The Skeleton Tree (17 page)

I went right then, before I could change my mind. I drowned the fire and stamped out the coals. I would have to use the last match to start a new fire, but I was terrified at the thought of Frank burning up in the cabin.

I took the roll of orange caution tape that I'd found long ago, closed the door firmly behind me, and walked north in my ragged poncho. With every step I thought about the bear, and the closer I got to the
Reepicheep
the harder it was to keep going.

When I reached the wreck I found it torn apart. It looked like one of the skeletons in its coffin, a giant wooden rib cage surrounded by scattered bones. More than half the planks had been pulled away, and they lay splintered on the beach. Inside, below a pile of broken timbers, I found the gaff and the knife. I grabbed them and hurried away.

Past the boulders, around the point, all the way to the waterfall, I kept turning my head. I knew the bear was somewhere around me, and I wondered if there was a man as well, the man my father told me to watch for. I heard the slithering of the little crabs scuttling away in front of me, and thought it was strange that I could frighten them just as much as the bear frightened me. I wished that I too could hide under a rock if the bear appeared.

At the waterfall a rainbow arched above the river. Dead salmon went tumbling past as I climbed past the grizzly highway and trekked up to the river. Even the gulls had moved on, chasing the salmon upstream. I could hear them squawking and screaming in the distance.

As I reached the first bend I saw a wolf. It was long-legged and thin, splashing across the river like a dog on skinny stilts. It climbed the bank and shook itself, spraying a silver mist. I felt no fear, although I knew it was utterly wild. It glanced back over its shoulder, then disappeared among the trees.

Straight ahead, the mountain filled half the sky. The fresh snow had melted, but there were gleaming patches high on the slopes, above the ragged divide of forest and rock.

For a while I just stood and stared at the jagged peak. Then I followed the wolf into the forest and started up the mountain.

The sound of the river soon faded. My time in Alaska had made me slim and strong, with muscles I'd never had before. I used the gaff like a pirate's hook, swinging myself over fallen logs.

Every ten or twenty yards I stopped and tied a piece of the orange tape to a branch or to a bush. I wanted to make sure I could find my way back, but I kept seeing those words reeling out between my hands:
CAUTION. CAUTION.

I went nearly straight uphill, aiming for the summit whenever I saw it through the trees. When I came out of the forest, as high up the mountain as trees could grow, I tied the last of my ribbon in a big bundle to a little dwarf of a tree. Then I started up a stony slope with my shadow sliding along beside me. It was short and chubby, and I laughed when I saw it. “Oh, hi, Alan,” I said. “How's it going?”

The thin air left me breathless; the height made me dizzy. Soon I was panting for breath. I looked down over the river, over the forest and the ocean. I found the little grassy patch around the skeleton tree.

My shadow Alan kept growing as we climbed together. The setting sun made him tall and thin. His skinny arms swung like sticks. But he was already fading away, turning paler all the time.

The slope grew steeper. I heard a rumbling noise and looked up to see a cloud of dust rolling down the mountain. Dark-colored rocks bounded along inside it. As they crashed into the forest below me, a mass of crows burst from the trees. The dust cloud grew smoky thin as it drifted across the mountain.

I climbed at an angle toward the ridge, and found myself at a slope of loose shale. It was just like the place where I'd struggled with Alan when I was nine years old. I could almost see Uncle Jack and my father and the straggling line of boys making their way across it.

My shadow Alan was now an eighty-foot giant sprawled on the shale. I raised my arm and so did he, his fingers zooming up across the rock to touch the very tip of the mountain.

“Let's go,” I told him, and stepped out onto the shale.

Tiny stones skittered away underneath me. I started sliding, then fell forward as I reached out to catch myself. The shadows of my hands stretched to catch them.

I heard my uncle's voice.
“Stand up straight. Don't lean into the mountain.”

Using the gaff for a walking stick, I pushed myself up. Shadow Alan moved along ahead of me, as though leading the way to the summit. He grew so tall that he couldn't even fit on the mountain. As we reached the little patch of snow and left the shale behind us, he began to fade away.

I ate handfuls of snow, crushing them into my mouth. And then, with the sun just a red line between the sea and the sky, I trudged up the ridge to the top of the mountain.

I had expected to find a sharp little peak at the summit. But there was a flat spot instead, about the same size as the cabin floor, and I stood there for a while, feeling heroic. I could see for mile after mile all around. We were definitely not on an island.

I sat to watch the sky turn black, hoping for lights to appear somewhere in the wilderness. I saw the stars come out: the Milky Way, Orion's Belt. I remembered my father taking me outside to see a meteor shower and putting names to the brightest stars. “That's the Big Dipper there. And that's Cassiopeia, that upside-down
W.
” How old was I then? Maybe three, not more than four. I remembered being carried in his arms, bouncing along. Mom was with us.

They were happy then. They held hands, leaned against each other, laughed softly in the darkness. I felt safe then. I felt loved, and I wished I could go back to that time and make it last forever.

The wind blew steadily on the top of the mountain. With just a thin, torn blanket around me, I shivered badly. I kept rubbing my arms, then stood up to stomp my feet. Below me, everything was so black that I could close my eyes and it made no difference. I had found the loneliest place in the world. I might as well have been standing on the moon. There was no one to help me. No one to save poor Frank.

A satellite went gliding by. A shooting star burned its way toward Earth. The northern lights appeared, as pale as smoke. And then the moon came up, so huge and white that it drowned out the aurora. I watched it sail along through the hours as I waited for the sun to rise again, the sad face of the man in the moon staring down at me.

I thought of my mother and father, of Alan and Uncle Jack. I thought of Frank lying alone in the cabin. Would he still be alive when I got back? I remembered him looking up at me as I left the cabin, and a little memory suddenly flashed in my mind of the very first time I'd seen him, his black hair flopping down, his mouth in a pout, his dark eyes smoldering.

I tried to bring back that memory. Again his face flashed in my mind, and I felt myself sitting on the black upholstery of a big black car. It was not in the ropey, diesel-scented warmth of
Puff
's little cabin where I'd first seen Frank. It was in a huge car as it sat idling at a gate made of brick and iron, below enormous trees. I was sitting in the back with my mother. Uncle Jack was up in the front seat, and a man in a dark suit was driving. He'd stopped to let a yellow taxi turn in front of us. It came through the gate and went slowly past, and I saw a boy in the backseat, staring out through the window. His dark hair fell over one eye, and he blew it aside with a puff of breath.

That was Frank. It was Frank a bit younger, Frank in a suit and tie. But it was the same boy I had met many months later in Kodiak.

Our lives had crossed for an instant at the gates to the cemetery, on the day of my father's funeral. Now, alone on the mountain, I tried to figure out how that had happened. At first it seemed a big coincidence, but suddenly everything fell into place. I leaned back my head and shouted, like a wolf howling at the moon. In that moment I knew the answer to almost every question that had bothered me since my first day in Alaska. It made me happy and sad and angry, and I folded down on the ground and started sobbing. High above me, the man in the moon went floating by.

I could hardly wait to talk to Frank. I was excited, and nervous too, and I started down the mountain as soon as I saw the sun. I followed the ridge and crossed the patch of snow, going faster all the time. I leapt along the line of my own footprints and bounded down the shale. A river of stone cascaded around me, and I rode it all the way to the trees. I felt as though my life had changed.

On the long hill through the forest I startled a deer. It burst from a bush with its white tail twitching and raced ahead of me. I followed it, weaving between the trees, bashing through bushes, hurdling fallen logs. My strips of caution tape flashed beside me, here and there, and the deer and I ran together down the mountain. My imaginary world had come true. I was Robinson Crusoe, the castaway boy, hurtling through the forest on the heels of a deer.

It veered to the side and down a steep gully, crashing through crackly bushes. I stopped to catch my breath—and found I'd lost the way. Though I looked all around, I couldn't see any orange tape.

I listened for the river, or for the surf along the shore. But the forest absorbed all sound. I couldn't see the sun or the shadows it cast; I couldn't tell east from west. I walked straight downhill, hoping to reach the ocean.

Instead, I came to the trail of the grizzly bears.

I felt icy cold as I stood in one of the ancient, hollowed footprints and wondered what to do. I could keep blundering down the hill and hope for the best, or I could follow the trail to the river and
know
where I was. What if I met the bear from the river, or even another, bigger bear? But what if I didn't follow the trail and got hopelessly lost? What if I had to spend a night among all the bears, and the wolves, and whatever else there might be? What if Frank died because I was late getting back?

I took the trail.

It was the way Uncle Jack would have gone. The daredevil route. It was probably the way Frank would have gone in my place. But to walk down the grizzly highway was the most frightening thing I'd ever done. The air seemed to tingle with the nearness of bears, and I strained to hear the padding of huge paws, the huffing of breath. When I heard seagulls crying faintly, I went faster. When I heard the waterfall, I started running.

I had never been happier to see the ocean. I started calling for Thursday as I passed the
Reepicheep,
and when he didn't come to greet me, I feared something was wrong.

But my worries melted away when I reached the cabin and heard his muttering voice. He was
inside.
Feeling happy and jealous at the same time, I stopped at the door to listen. I couldn't hear Frank, but Thursday made his lovely little raven sounds. A jolt shot through my heart. What if he'd changed friends, choosing Frank instead of me?

I yanked the door wide open.

On the bed, Frank was lying on his back. Thursday's black head shot up beside him, rising over his chest. Something green and black dangled from the raven's beak. With a cry of surprise he dropped it, and his wings whistled open.

It made my heart sink to see them so close together. Frank didn't even turn toward me. “Well, I'm back!” I shouted, stepping inside.

Frank still didn't move. But Thursday shrieked at me to keep away. His wings wide open, his little eyes ablaze, he looked like a demon.

I felt sad and betrayed, so empty inside. I wanted to turn and run from the cabin. But then I saw that Thursday's beak was stained with blood.

“Frank?” I said. He still didn't move.
“Frank?”

I went right up to the bed. Thursday flapped his wings and cried frantically with human words.
Clever bird. Clever bird!

Frank looked more dead than asleep. His injured hand lay splayed on top of the bed, all red and torn. His wounds gaped open, tinged green around the edges and stuffed with a puss-like paste.

Every awful thing I'd heard about ravens seemed true. The graveyard bird, the eater of corpses. There stood Thursday with Frank's blood smeared on his beak, that same green paste bubbling from his nostrils.

“Get out of here!” I raised the gaff and rushed forward. “Go on, get out!”

I tried to hit him. I tried to
kill
him. But Thursday whirled around in midair and flew out through the door.

I hurled the gaff after him. It went spinning into the trees, and little twigs came raining down in a sprinkle of needles. But already Thursday was far away. I hoped he was gone forever.

Angry and sad, I went back to the cabin and closed myself inside. I jammed sticks and wood in the window to make sure that Thursday could not come in. Then I sat on the bed to care for Frank.

More than ever, I worried about him. He slept all day and he slept all night. Toward dawn, he started moaning. He tossed on the bed, kicking his legs as though trying to run. I sat right beside him. “It's all right,” I said. “It's okay.”

When I went out for more wood I was surprised to see Thursday standing near the door. He was back in his old place, where he had waited in the early days, hoping I'd let him in. He looked up at me and made his little welcoming cry.

“Go away,” I told him. “I don't want you around anymore. I don't like you.”

He blinked at me, looking so sad that I knew he understood. Then he lowered his head as though bowing, raised it again and stepped backward.

On the ground by his feet was a watch. I could tell with a glance that it was the fanciest watch
I'd
ever seen. Silver and gold, it had a dial nearly as big as a pancake.

Clever bird,
said Thursday. He shuffled back another step and tipped his head again, inviting me to take the watch. It glistened in the morning light.

More wary than he'd ever been, the raven kept his wings partly open, ready to fly away in a moment. His round eyes shifted from side to side. When I bent down he hopped back, careful to stay out of reach.