by Paul Greci
But now, the water was turning gray. And the pale red outline of the sun, barely breaking through the clouds, was sinking toward the horizon. I had maybe a couple hours of daylight left and I needed firewood. Tomorrow I’d climb the steep point south of my cove and keep looking.
I hiked back over the point and rebuilt my fire under the same massive spruce tree, then collected more wood. It started raining lightly. I mean, you couldn’t even tell unless you stepped out onto the beach and tilted your head up; only then could you feel the mist on your face.
I dumped some wood next to the fire.
I was already hungry again. And even though I wasn’t freezing like yesterday, I still wasn’t warm. Warm like I’d been with a tent and sleeping bag. And dry. I still wasn’t dry.
I took the emergency blanket out of the wrapper. It was silver and thinner than tin foil but really flexible. You could scrunch it up like a plastic bag and it wouldn’t rip. And it was big—seven feet long and about four feet wide.
I draped it over my head and shoulders and pulled it around me like a cape.
But the fire burned down and I got cold, so I shed the blanket, added wood to the fire, and then searched behind camp for more.
I stepped over a rotting log and my foot sank and made a sucking noise, like I’d stepped into deep mud.
Fresh bear scat. A huge mother of a pile.
I twisted my foot out of the crap, then noticed another mound beside it. Now my heart was pounding. I scanned the forest for movement.
“Relax,” I said. “Relax.” But my heart kept pounding.
I looked at the scat again, and eyed some purple dots mixed in with the dark brown. Whole blueberries. Somehow they’d survived the journey through the bear’s digestive system. I didn’t want any part of myself making that journey. I glanced around. Gulped some air.
But the berries. I touched my empty stomach.
Food and firewood. I needed both.
“Berries. Okay. I’ll eat berries,” I said. “I’ll eat a boatload of berries—whatever I can find before dark.”
I hiked across the slope to a tangled mass of deadfall, where several trees had fallen, one on top of the other, and began pulling branches out, making a pile. I glanced toward camp, then I looked upslope and side-to-side, searching for bears in the twilight.
I scrambled farther up the deadfall and there they were.
Blueberries.
I plucked one from the branch. Dark blue and round. I rolled it around in my hand and popped it into my mouth.
Most blueberries in Prince William Sound have little white worms in them. They really grossed your mother out. She refused to eat them. But it’s a good protein source to know about if you need it. And, you can’t even taste the worms.
“Worms or no worms,” I said. “I’m hungry. Bring them on.”
I attacked the bushes, eating every berry in the small patch.
Maybe this is how it is. Move along. Find a berry patch and eat. Fill up your gut with worms. Just like the bears.
There it was again—in my mind—bears.
This place is full of bears. But it’s full of food, too. Rarely will a bear prey on a human. Most bear attacks happen to people who are alone. We’ve got each other.
I pulled more branches from the deadfall and made another pile of wood. I kicked at the ground. We didn’t have each other—not right now.
BEFORE THE ACCIDENT
Usually we hugged the shore. That way you had more chances of seeing land animals close-up on the coastline, plus it was safer. But along this stretch, after that group of sea lions left us, we were cruising a couple hundred yards out to avoid an endless minefield of rocks poking up from the bottom. It was my job to spot them.
Off in the distance, I caught a glimpse of a big black fin. I twisted my neck so my dad could hear me. “Over there.” I pointed with my paddle. “I think it’s a whale.”
CHAPTER 5
THE NEXT morning I woke to strands of fog. They reached into the forest and settled around me. I knew I needed to get over that point to the south. It was at least twice as tall as the one to the north and steeper, but maybe Dad was over there. Maybe he was hurt, or looking for me, freaking out because he couldn’t find me.
After he found out Mom died, he stood in the kitchen and dropped plates, one by one, on the floor until he’d broken them all. Then he took the bowls and did the same thing. I remember telling him to stop, but he acted like I wasn’t even there. I went into my room and cried and cried, and he never came in. When I came out hours later, he was sitting on the couch, and in the kitchen there wasn’t a speck of glass on the floor. I sat down next to him, and he put his arm around me. “We’ll get through this,” he said. But then he didn’t say anything much for months and months.
“I’ll get through this,” I said. “I’ll just keep searching for Dad until I find him.” Another shiver ripped through my body.
I put my life vest on, folded the emergency blanket and put it in my pocket, grabbed my spray skirt and walked to the water. Foot-high waves broke on the shore. The fog had lifted some, but the point to the south was still covered in a gray-white haze.
At the base of the point there was a patch of blueberries. I ate and ate and ate but was still hungry. My stomach felt raw, like someone had taken a piece of sandpaper to it. Maybe it was the acid from all those berries. And all the tiny white worms swimming around.
I zigzagged my way up into the fog, the gentle lap of the waves in my ears. If only it’d been like this a couple days ago.
My dad had told me about paddling in nine-foot seas, climbing up one side of the waves and down the other. “It wasn’t so much the waves but what you did in them, how you responded to them,” he’d said.
If only I’d done something different. If only I’d done what I was supposed to do. I stomped on a skunk cabbage plant over and over, smashing the three-foot tall leaves into green mush. Sweat ran down my neck. I stared at the mush, not wanting to move. My sweat cooled and my feet got that feeling, that pre-cold feeling that said, you better move soon if you want to keep your toes.
I lifted my head. “Okay, I’ll keep going.” Even though I didn’t want to.
I started to sweat from the climb and unzipped my raincoat. The fog was starting to break up a little more. On top, I picked my way over a few fallen trees and through some prickly Devil’s Club to the edge of the point. It was pretty much a straight drop to the rocks below. Maybe three hundred feet. And the point itself was broader than I’d imagined. A big rounded cliff top. I’d have to head inland a little bit to get back down to the water.
I walked along the edge, looking down, and caught a glimpse of blue wedged between two rocks. I zipped up my coat, lay on my belly and squinted. A dry bag. The bag with our sleeping bags. But there was no way to get to it.
I took a couple shallow breaths. Sleeping bags. There was a flashlight in there too. A candle lantern and extra matches. And what else…maybe dry socks, and a couple of spare wool caps?
Then I saw a faded red edge pointing straight up. A piece of the kayak, maybe a couple feet long, leaning against a rock. In my mind I saw my dad bobbing in the waves. I closed my eyes.
“Get out! Out of my freaking brain!” But it wouldn’t leave. I repeated the word “black” over and over until all I could see was darkness. My body trembling, I opened my eyes and crawled along, my chin moist from resting against the mossy ground. I saw nothing more besides rocks, but in lots of places I couldn’t see directly below because the cliff was undercut. No way to get there unless you had a boat, and even then it’d be dangerous—pointed rocks with waves breaking through them.
The fog rolled back in. At least I hadn’t seen any orange trapped on those jagged rocks. I mean, if you spent a day trapped down there after being in the ocean you’d pretty much be toast.
I put my hands on either side of my mouth and called down again and again but heard only the waves like they were pounding on my head every time they br
oke on the rocks below.
I kept to the edge as much as I could, catching glimpses of the rocks below when the fog let me, then cut inland and started to work my way down to the other side.
I faced the hillside and took backwards-sideways steps while gripping the wet brush for balance.
Side step.
Side step.
Side step.
Then I’d turn and do it again in the opposite direction, snaking my way down the steep, forested slope, keeping my legs bent the whole time.
I stepped onto the beach and straightened my legs. I turned and through the thin fog saw an orange dot at the far end of the cove.
“Oh,” I whispered. My stomach clenched and my throat tightened. I swallowed. “Dad!”
CHAPTER 6
I RAN toward the orange, but my legs felt rubbery, like I was gonna trip every time I took a stride, but I kept running and stumbling, caught my toe on a rock and fell, but got up and kept going.
Was he moving toward me? Had he heard me? “Dad! Dad!”
I was getting closer now and I could see the orange vest gently rising and falling, twisting a little right at the edge of the water.
About fifteen yards away I slowed to a walk, then stopped.
“Dad,” I whispered.
“Dad!” I yelled.
“No!” I screamed. “No! No! No!” I waded in over my boot tops and grabbed the vest. I looked out at the expanse of water, the waves washing my legs up to my thighs. I remembered my vest riding up on the back of my head, pushed continually by the big waves. I kept grabbing it and pulling it down. But Dad, he could’ve done that too. He would’ve done that.
I stepped back and fell onto the beach and buried my face in the vest.
If everything would just stop. Right now. Just stop.
Where was he?
The cold crept in. I forced myself to sit up. I was breathing hard, but couldn’t get enough air because my throat was so tight.
I sat hunched over, sucking air in little gasps. Like I was gonna die. Like how I imagined my mom dying.
One summer afternoon Mom went out for a bike ride and never came back. Hit and run. She was gonna bike this loop she always bikes. We live on forty acres outside of Fairbanks, toward the end of the Old Nenana Highway. But the loop Mom biked took her onto the real highway for a few miles and that’s where she got hit. Yeah, she had a helmet on but it didn’t matter. Some car or truck plowed into her and knocked her down a steep embankment. She’d bled to death. Sliced up by some sharp rocks.
I forced myself to stand up and breathe. My legs shook.
And my feet were ice from going in over my boot tops.
I slammed the vest onto the ground.
My eyes grew hot but no tears came.
That last image of him bobbing in the water popped into my mind again.
I sat down, and pounded the vest.
At the start of the trip, Dad had said, “I want more for you than my father could give me. I want more for us than what I had with my father. And your mother? If she could see us, she’d be happy that we’re doing this trip. Going to places she loved. Places that she wanted to take you. And, that I’d finally picked up the ball and started living again. Finally.”
My mom. Dead.
My dad. Gone.
I slammed my body back, and let out a scream that shook the clouds.
Where was he? He had finally come back. He has to be alive. If he were dead, I would’ve found his body on the shore. Wouldn’t I?
And then, I thought, maybe he lost his life vest while he was swimming ashore but he still made it to shore. Maybe he’d latched onto a floating dry bag with some of our gear in it and had used that to stay afloat, and now had a bag full of food or clothes, or maybe the tent. Probably better off than me right now. But where was he?
One life to live. My mom had those words on the fridge and my dad left them there. Even though he was like the walking dead after she died.
But this trip. He was snapping out of it. He’d said, “Tom you’re gonna have your old dad back if it kills me.” Said he’d buy me a new bow. He’d taken the old one and burned it after my mom died. Burned my target up, too. All in silence. I thought he might destroy Mom’s guitar when I started playing it, but he didn’t. Back then, she was gonna start giving me lessons when school started and, now, he said I could get those lessons with her guitar.
Dad had built a cedar box for Mom’s ashes. It sat on a table by his bed. He’d lie on his back with some headphones plugged into an old CD player. Mom had recorded some of her songs, and he just listened to that CD over and over. I’d peek into his room and see him with his eyes closed and his lips moving, like he could just live in his little world, not including me. Like why couldn’t we have listened together? I asked once but he didn’t even respond. Just shook his head turned away. I was furious then. I mean, I was sad too, but losing her was like losing both of them—until a few weeks ago.
I stood up and started walking toward the trees. The skin of sweat blanketing my body was cooling me. When I reached the thigh-high beach grass I sat down again. My mind was a storm. What now? I hugged the vest to my chest and felt the bulge.
I turned the vest around, put my hands on the bulge, then pulled them away. He had a big zippered pocket on his life vest where he carried his kit.
Eating his Meal Pack bars wouldn’t be fair. Then another thought crept into my mind on top of the first one. He’d want me to have them. To have what I need.
I unzipped the pocket and removed the survival kit.
I held one of the Meal Pack bars in my hand. I wanted to tear the wrapper off and scarf it down. Instead, I held it up to my nose and sniffed, and a sickly sweet smell invaded my nostrils. Even though I could eat a dozen Meal Pack bars, I thought, I need to hang on to these for when I find Dad because when I find him he’s gonna be hungry.
Then I walked the beach just above the most recent strand line, kicking at the seaweed left by the last high tide.
“Dad, Dad, Dad,” I kept calling, searching for tracks in sandy spots, peering into the trees, and scanning the open water, and studying the forest for any signs of him. And I kept my eyes open for anything from the accident that might’ve washed up. Anything.
At the north end of the beach, the place I’d come down off the cliffs, I turned and retraced my steps.
“Where are you?” I said. “What do you want me to do?”
What would he do if he’d found my vest and nothing more?
And then it hit me. I needed to leave a sign. I hadn’t left one where I’d washed ashore, but I’d leave one here. Something so he’d know I was alive. Something big.
CHAPTER 7
I STARTED carrying rocks up the beach and stacking them on top of a huge fallen tree just beyond the beach grass. No tide could touch what I was making. I tried to block everything else out and just get the job done, but that image of my dad bobbing in the water kept invading my brain. I slammed a rock onto the ground in front of the fallen tree. Then I picked up another and did the same thing. I took a breath, felt the heat behind my eyes. The accident was my fault. Just like my mom’s accident.
If I would’ve gone on that bike ride with her we would’ve stayed on our road because the whole loop was too long for me back then. But I’d said no.
“I want to keep shooting my arrows at the target,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go, Tom? It’ll be fun.” Mom said.
“No, Mom. I don’t want to go. Just let me be.”
The school counselor told me it wasn’t my fault. After a while I agreed with him so he’d shut up and quit talking about it. And sometimes I really believed that I had nothing to do with her dying. But deep down, I still felt responsible. I still felt the ache in my gut. A burning ache.
Just before sunset, as I gathered wood for a fire, I discovered fresh bear scat spotted with whole blueberries.
This place is full of bears.
I turned around and
peered into the forest. “Dad,” I said. “Dad? Is that you?”
His voice boomed in my brain. I didn’t understand it. It’s not like I was thinking about what Dad thinks—his words were just popping in there and echoing around whenever they pleased. But maybe it was a sign. A sign that he was out here. Somewhere.
“Sorry, Dad.” I hesitated. “Sorry I didn’t do my part.” I waited. Sort of hoping he’d answer, but heard nothing.
I faced the water and saw a couple of sea lions surface and then dive. I kicked at the ground and then bowed my head. Apologizing didn’t make me feel any better, but what more could I say? And what difference would it make?
I stomped off into the forest and collected more wood and ate blueberries as I found them. As the sun set, I watched the high clouds, which had moved in, turn red and orange.
Using dead hemlock twigs and splinters of driftwood, I tried to build a little teepee of dry sticks to start my fire but my hands kept shaking and I couldn’t place a stick without knocking over what was already there.
“This is all your fault, Dad.” I yelled. “Coming out here was your idea. Not mine.”
I grabbed a fire-starter stick and fed it small dry wood and got a fire going even though I wanted to save them for when I didn’t have dry wood.
By the firelight, I looked at what I had:
2 emergency blankets
2 lighters
2 small boxes of waterproof matches (40 total)
4 pixie fishing lures with treble hooks
fishing line (two small bundles)
2 lock-blade pocket knives with four-inch blades
12 small pieces of rope
2 small pieces of flint
4 two-inch fire starter sticks
In addition to my own clothing I had Dad’s life vest.
But no tent, no sleeping bag, no food—except for the Meal Pack bars, but those were for my dad.
I waited for his voice to come, but it didn’t. I hoped for a sign, any sign that would give me a clue to where he was, or what I should do, but none came. I stared into the fire. Faces came and went as the flames curled around fat sticks. Not faces I recognized, just blurry images that kept appearing and disappearing, one fading into another.