Surviving Bear Island

by Paul Greci

  I stoked one of the fires, then hauled armloads of firewood back to my bedroom. When I found berries I ate them. The juices stung the wounds in my mouth. Instead of healing, they’d turned into large canker sores. And every time I poked at them with my tongue, they burned. I couldn’t help poking them. I was continually checking to see if they were gone, and they never were. And a steady ache had settled in around the swan bite, like maybe it was infected. When I touched the area around the bite it felt bumpy, like a rash. And it was starting to itch.

  I lugged some deadfall to the kitchen area. I think they were a bunch of small trees that were mowed down in a snow avalanche or a windstorm, because they’d all fallen in the same direction, like a giant had walked down the mountain, flattening everything in its path.

  And all the time I scavenged for wood and berries I kept my eyes and ears open for any sign of my dad. I’d found some broken plastic bottles in the strand line and a rusty fishing lure without any hooks, but that was it.

  My back muscles just below my shoulders ached every time I pulled on anything, but I just kept on pulling because that’s how you dealt with deadfall. You grabbed an end and pulled. Sometimes it came with you straight away, and other times you had to lift with one hand and pull with the other, or pull with both arms and lean backwards, or change your angle. Sometimes it broke free and you fell backwards or sideways.

  But you had to pull.

  Pull.

  Pull.

  Pull.

  I leaned five long poles against a large spruce, at forty-five degree angles, and spaced about a foot apart.

  I carried rocks from the shore and piled them around the base of each pole. Then collected branches and laid them lengthwise across the poles. All I wanted was a place to cook and eat where I wouldn’t get pounded by the rain. A place far enough away from my bedroom so any bears that checked out my kitchen wouldn’t stumble into my bedroom. A place big enough for me and my dad.

  I broke boughs from spruce and hemlock trees and covered part of the bedroom floor, big enough for two to sleep. They’d keep us off the moss and mud, and smelled good, kind of like oranges. I wanted to pile more in—make a bed of them that was really raised off the ground, and cover the kitchen floor too, but then I remembered the tide.

  I ran to the creek. The salt water was pushing its way upstream. And a thick mat of dorsal fins rode in the tide.

  I felt the digestive juices building at the bottom of my esophagus, burning.

  I jogged back to my bedroom, put a piece of wood on the fire and grabbed my gaff.

  The gaff.

  I hadn’t fixed it yet.

  It didn’t matter if I worked all day and half the night, there was always more to do.

  I pulled on the loose hook. The rope that ran through all the fishing line had somehow stretched. After picking away at the knot and being unsuccessful, I just cut the rope, repositioned the lure, and retied the rope.

  I’d have to think of a better way tonight. I couldn’t afford to lose another lure, but I couldn’t afford to not fish while the tide was in.

  That night, two burncooked fish filled out my stomach as I sat between the fires in my bedroom.

  And in my hands, a hookless gaff.

  That rope I’d retied, the line sliced right through it when I’d hooked my third fish.

  I was a bear without claws. And as Mr. Haskins put it: “You know what happens in nature when you don’t adapt? You die.”

  A single salmon laid hundreds of eggs. And it got to lay those eggs only after avoiding all those animals in the ocean that might eat them and fishermen that might catch them, and then dodging bears in the creek. Some made it, some didn’t. And the ones that made it passed their genes on so those fish created from the eggs were more likely to make it, unless the conditions changed.

  And people who survived in tough situations didn’t make the same mistakes over and over. They adapted or else they died.

  Like this dude, Shackelton. I’d read a book about him and his men stranded on the frozen Antarctic Ocean a hundred years ago, their ship crushed by sea ice. Cut off from the world, they hiked hundreds of miles over the shifting ice pack, constantly changing what they were doing to adapt to their constantly changing situation. None of them had died. They hauled these big wooden boats, weighing hundreds of pounds, over the ice. It was backbreaking work. Some of the men wanted to abandon the boats, but Shackelton said no because they might reach a point where they’d need them. He kept his options open—those boats saved their lives.

  I knew I needed to fix the gaff, had to make it better. But I needed something else, in case I kept losing hooks. Another option.

  Something that didn’t rely on a hook.

  Learning life’s lessons sure can be hard.

  You can’t learn nothin’ if you don’t leave the yard.

  I tossed the gaff aside and picked up a branch about seven feet long that I’d broken from an alder tree, and started whittling. The alder was stubborn and my knife kept skipping forward. And my eyes kept wanting to close.

  Just ’cause a job looks big, especially when you’re tired, doesn’t mean you can’t do it. You can’t let your own mind talk you out of it before you even try.

  “One shaving at a time,” I told myself over and over.

  I whittled and whittled, taking short breaks to stretch my fingers and wrists, and to add wood to the fires. I’d named them Right Fire (RF) and Left Fire (LF).

  LF gave me problems. That little devil was always blowing smoke into my eyes. He ate more wood because of the wind fanning him. But that wind made LF hotter than RF, so he kept me warmer.

  RF was a steady burner, mostly thanks to me acting as a wind block. I usually turned to RF in the morning. He always had hot coals, unless the wind had switched.

  “I’d have hot coals too,” LF said. “If you’d give me my fair share of wood.”

  “Fair share?” I said. “Dude, you burn everything like it’s been doused in gas.”

  Yeah, they talked to me and I talked to them. I mean, who else was I going to talk to? I fed them wood and they fed me warmth. I’d do my best to make sure they didn’t die, and whether they knew it or not, they were doing the same for me. I knew a bear could tear through the front wall of my shelter, but the fires might make a bear hesitate, or stay away. And being able to see when it was dark made things less scary. I could feel the nights getting longer and longer, and I couldn’t afford to just sleep when it got dark ’cause I needed the time to work.

  The part of my thumb facing my index finger blistered from gripping the knife, but I just kept whittling until the last eight inches or so of the branch tapered to a point.

  I felt the point with my finger. “It should puncture.”

  “Not bad,” RF said, “for your first time.”

  “Puncture?” LF said. “Looks kind of dull.”

  “What do you two know?” I said. “Sharpness is one thing. Force is another.” Like me and Billy—with our arrows back in fifth grade. They weren’t that sharp, but when we put our weight behind them they stuck. Billy used to come over after school to shoot at the target my dad had set up in the backyard. Then my mom died and that was the end of that.

  Billy was a good shot. Said there was nothing to it—he just imagined the target was his dad. I wondered how Billy would feel if his dad actually died. Would Billy miss him? It’d be hard to miss someone who made a habit of hitting you.

  My dad had never hit me with anything except his silence. The most violent he ever got was breaking all those dishes after Mom died.

  My dad, I thought.

  “What do you think,” I said to LF, leaning toward him. “Is he around?”

  LF belched a cloud of smoke into my eyes and I drew back. “Okay, so that’s how it’s gonna be.” I turned to RF. “What do you think? Is my dad around here? Is…is he even alive?”

  RF continued to burn steadily, then it popped and an orange flame crawled over the top stick and the fire fla
red.

  “Cool,” I said. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  I set the spear down, held my hands in front of LF and rubbed them together. Wishing hadn’t brought Mom back and I knew that technically it wouldn’t magically bring Dad to me, but still, that raincoat, that had to be a sign. The life vest, too. And the footprints. And all the times I’d heard his voice.

  Nice spear, Tom. Now, what about that gaff?

  I smiled and then picked up the gaff. Should I put another lure on it? No, I thought. I have to make the gaff better so I don’t lose any more lures.

  In my mind I worked at fixing the gaff, trying to see a better way. A stronger way.

  I put another log on LF, some smaller sticks on RF.

  RF immediately popped and threw sparks.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll give you a log too.” I put a log on RF. “You happy, now?”

  RF smoked a bit, and then popped.

  I removed lure number three from my survival kit.

  I tied another five independent loops of fishing line through the eyehole, and was reaching for the rope when I heard the noise.

  CHAPTER 16

  NEEDLES crunched. I heard a shuffle, then a grunt. My heart beat in my ears, like my head was gonna explode. Something bumped my shelter. I pressed my back against the dirt wall.

  A small branch moved.

  The branch detached itself from my shelter.

  I screamed, “Hey bear! Hey bear! Hey bear!”

  But nothing happened. I felt the sweat building under my arms. My whole body was shaking. I took a breath and a chill ran up my spine.

  Seconds passed. I heard it. A chewing, gnawing sound filled my ears and became my whole world.

  Not a big sound. A small sound. I cupped my hands behind my ears and listened. I turned my head toward one entrance then the other, trying to pinpoint the location. Just beyond the light of LF. That’s where I thought it was coming from.

  I stood, and the sound stopped. But I could sense that whatever made the sound was close by, covered only by the darkness.

  I grabbed the unburnt end of a log I’d been feeding to LF, who responded by blowing a stream of gray smoke my way. Then I put the glowing end forward, and stepped outside. But the red glow was so dim I could barely see my own feet.

  Back inside, I knelt and piled handfuls of small sticks on both LF and RF, filling the shelter with warmth and light.

  I thought about just staying put, but I had to see what was out there. Had to know if it was something to worry about.

  I stood again, flush with the back of the shelter, and was about to step outside, but stopped. I reached toward the boughs and scooped up my new spear. I tapped the tip with my index finger. Sharp enough.

  I took a breath and stepped into the added light, and peered in the direction where I’d heard the gnawing, chewing noises. Under a tree, less than twenty feet away, was a curled-up form twice the size of a football, the tips of its quills shining in the firelight.

  I felt my hand tighten around the base of the spear.

  A porcupine.

  Food. Meat. Food. Meat.

  Every starving cell in my skinny body was sending signals to my brain.

  Kill it. Eat it. Kill it. Eat it.

  On the tips of my toes I took a step toward the porcupine.

  No response.

  I took another step. Then another.

  When I’d covered half the distance, the porcupine turned its head away from me and presented its tail.

  Careful, I thought.

  Only about eight feet away, I gripped the base of the spear with both hands and brought it up to ear-level. I took two quick steps, and lunged forward. The porcupine swung its tail in my direction. I felt the spear point connect, and kept driving it forward into its neck.

  The porcupine thrashed wildly, wailed like a baby, and ripped the spear from my hands. The spear bounced up and down until I pinned it to the ground with my feet. And through my boot bottoms I could feel the spear shaking, the little animal quivering. It went on for maybe ten or fifteen seconds, the life draining out of it. Then nothing.

  I stepped off the spear and grabbed it with both hands. I was pretty sure the porcupine was dead, but I drove the spear forward and down, listening and feeling for movement. One stray swat with that tail and I’d be hurting.

  I lifted the spear, heavy with death, with food. Still, I kept it fully extended. I’d seen salmon that I’d pummeled spring back to life.

  At the band of alders in front of my bedroom I wove the spear between the branches, suspending the porcupine off the ground.

  In the dim light I saw the porcupine’s open mouth, like it was still crying out in agony. I cringed and looked away. I felt bad for killing it, but satisfied, too.

  It felt different than pulling a fish from the creek—there were thousands of salmon swimming up this one stream, but there weren’t thousands of porcupines running around. I’d only seen this one the whole time. But if I saw another, I’d try to kill it, too.

  Things died all the time so other things could live. Animals searched for plants and other animals to eat while they tried not to get eaten.

  Death is part of life. Part of the cycle. No one escapes it.

  Just last year a bunch of wolves had killed this woman who was jogging down a dirt road outside a remote village. I felt bad for the woman and everyone who knew her and everyone who would miss her and at the same time knew that those wolves were just being wolves, killing to eat, like animals did.

  I looked at the porcupine again. So small, and I’d killed it. And that high-pitched sound, like a baby crying when the spear connected. I thought about my own neck, how horrible it’d be to get stabbed with a spear, but I needed to eat, just like the wolves.

  I decided to wait until morning to gut it, clean it, cook it and eat it. In the light. In the kitchen.

  I added wood to LF and RF and lay down on the life vests. The canker sores in my mouth ached, and my swan bite itched like a hundred mosquitos had nailed me right on that spot, but I was smiling.

  In the morning by the fire in my kitchen, I studied the speared porcupine. Couldn’t be much different from gutting a fish. Just slit open the belly and pull the insides out.

  With my foot I pushed the porcupine off the spear and turned it over, belly upwards. I slit the soft quill-less belly, reached into the opening and pulled out the guts, which felt like a giant handful of jello coated with glue, and smelled like cat food. Gross.

  I carried the guts to the bay, tossed them in, then stuck my hands in the water and rubbed them together. I pulled them out and shook them, then did the sniff test. They still smelled like cat-food so I scrubbed them more, this time with gravel.

  Back in the kitchen, I tried to cut into the animal but the quills kept getting in the way, poking me.

  I’d never heard of anyone eating a porcupine. Do you have to skin it? Too hard to skin with all those quills. Maybe I could just singe those suckers off?

  I jabbed the spear through the open belly and into its throat, then rolled the carcass over the fire, letting the flames burn the quills down to tiny nubs. I pulled it from the fire and scraped off the nubs with my knife. And that charred-skin smell sent my stomach dancing.

  After the fire burned down, I put some green alder on the coals and set the carcass on the alder. While it cooked, I gathered some firewood and got a drink from the creek.

  When it started to turn black, I knocked it off the fire and let it cool until I could pick it up without being burned.

  I gnawed on the ribs, ripping meat from the bones and then chewing. The porcupine meat proved to be as tough as fish was tender. Instead of easily falling off the bones like the salmon, it clung to them.

  So I chewed and chewed and chewed.

  And then I chewed some more.

  My jaw got tired. It tightened up. But I kept at it, ripping into the tough-as-leather meat, swallowing mouthful after mouthful.

  I picked the ribs
and back clean, and then hung the carcass in a tree, saving the legs for later. I glanced at the carcass and thought, “later?” Yeah, it was only one more meal. I could actually work on my shelters and not worry about going hungry, at least for today.

  Porcupine by my shelter, its armor all intact.

  I was starving so I stabbed it, and it tried to stab me back.

  All its quills were quivering, as its life drained from its neck.

  I was sad and was happy. I’d eat it, every speck.

  My mom could’ve put my words to music. If I actually got to take guitar lessons I’d give it a try, if I could remember the words. The Salmon Song, the Porcupine Song—if I’d made more I’d already forgotten them.

  I piled spruce boughs on my bedroom roof until it was a dark green mound pushing out from the bank. The fog rolled in as I carried rocks up the beach and lined the base where the roof met the ground both inside and out, and dumped handfuls of beach gravel on top of the rocks to fill in the cracks to keep out the cold.

  And I thought about the creek full of salmon. I couldn’t turn my back on that. Maybe someone would come poking around back here. I mean, my dad couldn’t be the only one who wanted to get into the wilderness. Maybe I wouldn’t even have to go to the Sentinels.

  BEFORE THE ACCIDENT

  “Bigger water out there,” Dad shouted. “Need a place to land. Maybe around the next point. Just keep paddling. Hard. We want to avoid that wind line.”

  I bent forward and dug my paddle deeper, in a race against the dark gray water marching toward us. We’d been overtaken by a couple of wind lines, but they’d been no big deal. Just turned flat water into one- and two-foot seas. But the waves were already four feet and breaking.