Under the ancient trees, spring has returned. A dogwood blossom glides along on the surface of the stream, dancing in and out of shadow. Spinning around a submerged log, the flower floats out over a quiet pool, and a miracle occurs. A tiny silver shape, a shivering sliver of life, floats up out of the smooth stones. It rises awkwardly, burdened by a hanging orange belly and by the unaccustomed weight of life, until it touches the surface. One kiss of air, and before our eyes the shape becomes a fish. A coho has been born.

In truth, the little coho was born more than a month ago. A fat orange egg popped open, deep within the sheltering gravel, and an infant fish emerged. For the next weeks, she nestled among the stones, growing larger and stronger on the storehouse of rich yolk in the sack beneath her. Finally, the yolk was almost gone, and hunger awakened the need to rise, to leave the nest, to become a salmon. She begins her life of journeys by reaching the surface and gulping the bubble of air that inflates her swim bladder and sets her level in the stream, a sleek and balanced blade. Within moments the small fry darts forward, guided by the experience of a thousand generations, to seize her first meal, a water flea.

Months pass, and the coho swims, hunts, and grows. She shares the stream with thousands of other young coho, many of whom do not survive the early trials of life. The torrents of spring drive her to shelter behind logs and root mats, toughening her muscles and whirling a moveable feast past her nose. Summer is the hardest time, the water slow and warm, full of life but also full of death. She spends many hours dozing in the shade of an undercut bank, avoiding the shallows. She is awakened by the icewater of winter, an intoxicating elixir of oxygen that sings through her veins.

Spring returns, and the fry has become a parr. She is two inches long, and a pattern of dark bars helps her melt into the shadowed water. To survive now, she needs concealment, she needs strength, she needs skill, and she needs luck. Our coho is granted all these things. She escapes the gulping lunge of a sculpin, the merganser’s saw-toothed grin, and an otter’s playful and merciless pursuit. She allows few of her own prey to escape, and she grows. She is preparing for a day whose approach she can already sense in the warming water, the day when everything changes. The day of departure.