Grizzly Peak

by Jonathan London

  Finally, just when I think I’m going to die, I see the top of the path. Another fifty yards. Half the length of a football field.

  But farther, really. Much farther. Because of the switchbacks.

  But I keep going. Seeing the top sparks hope. Hope that I will make it. I will make it. I will make it.

  And at last, I make it!

  We make it!

  We make it to the top of the canyon and I lower myself down to all fours, then slowly swing Dad around and let him slide slowly to the ground.

  I flop beside him, sprawled out, gasping. My chest heaving. I close my eyes and see stars. I open them, and see stars, dimmed a bit by the rising moon. It’s getting close to full.

  Suddenly Dad coughs. An awful, ragged cough. He tries to sit up and gags. He tries to clear his throat. He launches into an attack of coughing.

  I roll him on his side, patting his back.

  We have to get going. The dampness and chill are creeping back into my bones. Dad must be freezing. We’re both wet.

  And hungry. Hunger’s like a fish hook tugging my guts.

  And the more we wait here the hungrier we will get. The colder we’ll get.

  I take several deep breaths. I rub my legs and shake my arms and roll my head around, and try to loosen my shoulders. And take more deep breaths.

  Then I say, “Up we go, Dad. It’s a bummer, but we’ve got to go.”

  Again, I sneak my arm beneath him, my shoulder. First I lean him against a boulder. Then I sink into a deep squat and heft him onto my shoulders and lift. With all my might, I lift.

  We’re up. I almost fall backwards. I catch myself. I start along the path.

  One step at a time.

  When we start descending I figure it’ll be easier now. But my knees keep buckling beneath me. It’s easier on my lungs, but even harder on my legs.

  Thinking of fish and a fire, I get a second wind. I try to think of gravity as my friend. Along with gravity, my friend, we are climbing down now. Down.

  I think of Cassidy. He carried my dad up the walls of Desolation Canyon, but two or three of us helped get Dad back down.

  Now it’s just me. And gravity. A tricky friendship.

  There’s less than half a mile to go.

  It’s the longest half mile in the world.

  I round a bend and finally see the moonlit lake below. Dad’s dangling arms and legs are swinging with each step I take.

  I think he’s gone unconscious again. I fall into a kind of stupor from exhaustion, but I don’t let go. I swing my legs and stumble along, like a dying but loyal beast of burden.

  Time disappears. One leg shuffles in front of the other. Down and down and down we go.

  One step at a time. Until . . .

  The lake the lake! We’re at the lake!

  I don’t stop. I can’t stop. We have to get back to our camp. Fifty yards to go. Forty yards. Twenty.

  At last, I strain with my last ounce of strength and lower my dad next to the fire ring. We both collapse on the cold ground. I’m totally exhausted. And dehydrated. I need water, but I can’t move.

  And Dad, he’s out. He’s out cold. I want to get him out of his wet clothes and into a sleeping bag, but I don’t know how I’m going to do that. I want to drink water and make a fire and catch a fish and eat. Especially eat. And feed my father.

  Wanting isn’t the same as doing.

  I’ve got to do this.

  I shake myself awake and glug some water from my water bottle and try to think. We have to eat. We have to get dry. And warm. We have to rest. To sleep.

  A cold wind blows down from the mountains. I have to try to get a big fire going. Now!

  First I pull Dad’s sleeping bag out of our tent and over to the fire pit. I fluff it out next to Dad, and roll him on it, then pull it closed over him. I lift his head and stick his small pillow beneath it. I’ll have to get his wet clothes off him later, after I get the fire going. No time now.

  Luckily there’s a small stack of firewood leftover from before. With the moon and stars as my only light, I set a few of the slenderest pieces into a little tepee, with some birch or aspen bark—whatever, it’s like stiff but brittle paper—shred it into a fire nest, then twist the last of our newspaper and stuff it underneath.

  Dad had left the four remaining matches in an empty tin of mints, in the tent, and I get it.

  I kneel by the fire and I think to myself, Okay, here goes!

  And I strike the first match against a large, rough stone.

  The head flies off. Bummer!

  Three matches left.

  I try striking this match less forcefully, but nothing happens. I keep trying till the head is worn down to a nub. To nothing.

  Two. Two matches left! Dad groans. I check him out but he’s still out cold. The moon is high overhead. The night is bright and clear and cold.

  Okay. This is the one! I will the match to light, and with fumbling fingers, scratch it across the stone.

  It breaks in half! My heart breaks with it.

  I feel like giving up, but I’m obsessed with getting this fire started.

  I’m obsessed. I put all my concentration into the last match.

  The last match!

  I focus on it with all the power of the universe funneled down to this one match.

  And strike.

  It flares up!

  And goes out!

  A whiff of smoke spirals into nothingness.

  DAY SIX

  SAVING DAD

  NOOOO!”

  I jump up and curse and pull my hair. I drop back to my knees and pound my fist into the stone. I’m so freaked I don’t even feel the pain.

  I’m frantic. I’m pacing around talking to myself. No food. No fire. No warmth. No hope.

  I’m shivering now, but I don’t know if it’s from the cold or my raging frustration.

  I suddenly get this image in my head. Brian in that book by Gary Paulsen. Hatchet. He’s alone in the wilderness with no matches, no lighter, just a hatchet. He strikes it against stone to make sparks to start a fire.

  But we don’t have a hatchet!

  Dad knew there’d be firewood at the campsites, so he didn’t bring one. Smart, Dad. Now we’ll just starve out here and become bear food, picked clean by crows and ravens.

  But wait!

  Wait!

  The second to last match. It broke in half!

  I drop to my knees and scrabble around like a starving beaver. I’ve got to find that wooden match, the half with the head still attached.

  I can’t find it.

  I’ve got to find it.

  I scurry around in the moonlight, in the starlight, my nose almost to the ground, like a dog.

  I find it!

  No! It’s the wrong half! The other half should be around here somewhere. Right?

  There it is! In a patch of dirt surrounded by low ground-cover. Lit slightly by a ray of moonlight.

  I snatch it up like a gold nugget, and squat back down over the fire ring. I hold the match at its end, an inch or so from the head. I try to steady my hand. I’m shivering and shaking all over, but I’ve got to calm down. I’ve got to strike this with the precision of a brain surgeon.

  I take a deep breath and force myself to calm down. I can do this. I can do this.

  At least, I think I can.

  The moon seems to hang in suspension.

  I take a deep breath—holding the stub of a match a hair’s breadth above the boulder—and strike. . . .

  It flairs up! It burns my fingers. I almost drop it.

  But I don’t. I lower it slowly to the tip of twisted paper, holding my breath.

  Presto!

  A tiny flame blooms—and it’s enough! It eats into the edge of twisted paper and I cup it from the wind.

  “Ouch!” Flames reach up and bite my fingers. I pull my hand away and spit on them. I can smell singed flesh but there’s no time to run to the lake and soak my fingers. I’ve got to keep the fire going.<
br />
  I gently coax it along with my breath. First the shredded bark catches fire, and then flames crawl along the sides of one piece of firewood, and another, and I gradually blow harder and harder till finally the fire’s blazing.

  “Dad! Look! I got a fire going!” But Dad’s still out. “Dad, wake up! A fire!” Dad doesn’t stir, but I decide that’s a good thing. He needs to sleep. And he’s near the fire.

  But I have to get him out of his wet clothes.

  I open up the sleeping bag and wrestle him out of his jacket first, then I peel off his shirt, take off his sandals, and finally tug off his pants. It’s like grappling with a 150-pound rag doll!

  And through the whole wrestling match he doesn’t wake up. That can’t be good.

  Then I zip him back inside the bag and tuck his pillow back under his head.

  Now I feed the flames with more and more firewood, until eventually a bonfire’s roaring in the night. I admire it for about one minute, and decide it’s time to go fishing.

  But first I tear off my hoodie and hang it over a pine branch near the fire, to dry. Then I strip off my T-shirt and hang it next to my hoodie. They drip in the moonlight. I don’t have another pair of jeans, just cutoffs and it’s too cold for those. And I only have the one pair of shoes, my soggy river sandals, so I have to slog around half wet while I dry off with a towel and rifle through our wet bags for shirts. All I’ve got are dirty T-shirts. I layer on three smelly T-shirts and put on a torn windbreaker over them. I’m still freezing my butt off, but it’ll have to do.

  I quickly rig up my rod and check on Dad again. He’s snoring, his face glowing in the firelight. With his filthy face and whiskers, and his ratty hair, he looks like a bum who’s given up on life.

  But I know he’s not a bum. He tried to save my life.

  He tried to save my life! Can you believe that? And almost lost his own life doing it.

  So I’m gonna catch him a fish. A prize rainbow. And I’m gonna cook it up and say, Here, Dad. For you!

  I stroll off along a path through the woods. I think my chances will be best where a creek flows into the lake, a hundred yards away. I come around the bend just as something crosses my path and freezes.

  A lynx!

  I stop in my tracks and stay absolutely still. I’ve seen bobcats a few times but this is much bigger, much longer legs, with tufts of fur on its ears and huge paws.

  I stare at it. It stares at me. Its eyes in the moonlight burn with a golden fire.

  I snap its picture with my mind’s camera, and the lynx springs off into the dark forest.

  The moment’s over, but I’ll carry it with me for the rest of my life. A snapshot from the wild. A snapshot from the day my dad tried to save my life, and I ended up saving Dad.

  At the creek I look at the moonlight on the lake. It’s awesome. It’s a rippling gold path leading right toward me. I cast my lure into it and start reeling it in.

  It feels like I’m casting for the moon.

  Almost instantly, my rod jerks and dances in my hands, then bends over till the tip almost touches the water. It feels like a big one! I loosen the drag so the line won’t snap, and watch a slippery muscle of light leap out of the lake and plunge back in. I let it jig and jag, rise, and dance on the water, and plunge back in. Then I start reeling it in again.

  It’s twenty feet away.

  Ten.

  I see its tail swish the surface, and then I realize:

  I didn’t bring the net!

  If I try pulling it out of the water without a net, it might flip off the hook and get away.

  I tighten the drag and prop the rod in the fork of a stunted tree and scramble into the lake after it. It darts and swirls and I snatch at it with both hands before it can snap the line, or tear the hook from its lips.

  It squirts through my hands like a bar of soap. I grab the line with one hand, lift my foot, and wrap the line around my leg. Then I lunge for the fish with all the hungry energy of a grizzly bear.

  “Gotcha!” I grasp it, as if with claws, and fling it out onto the shore, like a grizzly would.

  A rainbow trout, its scales gleaming in the moonlight.

  I slosh out of the water after it. It flips and flops on the ground. It’s a big trout, well over a foot long. Its gills work in and out, in and out. It flaps on its side, one eye staring at me. I pick up a rock and knock the fish on the head to put it out of its misery.

  It’s not until now that I realize that two fingers on my left hand sting as if they’d been lashed with the tendrils of a jellyfish.

  My burnt fingers. A fish I caught for my dad. My dad whose life I saved. A fire I made with the last half of the last match.

  Okay. Now I think it’s okay if I feel a little pride.

  And I do.

  DAY SEVEN

  HANG ON!

  I’m worried about Dad.

  I keep waking up to listen to his breathing. It still doesn’t sound good. When I don’t hear any breathing at all, I have a momentary panic. But then he catches his breath like he’s gagging, and I worry that he’s going to choke to death on blood or water or both.

  I roll Dad on his side, and try to go back to sleep.

  I can’t. I listen to the mournful howl of a lone wolf in the distance. If I had the energy, I’d howl back.

  Last night I rushed back to camp with just the one fish because I was afraid to leave Dad alone even a minute longer.

  When I got back, triumphantly carrying my trout, he was on his hands and knees, coughing and choking, and spitting up blood. He had managed to get into some dry clothes. The fire had dwindled but was still going strong.

  I knelt at his side, dangling the fish. “Look, Dad! Look what I caught!”

  He waved it away and sagged back on the ground. Then he looked up and grinned. “That’s a beaut, Aaron.” First words he’d said to me in hours—I was grateful to hear them.

  “Now we can eat, Dad!”

  “You eat it. I don’t think I can keep it down.”

  “But you’ve got to eat. Here, I’m gonna grill this baby up real good.” I dangled it in front of his eyes. “Check it out. How sweet is that?”

  I didn’t bother to clean the trout. I was in too much of a hurry to feed my dad, and myself. I just plopped the fish on the grill over the fire and fed the fire till the trout cooked on one side, then I flipped it over and cooked it on the other side.

  The hunger had been there all along, but now, with the wonderful smell of the trout, crackling and sizzling on the open fire, the emptiness in my belly screamed for food.

  When the skin on the fish was good and crispy, I served Dad first.

  But Dad wouldn’t eat. He kept telling me I should eat. Finally, I helped lean him against the boulder, and I fed him like a baby, one forkful at a time. “Open wide, Dad! Open wide!”

  After awhile he said, “No more, Aaron. I can’t.” He rolled back down to the ground and closed his eyes.

  I ate what was left, a little over half. I peeled the skin back and picked the flesh off with my fingers, tasting every morsel, memorizing the flavor as if this would be my last meal.

  Then I ate the crispy skin. Kinda like fishy potato chips, but yummier than it sounds. I stared down at the eyeballs.

  I still couldn’t do it. Instead, I picked up the whole head and tossed it as hard as I could into the lake.

  An offering for the fish. Thanks, fish!

  Then I cleaned everything up. I didn’t want a bear coming in the night.

  I picked up one end of his sleeping bag and pulled Dad along the ground, back to the front of the tent. I decided to build up the fire in the hopes that it would still be going in the morning.

  So I had to go out and search in the moonlight for dry kindling. I came back with mostly damp kindling, which I stacked up next to the fire to dry, and to use during the night and in the morning.

  By the time I got to the tent, Dad had managed to crawl inside on his own. He was snuggled deep in his bag, just his
nose sticking out.

  I thought of fishing right from shore for tomorrow’s breakfast, but I was too exhausted. I managed to wiggle out of my clothes, and I think I fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

  But now it’s the middle of night and I can’t get back to sleep. Dad’s breathing is ragged. Tomorrow I’ve got to get Dad some help. Good thing we’ve been traveling in a circle, so we’re almost back to where we started. By midday tomorrow we should be able to reach the small ranger station at Babcock Creek. And the main ranger station where we began this crazy trip is maybe a half day beyond that. At least according to the map. I don’t think Dad can make it through another night like this.

  And we’ve used the last match. The last half of a match.

  So what are we going to do? How am I going to get him into the kayak? And if I get him in, what if he slouches over sideways, unconscious? What if he falls out, or capsizes the boat, or both?

  What if?

  And if I remember right, there are at least two portages left. How are we going to do that?

  My mind’s spinning in circles. My burnt fingers are on fire; they’re blistered, the hairs singed off. I still hurt all over from bouncing off boulders, and my stomach is an emptiness aching to be filled.

  But I have to sleep. I have to. I’ll need every ounce of energy for tomorrow.

  If we don’t make it out tomorrow, we might not make it out at all.

  I get up and feed the fire, then crawl back into my bag

  I will myself to sleep. I count backwards from a hundred. I drift off. I wake up. I drift off. If I have any dreams I can’t remember them.

  In the morning there’s no question of me fishing. The fire’s gone out. And there’s no time.

  Dad’s worse. Way worse.

  I fight against a rising panic. I feel like I’m in a wild current and it’s taking me where it wants to go.

  Maybe over a waterfall.

  I’ve got to take control. I’ve got to move faster than the current.

  There’s a thick white fog, shrouding the world. I rip my hoodie down off the branch I’d left it hanging on, and a few pinecones come down with it.