Drone Chase

by Pam Withers

  “Thanks agin,” he says, lifting his John Deere cap a second time.

  “Son,” he adds, eyes narrowing slightly, maybe because of the sun. “Take care of that there granddad of yours. Or is it true you’re headed home to the big smoke now, like your granddad jist tol’ me on the phone?” With a click, the gate’s padlock closes, and without a backward glance, Oakley and a fully mended Chief trot away.

  I take a deep breath and bite my tongue. Everyone knows everything around here, within minutes. Count on it.

  “Well,” says Mom, gazing at the money in her hand. “At least he paid up.”

  She spins like she’s about to get back in the Jeep, then frowns as she takes in my slumped figure. She walks over in her high heels and embraces me. “You and me,” she whispers. “We’re a team. Let’s have some city fun before Dad comes home.”

  I rip myself away from her before the floodgates open. “No!” I shout, running down the hill. “You can’t force me to choose between you and Dad, or here and the city!”

  I veer away from the road so she can’t see me, can’t follow me. She’ll change her mind, I tell myself. She was just testing me. She’ll forgive Granddad. He’ll lay off her. Dad will convince her to stay. I won’t witness my family’s breakup.

  Biting my tongue, I also decide I won’t go back to the log cabin. I’ll do what I’ve been intending to do all day: hide in my workshop and finish my night-vision drone, Skyliner. Then head to the cannery, with or without Officer Anderson, and rescue Hank. He’s back to being my only friend in Bella Coola.

  I work much of the night, dozing off just once. Dad begs me to come in, then brings me a sandwich. His face looks grey and long. He drags his feet as he walks, like Min-jun in his sleep. I wait for Mom to U-turn on her ride to the airport, show up here in my workshop. Surely she’ll take my hand, beg forgiveness, and lead me to supper. When I hear Bella Coola’s last flight south lift up overhead, I tell myself Mom’s not on it. Or if she is, then one day in Vancouver, or a week in New York, and she’ll return for us. She knows it’s wrong.

  It’s unfair. It’s a hurtful, unreasonable, inexcusable, rash, imprudent, dumb-assed mistake. Reversible. The plane will turn around. Can I send all my drones up into its flight path to force it down? Not. At least I’ve repaired Butterfly, who sits pretty on the shelf beside Bug, watching me work on my drone number three.

  At 3:30 a.m., I lift my thermal camera and attach it to the gimbal that now forms its underbelly. “You’re looking a little chubby, dude,” I tell it. “But you’re finished! Finally!”

  Dripping with tiredness, heart pounding, nerves on edge, I place my precious bundle under my arm and tiptoe into the house. There, I grab a jacket, some snacks, and the Jeep’s key. In the clinic, I grab some sedative pills to ease Hank’s pain. Next, I slip into the garage and load up a life jacket, a paddle, a headlamp, and some bear spray — even a small pair of bolt cutters for good measure.

  It’s 4:15 and still pitch-black when I slide the canoe onto the Jeep’s racks without a single squeak. Grounded? Can’t use the Jeep or canoe? Try to stop me, old man. You just tore our family apart the way a split nucleus creates an atomic bomb explosion. I hope the guilt kills you while I’m away. You think I can’t walk through the woods by myself? Think I’m scared of trees? You are so wrong. You’re wrong, nasty, evil, and manipulative.

  My ear begins spitting sparks of pain. I clamp my hand over it. You took my ear away. I don’t know what happened, but it was never my fault, was it? You took my mother away. You probably even ordered your friend Evan Anderson not to call me back.

  Tears are running down my face as I back out of the garage and drive to the town’s boat launch. There’s not another set of headlights on the road. I ease the canoe off at the ramp, then park the Jeep, knowing there’s a spare key under the back bumper for someone to return it home. Let them report me lost or a runaway. They’ll never find me in the Great Bear Rainforest, which is the size of West Virginia. It’s bigger than Nova Scotia. It’s like one and a half Switzerlands, according to one tourist brochure.

  I’m about to step into the canoe when I notice a small camouflage motorboat tied up nearby. Has to be the one I saw with my binoculars the first day of the Outdoors Club trip. I can still picture it slipping under the cannery dock. I wander over and look into it. Nothing to mark it as suspicious. Just a small outboard motor, and oars with oarlocks. But it could belong to the poachers! Disabling it would slow down their operation, right? I wrestle with my conscience for a minute, glance around, then manhandle the motor off the stern and dump it in the woods behind. Wiping sweat from my brow, and fighting off the guilt, I toss branches on top of the motor, then return to haul the oars under a nearby fallen tree for good measure.

  Far to the east, a grey stripe announces the coming day. I climb into my getaway canoe, plunge my paddle into the dark water, and move forward while keeping close to shore, where bears, cougars, wolves, and wolverines watch with glowing eyes and crouch, waiting to pounce. But not on me, not today.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WIND WHIPS AGAINST my life jacket, and waves ricochet off the sides of the canoe, but I’m a man on a mission, unswampable. My biceps and pecs, or lack thereof, pull and pull some more. My tongue tastes both salt water and sweat. Grey seagulls swoop overhead. Before me lies a breathtaking panorama of glaciated mountains, river, inlet, and trees. Endless trees. I love trees.

  I remember Dad and Granddad making me my first wooden paddle, helping me stain it, showing me how to pull it through the sparkling water of this same bay. Despite vacationing here only once a year, I’m a Bella Coolan of sorts, I tell myself, and maybe a McLellan after all.

  I know more, am capable of more, than I give myself credit for, or than Granddad would ever admit. I can be both outdoorsman and urban, Granddad, as surely as my mother’s blood pulses in me along with yours and Dad’s. Then there’s my mother’s temper plus your temper: a helluva combo to inherit. Together they make me stubborn and determined enough to be heading for the cannery right now.

  As dawn makes the sky flame pink, I eye the approaching huddle of sagging buildings, but give them a wide berth and pass on by, so as not to arouse suspicion. I’ll override my fears to set up in the dense woods beyond, well off cannery property but within drone-flying distance of it. We’ll go undetected, me and my squadron: Bug, Butterfly, and Skyliner. I’ll direct one or more to buzz in, get the shot this time, and fly out. Then it’s up to the cops or conservation officer. I’ll let them shut the operation down. Mom, Dad, and I will look after the rescued bears when they’re released. Wait, Mom’s gone. My parents have split up. Ray, keep your mind on beaching the canoe.

  I manage to push my bow between two barnacle-covered boulders. As I leap out and pull on the canoe’s lead rope, I wet my hiking boots and the hem of my new slim-fit cargo pants — yes, I’ve dressed down for the day, or maybe it’s my new look. Finally, I turn the boat over and sink down on it, shivering in the cool morning air.

  I almost bolt back to the water when I hear something scramble along a branch two storeys above. Picturing a bear about to drop down and maul me, I raise my face and cover my throbbing ear. Two black, beady eyes peer back from that perch. Oh my god. I’m about to reach for my bear spray when the creature’s funny-looking head moves more clearly into view. Okay, idiot. It’s a porcupine. But from a distance, porcupines look just like bear cubs with bad haircuts.

  “Boo,” I shout at it, aiming a pinecone upwards. The creature skitters along the branch toward the tree trunk and disappears. Good riddance to him. I’ve pulled quills out of way too many dogs on my vacations here to feel kindly toward the prickly creatures. Peering at the rough bark of another tree trunk, I wonder if I’m going crazy. It’s literally rippling in the grey light. I move toward it, then leap back. An army of ants, rushing in streams like Grand Central Station commuters.

  Stop wasting time, Ray. Get a grip. Fly a drone.

  Of course, locating a spot tha
t offers clearance overhead for my drones is a challenge. No Min-jun or Cole to help me, no Granddad to micromanage me. It’s okay, because I can do this.

  Still, I’m overwhelmed by a need for companions, preferably last week’s camping mates. Then I remind myself they’re pretty much ex-mates since I opened my stupid mouth about drones carrying salmon to our campsite. Did I really expect them to buy that? But maybe, just maybe, it’ll make some sense to them later. They’ve grown up here. Surely they’ll realize that the salmon couldn’t have come from our site’s stream. Nor do bears drag their dinner into an occupied campsite before eating it.

  I pack up my three drones, my remote controller, FPV goggles, a snack, the headlamp, and the binoculars in my backpack, and double check that my bear spray and water bottle are on my belt. Finally, I pat my cargo pants pockets, which contain the handful of sedatives for Hank, my phone, and the bolt cutters.

  Good to go. I wander uphill, my heart pounding like a New York City jackhammer. Twigs crackle underfoot, while above me, old branches rub, creak, and threaten to break and fall on my head. Some of the larger trees sport enormous toe-like appendages where they meet the ground, while their roots snake over the entire forest floor, plotting to trip me up. The dew on the endless ferns wets my calves, neon-bright moss makes for slippery walking even in my new woodsman boots, and tiny creatures scurrying in the undergrowth are making this walk a freak-out fest.

  I’m on high alert for bears, terror shadowing my every footfall. Indeed, the forest seems to close in on me by the minute. Maybe this is dumb. Maybe I should have stayed home. No. Home isn’t home anymore. And I’m here to help Hank.

  My breath leaves me when I see a large shadow up ahead. I freeze behind a three-foot-wide fir tree.

  I note the silver-tipped hump, the barge-sized feet, and the teddy-bear ears. It’s definitely a grizzly, and it seems to be in happy mode. Crouched with front paws crossed neatly beside a stream’s muddy patch, it keeps poking its nose into the water and blowing bubbles, then popping them with an ursine bite. Like a kid at bath time.

  Now he — definitely a “he,” I can see now — rolls in moss like he’s having all the fun in the world, but soon moves to an indentation on the hill and lies down like a tired child, rubbing his tummy and wiggling his nose like it’s nap hour. Taking his time, he scratches his sides with his hind feet, gives himself a chest massage with all four paws, and finally rubs his face with his front claws. I watch him dig, presumably for insects, then shake his shaggy coat and swagger to a tree.

  I’m smiling. He’s so, well, human.

  He rears up, his back to the tree, and rubs it like he needs a back scratch. Mussett told us about bear-rubbing trees. During mating season, the guys do it to leave their scent so the girls they’re after know they’re around and looking. They also do it to let the other guys know their territory — like dogs pee to mark theirs, and human gangs spray graffiti tags. Granddad told me cubs sometimes rub on the same trees to pick up an aggressive male’s scent, so that he’s less likely to kill them. Smart kiddos.

  There’s no way I’m going to accidentally surprise this one, like I did Hank’s mother. I’ve learned a thing or two since then. Gotta stay at least 250 feet away: the wingspan of a 747.

  I try to imagine a 747 between me and the beast, who’s moving up and down like he’s practising dance moves. My damaged ear is producing so much static, I’m afraid the grizzly is going to hear it. I’d love to climb into the imaginary 747 and fly out of here, but that’s not going to happen. I could stand here ready to spray him, or dive to the ground and lock my hands around my face and neck, or —

  Climb a tree, Ray. You can. You’ve got time. You’ve done it before.

  Heart pounding, I notice how the fir offers low footholds. I’m about to scramble up when it occurs to me to leave Bug at the tree’s base. I can operate it from higher up, but maybe not launch it from some narrow branch without crashing it. So, after setting Bug down like a garden elf, I put foot against bark and begin to climb. Higher and higher I go, stomach knotted like a New York pretzel, hands catching and bleeding on rough branches, boots occasionally slipping. At least I ditched the silver running shoes, a useless souvenir of … well, of that city my cowardly Mom is heading toward this minute.

  One story, two storeys, three storeys above the forest floor. No falling from here, I order myself. I’m upwind of looking-for-romance Stud Griz, who seems to have taken no notice of me. Grizzlies can but usually don’t climb trees, I remind myself. Except as cubs, when they populate treetops by the dozens, like little dark apples while they wait for their mothers to gather salmon or berries below. Riverside trees serve as an “ursine daycare,” I read somewhere. Cute mental snapshot, but I’m a cub waiting for this griz to go away, not come and collect me.

  I look upward to see my treetop swaying in the breeze like a carnival ride. It’s maybe fifteen stories high, a dwarf compared to surrounding lodgepole pines and Sitka spruces, but those are less climber-friendly, like Mussett said. The sturdy branches of my perch continue to lead upward at well-spaced intervals, as if this specimen takes pride in training novices.

  When the barbed-wire fence and cannery come into view, my curiosity leads me higher, shaking but relieved to be out of reach of Stud Griz, still using his dating app. Maybe ten storeys up, I find a secure nook where I can sit on a broad branch, lean back against the sturdy trunk, and enjoy an excellent view of the cannery. It looks as abandoned and lifeless as it should, but I know better. Before launching my drone on an exploratory, I pull out my binoculars and scan every inch of the place. Every graffitied wall, broken shingle, and rotting boardwalk plank. Every sagging window frame and pile of debris. After ten minutes of scanning, I’m bored.

  Stud Griz has finished with the rubbing tree and is loping uphill. My pulse rises as I watch him pick up his pace close to the fence, well above the last cannery buildings. He’s striding with a purpose now, almost like he’s going to crash through the barbed wire. But wait. There’s an opening, a short missing section of fencing. Clipped on purpose? I watch him gallop through it toward a small clearing and raise his snout to sniff.

  Something ahead of him glints in the sun: something small and metal. Zooming in on the object with my binoculars, I draw in a breath. It’s the size and shape of a steering wheel, but has steel teeth and a heavy chain attached to it. Please don’t let it be a leg trap. That’s a cruel way to catch any animal, sometimes snapping shut right to the bone.

  Fumbling to bring my pack in front of me, I fish out my controller to capture whatever’s about to happen. It’s awkward launching Bug from my shaky seat, but soon he’s in the air and hovering over the metal object and a barrel of garbage beside it. Garbage? It looks like there’s food inside, on top, and spread all around the barrel, which is attached to a tree. Bear bait! Alarm bells go off in my head, as Stud Griz’s humpy back and droopy buttocks make for the food. No way will I sit still while a healthy male bear steps into a leg trap set by bear-baiting poachers. I realize I want to prevent this disaster-in-motion more than I want to document it. So I turn my little guy right into Stud Griz’s face and circle his head, annoying him like a mechanical bee.

  It distracts him from his purpose, making him swat at the drone and back away from the trap. Yes! Keeping my heroic drone just out of reach of those killer paws, I attempt to lead him away from the clearing, away from the trap, which is ready to spring and cut deeply into the golden fur of his sturdy legs.

  What I don’t expect is a horde of mini-drones to fly out from one of the cannery buildings and beeline for Bug. Where did they come from? I’ve heard of federal prisons, industrial business sites, and airports keeping fleets of small drones on standby to swarm recreational drones that wander too close. There’s good reason: Drones have been known to deliver cellphones, information, drugs, and guns to inmates, which is why prison guards have started using this kind of defence. And thieves sometimes use drones to spy on a building’s security guards, in o
rder to better time a robbery. Commercial properties are simply trying to protect their interests. But the interests of this particular operation are off-the-charts nasty.

  Whatever I expected today, it certainly wasn’t to encounter a formation of enemy drones. Like a biblical drove of insects all but darkening the sky — well, okay, I see about fifty of them, anyway — such swarms typically drive off would-be intruders through intimidation and physical chase-dodge-and-bluff tactics. Worse, they’ll follow the intruder home.

  Bug’s got the least stamina of my fleet. He can fly twenty minutes max. With only ten minutes left in him right now, and nothing to show on his camera but a glinting metal object and a hungry bear, my store-bought drone needs to either shake off the nasties on his tail or land anywhere but where he started, at the foot of this tree. Half-choked, I realize I need him to lead the swarm on a wild-goose chase, then sacrifice himself to a higher cause — in other words, drop out of the sky when he runs out of juice, somewhere far away from me. Otherwise, their drones will follow Bug straight to me.

  He follows my reluctant orders to lift up and away toward Campsite 78. Let my rival drone operator think I’m tenting up there. There’s a ghost of a chance I can retrieve the drone later. For now, he needs to valiantly keep his two siblings and me safe. Bug stays in the game most of the way up the mountainside, but goes down in a thicket of salal somewhere just short of the campsite, leaving me devastated, guilty, pissed off at his pursuers, and with little hope I’ll ever see him again.

  Meanwhile, in the little clearing above the cannery, the grizzly is bellowing in pain, probably from a deep wound in his leg after stepping into the trap despite my drone’s efforts. A bearded man appears, running up from the cannery, carrying a large-calibre rifle. Oakley Logan. He’s on his own because I disabled his brother’s boat, I’m guessing. So that means he was operating the drones? A man of many talents, I think bitterly: My father’s former classmate and my granddad’s hunting buddy is skilled at kidnapping, milking, killing, and chopping up bears. I close my eyes and cover my ears.