Never Say Die (18 page)

At last the cabin appeared through falling snow and tossing waves. It was perched on a knoll with a swath of green around it like I remembered. The knoll didn't look as high as before, but that was because the sea was up. For the time being, the cabin was out of reach of the waves.

What a relief it was to get off the water. The cabin's heavy, bear-proof door was latched but unlocked. We stepped inside, closed the door, and stood there shedding the weather on the floorboards. My eyes went to the dry firewood off to one side of the stove. My brother and I shared a smile.

We leaned our river bags against the wall. The furnishings and decoration didn't add up to much: a simple table and chairs, a guest book to sign, and an old whaling harpoon on the wall. I remembered Jonah saying that the cabin had been restored by the historical park on Herschel Island.

With the snow turning to sleet, we looked seaward out the four-paned window and saw fearsome waves pounding the shore less than thirty yards away. “This cabin sat much farther back from the sea five years ago,” I said.

Ryan looked grim. “The Beaufort Sea must be rearranging the whole coast right now. Chewing it up and spitting it out. We can only hope this isn't the storm that brings this cabin down.”

We holed up there through heavy winds and rain all through that day and into the next. We kept trying the sat phone as the storm raged on but couldn't raise a signal. The problem might have been the dousing it took during that emergency call in the pouring rain.

At last the storm gave out. The sky was clearing. Out the open front door, to the east, the broad back of Herschel Island was taking shape out of the dissolving fog. Stefansson's cabin didn't have much of a future. On the ocean side, most of the knoll was gone. Fewer than ten yards remained between the cabin and a twenty-foot drop to the Beaufort Sea.

We finally got a signal on the sat phone. The first number Ryan tried was Red Wiley's. We were hoping he could come and get us that day.

Our bush pilot was hugely relieved to hear from us. In all his years in the North, he'd never seen a storm this bad. Red said that Search and Rescue was guessing we had continued on to Nunaluk Spit after calling from the Firth's delta to report the grolar bear attack. They wondered if we were holed up in Stefansson's cabin, but they weren't sure the cabin would survive the record levels of storm surge on the coast. “Jonah said Nick would remember about the cabin,” Red told Ryan.

My heart leaped. “Jonah's alive!” I cried.

“Yes indeed, Nick, and he'll be awful happy to hear that you are, too.”

“What about Shingle Point?”

“Everybody out there got evacuated. As for the cabins, heavy damage is likely.” Red said he would try to get to us later in the day, but didn't know for sure if he would be able to land. It depended on how bad the storm had rearranged the spit. “It would be helpful if you boys hike the length of the spit and call me back with your report. I need a fairly level stretch with no driftwood and no rocks that have ‘troublemaker' written on them. Snow on the ground?”

“Rain melted it,” Ryan said.

“If you hear a chopper in the vicinity, that will be Search and Rescue. They left Inuvik an hour ago headed for the Firth River delta. They're on their way to the Last Mountain campsite on the Firth. The chopper pilot's got three officials aboard: an RCMP officer, a park warden, and a paramedic. I don't know if they'll give you a flyby—just thought you should know.”

“If we find you a landing strip on the spit,” Ryan said, “we'll mark the center of it with a blue X. We've got a tarp we can cut up.”

“Much obliged.”

Red signed off. We ate breakfast and got ready for our hike. “Let's bring along all the bear protection we got,” I said. “We're on the outer coast. There might be a polar bear scavenging for carcasses.”

I had my hunting knife on one hip and bear banger pouch with loaded launcher on the other. Ryan had the air horn. I wished I hadn't lost our last can of pepper spray to the grolar bear.

My brother looked haggard. “Ready to go, Nick?”

“Almost,” I said, and took the harpoon down from the wall. It might've been a hundred years old but appeared to be in good condition with no rust. The double-fluke head looked deadly, and where the steel shaft emerged from the wooden base, there wasn't a bit of wiggle. Maybe it was from late in the commercial whaling days and never got used. The great bowhead whales were so scarce at the last, the whalers couldn't find any. The ships sailed away and never came back.

We started east along the spit. It looked real different, new-made with sand and stones those awesome waves had tossed up. The surface had been scoured of driftwood; even the biggest logs were nowhere to be seen. We made the first tracks on the sloping beach. Halfway down the spit, we hadn't yet found a suitable landing strip.

From around a bend in the shore came the cries of gulls. That put me on guard. As we reached the bend we saw an awful sight: two polar bears washed up dead.

“Must've drowned in the storm,” Ryan said. “A mother and yearling cub, maybe?”

Ryan started snapping pictures through his long lens. With the sun from the south, the light was good for photos. “Wait a second,” he said. “I see a third bear, and it's moving. It's behind the bigger of the other two and chewing on it.”

“Yeah, I see something.”

“The third one isn't a polar bear, Nick.”

“You sure?”

“It's got a brown head.”

“I see it now. Must be a grizzly.”

How wrong I was. Suddenly the bear stood up, tall as any polar bear. Only its head and legs were brown. The rest of its fur was dirty white.

My brother cursed under his breath.

“Of all the luck,” I groaned.

Had the grolar bear seen us? I was afraid it had. It went to all fours, clambered over the polar bear it was feeding on, and stood again. We were in plain view, and the patchwork bear was looking directly at us. A wave of nausea ran through me.

“Oh, no,” my brother muttered.

“Hold this harpoon,” I told him. I opened the pouch on my hip and took out the launcher and a couple extra bangers. I made sure the launcher was loaded and switched the safety off. “Your air horn ready to go, Ryan?”

“All set.” His voice was far from steady.

The grolar bear walked three steps before coming down to all fours. It woofed at us, then laid back its ears. It broke into a lope, running down the beach toward us but not at full speed.

Ryan said, “He just wants to see what we are. We can't turn our backs on him, I know that much.”

In no time at all, the massive animal covered half the distance. I was about to shoot off a banger when the beast suddenly stopped and stood up for another look.

“Now!” Ryan cried, but I didn't need to be told. I raised the launcher, aimed above the bear, and fired. The weird whistling like an artillery shell hardly fazed it, and neither did the explosion like a gunshot above its head. I fired off a second and a third. Each time the creature flinched but didn't turn and run. The grolar bear came down onto all fours. It clacked its jaws, huffed once, woofed twice.

Then it charged, full-speed. I grabbed the harpoon from Ryan's hands. “Air horn!” I yelled. Ryan set the thing off. Its trumpet let out a blast like the horn of an ice-road trucker.

The air horn stopped the monster in its tracks. The grolar bear hesitated, then opened its jaws wide and growled. I had the distinct feeling that the bear remembered us and wanted us dead. It showed no sign of backing off. “Give me the harpoon,” Ryan barked. “I'll cover you. Run for the cabin!”

“No way. I wouldn't get that far. When he charges, give him the air horn again.”

“You take it,” Ryan said, and tried to hand me the air horn. I shook my head. Just then the bear charged. Ryan shoved the air horn at me and tore the harpoon from my hands. I got thrown off my feet.

Ryan took a few steps toward the oncoming bear. By the time I got off my knees, the grolar bear was nearly on him. As they met, Ryan lunged at the monster, trying to spear it. The beast was too huge, too powerful. With a slap of the bear's paw, the harpoon went flying.

Ryan went to the sand on his belly, hands behind his head. Growling in rage, the bear mauled him with bites to his back, hands, and skull. I scooped up the air horn and pulled the trigger. It had two more blasts in it, but the bear was unfazed. The monster fixed those awful eyes on me, then went back to mauling Ryan.

“Hey, freak!” I screamed as I ran for the harpoon. “Come and get me!”

I'd gotten the creature's attention. It turned away from my brother and took a couple steps toward me. The grolar bear stopped and roared, mouth full of bloody slobber.

“Come and get it,” I screamed. “Yeah, you.” I was trying to convince myself I could stand up to this thing.

I was going to have only one chance. I had to do this just right, exactly the way Jonah had told me, the way our ancestors had hunted polar bears for a thousand years and more. I once asked Jonah if it could be done in modern times. He said, “I don't see why not.”

Here came my living nightmare, and my knees nearly buckled. The monster bounded close, then stood to its full height above me like it had on the banks of the Mackenzie, like I was hoping it would again. The bear raised its front legs high in the air, showing its claws and teeth, and roared.

I kept my weapon hidden the best I could, against my side.
You have to be patient
, I heard Jonah saying.

Down the beast came.

Eyes locked on its chest, right over the heart, I planted the butt of the harpoon in the sand and spread my hands along the weapon—one hand gripping steel, the other gripping wood—and held on tight. The angle was everything.

With all its power and fury, roaring horribly, the grolar bear came down on the tip of the harpoon, burying the barbed steel deep in its chest. But had I found the heart?

The beast stood to its full height once more, roaring with rage and disbelief and pain. Blood spouting from mouth and nostrils, the bear swiped at the harpoon but failed to dislodge it.

The grolar bear wouldn't go down. Now what?

The bear staggered forward, one paw poised to slash me open. I jumped back and drew my hunting knife.

I didn't have to use it. That freak of nature fell dead at my feet.

R
yan got to his feet more concerned about his camera than himself. I think he was still in shock. I know I was. He started taking pictures of the dead bear. He asked me to kneel beside it. He took my picture. I looked solemn and grim.

People who've seen the article in
National Geographic
ask me what I was thinking right then. I tell them I have no idea. I was numb.

Soon as Ryan got his pictures, I pointed out that his hands were all bloody. So was his skull—he had some deep bite marks in it, and a flap of scalp was about to fall off the back of his head. I put the flap back in place and told him to keep his hand pressed down on it.

We hurried to the cabin. I ran for the first-aid box off the raft. I tended Ryan's wounds with cotton gauze and lots of disinfectant. My brother winced a few times but was tough as nails. He told me he had sutures and a needle and a needle puller in the first-aid box if I wanted to do stitches. I looked at him like he was crazy.

Ryan called Search and Rescue and told them he got mauled by the grolar bear. He described his injuries as not life threatening but said he was concerned about getting infected. Ryan asked if the helicopter at the Last Mountain campsite would come pick him up and fly him to the hospital in Inuvik.

“Sure thing. Your brother okay?”

“Unscathed.”

“They're looking to shoot the grolar bear from the air. Is it still on the spit to your knowledge?”

“Without a doubt,” Ryan said, and went on to explain why he was so sure.

A short while later we got a call from the park warden aboard the Search and Rescue helicopter—Dave Curry, from the Parks Canada office in Inuvik. He was calling from what had been the Last Mountain campsite. No trace of it remained. The flood that roared down the Firth River had rearranged its channels across the delta. The old islands were gone and new ones had been created. Last Mountain Camp was nothing but a rubble field, with no trace of the couple's bodies or gear. The chopper was headed our way.

When it arrived, as close to the cabin as it could land, Dave Curry said he'd just been in touch with Roger McKeon, who'd put the satellite collar on the grolar bear. McKeon had told him to keep watch over the bear's carcass. The helicopter was going to come back with a cargo net and fly the grolar bear to Inuvik, where it would be kept in cold storage until it could be scientifically examined.

I waved good-bye to my brother as the chopper took off. Ryan was taking pictures from up front, right out the bubble. The pilot flew low over the spit, and called Red Wiley with the news that he should be able to land on the eastern end of the island. I rowed the loaded raft through the lagoon down to the east end as the park warden, armed with a rifle, hiked down the beach to keep the grolar bear company. He hoped to keep the birds away from its eyes.