Brian's Return (5 page)

“I was just telling the boy about our fishing.”

“Nonfishing, you mean. We never seem to catch anything.”

The man next to Brian nodded. “But we see the country and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” He studied Brian, his eyes questioning.

“Yes.” Brian looked out the window. “That’s what it’s all about . . .”

“We worked the woods all our lives.” Ben, the man in front, turned. “Cruising for the lumber companies, living. Just living. We’re down in the Cities now but once you’ve been in the woods—well, you can take the man out of the woods, but you can’t take the woods out of the man. We like to get back. Muskie fishing is just an excuse.”

The man next to Brian nodded. “It must be the same for you. We heard about you, saw it all on television back when it happened. You must have got the woods in you then.”

Brian nodded.

“It’s a wonderful thing,” the old man said, looking again out the window.

“What?”

“To have the woods in you. Young people almost never have it now. You’re very lucky.”

And Brian knew he was right. He’d never felt he was particularly fortunate before but the old man was exactly right. He was very lucky to have the woods in him and to be getting back to it. “I hope you have good fishing,” he said, and meant it.

“And you as well. I hope everything comes to you that you want.”

Brian smiled and watched the woods and lakes unroll beneath the plane. The droning of the engine made him drowsy and his eyes closed, then opened again, and he thought—looking across the wilderness, half-asleep—he thought, lord, what a wonderful place this is, and knew it was a kind of prayer.

The List

CANOE
, 17-foot, Kevlar, named The Raft, from my time with Derek on the river. With two wide wood paddles with glassed tips. Repair kit with a piece of glass cloth and epoxy resin. Light life-vest flotation device.

STRAIGHT
BOW
, Wood-and-glass-laminated, 45-pound pull at 26-inch draw, 4 extra strings. 100 cedar arrow shafts, all spine tested for stiffness to match the bow. 60 field points, 50 MA-3 broadheads, nocks, precut 4-inch feathers—turkey, not plastic—glue to make everything, point cement, small fletcher to put feathers on, plastic tapering tool to work shafts down to take the points and nocks.

He debated long on the arrows—whether to take premade arrows or the materials to make them and in the end did both. He had two dozen finished arrows, half broadheads and half field points.

Small stone and file to sharpen broadheads. Plain leather quiver to hang down the center of my back.

Again, he debated whether to use a standard over-the-shoulder quiver or a center-hung with double harness. He decided on the center quiver because his head would protect the arrows and keep them from hitting things when he was moving through the brush.

KNIFE
, Plain hunting-style knife with cross hilt and straight 6-inch flat blade sharpened on one side except for the tip, to be sharpened also on the top back about 2 inches. A tool—and a weapon. Use the same stone and file for sharpening the broadheads to sharpen the knife and hatchet.

HATCHET

There were many variations he could have gone with here, as with knives, but he chose a plain belt ax, not unlike the one his mother had given him when he started north the first time. Like the knife, it was always on his belt and would always be there. He had learned that it was much better to have a tool-weapon with you and not need it than it was to need one and not have it.

FISHING
GEAR
, Nothing fancy. 2 spools of braided line, 20-pound test, a dozen metal leaders and a container of small sinkers, the kind with the rubber twist center. Small plastic box with 100 assorted fishhooks. No rod, no reel, just the hooks, line and sinkers.

At this point in compiling the List a kind of stubbornness had come into Brian’s thinking. He had lived before with much less—just having a modern bow and good arrows and real fishing gear was like being rich—and part of him wanted to just go with that. Maybe throw in a pot for cooking and of course some clothes. But he had not been completely idle in the two and a half years since he’d been “lost in the wilderness,” as some put it. He had been reading, expanding his knowledge, and most of the reading he’d done had been not about modern survival gurus or people who used high-tech gear to go off for a week or a month and then write a book or do a documentary about it and get rich. He had instead studied the true winners, the people in history who had survived in the wild because they had no other choice—the primitive Native Americans of the past, as well as Inuit, Cree and even the peoples of the U.S. Southwest, though the terrain in that region was radically different from these north woods. For them it wasn’t a game but their lives; what Brian knew now as primitive living had in fact been modern for them. It was how they lived—or died. He read and reread and in the end decided that if those people had had modern conveniences available they would have used them—just as they did when new things came along. Very few Native Americans still chipped stone arrowheads to use for hunting, though he suspected some of them still hunted with a bow.

Brian decided he would still draw a line. If he went crazy and took everything available—guns, water makers, special clothing or gear—he would lose what he had found, the beauty, the connection with the wild that had come into him.

So he added carefully to the List:

BOOKS
, Compact 2-volume set of the complete works of Shakespeare. Definitive guide, with pictures, of edible plants, nuts and berries of the north woods.

He had come to love reading as much as he disliked television and he’d chewed on which books to take—they were heavy and could not stand much rough use—and decided to ask Caleb, who in turn had asked him, “Who is the greatest writer of all?” Brian had been stumped until Caleb told him.

“Shakespeare.”

“I’ve never been able to read him.”

“Well then, now is a good time to start,” Caleb said. “And when you do, read aloud.”

“Even alone?”

“It’s easier to understand. They’re plays, meant to be read aloud. Just try it.”

He had learned a lot on his own in his time in the woods—sometimes with disastrous results—and he brought the field guide because he wanted to have a wider knowledge of what he could safely eat. Shakespeare for the soul, the guide for the stomach.

3 mechanical pencils with extra lead. 4 small books with blank lined pages.

He didn’t usually keep a journal, and he didn’t want to lock himself into it now. But he had become very close to Caleb, in some ways closer than he was to his parents, and he thought he could keep a running letter to Caleb and instead of trying to send him pages in envelopes, he could send the book all at once when he found a way to get it out.

CAMPING
GEAR
AND
SUPPLIES
, 1 good compass.

He thought of taking a Global Positioning System which relies on satellite signals, but had a distrust of complicated systems and decided against it. One drop of water in the wrong place or a fall or dropping it on the rocks and it was useless. Besides, he would have a good map from the pilot and every lake was a landmark.

2 decent-quality backpacks with external frames. 1 small camp shovel.

Here the concept of world politics helped him. The Soviet Union had come apart and one of the things its crumbling military complex had was surplus titanium. Some enterprising Russian had come up with the idea of making titanium—superlight and superstrong—camping shovels and Brian bought one through a catalog.

1 small but good-quality 2-man tent, the kind that becomes a dome with a screen entrance.

He was not sure how long it would last—probably until the first bear decided to tear it apart—but it would give him a chance to sleep mosquito-free for a while.

Sleeping bag rated to 0 degrees.

This was much too warm for a summer bag but in the back of his mind were the fall and winter nights, the still, deep cold. For now he could always open the bag and sleep on top of it.

2 aluminum pots, a 2-quart and a 4-quart, with lids. A large metal insulated cup. A 2-quart plastic water container.

No frying pan, no oil. No stove. He’d become accustomed to cooking over fire and preferred it. Besides, if he used a cooking stove he’d have to carry fuel for it and that was a whole new problem.

A container of salt in a plastic bag.

He had missed salt a great deal in the bush.

3 boxes sugar cubes in a plastic bag.

For his sweet tooth.

3 boxes of 1-gallon zip-closure plastic bags. Tea for several months. 4 plastic bottles vitamin C tablets and 3 bottles of multiple vitamins.

He hadn’t had vitamins the first time out, but his mother and Caleb had insisted on it. His mother didn’t know Brian would be on his own for a time, perhaps for a long time, but she wanted him to take the vitamins anyway. “Don’t those people you’re going to visit use vitamins?”

“Smallhorns. They are the Smallhorns, Mother, not ‘those people.’ ’’

“Whatever. Surely they use vitamins. You take them.”

A 25-pound bag brown rice, wrapped in a plastic garbage bag. A roll of 30 plastic garbage sacks to waterproof equipment and packs.

In his reading he’d discovered that most of the cultures in the world seemed to exist on rice and he had started to cook with it at home, though in small amounts. His mother didn’t like it. He found it bland but mixable with other foods and he thought to use it now and then with fish or other meat or wild vegetables.

No flour, no bread, no candy, no ingredients for pizza—Caleb had jokingly suggested that one—no ice cream, no soda. None of the things he had come to miss so much when he was in the woods before. They had all proved to be phony pleasures. He neither wanted them nor needed them in his life any longer.

A small, basic first-aid kit.

He couldn’t do sutures or treat major wounds with this but he had filled a prescription for antibiotics to help with any infection he might get. Also insect repellant.

8 boxes waterproof matches. 3 small propane lighters.

He remembered the difficulty of getting a fire going and while he felt certain he could do it again with just the hatchet and a stone, this was one area where he definitely wanted to go modern. He’d also brought a magnifying glass to look closely at things that might interest him and he could use it to start fires if the sun was out.

CLOTHING
, 2 pairs loose hiking pants. A pair of soft hiking shoes. 4 T-shirts. 2 pullover Polar Fleece jackets. A pullover breathable, waterproof anorak with a hood. A fabric military-style belt to carry the knife and hatchet. 3 pairs athletic socks. 3 pairs hiking shorts with several pockets. 3 pairs briefs. 2 billed caps. A sewing kit with assorted needles and 4 spools heavy thread. 1 spool waxed sewing cord with heavy needles. A hand-awl needle combination. 3 small cakes beeswax for thread and bowstrings.

If it came to it he wanted to be able to sew leather, especially for moccasins. Hiking shoes were fine but he had come to like sewn moccasins—they were light and though they wore out rapidly he could feel the ground through them and move more quietly.

A 10-by-10-foot tarp. 200 feet of 눕-inch nylon rope—parachute cord.

And an old 3-pound coffee can he found in the water by the plane when they were getting ready to take off from Ranier.

Dear Caleb: I had surprise company today. She didn’t stay long, which I’m glad about, but she definitely kept me from being bored.

And now he was, at last, alone.

He held the canoe in the lily pads and let the smoke from the small fire in the can blow over him and take the mosquitos away. There were fish everywhere. Hiding beneath the pads he could see dozens of bluegills and other panfish—sunfish, he thought, from the yellow flash of their bellies when they turned suddenly—and now and then a northern pike hunting the lilies would hit them and scatter them. He would take some later for food but it was only midafternoon and the plane had just gone—he thought he could still hear the engine—and he had time to move to the end of this small lake before dark and time to camp.

He smiled remembering the pilot when they’d landed. He had dropped the other two men off first—a lighter plane used less fuel—so the two of them had been alone for the flight. It had taken forty minutes or so to fly a hundred miles and the noise of the engine was loud so they didn’t speak much.

At one point the pilot leaned over and yelled, “You sure you’ll be all right alone up here?”

As right as I’ve ever been, Brian thought, and was going to yell it but simply nodded and that was all their conversation until they landed and taxied to a stop at the end of the lake.

“You’re here.” The pilot took a map from a folder in the back and handed it to Brian. “This little lake is called Payson Lake. You need to work this stream north up to Liberty Lake and then this series of chain lakes”—he unfolded the map—”up to Williams Lake. The Smallhorns are in camp here. They were at the northeast end but it’s a fish camp and they move around the lake. You can see it’s a big lake—I think eight or nine miles long and a couple wide—so you might have to look for them.”

He gave Brian the map and helped him unload his canoe and put his gear in it. Before doing anything else, still standing on the float of the plane, Brian folded the map so his locale was faceup and put it in one of the plastic bags to keep it waterproof. Then he waded ashore.