Grizzly Peak

by Jonathan London

  Pine nuts! Mom uses them to cook with sometimes. And if squirrels can eat them, maybe I can too. I jump up and shake the limb as hard as I can. Cones rain down, but no nuts pop out. Maybe they’re the wrong kind of cones, or it’s the wrong time of year.

  Whatever, there’s no time to try and dig pine nuts out of the cones. We’ll just have to go hungry.

  I run back to the tent, but I can’t take it down with Dad still inside. “Dad! Are you awake?” I crawl inside and shake him. He groans. “Dad! Wake up! We have to go. Now!”

  I pull him outside still in his bag, and break down the tent. There’s no time to let the dew dry. I pack everything and stow the wet bags in the holds. I’m running. Everything I do now is at a run.

  Dad finally wakes and sits up. He’s stupefied. Groggy. I don’t think he even knows where we are. “Dad. We’re going now. We’re going in the kayak. We’re going home, Dad.”

  “Home?” Dad rubs a hand down his face. His eyes are bloodshot. His hair’s poking out every which way, wet with sweat. He looks like a newly born chick, dazed by the light.

  I stuff his bag and practically drag him to the kayak, then have to lift him and swing him feetfirst into the cockpit. He sits there, totally lost. I tell him not to lean sideways. To slouch down as much as he can, his legs as deep as possible in the leg space, and to just hold on.

  I don’t even try to get him into a spray skirt. I push his paddle down into the leg space beside him, and tell him to loop one arm around it. I think of harnessing him to the kayak with the bowline or the belts, but decide against it. Too dangerous. If the boat capsizes he’d be trapped.

  I take one more look at the campsite, then climb in and shove off. I’m a pro at this now. We ease out through the reeds, and then I start paddling—for the both of us.

  The fog encloses us. It’s so thick and the air’s so still, it feels like everything in the world is muffled. But I get the sense that we’re being watched. That we’re being followed. I think of the lynx last night, the grizzly the night before. There’s something out there, watching, waiting. Something big is going to happen today. I can feel it. It could be the end of everything.

  Or some kind of new beginning.

  It’s a good thing I got oriented last night when I went fishing. Today I follow the shoreline till we flow back into the Cariboo River. From Unna Lake it’s a quarter of a mile paddle—upstream! Back toward the falls!

  Solo!

  It’s almost impossible. But I’ve got to do it. I’ve got to.

  “Hang on, Dad! It might get bumpy!” I hunker over and dig in. I use my whole body with each stroke. I push against the double-bladed paddle with one hand and pull with the other. I discover that if I hug the inside bend of the shore, the strain of the current is less.

  But when I try to cross the river to turn into Babcock Creek, the current starts sucking us back downstream.

  “Whoa!” The current’s hitting us broadside. It’s driving so hard against the bottom of our kayak it almost tips us over toward the upstream side. I yell, “Lean away from the current, Dad! Lean downstream!”

  Then I realize, Dad’s unconscious. He can’t lean downstream. He’s slumped in the cockpit in front of me.

  I touch his shoulder with the tip of my paddle. He needs to be awake, aware.

  I yell, “Wake up, Dad! Wake up!”

  The kayak is tipping. It’s tipping.

  “Hang on, Dad! HANG ON!”

  DAY SEVEN

  A SIGNAL FROM

  THE WILD

  Dad’s suddenly alert! He leans away from the current and we both brace our paddles—flat out on the surface—at the same time!

  It saves us! Without his help, I think we would’ve gone over.

  I know we would have gone over!

  Now all I have do is angle the nose above the creek, which I can barely make out in the fog, and paddle like our lives depend on it.

  Our lives do depend on it! And after a crazy mad churn across the powerful current, I’m able to turn us up into Babcock Creek.

  And it’s just in the nick of time! Dad loses his grip on the paddle and it slips into the suds, but I snatch it up before it can be sucked downstream.

  I hand it back to him, but I can see he’s all played out now. He lays his paddle across the hull and scoots back down deep into his seat.

  Just up Babcock Creek we see the small ranger hut shrouded in fog. There’s a slip for the ranger’s boats but there aren’t any boats in sight. I pull in and tell Dad to just stay put, and I go up to check out the hut.

  It’s locked. There’s nobody around. In fact, it looks like no one’s been here for a while, maybe all winter. There are cobwebs in the window. I think of leaving a note but I’m in a hurry and I don’t think it would do any good, anyway. Who knows how long it will be until a ranger gets here?

  Dad’s in bad shape and seems to be getting worse by the minute. Without fire, without medical attention, I don’t know if he could make it through another night.

  I have to get him back to the main ranger station on Bowron Lake, where we started.

  Today!

  When I get back, Dad’s asleep or unconscious, I can’t tell which. I slip his paddle in beside him and loop his arm around it. He doesn’t stir. “Hang in there, Dad,” I say, and we slide back off into the thick white mist.

  There’s a sign saying to pull out and portage. Babcock Creek’s supposed to be too shallow to kayak, but it’s high now with spring runoff and I decide to keep paddling as long as I can.

  But at one point the kayak scrapes bottom. There must be a big deposit of sand here. I have to climb out of the kayak and line us through the reedy shallows. I think of an old movie my parents like to watch: The African Queen. Humphrey Bogart has to wade down a jungle-clogged channel, towing this old-time boat, the African Queen, and his whole body gets covered with leeches. He totally freaks.

  I hope the water here’s too cold for leeches.

  It’s not! When the creek’s deep enough, I climb back into the kayak and find half a dozen leeches stuck to my skin. Bloodsuckers! Gross! A few have crawled up beneath my pants legs and are clamped onto my calves!

  I pull at them, their huge mouths glued to me, stretching my skin with each yank.

  Splop! Blood smears my legs. Eeeeew! I toss the slimy creatures into the water, and start paddling.

  We’ve wasted way too much time! Dad’s stirring now. He’s coughing again, hawking blood-soaked phlegm over the side.

  “You okay, Dad?”

  “Aye aye, skipper. Full steam ahead!”

  I can’t believe I heard him right. He hasn’t called me “skipper” since I was a little kid. Skipper means captain.

  And captain I am. We wind through the last of Babcock Creek and burst into Babcock Lake. It’s still foggy, but it’s beginning to lift in places. Dad mumbles that maybe he can help paddle now, but his voice sounds weak, and I tell him to just take it easy and rest.

  He paddles anyway, but he’s too slow. Our paddles clash. “Relax, Dad! It’s all good. Just kick back—but hang on to your paddle!”

  We hear a loon call. Across the lake another loon calls back.

  I paddle toward the sound of the loon, and see it take off—first running on the water—as I paddle into the shallows of the far shore.

  We have four lakes to go: Skoi, Spectacle, Swan, and Bowron. Two of those lakes are attached, which means just two easy portages left, both short and not too steep.

  That’s a good thing because when we start the portage to Skoi Lake, Dad can’t walk. Every time he tries his knees buckle beneath him. I think he’s totally drained. All he’s had to eat in the last couple of days is a few bites of fish.

  Me too, but so what? I’m wrestling with some demon and I’m winning. I think. I hope. I remember the dream of the grizzly—the beast—and the smell of his breath right behind me. And I remember the dream of the Moon Bear, pushing the moon up the mountain. Yeah, I know how he feels.

  We
walk just a few yards when I say, “Okay, Dad. Take a rest.”

  He slides down to the ground and in a minute he’s out cold again. I decide to leave the kayak and come back for it later. I squat down and hoist Dad over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry and stagger along the trail, his arms and legs swinging, his body bending toward earth.

  At Skoi Lake, I lean him gently against the trunk of an aspen tree and plop down beside him. We’re both exhausted, but at least Dad’s conscious now. I catch my breath and start to stand up. Dad grabs my arm. I sit back down and look at him. He stares right into my eyes but doesn’t say a word.

  But he says more in that silence than he has all trip.

  I break the silence. “You’re a tough old man, Dad.”

  He says, “You’re a tough young man, Aaron.” He still holds my eyes with his.

  He pats my arm. I stand back up.

  “Don’t go running off, Dad. I’ll be back in a few.” I jog back off up the portage trail and let the look in his eyes sink in. The warmth there. The love. The gratitude. Whatever you want to call it.

  It’s only about a quarter of a mile back to retrieve the kayak. I jog the whole way there. I think if I stop I’ll just collapse and never get back up.

  I pull the cart with the kayak by myself. Slow but steady. My muscles burn. Everything hurts. But I’m not complaining. There’s nobody to complain to.

  In fact, in a weird way, I feel almost happy.

  I paddle us across tiny, tree-lined Skoi Lake. Tatters of fog hang from the trees. I hear the slap of a beaver tail and the caw! caw! of curious crows.

  We repeat the whole process between Skoi Lake and Spectacle/Swan Lakes (which are attached)—me carrying Dad, then running back to haul the kayak.

  All along the way I search for something to eat. But it’s too early in the year here for ripe berries. It’s too early for most things. There are some mushrooms but I don’t know what’s poisonous and what’s not. And there’s no time to stop and look for food, anyway.

  I’m so hungry I could eat a tree of fire! I said that when I was three or four. Dad wrote it down, along with some other things I said, and sent the lines as a poem to a kid’s magazine. It was published! I guess that was the beginning of my writing career.

  Before we set off across Spectacle Lake, I slump against a tree beside my dad. Just for a minute. Just to catch my breath. I’m about to stand back up when something comes crashing through the trees and into the lake. Not fifty feet away.

  A mother moose and her calf. They splash through the shallows, wheezing and huffing, and start swimming, their tongues hanging out, their legs churning.

  And right behind them is a huge grizzly! He ignores us and plunges in and plows through the water. He’s gaining on them as they round a sandy point and out of our sight.

  As if it’s a signal from the wild, I leap up and pull Dad up with me. We have to get out of here. I manage to wrestle Dad into the kayak and start paddling like mad.

  He’s slumped down in the cockpit again. I think he’s unconscious. That’s okay. I’ve got my own rhythm and nothing’s going to stop me now. Not hunger. Not exhaustion. Not the weather.

  I paddle as if a grizzly’s on my tail.

  My arms are killing me. My back feels broken. My stomach is twisted into knots. But I can’t stop. My sole purpose in life is to paddle hard.

  Spectacle Lake is long. It’s endless. It’s one continuous blur of fatigue.

  At a narrow S-shaped bend Spectacle becomes Swan Lake—and I keep paddling. I don’t slow down. The sun is getting lower. Dad’s still out cold.

  My stomach is eating itself. My hunger is a drum and I paddle to the beat. My hands are tough from a week of paddling or they’d be a mass of bloody blisters by now.

  Blisters. Red boils cover the two small fingers on my left hand where I burned them. I’ve been moving so fast I’ve hardly noticed.

  We finally enter Bowron River, which will take us to the last of the lakes: Bowron Lake. A strong current helps us as we snake through the shallow wetland. Waterfowl prowl the tall sedge grass.

  Three-quarters of an hour later and we make it to Bowron Lake! Park headquarters, where we started this trip an eternity ago and where our car is parked, is just across the lake.

  I check the map: 7.2 kilometers to go! Just a little over four miles!

  We can do this! We can do this! Dad, wake up! No, don’t! Just stay low. Let me take you home!

  We’re less than halfway across the lake when the wind picks up. We hit chop. Little whitecaps. The wind wakes Dad and he sits up and looks around. The sun is almost down. He grabs his paddle but holds it across his lap. He coughs a few times and swallows

  Something’s coming. We both feel it. It’s coming behind us and it sounds like a train roaring through a tunnel. Or a bear roaring down a canyon.

  It’s the wind!

  Are you kidding me? We’re almost home and now I’ve got a windstorm to deal with?

  I paddle to outrace the wind. To outrace the beast breathing down my neck. The grizzly.

  And that’s when it hits me.

  I am the grizzly. I am my own worst enemy.

  Not Dad. Not the principal. Not my teachers.

  Me!

  I can be my worst enemy or I can be my own best friend. It’s up to me. I can be the Moon Bear carrying the moon. Like I carried Dad. Me. Aaron. Trying. Failing.

  Succeeding.

  With that thought, I’m a windmill of churning energy. Dad steadies us by bracing his paddle down against the surface with each surge.

  He’s the balancer.

  Suddenly we’re surfing on the windblown waves!

  “Wahoo!” I howl. I whoop and holler—

  . . . until over the roar of the wind and the water we can hear the roar of something else.

  A motor.

  It’s a flat-bottomed jet boat, coming toward us from the dock at the end of Bowron Lake, less than four hundred yards away! The boat circles around us as the pilot throttles the motor down to a low gurgle.

  “Need some help?” It’s Pam, the ranger! She swipes the billowing red hair from her face and smiles.

  “Naw, we’re good!” I shout, and raise my fist in triumph.

  We’re back. We did it! Beaten but not beat.

  Alive!

  Just then Dad swivels around, raises his fist—and almost flips us over. “Oops!” he says, and laughs.

  There’s nothing to do but laugh back.

  EPILOGUE

  We spent one night at Pam’s little house, eating good home cooking, me writing like crazy in my journal and then sleeping for like fourteen hours. In the morning Dad insisted he could drive.

  He’d spent a lot of time using Pam’s computer and on his phone, but he wouldn’t tell me why. Very mysterious.

  The doctor at the medical clinic in Quesnel, about sixty miles from Bowron Lakes, checked Dad out. Dad’s ribs were bruised and he’d bitten his tongue badly, and he’d gotten water in his lungs. He was lucky he didn’t get pneumonia, but he was suffering from exposure, dehydration, and exhaustion. They wanted to observe him overnight, but he wanted to “hit the road.” They told us to rest and to eat well and to drink lots of fluids.

  Especially Dad. I was actually feeling good. Good about myself. Good about everything. While I’d waited at the clinic I brought my journal up to date. And I was getting an idea for the story.

  It had to do with a King (my dad). And the Moon Bear (me).

  I had a lot of the story sketched out, I just needed an ending.

  Now it’s a day and a half later, in the Kootenay region of the Canadian Rockies. We drove down to Kimberly, not far north of eastern Washington and northern Idaho, and when we pull up in front of the Alpine Resort—I get the surprise of my life.

  There’s Lisa and Roger and good-ol’ bad-ol’ Cassidy, leaning against a pickup truck! Their arms are folded, their faces are blank, and they look like they’re just, well, hangin’.

  Then they bur
st into great big smiles.

  I jump out of our car and yell, “What’s up?”

  Cassidy points. I look. It’s a snowy peak in the distance. Dad climbs out of our car and says, “Grizzly Peak, Aaron. It’s the closest one I could find on such short notice.”

  “WHAAAAT? But how—?”

  Lisa cuts in. “Aren’t you even gonna say hi, Aaron?” She opens her arms wide. “Hey,” I say. We hug. I don’t want to let go.

  I can’t believe this! Any of it!

  Cassidy says, “Hey, bro! I heard you carried your dad up some waterfall or something. Can you carry him up that?” He points at Grizzly Peak again. “Because if you can’t, I can.” He pounds his chest, and grins.

  Roger hugs Dad, then me. “Are we ready to roll, mates? I don’t have all day.”

  So this is what Dad was up to. He’d Googled Grizzly Peak—turns out there are Grizzly Peaks all over the western US and Canada, too—then arranged to have everybody meet us here. Everybody but Willie. He couldn’t get away from work. Cassidy had a river guide job set up for the day after next, not four hours away! How crazy is that? Roger and Lisa took a long weekend and drove clear up from Grants Pass, Oregon, driving until late last night, then starting out early this morning.

  “You did this for me?” I asked.

  “He did it for you,” said Roger, nodding toward my dad. “For what you did for him.”

  Now we’ve been climbing Grizzly Peak for the last three hours, taking it slow and easy. One step at a time. The first part’s just a gradual hike up the mountainside, below the snowline. But now we’re at the foot of the final assault on the peak. From here, it’s a hard steep climb up rock and scree, through snow and ice, and the wind’s howling around us like wolves. A few shredded clouds whip by. It’s not that high a mountain, but high enough. Dad’s breathing hard. We’re all sweating in the cold air.

  I look around. There are no grizzlies here. It’s just Dad and me, and my good friends, Lisa, Roger, and Cassidy. A wilderness reunion, of sorts.

  Beyond Grizzly Peak there are other peaks and ranges of mountains going all the way up into Alaska, and down through the mountain states and into Mexico.