Chugger's Hunt

by Roy F. Chandler

  Cole would have preferred not wasting time by accompanying the party to Mull's and enduring the obligatory farewells, but Smoke wanted no association with Valdez attached to the others' memories of him. "Smoke Cole? Why he lives and works down around Anchorage somewhere. Everybody knows that."

  Smoke settled himself for the three hundred mile drive south. He would go to his room in Valdez, get himself cleaned up, and provision for a long stay in the mountains. By this time tomorrow, he would be starting up Ernestine Creek. Once he got to Martin's camp, he would slow down and search carefully. There was no rush, and he almost hoped he did not find the film before Chugger Martin arrived.

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  Chugger also took his time. He chose to loaf a day at Mull's. He and Appleby fired Mull's rifles. Chugger's took a click of elevation to be on at two hundred yards. Acre claimed satisfaction with his. Appleby's three shot group was tight and centered enough, but Acre had to move his head around to gain the proper eye relief. Chugger could see the Indian's dislike of the telescopic sight.

  Appleby's old model 70 had only iron sights, as had Chugger's smashed .450 Alaskan. Most hunters used scoped rifles these days, but Martin doubted Acre would put one on whatever rifle he chose to buy.

  It was noon of another day before Chugger's truck purred south on the Richardson. They rolled along, stopping once to view the pipeline close at hand, and eating a leisurely meal at Black Rapids. Without others along, Acre Appleby had more to say.

  Appleby's was a narrower world that included the land and its natural occupants, but excluded most of man and his accouterments. It could sound strange for a native Alaskan who wore cloth, owned and drove a licensed truck, and hunted with a powerful rifle to claim to reject civilization, but Chugger understood. The modern things Acre adopted were to Appleby, like the iron fishhooks and metal pots accepted by his many forebearers. To Acre, all were tools. They improved, perhaps made possible, his life in the bush. Compared to the customized, electrified, and standardized world of most Alaskans, Appleby was a true primitive.

  At the official pipeline overlook, a large sign proclaimed the accomplishment of the engineering. Appleby wasted no glance at the writing. Chugger suspected Acre could not read, and believed it more when Appleby listened closely to Martin's read-aloud translation.

  When he had finished, Chugger asked, without hesitation or embarrassment for Appleby, "Do you read, Acre?"

  "No, except for a few things. I know road signs, Coca Cola, and words like restaurant and guns."

  "Would you like to read? You would find it easy."

  Appleby seemed to choose his answer carefully. They were back in Chugger's truck and moving south before he spoke.

  "Each of us knows many things. I believe it could be that each of us knows the same amount. If something is added, something escapes.

  "In Anchorage, I am a foolish Indian who cannot find his way without help. Yet, in my mountains, those who curl their lips would be as children, and I could laugh and call them foolish.

  "Reading of words has little use in my valleys. My reading is of animal tracks and the flights of birds. The sound of a stream can tell of the fish in it. The fish itself will describe the water it swims in.

  "At times, I wish that I could read words, as at times your people wish they knew the meaning of a bird's call. Yet, each can live without the other's knowledge and need not be lessened by that not known.

  "It has been said to me that Indians sometimes speak with unusual clarity and perhaps beauty of thought because they do not know the written words that influence the speaking and thinking of most. Perhaps this is true.

  "If I learn to read words, will I lose some of what I now know and cherish? If I read papers, will I still value the thoughts I now believe important? If I learn a thousand new things, will a thousand old ones be as they had been?

  "I am in my fortieth year. I am the last of my family. Already I have lived longer than my father or my brothers. For me, life has already been long. It is rich with the things of my people and some of the things of your people.

  "Should I risk that which is good? To gain what? The old ones gone before would nod at my choice. I am at peace with the spirits that surround us. I am at peace with the spirit within me.

  "No, Chugger, I do not choose to read more words."

  Acre Appleby's thoughts jabbed at Chugger Martin for considerable time. How many educated people could so quickly and clearly form and verbalize a philosophy of life? Few would even try. Most nonreaders would have responded with a "Nah, I ain't got time for readin'." A hint of an idea began its evolution in a corner of Chugger's consciousness.

  Acre was unusual. Here was an almost primitive man who could heal with his hands and who counted the wildness of the Denali as his heritage. Appleby reasoned beyond the norm and his teeth remained straight, white and strong. All were special among simpler people. Perhaps others would find depth in Acre Appleby and be interested in such a figure. Chugger would like to write about Acre, but he could not. Such an explosive public exposure would destroy the privacy vital to Appleby's way.

  As equally important to Martin was that for the first time, with easy unnotice, Acre had called him Chugger. What the use of his nickname indicated, Martin was not sure, but it would not have happened a week or so earlier. Perhaps he and Appleby had become friends.

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  They camped short of Glennallen and reached the overgrown Ernestine Creek turnoff in midmorning. Chugger pulled his truck into the wheel marks of his previous parking. He studied the immediate area but saw no signs of recent passage. No other vehicles had come in, and no boot marks edged the creeklet all needed to cross.

  They hoisted packs and began working along the grown over road leading to the cabins. Soon the ever enlarging beaver pond blocked the trace, and their course was through unblazed woods paralleling Ernestine Creek. The cabin site could not be passed unnoticed.

  They nooned at the cabins. Acre circled the clearing outwardly examining former occupants' accomplishments, but really searching for signs of recent passage. He found only the earlier tracks of Chugger and another man. Perhaps no one was on Ernestine Creek.

  Chugger said, "Nobody seems to know when the first cabin was built, but it was old in the 1940's. Slim Moore told me the newer one was put up in the middle 1950's. Back then, Slim said, the road in here was as good as the highway. In fact, the Valdez road used to loop around and come pretty close to this clearing. When the Richardson became a real highway engineers took out the curves, and this place was almost forgotten. Now, no one comes here. I'll bet the lock on the new cabin hasn't been opened in years.

  "I've heard these cabins sit on government land, and no one really owns them anyway. If you're looking for a new place, you can move right in, Acre."

  Chugger found his old fording stick, and Appleby cut his own. They made their first creek crossing safely and Chugger noted that the continuing warm weather had raised the water level about six inches.

  "This creek responds to weather change just like a thermometer, Acre. A few degrees change and the glacier melts or freezes. Up or down goes the water. I think a man could put a marked stick in the stream and know pretty close to what the air temperature was."

  Acre asked, "Why do so many people care so much about the temperature? Men exclaim daily over numbers in places far away. I have heard them. Even here, the cold of this camp could be different than a camp a half mile away. Your body and your mind tell you how to dress. Why bother with numbers?"

  Chugger chuckled, acknowledging the silliness of some of it. "I guess people just like to know things, Acre. We watch news from places we will never see and worry over how many distant strangers are out of work, or for whom they voted. Folks in Florida, where it is always hot, look to see how uncomfortable it is in Alaska, as though it were a contest. Fills empty minds, I suppose."

  Acre shifted subjects with casual ease. "How can a mind be empty? Mine rests only when I sleep."

  Acre was
right, and saying empty minded was only a way of describing trivial thinking. Appleby could make you watch your slangology.

  They worked their way along, not caring how much ground they covered. Bear clawed trees gave them pause because the gouges were very high on the trunks. Acre said, "This was truly a grandfather of bears, Chugger."

  Martin answered, "Oh, I don't know, Acre, He might just have been skinny with long legs."

  Appleby laughed aloud, and Chugger was pleased, for until now Acre had only smiled or snorted at attempted humor.

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  Smoke Cole had left his truck behind a closed down restaurant a pair of miles south of Ernestine Creek. He had walked north along the highway berm, careful to step from sight when cars approached,

  He turned off the road and waded the creek well before the way into the cabins. From there on, Smoke held high to the canyon's side, well away from a normal route up the creek. When Chugger Martin came in, and Cole expected to see him quite soon, there would be no indication that someone was before him.

  Near the creek, the worst thickets of small growth could be avoided by taking to the stream for short distances. Off the canyon floor, the going was brutal. Cole had no choice but to plow ahead, cursing his difficulty, but recognizing that a hint of another presence might turn Martin away. Smoke figured the writer would be leery of returning to the scene of his beating. Cole would do nothing to spook him.

  When he reached the flat island showing the remains of Martin's scattered camp, Smoke became even more cautious. He circled widely, then headed directly for the higher ground. Cole trusted his search of Chugger's camp. The film was not there. Martin had said he had hidden his packboard high, so he would not have to carry it up the next day. How high was the question. From the valley floor the canyon walls rose steep and unfriendly. Maybe, Smoke considered, he should have had the helicopter bring him to where Kelly O'Doran had shot the goat. From the ground, he was not even certain where that spot was.

  A number of reasons had kept Smoke away from the helicopter outfit. Right now, their pilot was skittish about further involvement. He had taken a well-paid chance and had nearly been caught. More important was that Smoke Cole wanted no one to know he was on Ernestine. If Chugger Martin never came out, Smoke's presence must never surface. Not even Kelly O'Doran knew where Smoke Cole was hunting. Once he had the film. Smoke could explain as much or as little as he chose.

  Examining the shrubby land that ran almost to the glacier, then the rockslide slopes rising sharply to ragged crests, Cole began doubting his ability to find anything.

  Martin was right; it would be hard to locate a hidden pack. Well, he would look, while being careful to leave no tracks. He would climb high, but keep an eye on the canyon floor. When Martin came, Smoke would see him. Smoke would watch from good cover until Martin had his pack. Then Smoke would take him out with one clean shot. Just as he would any other game animal.

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  Halfway in, a moose rose close in front of Chugger and Acre. The bull wore a monster rack, still in velvet with tips growing. For more than a minute the bull faced away, looking back at them across a massive shoulder. Then he stepped almost soundlessly from sight in growth so thick the men were floundering through.

  "Whew, that was a big one for these parts, Acre. What would you guess, seventy inches? He also has many points and wide palms. This one would make the record books."

  "Do you want him, Chugger?"

  Martin was mildly astonished. "Hell no, Acre. My God. We aren't hunting moose. We aren't hunting anything."

  Chugger felt a need to explain. "I don't hunt in here. I used to, but now I like the thought of leaving things as untouched as possible."

  "The moose will grow old. His antlers will be smaller each year, and then he will feed a bear."

  "That's the natural way, Acre. I've shot my share, but there is something about my hunting I don't mind talking about."

  Chugger dropped his pack and sat down against it. Taking his cue, Acre did the same.

  Martin stretched a little, still stiff from the accident on Saint Anthony's pass. He shrugged his shoulders to relieve the pack strap strains. They rested in a small cleared strip where a house-size boulder had tumbled from the brooding canyon walls and wiped away everything in its path. The rock, now moss covered and half buried, lay almost beside the rushing stream. A century could have passed since its wild plunge, but the short Alaskan growing season would need another hundred turnings to disguise the marks of passage.

  Chugger said. "When I go out to hunt a certain animal that is all I hunt. If I am hunting moose and a grizzly stands up, the bear is safe. For me, the hunt is the challenge. What is proud about showing off a big hide or head you just stumbled across? Where is the accomplishment?

  "Now I know that most don't agree. If they can shoot it, they do. In my opinion, killing gets to be too important to them.

  "I like to search out the animal I want. I like to look him over, to make certain his horns are right, or that his hide is prime. Then I want an imaginative and difficult stalk, with a not too easy but perfect shot at the end. Those things have always made the hunt for me.

  "Hell, Acre, I haven't shot many animals that I didn't sort of wish could get up and walk away after a few minutes."

  Acre said, "I have been with many hunting parties. Few are the hunters who will pass a trophy because it surprised them by appearing. I am trying to remember one."

  Chugger laughed in agreement. "Well, some like me are around, Acre, but I've got to admit that if I came all the way from Virginia and only had a week or two, I might feel differently. Those are the guys you have been guiding.

  "Now, if that big old grizzly that clawed the tree back there charged us. I'd try to down him and be pleased to have his hide. In that case I would be preserving a powerful memory and could rightly claim I had stayed cool and shot true in a desperate situation.

  "But, seeing the flash of an antler, squalling 'BULL,' to alert my buddies, then blasting away at hide spotted through the willows isn't fun for me. It's shooting and hoping. Hoping your bullet hits solid and hoping what you hit is really what you wanted."

  "Some hunt for meat."

  Chugger asked, "Now Acre, how many of those hunters you are thinking about were meat hunters?"

  It was Appleby's turn to smile. "I am trying to remember one."

  The demolished camp lay as Chugger had left it. Only the scattered food had been disturbed, mostly by ravens, it appeared. Appleby made a circle but found no new human sign.

  They set up camp amid the shambles of the old, then began to regather everything.

  Chugger said, "Well, it's about as I remember. Not a lot to carry out. The rest we'll burn or bury."

  Appleby's voice was sorrowful. He held Chugger's bent-barreled rifle with reverence. "This was a Harold Johnson rifle, Chugger. It was made near my cabin many years ago. When I was young my father took me to look at these rifles. Kenai Rifles they were called. See, here is the mark."

  Chugger was equally rueful. "That was my father's gun, Acre. Nothing could beat a .450 Alaskan in the brush."

  He took the ruined gun from Appleby and examined it closely. He worked the lever and a cartridge fed and ejected, but no more appeared. "Well, the action seems all right, but the barrel and magazine are bent all to hell. I brought a saw to cut the barrel off, but maybe it would be better to lug it out and let a gunsmith look. It will be awful expensive to rebarrel and restock. Bill Fuller has a .450 chambering reamer and can do that part, I think."

  Appleby retook the remodeled Winchester and slid his hands almost affectionately along the cold steel. "I hope you will repair this gun, Chugger. Such rifles are no longer made, but they were the best. In my youth, to own a Harold Johnson gun was my greatest dream."

  "Yeah, I'll have it fixed, Acre. My father believed just what you're saying, and I've carried that gun a lot of years. Whoever smashed it ruined one hell of a fine rifle."

  Chugger's words flared A
ppleby's nostrils, and he raised his eyes to the jagged cliffs and crags surrounding their valley. He had seen no sign, but an enemy could be waiting. Could it be Smoke Cole? The mountains offered no answer.

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  Smoke Cole's camp lay near a summit, tucked out of the wind in a nook where snowmelt provided a water trickle. Cole had brought in an air mattress and cans of Sterno for cooking. He was well equipped and expected he could wait until Martin appeared.

  Cole's searching had been only a day's walk through. It had revealed nothing. Martin and Appleby's appearance far below was welcome. Their presence cleared the air. The situation was settled. Martin would recover his film and Smoke would shoot both him and the Indian dead in their tracks.

  An hour later, Smoke would be gone and the ravens would reduce the bodies to bone piles. Marmots, perhaps wolves and foxes, and possibly wolverines would crunch most of what remained. Should he hide the men's camping gear? Smoke doubted he would bother.

  Appleby's presence bothered Cole a little. Because Martin had been alone before, Smoke had assumed he would be again. The author's rejection of Cole's offer to go with him had strengthened that assumption.

  Well, Appleby would make little difference. Smoke would be more careful in moving and observing. The Indian had eagle eyes, but they could not match a pair of 7 x 35 binoculars.

  Cole saw that both his quarries carried scoped rifles. When he shot, Smoke would make certain no nearby cover would protect the momentary survivor. Two shots, Smoke figured, probably before dark tomorrow.

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  Chapter 10

  Chugger woke late, then he hunched cozily in his sleeping bag, waiting the sun's late arrival in the deep valley. Acre Appleby puttered about, and seemed no more hurry minded than Martin.

  What would it be like, Chugger wondered, to quit writing and spend most of his life just camping out, doing only the few things a man had to do? At this moment a vagabond existence held appeal, but probably the need to know what was happening in the world would intrude. Most men tired of just themselves and a companion or two. They got to hungering for the sight and thought of others. At least educated white men did.