by Paul Greci
Left. Right. Left. Right. I keep digging my paddle into the water. We’re going to need both of us to get Shannon and Brooke safely out of the water since our kayaks are tiny and made for one person each. But if the bear gets to them first, it won’t matter. And if the bear injures Derrick and destroys his kayak and the one he’s towing, we’re all screwed.
The canoe people have almost reached the creek, but I don’t care about them right now.
Derrick has turned slightly, but we’re basically heading in the same direction because the bear has almost caught up to the girls and I’m heading straight for them.
Two gunshots slice through the air, and I jerk my head toward the canoe people as I continue to paddle. Are they shooting at us? Another shot rings in my ears, and I know it’s not the canoe people because they’re standing with their arms to their sides. Who’s shooting?
“Yes,” Derrick yells. “Yes!”
I turn to my right and see Derrick holding the pistol up. He’s smiling as the bear splashes its way toward shore. I feel a bump on my kayak, and then Shannon’s arms are draped over the side.
“Don’t pull too hard, or you’ll flip the boat.” I lean in the opposite direction to counter the pressure she’s applying. “Grab on to the back of the boat I’m towing, and see if you can crawl over the top.”
Shannon’s breathing hard, but she works her way to the back of the kayak behind me and crawls in.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Shannon nods. “Just cold.” She pulls one of her rubber boots off and pours out the water. “I couldn’t have swum much farther with these dragging me down.”
“We’ll get you to shore, so you can get out of your soaked clothes and into your dry suit,” I respond. I turn toward Derrick and see that Brooke is now lying in the kayak he’s towing. “Let’s get to shore so these two can change before they freeze.”
I hear a snapping sound behind me and twist around. Shannon is holding up her paddle. She must’ve just snapped the two halves together.
“I’ll stay warmer if I paddle,” she explains.
I nod, wondering if I should untie her kayak now that she’s got her paddle. “Shannon, I think—”
Derrick cuts me off. “Where are we supposed to go ashore?”
I turn toward the entrance to the creek. The bear has crawled out of the water on one side, and the canoe people are on the other.
Derrick waves the gun. “I scared the bear once, but I don’t know if it’ll scare again. And I don’t want to shoot those guys.”
“We’ll be okay,” Brooke shouts. “Just paddle down the creek between the two of them.”
But the entrance to the creek is narrow enough that it wouldn’t take much for a charging bear or an angry human to splash into the water and try to grab us—especially if they know we’re coming, which they do.
CHAPTER 89
WE’VE UNTIED BROOKE’S AND SHANNON’S kayaks, and they both have their paddles assembled because there’s no way we can go down a windy creek towing them. We’re about forty feet from the canoe people—close enough for a shouting conversation—and set back from the creek so we won’t get sucked into the current. The bear, which is on the far side of the creek and standing on its hind legs, is more of a threat to the canoe people than to us at the moment.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” I yell. “We’re trying to save you. Just go back to your camp and wait, and we’ll send a plane to pick you up.”
“You sunk our boats,” the bigger of the two of them yells. “Why should we trust you?”
“Think about it,” Shannon responds. “We could’ve shot you.” She points to Derrick, who holds up his gun. “We tried to take your canoes quietly. You saw the note.”
“The four of you are nuts,” the smaller man yells. “You won’t get away with this. Send a plane or don’t. I’ll hike out of here and hunt you all down.”
“What are you doing out here anyway?” I ask. “How long have you been here?” I glance toward the bear, which is back on all four legs but hasn’t moved, like it’s listening to the conversation. “And watch out for that bear. It’s charged us twice now.”
They back away a few steps from the outlet of the lake to put a little more distance between them and the bear. They tell us they’re brothers from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, who inherited a remote piece of land from their grandfather years ago and are finally getting a chance to see it. They made the trip to Fairbanks, and then a bush pilot flew them into the lake about three weeks ago. They’re camped on the land and were planning to make a trip of it, to float the creek and the river to the bridge, where they arranged to be picked up.
“Are you patriotic?” Derrick asks.
“As much as the next guy,” the larger man yells.
“Stay here,” Derrick says, “for the good of your country.”
“We have to go,” I yell. “I wish we could say more. If anyone approaches you, don’t tell them you’ve seen us.”
“What the hell is going on?” the smaller man asks.
“I’m going to tell them,” I say softly, so only Brooke, Derrick, and Shannon can hear me. “Okay?”
Everyone nods, and I yell, “The Russians invaded Alaska, and we’re part of a team trying to take it back from them. You get in our way, and you’re a national security risk.”
“Bullshit,” the larger man yells. “Deranged losers. All of you!”
“Great,” Derrick says softly. “Let’s just paddle by these guys.” We all nod, and he waves the gun. “We’ll be leaving now,” he shouts.
I paddle on the left side of my kayak, which causes me to turn to the right. I don’t know if these men will try to stop us, but the farther away we can be from them when we enter the creek the better.
“You got a phone?” Brooke yells as we paddle. “That red screen is because of the Russians.”
The two men look at each other and then back at us but say nothing. At the same time, they’ve stopped screaming at us and saying we’re crazy. Maybe Brooke has gotten through to them. But we still can’t trust them not to try something if we get too close to them. The risk is too great.
As we approach the creek, the bear stands up on its hind legs. Will it race into the water again, or is Derrick’s gunfire embedded in its memory?
The big grizzly lets out a growl, drops back down on four legs, and then parallels us along the shore as we enter the current. The canoe people haven’t moved from their position, so I paddle on the right side, which moves me toward the left bank—away from the bear. I glance over my shoulder. I see Brooke and hope the others are behind her.
We round a bend, and the creek widens. I stop paddling, and Brooke pulls up next to me. Then Derrick is next to her, and Shannon noses her boat between mine and Brooke’s.
“If getting to this point was supposed to be the easy part,” Derrick says, “I don’t even want to think about what’s coming.”
“Let’s paddle for a half hour or so,” Shannon says. “We’ll put some distance between us, the bear, and those guys, then wait for sunset. According to what Sam said about river distances, we should be at the bridge by the morning after next.”
CHAPTER 90
“NO TENT,” SHANNON SAYS. “LET’S just stay in our dry suits.”
Derrick grins. “If the world ever gets back to normal again, this is how I’ll camp. Pull up to a campground. Park it next to a monster RV, get into my dry suit, and just lie down in the parking spot.”
We’re in a clump of spruce forest on the right side of the creek, figuring the canoe people, in the unlikely event that they’re tracking us down the creek on foot, would need to ford the creek to get to us. I doubt they’re doing that—Brooke’s talk about the phone seemed to really hit home—but the less risk we take the better. Now that we’re almost at the bridge, the stakes for failing seem higher. We’ve put in all this time and effort to get this far.
I’m lying down next to Brooke with all these thoughts racing through my mind a
bout trying and failing, or trying and succeeding, while Derrick and Shannon are on watch. I just want the time to pass and the sun to set so we can get on with this.
Brooke rolls over onto her side so she’s facing me. Her gray dry suit makes it look like she’s getting ready to board a spaceship or clean up a toxic waste site, but really it’ll only protect her from the cold water. We’ve got all the right equipment to get where we need to go, but one soldier with a machine gun pointed at us could cut us to pieces. Do they make bulletproof dry suits?
I’m looking right into her eyes as I’m thinking all this. I reach out and touch her cheek. “I hope you survive. I hope we all do.”
Brooke puts her hand on top of my hand and squeezes. “I keep picturing my family—my mom, my dad, my sisters—behind a big fence in some detention camp in Fairbanks.”
A tear escapes Brooke’s eye, and I scoot closer to her. “We’re all we’ve got right now. And your family, and my family—we’re all they’ve got right now, too. What we’re doing, we’re doing for them.”
“Josh,” Brooke says, “I’m ready to do what we need to do, but we’re just one piece of a plan. And even if we succeed, there’s no guarantee that the soldiers holding people captive in Fairbanks will just let them go. They may be ordered to gun them down.”
“We can only control our part and our actions,” I respond. I think about my parents, about not wanting them to get a divorce, about wanting to control what they do, but knowing I can’t. “By doing our part, we’re at least potentially giving everyone else a chance even if we die in the process. Like today, when you clocked that guy with a big stick. That allowed me to escape so I could keep going with the mission. If you hadn’t done that, there might only be the three of you heading downriver. You did that.”
The whop whop of a helicopter invades my ears, and I scoot closer to Brooke. I know we’re invisible under the thick spruce, but then I think of Sam’s hideout and how it was probably discovered by some kind of heat sensor, and I hope that we’re not being targeted in the same way. Two people under a tree couldn’t be much different from a moose, heatwise. Could they?
I just hope they aren’t patrolling when we’re paddling toward the bridge tonight.
CHAPTER 91
BY THE TIME THE SUN sinks behind the trees, we’re finished packing our kayaks. My backpack is snugly strapped in the bow with my rubber boots and flippers strapped to the outside for easy access. I’m wearing my dry suit and my neoprene booties, just like everyone else.
We haven’t heard any helicopters since the ones that flew over while Brooke and I were resting.
“The gun”—Derrick pats the top pocket of his pack—“is right here, along with my bear spray. I wish I could carry it on me while we paddle, but these dry suits don’t have pockets. At least I can reach it in a hurry. And if something happens to me, you all know where to find it.”
We all decide to put our bear spray, and the knives Sam gave us, in the top pockets of our packs. A shot of spray on an unsuspecting Russian soldier would be effective. I know from first-hand experience.
The sky is gray, and the air is heavy and still. Mosquitoes swarm around us, but we’ve reapplied the insect repellent on our faces and hands, the only exposed parts of our bodies. We’ve got these gray neoprene bathing caps on—all part of the attempt to make us the same color as the Tanana River, which is why we have to be extra careful paddling the creek to the river, because the creek is clear water—not glacier-silt gray—so we look like gray blobs resting on top of a sheet of glass.
“Let’s try to stay together,” Shannon says. “If last night’s paddle is any indication, the creek will twist and turn, and we’ll probably need to go single file a lot of the time. But let’s not get too spread out.”
“Do we need to settle on an order?” I ask.
“If it’s okay with the rest of you,” Shannon says, “I’d like to lead. I’ve got the most paddling experience.”
“Genius out front,” Derrick says. “Sounds good to me.”
“The main thing to avoid,” Shannon explains, “are sweepers. They’re trees still rooted to the bank but hanging over the water, usually with their trunks bouncing on the surface and branches extending above and below the water.” Shannon uses her hands to demonstrate. “If this is a sweeper”—she sticks out one finger—“and your kayak gets pinned on the upstream side of it”—she presses a finger from her other hand into the finger already sticking out—“the pressure from the current could flip your boat.”
“Anything else?” I ask. I’m bouncing on my toes, ready to go.
Shannon tilts her head sideways and exhales. “The other main thing is that if you need to slow down, like if the current is taking you somewhere you don’t want to go, or if you’re unsure of where to go, just back-paddle and it’ll slow you down and maybe even keep you in place, depending on how strong the current is.”
“Coming down the creek last night wasn’t so tough,” Brooke says. “It was easier than I thought it’d be. Of course, we’d been chased into the water by a bear, so almost anything would seem easy after that.”
We enter the creek and I follow Shannon as she paddles along, with Brooke behind me and Derrick behind her. A family of ducks scoots across the water in front of Shannon and disappears in some shallows on the opposite side of the creek.
We round a bend, and the first sweeper comes into view. I follow Shannon’s lead and back paddle on the left side of my kayak, which turns my boat to the left. I paddle forward a few strokes, and now I’m in the center of the creek, easily avoiding the sweeper.
Shannon disappears for an instant but comes back into view as I round the main part of the bend, but now she’s back-paddling furiously. Just beyond her I see why, and it makes my heart leap into my throat.
There’s a moose standing in the creek, and it’s not moving out of the way.
CHAPTER 92
“MOOSE!” I YELL, HOPING TO alert Brooke and Derrick, who are somewhere behind me, as I start back paddling. I keep windmilling my arms in reverse, but instead of going straight back my kayak is drifting to the left and not staying in the center of the creek. I haven’t seen or heard Derrick or Brooke. Shannon has somehow worked her way upstream on the right side of the creek and has grounded out in some shallow water.
The water is deep where I am, so I keep back-paddling, but the current is relentless. Then I feel the back of my boat bump into something. One of the sweepers we avoided when we rounded the bend a couple of minutes ago, I think. At least I’m on the downstream side of it, but I can’t go any farther back, and now my paddle is pummeling branches on the sweeper and I’m losing control and drifting toward the moose again.
I catch a glimpse of Brooke and Derrick across the creek with Shannon. No way can I paddle over there. The current would run me into the moose before I made it halfway across. As it is, I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this position. I’m basically back-paddling until I hit the sweeper, then the current takes me, then I back-paddle again when I have room to paddle. But my kayak keeps getting pushed sideways, and I don’t know how to make it stay straight with the way the river is bending and the current is flowing. I’m a runner, not a kayaker.
I don’t know what the other three are doing, like if they’re making a plan about how to deal with the moose, but I need to deal with it now.
Theo’s words pop into my head. Sometimes the only way out of something is through it. We were talking about choosing to run harder even when we felt more tired. I’m sure he wasn’t talking about paddling full speed into a moose, but that’s what I decide to do, because right now the choices are to slowly drift into it as I lose control of my kayak while back paddling or to charge it, and I’m going all in. I don’t want to give the moose too much time to react. If I’m going to have contact with a moose, I want it to see me as a threat, as dominant, as not scared out of my mind and quivering with fear.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely scared.
>
I paddle forward and let out a loud scream. The moose is standing broadside to me. I keep screaming as I paddle toward the brown wall of fur.
The tip of my kayak bumps the moose’s front leg, and it leaps sideways. I shoot by it and keep paddling, not giving it time to rear up and kick me unless it wants to chase me downstream. The creek is bending to the right again. I round the bend, glance over my shoulder, and see no trace of the moose. I take a breath and back paddle, waiting for everyone else to catch up.
I can feel the sweat underneath my dry suit. Sometimes the only way out of something is through it. Going through worked this time, but I could’ve just as easily died if the moose had chosen to stand its ground.
Surprise, I think. Sometimes surprise is the best strategy. I had to think fast and move fast. To have done nothing and drift into the moose would have given it all the power.
To be successful at the bridge, we might need to use an element of surprise, except there we could be met with machine guns instead of moose hooves.
Shannon, Derrick, and Brooke round the bend. I paddle forward so they won’t have to slow down.
“Moose Man,” I hear Derrick say from behind me.
“More like Moose Whisperer,” Shannon says before I can respond.
I glance over my shoulder and catch a glimpse of Derrick grinning.
“I just did what I thought I had to do, and it worked out,” I say. “It easily could’ve gone the other way.”
Brooke’s voice cuts in. “That was crazy, Josh.” She pauses. “Cool, but crazy.”
“I couldn’t control my kayak the way Shannon did,” I respond. “The way all of you did.”
“Yeah,” Brooke says, “but you had the guts to try something instead of just freezing up.”
I back paddle and say, “I guess I did, but now I think Shannon should be back out in front. She’s the best at avoiding obstacles in the current.”