by Pam Withers
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WITH MY HEADLAMP switched off, I’m navigating by weak starlight, tripping and stumbling over the rough ground, trying not to fall face first onto rusty nails, sharp metal roofing pieces, and other rubble. But picturing Skyliner lying on his belly, prey for a man determined to bludgeon him to death, puts fire in my calves.
I burst into the clearing just as Mr. Kim raises a rock over my drone, and I leap forward to tackle him. He’s twice my size, but I have adrenalin coursing through every vein, and enough of a surprise factor to knock him over. I’m on top of Mr. Kim, trying to pin down his arms, then he’s on top of me, punching me in the face.
Remembering the rules for surviving a bear attack, I cover my head and neck with locked hands.
“How you get out of cage? Where Oakley?” Mr. Kim is shouting in a panicked voice.
I have no idea if there are gangs in the Korea he grew up in, but I put all my city-boy fight into keeping him away from Skyliner, and we roll on the damp grass this way and that, once right into the pile of mushy bear bait — which turns out to be stinky fish — scattered at the foot of the barrel.
Like mud wrestlers, we’re now covered in the most foul-smelling crap my nostrils have ever inhaled. He’s getting the better of me, but I’m still in the fight. I have nothing personal against my neighbour, and can’t believe we’re even tussling, but I’m like a grizzly mom within feet of her threatened cub.
Suddenly I’m aware we’re slipping downhill. We’re tumbling toward the open leg traps! With all the strength left in me, I free a hand to clutch a rock and toss it straight at the nearest iron circle.
Snap! Its toothy jaws grip the rock instead of our legs and startles us into a microsecond’s pause. I use that opportunity to spring up and leap toward Skyliner. Mr. Kim’s hands close over my ankles just as my fingers clutch Skyliner’s belly hook. In the moment before my foe can yank me back to a final match, I lift and toss my favourite child into the bear-claw pit. Soft fur will be her landing spot, I hope.
There’s a strong, painful wrench on my ankles, and my bruised body gets dragged back to Mr. Kim’s meaty grip. I come to rest in the mud with my neck on top of an uncomfortable, smelly lump. Mr. Kim’s hands grip my throat, and his knees are crushing my thighs. As he raises a fist for a punch, I grab whatever is behind my neck and swipe him with it.
“Arghhh!” he cries, and his fist just misses my face. I turn back in time to see I’ve scraped one of his ears with the claws of a bear paw.
“Dad!” comes an agitated voice out of the darkness. We both freeze. There’s only the sound of windblown trees and footsteps coming up the hill beneath us.
“Min-jun?” Mr. Kim says.
“Ray!” shouts a familiar voice behind him.
“Dad!” I cry in astonishment.
I’m still braced for a lights-out hit, and I’m shaking all over. How did Min-jun and Dad get here in the middle of the night? What made them come? And how’d they find us in this pitch-black mini-clearing?
Dad charges at Mr. Kim and tackles him. I roll free. Mr. Kim lies still, as if defeated. Four more faces come into view behind Min-jun and Dad: Dorothy, her father, Officer Anderson, and a uniformed cop. What? Butterfly! You did it!
Officer Anderson moves quickly to put plastic hand restraints on Mr. Kim. Dad stands and rushes over and places his arms around me. My shaking calms slightly as I melt into his warm body.
Officer Anderson turns to me. “Dorothy figured you were trying to signal her with your drone, so she called Min-jun, who confirmed you were probably here at the cannery. Then she called your father and me,” he tells me. “I just got back today from a week’s vacation, so I didn’t get your earlier messages. Mr. Dawson came along to fly a night-vision drone across the property so we could find you.”
I release Dad and slowly move toward Dorothy. We embrace, and intense happiness chases away my fear and pain. Then I nod politely to her father, still trying to catch my breath.
“Was it you who deployed the mini-drones to run off the one chasing my spy UAV?” I ask him.
“Dorothy and I did it together. We’re a team,” he says proudly.
“Always ready to help civilians in distress,” Dorothy says with a wink.
“Aye aye,” I reply. “Oakley’s inside the warehouse,” I tell Officer Anderson. “Probably still sleeping.”
“What?” Mr. Kim erupts. “He sleep while I do dirty work for him?”
“Sedated with vet medicine, along with Chief,” I inform the poacher accomplice. His eyes widen.
I turn on slightly shaky legs and survey Min-jun, who is staring at the spilled backpack of bear claws, the bear-bait barrel, and the rock-sprung leg trap, his shoulders slumped. “Thanks, bro,” I say. He nods without looking at me. He won’t look at his dad. I can feel his pain.
I move up the rise to the bear-claw stash and retrieve Mr. Kim’s stick to pull out Skyliner. Gently, I give my drone a full inspection. He seems to have survived the fall intact.
“Was all for you,” Mr. Kim says to his son, and then breaks into rapid-fire Korean, presumably all about what he believes bear bile can do.
“We should’ve listened to Mom and done Western medicine,” Min-jun says, shaking his head and backing away, while Officer Anderson and the cop help Mr. Kim to his feet and lead us all toward the warehouse.
There, Officer Anderson claps restraints on an astonished and dopey Oakley, then lets my father and me treat Mr. Kim’s face gashes with the first-aid kit. The rest of the group stares, hands to their mouths, at the row of caged cubs. Dorothy makes little gagging sounds but manages to hold down her disgust.
“They put me in that cage,” I say, indicating the empty one. “They didn’t know I had my drone hidden in a gap behind the shelf. I used its hook to open the drawer and fetch the keys. It also has night-vision capabilities that allowed me to find Mr. Kim. He’d sent a text message to Oakley after Oakley fell asleep, about getting rid of everything.” I move protectively toward Hank’s cage. “As in eliminating the bears,” I emphasize.
“Hey!” Oakley objects as I hand his phone to Officer Anderson. Then I get my phone, bear spray, and bolt cutters off him.
Hearing trap-door hinges squeak in the warehouse space down the hall, we move toward it. Even though I’m surrounded by other people, I’m a little alarmed. Two bodies scramble up onto the warehouse floor-boards: more police officers.
In their powerful flashlight beams, Dad sees my face clearly for the first time. “Ray,” he says, drawing me to him again and gently touching the bruises and welts on my neck and face. “You’re hurt!”
“I’m good,” I reply, leaning into his warm hands on my shoulder.
“Your mother never made it past Vancouver,” he says in a rush. “I told her you’d run away and she is on her way home — for good. She said she realized before the plane landed that she was making a mistake and she’s sorry. Very sorry.” He takes a deep breath to hide a tremble in his voice. “So, we have some bears to transfer to the clinic right now. Looks like some are in critical condition.”
“Hank’s in horrible pain, but I didn’t have enough medicine to sedate the bears and —”
“Shhh,” Dad says. “There will be time for stories later. Patients first.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FIFTEEN MEMBERS OF the Bella Coola High School Outdoors Club are standing soberly in the lashing rain at Campsite 78, forming a long horizontal line, facing forward. Each of us holds a stick. We move two steps, four steps, keeping our line even. Our sticks sweep back and forth, our eyes glued on the thick undergrowth through which we’re making our way. I’m between Dorothy and Min-jun. Chief is prancing around near me. He’s become my dog since the Logan brothers went off to prison, and we’ve become best buddies.
“Outdoors Club!” Cole shouts. He’s up front, facing us. “As we’ve discussed, this is how search-and-rescue teams find people missing in the backcountry. They proceed in a row, slowly, eyes trained
on the ground. Today, we’re looking for a 250-millimetre, one-pound graphite drone with four propellers. A quadcopter that sacrificed itself to save one of our valued members, as well as the bears in our forest. Whether or not we find it, we can say we tried. And we’ll learn valuable wilderness search-and-rescue techniques at the same time.”
He winks at me, turns, and begins moving his stick back and forth in front of him, like he’s operating a metal detector in a field of gold pieces.
We search for an hour. I grow frustrated and disappointed, though I keep my chin up and feel grateful for the help. We get chilled and soaked, even in our best rain gear. We don’t find my drone, but I whisper “Thanks, Bug,” as we head back to the minibus. Talking to drones? Yeah, that’s a thing with droners. Or at least, with me.
The best part is when we reach the minibus and get served hot drinks by our teacher Mr. Mussett and his wife, along with kimchee mandu, fresh made by Min-jun.
Min-jun, who has handed over club presidency to Cole, has been kind of quiet since the Logan brothers were taken away and his father was sentenced to some time — though less than originally expected, since his dad fully co-operated with police and testified against the main players.
I visit Min-jun regularly, bringing him mistletoe tea I ordered online, since it’s supposed to help his condition. Who knows, but it’s the thought that counts, just like between Mr. Kim and my granddad. “Might get you a girlfriend even if it doesn’t help,” I kid him.
“Things are tough at home,” Min-jun has confessed to me, “with my mom and me having to handle the café all by ourselves. We appreciate it when you help out.” He continued with chin down. “We miss my dad, though it won’t be long now. He was only trying to help me, you know. He hated the killing stuff the Logan brothers were up to. And how they bossed him around.”
“I know. How’s your health?” I asked him.
“Better since my mom took me back to our Bella Coola doctor. He prescribed me new stuff without any side effects. So I’m all good, it seems like.”
Min-jun also swore to me that he doesn’t remember what he saw when he was wearing my goggles, and that he has no memory of smashing my drone camera. “So sorry,” he said to me, stricken at the info. “But I knew you were obsessed with the cannery. I guessed it was about Hank, so that’s what I told Dorothy when she called. And decided I had to go with her.”
Dorothy is sitting beside me on a mossy log near the minibus, her shoulder touching mine, a plate of dumplings on her lap. “Are you really top chef at your café now?” she asks Min-jun.
“Yes,” he says quietly with a small smile. “My mom and I are running it till Dad … gets out.”
“Well, if this is your secret recipe, we’re all going to be there every day after school,” Cole’s new gymnastics-star girlfriend declares, and everyone murmurs agreement.
I squeeze Dorothy’s hand, and she squeezes mine back. “You look good in your new hipster flannel shirt and cowboy hat under that designer rain poncho,” she says, giggling a little.
“Thanks. I picked a colour that would match my beret if I ever go back to wearing it,” I tease.
She lifts her hand and touches my left ear. “So, it wasn’t a bike accident, or a girl who got carried away while kissing it, or a mountain lion bite, or a New York City gang brand, or frostbite.”
“No,” I say. “It was a grizzly cuffing me for pointing a marshmallow stick at it.”
Everyone around us bursts into laughter. “Best one yet!” someone says gleefully.
“Actually,” I tell them soberly, “that’s the real story.”
“I believe you,” Dorothy says, a serious look in her chestnut eyes. “Only because you were five.”
“I was five. And my damaged ear is actually an advantage, because it buzzes when grizzly bears are near.”
The others look startled and exchange comments about this. “Cool,” says one girl. “I’m sticking near you on hikes.”
“Ahem,” says Cole, grabbing our attention. “So, as your new prez, I have an announcement. We’re going to have a special field trip next weekend if it’s not raining, for Dorothy Dawson and Ray McLellan to hold a session on drone search-and-rescue techniques. Drones are used in the backcountry to help teams find lost hikers and to help border patrollers catch undocumented immigrants. Drones can deliver emergency supplies to disaster zones. In fact, in Africa, they’re using them to stop elephant poachers, and here in Bella Coola —”
“— they can find bears in distress,” I finish for him, making sure he doesn’t hurt Min-jun by using the phrase bear poachers.
“Yes!” a few listeners respond. As they help themselves to the last dumplings, I put my arm around Dorothy’s shoulders and she snuggles up closer. My face is glowing like the campfire.
An hour later, Mom and Dad drop me off at the hospital to visit Granddad. They’re on their way to one of their counselling sessions. Sometimes in the clinic I see them brush hands as they bustle about in their stiff white lab coats. Once I caught them kissing. Gross. But they’re trying, for sure. And taking more time off to spend with me.
Granddad is lying in his hospital bed, hooked up to way too many tubes and machines. I touch his gaunt cheek.
“Ray,” he says weakly, in almost a gurgle, and lifts a paper-thin hand that I take gently in mine. Mr. Kim’s arrest “took the stuffing” out of him, he confessed the day after it happened. He has gone downhill since. Or maybe he was going to anyway. The cancer is winning the fight.
“Time to meet me Maker,” he says in a tired whisper, green eyes on my face. “Some things you can’t stop from coming at you, even with a marshmallow stick and a rock.”
I hang my head but allow a hint of a smile.
“How’re the young bears doing?”
“Two had to be put down,” I report with a thick voice. “Hank and the other one are going to make it. We’ll release them into the mountains when they’re ready.”
“That’s good. Good,” he says, patting my hand. “Taught them men a good lesson after they went arseways, didn’t you? You and yer wee wannabe planes. Even if you jailed half me best clients.”
I nod, not knowing what to say.
“Yer a smart boy like yer dad and granddad, I know that. Got the instincts. Anderson says yer a hero, did everything right and put proud to the McLellan name.”
Then he launches into a coughing fit, followed by silence.
“Yer mom brought in some o’ her Manhattan chowder,” he finally says, like it’s an important announcement. “An’ I thanked her for it.”
“Yeah, and how was it?” I ask.
“Better than the gruel they serve here!”
He closes his eyes for a long time, and a shiver of fear runs through me.
“Granddad?” I say, leaning down near his face. “I love you.”
His eyes flutter open. Wetness collects in them. His fingers rise to my left ear, and he touches it gently, like a priest offering a benediction. Then he squeezes my hand with a strength I didn’t imagine he still had. A strength of true acceptance.
“Whisht!” he says, a smile lighting up his wrinkled face.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
DRONE CHASE SPRANG, above all, from place: the Great Bear Rainforest, “a global treasure that covers 6.4 million hectares (24,711 square miles) on British Columbia’s north and central coast — equivalent in size to Ireland” (greatbearrainforest.gov.bc.ca.).
I always wanted to visit it, and what better excuse than needing to research a novel set in it? Of course, to have teens pursue a bear-poaching gang, I needed to read a lot about bear poaching, which is done primarily for selling the bile (a fluid that is made and released by the liver and stored in the gallbladder) on the black market. Unfortunately, some people believe the myth that bear bile cures almost any ailment, which has spawned “bear bile farms,” especially in Asian countries. Reading articles about poaching and bear-bile farms was extraordinarily difficult, literally nauseating, but ess
ential to making my novel authentic.
Is there poaching in BC? In 2017, National Geographic reported, “The fight to protect the bears of the Great Bear Rainforest is [not] over. There are still too few wildlife officers to enforce hunting regulations, which means much of the work will continue to fall to the Coastal Guardian Watchmen, a network of First Nations people who monitor, patrol, and enforce indigenous laws in parts of the Great Bear Rainforest that are too remote for federal or provincial officers to reach regularly.”
When I visited Bella Coola to research my novel and to hike, explore, watch grizzly bears, and speak at two local schools, I was totally taken by this stunningly beautiful region. It’s high on my list to return there, and you can find photographs of my visit on my blog at pam-withers.com/new-forthcoming-novel-drone-chase/.
While in Bella Coola researching this story, I spoke at Bella Coola Elementary School, where a student named Rayland told me his great-grandfather cared for an abandoned cub till it was ready to go back to the wild. I really appreciated Rayland coming forward like that, and imagine my delight when his father, Hank Bill, was willing to spend time filling me in on details of the cub brought home by his grandfather. Hank clearly remembers bottle-feeding and play-wrestling with the cub as a child:
This was thirty to thirty-five years ago, in the 1980s. Growing up, my grandpa lived on Gang Ranch near Williams Lake, BC. I was raised off the land. My grandpa lived in the old ways, cowboying and buffalo herding. He owned the largest buffalo herd.
One day Grandpa found an abandoned cub and brought it home. He was still nursing, so they made him a baby bottle. I was curious. He was timid at first. He looked a little scared. I took my time getting to know him. I’d give him his bottle when I was allowed. After he was too old for the bottle, Grandpa fed him fish and buffalo and deer meat.