Surviving Bear Island (20 page)

I pulled out my last piece of jerky. I was gonna save it for the night and boil it, but I was hungry now.

I looked at the steep slope as I chewed, trying to pick the easiest route down.

The coast bent back. The inlet with the copper-colored cliffs. Huge cliffs, I remembered. I let out a breath. Another piece of water to walk around. Something you could cross in a kayak in thirty minutes. I wished I could walk on water. We'd camped in the back of this inlet. It had a narrow entrance, but the water wound back for a few miles through steep country. Sheer cliffs rising from the water one thousand feet or more in lots of places. Hard-walking country.

I thought about the lakes above Hidden Bay. Was that pass a short cut to the Sentinels? Would I already be there if I'd gone that way? I thought about the prints I'd seen on the lakeshore. Had my dad gone that way?

Choices. Life was full of choices. Don't look back, I told myself. It does no good. I swallowed the last of my jerky and started down the slope in search of a place to camp.

IN THE
morning, I didn't want to move out from under the spruce boughs I'd piled up, then crawled into. Didn't want to face the day with no food. But through the web of needles and branches, I saw the sun poking some rays into the ravine I'd camped in, and I couldn't waste that.

I sat up and pushed through the boughs like I was hatching from an egg. I stretched my arms, then closed my eyes to keep the sun out. I fell back onto the boughs, but the north wind bending into the inlet chilled me, telling me to get up and get going.

I squatted by the trickle of water that flowed through the ravine, filled my bowl and drank, willing my body to live off the water.

I tied my pile jacket around my middle, knowing I'd soon be warm from climbing to the crest of the cliffs on the opposite side of the ravine. Or at least attempting to climb. Food or no food, as long as I could still move, I'd keep going.

And I thought it was crazy that I'd survived even this long. Figuring out how to catch fish, build shelters, dry meat. And how to do all that without going crazy, or shriveling up in fear, or sinking into a pit of depression, or when I did sink, being able to haul myself out. And despite all the mistakes I'd made, I was still here. Still walking toward the Sentinels.

I laughed a sad laugh. I guess I'd survived so far by just paying attention and not giving up. And the mistakes, yeah, I'd made a bunch, but I'd kept going. I thought about the sea otter pup and about all that meat, and said out loud, “That wasn't a mistake. That was a choice.”

And not going crazy from being alone? I still didn't know what to think
about that. Why wasn't I a nutcase by now? Maybe I was, and just couldn't tell.

I climbed to the crest of the first cliff. I could see across the inlet to the copper-colored cliffs on the other side and knew I was standing on the same. And back from the cliffs, the mountains rose, fresh snow on the peaks.

On the flat-topped ridge, giant evergreens towered over me while the wind pushed me along. I wished all the walking was this easy. Just a stroll through flat, open forest all the way to the Sentinels. And when I made it, there'd be a boat, and people, and food, lots of food. Candy bars, chips, steak.

I climbed up and down three more times, my legs weak from lack of food somehow still moving forward.

Take two steps and rest. Two steps and rest. That's how I got myself up that final ridge.

I could hear a stream now, somewhere below me, running through a fold in the copper cliffs.

Down there. Where I'd camped with Dad. Down there somewhere. When we still had the kayak. When we were on an adventure together.

“Just me now,” I said. “Me and the wild. I'm wild. Part of the wild.”

I even felt like I belonged on Bear Island. Not belonged like I should stay here forever, but belonged like I was part of the place. And that feeling of belonging, I realized, had helped me to keep going.

I was living in the place, getting all I needed from it to keep my heart ticking and lungs sucking.

Sure, I still wanted some chicken enchiladas and salsa and Coke and some chocolate cake. I wanted a hot shower. And to read my mom's stories and listen to her music, and to play her guitar. And to meet up with Heather if she moved back to Fairbanks. I wanted to help my dad set up the wall tent and walk his snowshoe trails with him.

But on Bear Island all I wanted was food and warmth. And to not be eaten. Without those, all my other wants were meaningless.

I picked my way along the spine of the ridge and then started down. The mouth of the creek came into view. The fresh water fanned out into three main channels, the cliffs folding back on themselves, giving the
stream room to enter the inlet. Islands of pale yellow seaweed and black rock separated the channels. Sea gulls worked the islands, pecking and squawking and flapping their wings in the sun that was soon to disappear over the ridge. A speck of water rose in the channel closest to me.

Late run. Late run of Silvers. Is that what Dad had said? I tried to remember, but my mind, like my body, was tired, depleted, like a balloon left out in the cold that had lost most of its air. I reached deeper, trying to recall, willing the memory to the surface, willing his voice to speak, but came up empty. Maybe a late run of silver salmon, that's all I could remember. Maybe it was the same with that first creek in Hidden Bay where I thought I'd find fish, or maybe they both didn't have any salmon, period.

I worked my way downslope, pausing several times to scan the mouth of the creek, thankful that I'd had the couple of weeks with Dad out here. Maybe he was at the Sentinels, waiting. Something was, I could feel it.

I hoped and wished that someday, somehow, my dad could know all I'd done out here. Even if I died tonight, I wanted Dad to know that I was dredging up every memory I could, every word of his wisdom, big and small alike. And that every time I heard his voice was a gift. If he survived and I didn't, could I send him a message? Could I be a voice in his head?

Down in the thigh-high beach grass I made noise. “Hey Bear! Hey Bear! Hey Bear!” I almost stepped on the first salmon carcass before I saw it. A shriveled head, no eyes, a long backbone with a little dried skin on the tail. Bigger than the pink salmon from Fish Camp.

Closer to the creek I found two more carcasses, but they were too nasty to even think about eating. Then I found a pile of bear scat.

I poked it with a stick. Dry on top and gooey underneath.

Day old. Maybe two, I guessed. My dad was always poking scat. Always trying to figure out exactly when it'd been ejected from some animal's rear and what it contained. My mom would occasionally humor him and pretend to be interested but if my dad carried on for too long, she'd just look at him with this face that said, “Okay, I know you're interested in this, but maybe you could tone it down a little.” Or, “Just think about it but don't tell me every little detail.”

At first I didn't see the dark forms that blended with the rocks of the
creek bottom. Not until they moved. Half a dozen salmon held steady in the current.

Fish. Fresh fish. Not as many as the pinks at Fish Camp, but at least there was some.

I stopped myself from trying the gaff in the deep water, and walked along the channel upstream in search of a shallow spot. At the edge of the forest, where the three braids came together, the water was still deep, three feet or more. I noticed two more groups of fish resting on the bottom of the channel.

I paused and took a deep breath. I wanted those fish. Needed those fish to fill out my caved-in stomach. To nourish the army of starved cells that made up my body. In my mind I willed the salmon to the surface so I could gaff them. And eat them. But they didn't respond.

In the forest, the creek spilled over boulders and fallen logs, the rush of flowing water filling my ears. The water echoed off the canyon walls which were set back a few hundred feet from the creek. And the trees hugged the channel, closing it in so you couldn't see upstream for more than a couple hundred feet at a stretch. At one point a large tree had fallen across the creek, spanning the thirty-foot width.

I straddled the log instead of standing on it, knowing that a fall leading to an injury, any injury, could be the end for me. I scooted my way across, like I was playing leap-frog. I walked downstream, light-headed but alert.

Fish.

Fish.

Fish.

“Hey bear. Hey bear,” I called out of habit.

Once out of the forest, I followed the channel into the intertidal zone at the edge of the beach grass.

Two more nasty carcasses.

Then I observed several large dark shadows move sideways and away from me in the shallowest water I'd seen. I froze, and then took one step backwards, my head pointing straight with my eyes straining to the side and downwards, studying the fish. I took two more slow steps backwards.

I untied my pile jacket and Dad's raincoat, let them fall with the life vests in the beach grass next to my gaff, spear, and bowl. I picked up the
gaff, and glanced back and forth between it and the creek. Still too deep. I set it down and palmed the spear. Again I looked from the spear to the creek and back several times.

I edged toward the water, my spear cupped in both hands. Three fish rested on the bottom of the channel. I focused on the fish closest to me. When I knelt, the pointy edges of the broken rock bit into my knees, like thumbtacks.

I sucked in a breath and held it, then raised the spear over my head. I aimed for the center of the closest fish, thrust the spear downwards and caught the fish just beneath the gills.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I shouted.

The fish flapped madly. I tried to lift it, but my spear came up empty, and the wounded fish escaped upstream. A deserted stretch of water lay beneath me.

A quiver ran through my body.

“Okay, fish. I'll find you.” I said, while staring at the stream. “I will search. Search. And search. And I'll just keep on searching.”

Search.

Search.

Search. The word played over in my mind as I pounded upstream. But I found nothing. So I turned toward the forest in search of a campsite. Precious daylight was fading.

THE NEXT
morning I kicked at the dead fire, gathered my stuff and headed for the creek. I'd spent the night with my back to a big tree and a fire in my face, wishing I had a fish.

The sun poured through a notch in the headland to the south, spilling long, narrow rays on the water at the mouth of the creek. The tide was coming in. I needed food, and this was my chance.

I'd thought some about the spear last night and realized I had to do more than puncture the fish. I needed a way for the spear to take hold so the fish wouldn't slip off. And then, I had a thought—a hook. Place a hook close to the end of the spear. So I took the hook off the gaff and attached it to the spear with fishing line and rope an inch or two from the end.

Now, a group of salmon swayed in the water just upstream from where I was standing. I stepped back from the bank, then moved upstream about thirty feet.

One baby step at a time, I crept toward the creek.

The fish held steady in the current. I gripped my spear with both hands, aimed for the closest fish, and thrust down. I caught the silver salmon mid-way between the gills and the dorsal fin. It tried to pull me across the channel, but I raised my spear up and out at the same time and scrambled away from the bank, the big fish swimming in the air.

I dropped the spear in the beach grass, with the flopping fish still attached to it, picked up a rock and clubbed the Silver Salmon. Still, it flopped.

I grabbed it by the tail, then smacked it on the head again. Its eyes bulged from the sockets. I wanted to tear into that fish, eat it raw, eyeballs and brains and all, but knew I needed to catch as many as I could. I took
my knife out and made a few slits around the hook and worked it out of the fish.

I turned toward the creek, but then remembered the bear scat I'd seen yesterday. So I spun a slow circle, listening, looking and feeling my surroundings, then examined the spear. The hook had slid forward a little so I slid it back and retightened the ropes and line. Then I faced the creek again.