Wild Man Island (6 page)

W
HEN
I
CAME TO,
darkness engulfed me. It took a while before I figured out I was looking up at the sky. I could see stars and the ragged edge of a cloud bank lit by moonlight. Other than flat on my back, I had no idea where I was.

The faint lapping of surf jogged my memory. I remembered the mussels, the tingling, the numbness, and I remembered running.

I tried to roll over but I couldn't move, not at all. There was no sensation in my legs or my arms. I tried to curl my fingers into a ball but I felt nothing. Nothing at all.

Blink, I told myself.

I couldn't. The word came to me, the word that would describe what had happened. Paralyzed. I was completely paralyzed.

It began to drizzle. The rain fell into my open eyes.

I knew that I must be breathing, maybe just enough to stay alive, but I couldn't hear my breathing. I could hear the surf and the birds, I could see the sky, and I could think. That was all.

My mind was on my mother. Anytime now, my
breathing could shut off completely. Then I would die, I would simply die.

In case that was going to happen, I had to concentrate on my mother. I willed myself to think only of her. After she lost my father it was just the two of us, and now she was going to lose me. Forgive me, I thought. I am so, so sorry.

I must have blacked out and fallen into dreams. I was with my father, and he was teaching me flintknapping. I was using an antler tip to fleck small chips from a spearpoint. It was already fluted down the center on both sides; we were making a Clovis point.

Suddenly I saw that he had changed. He had long gray hair and a long gray beard. “You look different,” I said, and he replied, “Well, you know, I've been dead a long time.”

None of this quite made sense, but I was happy just to be with him.

“Would you like to go on a journey with me?” he asked.

“You know I would,” I said, “but I should let Mom know I'm going to be gone.”

“Oh, I'm not so sure you can do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's against the rules. I'm under a certain set of rules here. I have to go on the journey, but if you want to stay, I will understand.”

“No,” I said desperately, “I want to go with you.”

My father grabbed up the spear we'd just made. Somehow, when I wasn't looking, he'd attached the
point to a long wooden shaft. I was disappointed that I'd missed him doing the hafting. “Let's get going,” he said.

Across rivers and over mountains I followed him, along the seashore and over higher mountains. Everywhere there were bears, monstrous grizzly bears. They would stand on their hind legs and they would lay back their ears and woof at us, but they never charged.

“Why don't they ever charge you?” I asked.

“They know they can't touch me,” he replied.

“Because of your spear?”

“Because I'm dead. Bears are very intelligent. They know.”

We kept going until he led me to a certain mountainside. “You can't tell because of all the trees,” he said, “but that entire ridge is karst.”

“Limestone?” I said. “The kind that makes caves?”

With a wink, my father replied, “Just might be,” and then he led me up the mountainside to a small opening in a knobby gray rock formation.

“A cave?” I asked.

In reply, he reached inside and brought out two helmets, each with a headlamp.

I asked, “Does this mean you've found the earliest Americans?”

“Not yet,” he said.

We went inside. The formations were exquisite beyond belief. My father led me on and on, until we came to an abyss. We were looking into the depths of an immense well that seemed to have no bottom.

“Look,” I said, “across from us, the cave keeps going
on the other side. It might be possible to keep going on that ledge that swings around the side. Have you been beyond here?”

“It's against the rules.”

“But why?”

“You
can go. It looks perfectly safe. I'll wait right here.”

I aimed my headlamp for a better look. The ledge was ridiculously narrow, and water was seeping across it. “Forget I ever mentioned it,” I said.

My father didn't say anything. Obviously, he wanted me to try it. The next thing I knew, I was starting across the ledge. I got to the part that was wet and slippery. It was no wider than a balance beam, and was angled down toward the abyss. “I don't know,” I muttered. I looked over my shoulder. My father waved me on impatiently.

All at once I was slipping, slipping and falling. I reached out for a grip but my hands found only slick white stone and I pitched head over heels into the abyss.

Now I was in free flight, falling, falling, falling…

Suddenly everything changed. I was on my back again and looking straight up into the face of a bear. It was right above me, broad and huge, silhouetted against the stars. I could hear it sniffing me, I could smell its breath.

I wasn't dreaming. Being with my father had been a dream. The bear was not a dream. I'm conscious again, I thought. I've come to, and the bear is real. I'm still lying here paralyzed, and the bear is real.

The bear's face pulled away and stars replaced it. The clouds have cleared, I thought. Maybe they're gone for good. At the edge of my vision, I saw the bear's claws. The bear was still there. Gently, it was raking the life jacket that protected my chest.

I tried to feel my fingers. Still no response. The bear was gone. I willed myself not to black out.

I couldn't prevent it. Now I was on a raging river and paddling for my life. The walls of the canyon bristled black and narrow. Higher up and stepped back, they glowed a vivid red orange. This was Westwater Canyon, I realized. How many times have I heard my mother talk about it?

I looked over my shoulder for her but she wasn't there. I didn't understand it. She was always right behind me.

The whitewater was getting worse, and the river was full of rocks—jagged teeth, sleepers, and submerged stones that should have been deep enough for me to slide over. Somehow they weren't. At the stern of my kayak, something was hitting the rocks. My rudder, I realized.

I looked over my shoulder and there was my mother. “That sea kayak isn't right for this river,” she told me. “That's why river kayaks don't have rudders.”

A roar downstream brought my head around. The river was taking a plunge down an impossible-looking set of whitewater stairs. And at the bottom of the stairs, the river smashed up against the black cliffs.

“What's the deal?” I yelled back.

“Skull Rapid!” my mother exclaimed. “That's Skull down there—right down there at that screaming left-hand turn.”

“I didn't have any idea it was going to be this bad.”

“You can do it,” she shouted. “Just watch out for the Room of Doom. It's in a pocket you can't see down there next to the wall. If you're too far right, the water off the wall will throw you into the Room. Got that?”

“But I'm in a sea kayak!” I tried to yell. My words were lost in the fury of the moment. It was all I could do to stay upright. Down the stairs I went, through mountains of exploding whitewater. At every moment, I thought I was about to spill, but somehow, miraculously, I was keeping my balance. The black wall was flying by on my right; I caught a glimpse of the Room of Doom. It was a whirlpool with no escape, like they always talked about. A dead cow was swirling around and around.

I looked back upstream. Where was my mother? I looked downstream. Where was she?

She just wasn't anywhere. The river had swallowed her up. All I could see was screaming birds where my mother should have been.

I couldn't bear any more. I heaved and struggled and fought my way back to consciousness.

There was a bird on my chest. A seagull. Dawn had come and a seagull was leaning into my face. It had a red spot on the side of its bill. The gull had a predatory look to it, as if it was just about to stab me with its beak.

That's exactly what it was about to do. Stab me in the eye.

Birds do that, I thought. It thinks I'm dead. The first thing it will go for is my eyes.

I struggled. I struggled just to close my eyelids. I couldn't. I could hear other gulls screaming and now I could see them flying in from all sides.

A second gull landed on me. The first one turned around and attacked it. I could hear their squawking and the beating of their wings, but I was powerless to do a thing.

One of them was back in my face.

I heard a loud bark. A deep, loud bark—two, three times. The bark of a dog?

The gulls flew off screaming as the face of a dog appeared directly above mine. It was a very large dog with a broad head, a large, long-haired, black dog. Dried blood caked one of its ears. I had seen this dog before.

Derek's Newfie? I wondered.

Then I remembered. This was the Newfoundland that had been running with the wolves.

The dog licked my face two, three times. Its tongue was wet and scratchy.

Don't leave, I pleaded mentally. Don't leave, or the gulls will peck my eyes out.

I waited, hoping the dog's face would reappear.

It did. The dog sniffed me like the bear had sniffed me, and it licked me again.

The dog left my vision. I couldn't tell if it was staying
or if it had gone away. I was afraid it had gone. Its face didn't come back.

Yet neither did the seagulls.

A while later I thought I heard a snuffle close by, and still later I thought I heard a yawn. I prayed that the dog was lying close beside me. Had stayed with me.

At last I could move my eyelids. It was then I realized that I could breathe deeper. I could feel my fingers, I could feel my toes.

Eventually I could move my head to the side. No dog, only forest and mountains against a bright blue sky. I rolled my head to the other side, and there was the Newfoundland lying in the sunlight next to the spear.

“Good dog.” I mouthed. Little sound, if any, came out.

In response, the Newfoundland beat his great tail up and down.

I reached my right hand toward him. He smelled it, and then he licked it. The dog placed his great paw over the spear, and then he nuzzled the spear.

I understood immediately. He was with me because of the spear, because I had that spear.

A
S
I
INSPECTED THE DOG'S EAR,
he nuzzled the spear shaft. It was six in the morning, and the sun was already climbing high in the sky. It was warm. Finally it was warm again.

The fur on the Newfoundland's ear was matted with blood and dirt. Flies were pestering his ear and the back of his head. If I could clean the fur, I could get a look at the wound.

I tried to stand, to move over to the creek, but dizziness knocked me down. The dog got up and stood next to me. With a hand on his great back, I steadied myself and stood up.

Something made me glance upstream. A bear was sauntering by.

The Newfoundland, sniffing the wind, looked directly at the bear. The dog didn't seem concerned. I snatched up the spear.

The bear gave us a wide berth. It crossed the stream and angled toward the beach. I steadied myself on the spear and hobbled to the creek bank.

It felt good to splash water on my face and in my
hair. I took a long drink, raked my hair with my fingers, then sat on the bank as the dog waded into the water. He turned around and snapped at the flies bothering his neck.

I closed my eyelids and aimed them at the sun. I hadn't felt this warm since Baranof Island.

The dog waded back and allowed me to rinse his ear. The cut wasn't that bad. But where my hand rested on his neck, I felt a thicker mat of bloodied fur and discovered a wound that was more serious. “You run with a rough crowd,” I told him. My voice came out as ragged as I felt.

The Newfie nuzzled my hand and wagged his tail. I was amazed that a dog capable of holding his own with wolves was this docile toward me. I wondered if the man with the spear was the only person this dog had ever known.

The man with the spear, I wondered. Who in the world is he?

Suddenly I was trying to sort out one of those crazy mixed-up dreams of a few hours before, when I lay paralyzed. My father and I had been making a spearpoint together. Suddenly he was all different. He had long gray hair and a big beard, and he was much older.

Though it didn't occur to me then, it did now: As my father led me into the cave, he looked just like the wild man. What was that all about?

I knew the answer. Deep down, since I first laid eyes on him, I must have been hoping that somehow the wild
man and my father were one and the same. That all this time, my father had been alive and hiding out on this island.

Nice try, I thought. If my father had ever been missing, there might be reason for hope, but his body had been recovered at the foot of Hidden Falls.

I shook the painful cobwebs out and returned to the present, to the dog. As I rinsed and cleaned the neck wound, I had to keep chasing the flies away. The wound was a couple inches long, nasty enough that a vet would have closed it. The best I would be able to do, now that the wound was clean, was to wrap something around his neck to keep the flies off.

My thermal underwear top was extra long. I wouldn't miss four inches.

I stripped to the waist and still I felt warm. The sun had burned a large blue hole in the sky. The clouds had shrunk to the east, far beyond the cliffs that rose out of the sea in the foreground.

Starting at those cliffs, I couldn't walk the coast. What was I going to do now?

For the time being at least, I had a companion. I didn't feel nearly so gloomy as I had before I'd eaten the mussels. For some reason, my stomach wasn't cramping anymore. Maybe this was just a side effect of the poison.

I sliced the material from my thermals, rinsed it thoroughly, then tied it around the dog's neck. For the time being, the flies couldn't get to the wound.

The wind was starting to blow. It was nine in the morning. A new blanket of ribbed clouds was racing in
from the west. The sunshine wasn't going to last. I took a quick bath in the stream.

The dog suddenly became agitated. He started trotting off, barking at me. No doubt about it, he was telling me he was leaving. It seemed for all the world like he wanted me to follow. He kept trotting up the stream bank, as if he intended to follow the stream inland.

As I pulled on my clothes, I had one eye on the dog and the other on the cliffs. “I'm not sure if I should go or stay,” I called to the dog. “I'm finally close to deep water. Next to those cliffs, maybe I could flag a fishing boat.”

With an air of finality, the Newfoundland walked far up the stream. He looked back only as he was about to disappear behind some brush. Again, he barked.

He was waiting, but he wasn't going to wait long. I had to make a decision.

The dog, somehow, was my only lifeline. Everything else was uncertain. My only certainty was this dog. He was in prime condition. He knew how to find food of some kind, and was bound to lead me to it.

Unless his food was provided by the wild man.

If that's where he leads me, I thought, then so be it.

I pulled on my life jacket, tucked the knife away, and snatched up the spear.