She nodded. “Eels. Gulls. Man.” She walked upstream. He followed and soon was able to see the reason most of the fish below were not moving. The stream rose in a series of fish ladders, perhaps a dozen, that fell from holding pools in tiny cataracts wide enough to hold one fish at a time. The herring swam up the flowing spout of water into the quiet of the pool above, each ladder harder to swim through because the preceding leaps had taken their toll in effort and strength.

“My grandfather and I used to choose one fish and go up with her,” she said.

“Why don’t we do that?” he said. “You choose.”

“All right. That one.”

Their alewife was about ten inches long. They watched while she patiently waited for a clear shot at the ladder and then squirted forward and flickered up through the water that poured down from the pool above, where she waited again. She climbed the first six ladders with apparent ease.

“You picked a winner,” he said.

Perhaps the remark jinxed the alewife. As she strove to swim up the next ladder the falling stream of water had too much force; it halted her momentum, carried her, flapping clumsily, back into the pool.

She made it next time, but the ladder above required her to leap three times before it was behind her.

“Why do they fight so, just to lay their eggs?” he wondered.

“Preservation of the species, I suppose.”

Their fish moved more slowly now, between attempts, as if even swimming took too much effort. They felt that she made each successful leap through the force of their wills, but the strength obviously was being drained from her own torpedo-shaped body. By the time she reached the pool below the final ladder she rested on the bottom almost motionless, only her pumping gills and the balancing ventral fins indicating she was still alive.

“Oh, God,” Gaby said.

“Come on,” he encouraged.

“Come on, poor thing.”

They watched as she made four vain attempts to clear the final obstacle. Each time the rest period was longer than the last.

“I don’t think she’s going to make it,” Adam said. “I think I could just reach in and pick her up and carry her over.”

“Leave her alone.”

A gull dropped down and moved past them toward the fish.

“Ah, you won’t!” Gaby cried, slapping at the bird. She was suddenly weeping. “You won’t, you bastard!”

The gull rose, squawking indignantly, and went downstream for easier gorging. As if sensing the recent danger the alewife spurted forward, started upward but was battered and flung gracelessly back. This time she went at once without resting, surged forward once more and hurled herself upward through the descending fall. She hung poised at the top and then, wriggling, splashed over into calm water on the other side.

Gaby was still weeping.