (306). Chub’s point-of-view gives readers both economical storytelling and a complicating characterization of Colleen.

Chub will go on to suffer the tragedy of losing his father. But he seems to have inherited enough heart and wisdom to prosper and to be a fine steward of the 24-7 Ridge.

Colleen’s younger sister was always the tear-away of the family. Before long, her reputation preceded Colleen’s: “In school, Colleen had always been ‘Enid’s sister,’” Colleen remembers (28). Enid raised hell, punching fellow kids and getting paddled for her trouble. Perhaps this nature explains how she ended up with Eugene, a similarly wild member of the community. Her choice in men differs from Colleen’s, and while Colleen might envy Enid her large family, it is possible Enid envies Rich’s dedication to his wife. After Marla’s abortion, when Enid reveals Alsea’s condition, Colleen tries her mother’s wisdom on Enid:

‘Enid, you’re my sister. We’re all we have, remember?’

A tear rolled down from the corner of Enid’s eye. She smiled, shook her head. ‘You have Rich. I’m not all you have. I haven’t been for a long time’ (357).

Enid would probably call herself a pragmatist, who is ready to set aside moral qualms to protect her family. She is more willing to turn a blind eye to the community’s bullying of Helen and Carl, for example, if it means desperately needed work for Eugene. She even helps him chop up ill-gotten firewood. Enid’s attitude, along with Eugene’s increasingly violent behavior, drives a wedge between Enid and Colleen. But Davidson shows us the cost of Enid’s position with several events that gradually push the sisters back together. Marla’s abortion, Alsea’s diagnosis, and Wyatt’s injuring of Chub all combine to show Enid the error of her ways and lead her back towards her less reckless and more empathetic sister.

Their reconciliation comes on the same day that Rich dies, and it is instructive that for a single chapter afterwards (July 1), Davidson borrows Enid’s point-of-view. She is the only character beyond the Gundersens to take this role. Perhaps it is a reward for her taking the path back towards her sister and embracing “goodness.” It seals her growth to be Colleen’s support when tragedy strikes. Enid acknowledges, “She was always more my mom than Mom” (431), but this time the roles are reversed: “This time, though, It was me who grabbed her hand and held it” (432). Although it takes Rich’s death to clinch it, Enid grows into herself by the end of the story.

Eugene, Enid’s husband, is more brawn than brains; he is morally weak and venal. One of the first things readers learn about him comes when Colleen watches a bailiff try to repossess the family truck. Rich bought Colleen a new truck after her miscarriage. Rich then immediately bought Enid one, too, because “He hadn’t wanted to be one-upped” (27). Although this chip on his shoulder could be relatively harmless, it ends up being an insecurity Merle Sanderson knows how to exploit, gifting Eugene extra status as a security guard and flowing funds from burl poaching his way, in a return for his unthinking loyalty. Eugene is essentially a bully, and that suits Merle’s needs just fine.

Eugene’s nasty streak develops steadily throughout the story. One key scene involves him hunting with Rich. As the pair track an injured doe, Rich constantly has to check himself from saying what he really thinks: “Damn it, Eugene, he’d muttered, Eugene already sprinting across the marsh. Last time I hunt with that fool” (184). Eugene’s wayward shooting and poor tracking ultimately inflict unnecessary cruelty on the doe. Plus, it turns out Eugene is hiding the fact he didn’t pay for the necessary hunting tag. It sums up his nature, but also shows his rivalry with Rich, his disdain for anyone else’s rules, and his penchant for violence. There is a growing sense in this scene and others that given the right circumstances he will turn on Rich.

Eugene gets his comeuppance later—not in the form of Alsea’s disability itself, but in Eugene’s inability to see it as anything but a humiliation. Something similar happens when he realizes he has been played by Merle. Although Eugene is a fairly flat character who changes little, he experiences something like remorse for burning down Helen and Carl’s house: “All the shit [Merle] had me do. For what? What the hell do I do now?” he says (380). Still, this introspection is short-lived. Just a few weeks later, Eugene again blames others for his problems, trying to drown Daniel in the creek at Damnation Grove. It is tempting to wonder where Enid’s growing self-awareness and her rapprochement with Colleen will leave him after the events of the novel.

Daniel is the community’s prodigal son, who returns to haunt them after they shunned him in his youth. Unsurprisingly, the toxic world of Klamath logging could not accommodate an aloof and intellectual Yurok boy. It made his life hell, with bullying and persecution at school, where Daniel was the frequent recipient of unjust corporal punishment: “Colleen had once heard a teacher explain they had to beat Yurok kids like Daniel harder because their skin was tougher; they didn’t feel it the same” (40). This abuse continues until Daniel’s formidable mother, Dolores, puts a stop to it.

Daniel became the only boy from his and Colleen’s class to go to college. But now he is back, partly to do post-doctoral research and partly because his mother is dying. He collects water samples from the creeks in the local area, “trespassing” at will. Davidson tends to write him as popping up unexpectedly and disappearing just as quickly, which arguably flirts with stereotyping, lending Daniel a somewhat mystical air, but he also knows he needs to be discreet. His research upsets the apple cart, and warnings to him quickly become physical violence, culminating in Eugene almost drowning him.

Daniel faces other challenges too, as he struggles to recruit allies to his cause. In Colleen’s case, that is hampered by the manner in which he left her. Daniel was Colleen’s first lover but essentially ignored her once he moved to college, failing to respond to her letter or the messages she would leave when she called his dorm. Although they have spontaneous sex shortly after he reappears in town, even that ends in recriminations. At the forestry board hearing, Daniel uses Colleen’s samples and story without her consent. Daniel is blinded by his activism and, though it might be in pursuit of worthy goals, ends up hurting Colleen all over again with the casual way her uses her miscarriages for political ends.

Still, even Rich eventually forgives Daniel his dalliance with his wife, realizing that Daniel is broadly trying to help people. Rich can only return the favor by telling Daniel to get out of town while he still can still. Daniel must drive off, abandoning his frail mother, still Klamath’s unwanted son.