Fall is here. In some parts of the country that’s cause for pumpkin latte celebrations, while some may lament the coming of winter and the death of warmth, it can bring a welcome respite from dry summers in some other areas. Mine, the Inland NW has that issue, and raindrops turn our local Spokane River into a roaring lion once again, after it threatened to become a herd of rocks—pathetic in the face of dwindling snowpacks. But enough of that. Gather round, now, and let me tell you about this once fierce river.

Once upon a time, at the bottom of Spokane River lived a creature of such dark repute that it was advisable to never swim it in the night. Some people would make sacrifices to the creature: a car here, a person there. The creature grew in strength until one day it learned to move on land. During the nighttime, of course, but move along the land it did and spread misery in its wake. The sun, knowing this was wrong started to chase the creature, trying to send it back undersurface.

But because of this, the people suffered as the sun beat the ground to dust and fires turned the day sky dark—when bears fight, the grass suffers. The creature was defeated, though not completely. It ran underground and found its way to the river through underground channels. And even though it found the river to be shallow—the sun still pursuing a scorched earth policy—it managed to find a way to live in the shade of the rocks.

It was also strengthened by an increase in human sacrifices (self-imposed or otherwise) from the towering arc or grassy edges. Slowly, it nursed itself back to health and learned to live with the heat and the lack of water and soon started to grow scales and powerful legs—the creature was no more of water. Instead it now walked the land, at first at night, then during the day as well.

Walking amongst people, walking much like people, it soon learned to whisper into ears and make people do its bidding. The sun tried to defeat it, tried to crush the enemy of people, but it slowly lost all its power as it turned the earth to dust, and people moved to avoid it, but never stopped listening to the whispers. The creature soon had all of humankind on its side and soon the sun gave up, for to win was to turn the earth to a desert with no people.

Rain once again fell on the land, enough so that the creature returned to its home of the river, but now it was strengthened and cunning beyond belief. It spit out rainbows to lull people into thinking it beautiful and was back to its old evil ways of enticing sacrifices and whispering evil into people’s ears.

And no-one lived happily ever after.