by Paul Greci
CHAPTER 17
TWELVE DAYS later, and I’d worn a trail between my bedroom and kitchen. And with the help of RF and LF, we’d come up with a name. Fish Camp. It made sense to me because I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the fish. And we all agreed that it sounded nicer than Swan-bite Camp. Yeah, that thing still itched some but it was getting better.
After the porcupine, I’d started keeping track of the days. I don’t even know why. I guess I just wanted to know, so every day I scratched a line on my spear with my knife. I counted backwards and figured it’d been about eleven days between the accident and the porcupine, so I put eleven more marks on the spear. Twenty-three total. Since the raincoat, I hadn’t received any more signs that my dad was close by, even though I was always looking, always hoping.
I didn’t know what else to do besides live at Fish Camp. You’d think I’d go crazy from loneliness, but I had almost no time to be lonely, except at night. And usually I was so tired I just drifted in and out of sleep, making sure to keep RF and LF going. Some nights I’d wake up in a sweat, reliving the accident. Then I’d really build up the fires and lay there in the light, the weight of my mistake pressing down on me.
Sometimes I’d think about Heather and whether she was really moving back to Fairbanks. Would I ever get back to see her? And if I did make it back but my dad didn’t, would I get to stay in Fairbanks, or would I have to go live with my uncle who I barely knew?
And I’d think about my mom and that bike ride, and I’d go back and forth on whether it was my fault. And even if it wasn’t my fault, I still felt bad about how things would’ve been different if I’d gone on the ride. How we would’ve still been a family instead of two people barely speaking to each other living in the same house.
Most nights I woke up thirsty but didn’t want to walk to the creek in the dark.
I’d tacked up one of the silver emergency blankets on the dirt wall. It reflected both warmth and light from RF and LF.
I’d cut a piece of nylon from the shredded end of my dad’s raincoat and wrapped it around the rope on my gaff. That kept the fishing line from cutting through it.
And yesterday I learned by accident that I could dry fish. A bear had come into my camp. I had three fish on the fire, almost done. The bear came toward me, attracted by the fish smell, and then retreated as I waved my spear and shouted. This went on for a long time, until I started throwing rocks. No one ever told me to throw rocks at a bear. It was always “play dead, yell or speak softly, back away slowly, or hold your ground or make yourself look big.” All these contradictions. But after I pegged the small bear a couple of times it drew back, then disappeared.
When I turned to the fire, the bottom sides of the fish were so burned they were crispy around the tail and had started to dry out. I wasn’t sure how long dried, burned fish would keep, but knew it was my ticket out.
The salmon in the stream were thinning out. Fewer fish in the school each day. And Fish Camp would be useless without the salmon. I was at the very back of a big bay on the exposed side of Bear Island, a place I remembered Dad saying that people stayed away from. Too far and too expensive. And now it was fall, no one was gonna be paddling out here. In the back of my mind I still hoped someone would show up, but I couldn’t count on it.
But deciding to strike out from Fish Camp was still a mixed bag. I’d grown used to sleeping in the same place between the warmth and protection of LF and RF. And the fish had made the difference between life and death. I was thinner than I’d ever been, but I think I’d stopped losing weight since I’d been eating two or three salmon every day.
I’d staked out my territory and was living in it. I’d chased that bear off. And I’d found Dad’s raincoat here. And Fish Camp was closer to where the accident happened. Closer to where I’d last seen my dad.
Still, I knew that my chance of survival depended on my leaving. I could slowly starve to death in my comfortable camp, or I could continue my journey to the Sentinels, where I hoped to spot a boat or run into some hunters. And, it’d be where my dad would go. Maybe the waves carried him across the mouth of Hidden Bay and he’d searched for me for a while and then headed to the Sentinels. It was possible. By water, the mouth of Hidden Bay and the site of the accident weren’t that far apart. And if anyone could survive some extended time in the water, it was my dad. But even if one or both of us made it to the Sentinels that didn’t ensure anything.
If only someone had known that we were going to Bear Island, to the Sentinels, or if Dad hadn’t hid the truck in Whittier. Then getting rescued wouldn’t feel like such a long shot.
CHAPTER 18
I HAD the dead fish by the tail, and was about to slit the belly when I saw the alders waving. I dropped the fish next to the other four I’d gaffed, and stood up.
“Dad,” I yelled. “Dad?”
Just across the creek, a black bear emerged from the forest.
I thought about tossing a fish across the creek as a peace offering, but I needed these fish. All of them.
The bear stood on its hind legs, wagged its head back and forth. My knife, with its four-inch blade, felt tiny in my hand.
My body was shaking. This bear was twice as big as the one I’d chased out of my camp.
Don’t run, don’t run, don’t run, I told myself.
I bent, picked up my gaff, and held it over my head.
The bear took another few steps toward me.
I wished I were in camp. In my territory.
“Hey bear! Hey bear! Hey bear!”
The bear dropped from its hind legs and came forward again, like I was calling it over.
I sucked in a breath. Maybe I should just shut up. Or pick up a rock and throw it. I wished there was fire between me and that bear instead of water.
Now it stood at the edge of the channel. Like thirty feet away. The tan spots standing out on either side of its snout. And its head was tilted, the way Billy’s dog would tilt hers when I whistled.
I still had the gaff raised. If it came after me, I’d do what I could. Take a swing at it. Try to drive it away. Use my knife if it was on top of me.
Then the bear lay down, kicked all four legs up and moved side to side, scratching its back on the rocks. Then it rolled to one side, rose on four legs and disappeared upstream without looking back.
Luck, just luck. I knew I couldn’t be lucky forever.
I worked all day and all night and all the next day, drying my fish.
I hauled rocks from the beach and built a pad so I could take fish off the fire without rolling them in the dirt. I found two small sturdy spruce trees growing close together, and used these to break alder for my supply of grill-wood by positioning long pieces between the trees and pulling until the alder broke.
I’d let the fish cook on the grill until the tail turned crispy. With sticks, I’d roll the fish onto the rock pad and replace any of the alder that had burnt up.
After each fish cooled enough so I could touch it, I cut the head off. Then I’d peel the top half of the fish from the bones, set it aside and remove the backbone and ribs attached to the bottom half. If the fish was cooked, then the bones slid right out.
Then I put both halves back on the alder grill, and let them cook until they were crispy.
I gnawed on the fish heads, eating the skin and the little bits of meat. And, for the first time, I ate the eyes of the fish, knowing I’d need every ounce of energy I could find.
I thought Dad would be proud of how I’d taken his method for cooking salmon and made it work for drying fish.
I dried five fish, but was dead tired.
Dad’s rule about no food in the tent made sense when you could hang your food up high on a rope, and you had a kayak to travel in. But this food, it was my life. Even if it did attract bears, I just had to have it with me while I slept.
That night, in my bedroom, I did what I usually did. I pulled my boots off and tipped them sideways in front of LF, peeled my damp socks from my feet
and spread them out on some boughs close to RF.
The worst thing about taking my feet out of my boots was the smell. My feet reeked like boiled cabbage. And since I hadn’t been out of my boots for two days ’cause of the round-the-clock fish drying, they stunk worse than usual. But I had bigger problems than that.
I pulled out my survival kit. The two Meal Pack Bars stared at me, and I felt a lump in my throat. I set them aside and focused on the real problem.
One of the lighters had stopped working.
I counted fifteen matches.
I pulled out the flint. My dad had shown me how to use it. I didn’t know if it was true flint, but that’s what he called it. It was silver, about an inch long cylinder as thin as a pencil, attached to a tiny plastic handle. In the winter, in the wall tent, sometimes, I’d play with it. It was pretty easy to get a spark but to turn that spark into fire—that was the trick.
I opened my knife and ran the blade across the flint, causing a large spark to form, fall and disappear.
The spark’s got to hit some very small, dry flammable material—like dried grass or wood shavings or tiny scraps of birch bark. And then, you’ve got to blow on it and feed it.
I wished Dad would’ve put another lighter in each kit. And more matches. That’s what he should’ve done.
My chest tightened. If the lighter stopped working and I ran out of matches, the flint would be my only hope.
And what if I couldn’t do it? What if I could do everything else, but this one lousy thing I failed at? Then what?
I needed more matches and lighters, not stupid flint or idiot Meal Pack Bars.
Fire. Fire. Fire.
Didn’t Dad know how important it would be?
I still hoped someone would just show up before I even set off to the Sentinels.
But if no one came, I’d have to build my fire from scratch every night.
I ran the blade across the flint again, and watched another spark disappear into the boughs. Could you really start a fire with a spark in a wet place like this? I doubted it. I hoped the lighter would last.
But if I hadn’t found his vest I’d have less. A lot less.
I might not even be alive if I hadn’t found his vest.
And he’d taught me so much. And wherever he was, because of his voice, I was still learning from him.
Gaffing the five fish today had taken every ounce of my concentration and experience. The run had thinned out. And I’d noticed more and more carcasses of spawned-out salmon the last few days, some floating on top of the water, and others bouncing along the stream bottom, driven by the current.
I didn’t want to end up like those fish. And I thought, if I died out here, it’d be worse. Those salmon had already lived most of their lives. Dying after spawning was what was supposed to happen. Their bodies were programmed to croak. If I died, I’d be missing out on the rest of my life, just like my mom.
But if I died, I wouldn’t be around to miss anything. And when I thought of death this way, it didn’t seem as scary.
What scared me more was what it would feel like to be dying if I starved to death, or froze to death, or was attacked by a bear. Or if I was so weak that the gulls pecked my eyes out while I was alive.
Nothing would change on Bear Island if I died. The fish would still spawn. The bears would still catch them. The eagles and gulls and porcupines would still scavenge. The trees would still grow. The tide would rise and fall.
I wouldn’t be missed. I was a small part of a big place. But at least at this place, this one creek, I felt like I belonged.
The next day I converted my dad’s raincoat into a fanny pack to carry the fish. I tied the fish together with a piece of rope, and then rolled them up in my dad’s raincoat, and used two pieces of rope to secure the coat around the fish. I tied the coat around my waist with the arms.
I threaded the two life vests through the fish-fanny-pack jacket so they hung behind me,
Before I left, I walked over to my kitchen shelter and took one last look. I’d left nothing except the word ‘sentinels’ made from rocks I’d hauled up the beach, in case my dad was still working his way south and was behind me.
The sun broke free from behind the clouds and blasted my eyes as I crossed the creek and worked my way along the rocky shore. The tide was out. I heard blows, put my hand to my forehead to make a visor, scanned the water, and counted. Six Killer Whales—a family—milling in the bay, their white cheek patches just visible above the water line. Black curved fins rising from rounded backs. Two of them were much smaller, like half the size, of the bigger ones.
“Killer Whales stay together for life,” my dad had told me. “You’re born into a family and you stay in that family. You’re never alone.”
With the smaller whales in the middle of the pack, I watched them swim along the opposite shore and then disappear around a point. “A family,” I whispered. “A real family.”
I kept walking and started to sweat, so I took off my raincoat and tied it around my waist.
Little fish darted in and out of the protection of rocks and seaweed as I splashed through the intertidal zone. Islands of black mussels clinging to rocky, muddy sludge dotted the ground.
Eating shellfish on a trip is risky business. They can have bacteria that can kill you, especially if there’s a red tide. Don’t know much about when it’s okay to eat them. Wish I did because they sure are good.
Oh Dad. How do you know all this stuff? The exact stuff that I need to know. How?
When I’d first washed ashore and heard his voice about the survival kit, it’d startled me. But now, the voice was more like a friend, like it didn’t matter if it was coming from somewhere outside me or from within me. What mattered was that I could hear it.
Maybe it was him, my family, pulling me to the Sentinels because he was there.
I turned and saw my shadow stretching toward Fish Camp. I could see where my stream entered the bay, where my home had been. A tiny lump formed in the back of my throat and I swallowed it down.
Part of me wanted to go back and just stay. It would be easier than what I was doing now. But I knew that choosing the easy path meant choosing death. And I wanted to live.
BEFORE THE ACCIDENT
I picked up the pace some more and tried to match my dad stroke for stroke. The outside of my forearms started to burn. Sweat ran down my neck.
Dig, dig, dig, I told myself. Just keep digging.
We quartered the first set of six-foot waves, no problem. Dad had a good angle; that’s one key to keeping your boat stable in big seas. The other thing you need to do is keep your speed up.
So I kept digging my paddle in, pulling hard and fast, but it felt like we were standing still. The boat rocked once and I barely caught the top of a wave with my paddle. My back slammed against the seat.
“Paddle harder if you can!” I knew my dad had shouted that, but his voice sounded far away because of the headwind.
The waves were bouncing off the coast back into the passage, rocking us both sideways and back and forth. I just kept digging in. We could do it. We just needed to keep moving, or find a protected place to stake out.
CHAPTER 19
TWO DAYS later, clouds covered the sky, but still, it didn’t rain. Wind screamed up the cliffs, rattling my raincoat, as I worked my way along a forested bluff a few hundred feet above the bay. I’d eaten a fish and a half each in the last two days, leaving me with just two fish, and I wasn’t even out of Hidden Bay.
The leaves of the blueberry plants blazed deep red, a few shriveled berries clinging to the branches. The deer cabbage turned the muskegs into blankets of red and yellow with little bits of green mixed in. And the mountain peaks were dusted with fresh snow.
I could see why my dad and mom loved this place, even though I mostly hated it now. Could you hate something this beautiful? I hated it and I loved it. If I could just eat the beauty, I’d never go hungry. But you can’t eat beauty, and it seems I was always hung
ry.
Every step had been hard-earned yesterday as I picked my way along a jagged coast bordered by thick forest. My spear and gaff snagged in brush and smacked against small trees that grew so close together I had to turn sideways to pass between some of them.
I spent the last couple of nights by big fires without a shelter, but with these dark clouds, I’d have to build one tonight, and that would take time. I could feel the moist air, taste it. Just a matter of time before the clouds opened up and started dumping.
I kept moving through the trees, then up ahead I saw open space.
The forest was giving way to a gently sloping, treeless land that stretched from just above the water’s edge to the base of the mountains.
I took a breath and smiled. Looked like some easy walking ahead.
Slabs of gray rock—some as big as football fields—separated by mats of low growing vegetation, stretched out before me. Miniature bluffs, ten feet high, with tiny valleys beneath them, dotted the slope. Moisture collected in the valleys creating little muskegs, while the bluff areas were dry tundra.
I’d taken a few steps onto the tundra when I spied the berries. Little black berries.
“Crowberries,” I remembered.
Mom had shown me these berries the summer she died. We’d driven to the top of Murphy Dome, a place above tree line, to pick blueberries, but I’d seen the crowberries, too. You could eat them; I remembered that. And that they didn’t taste like much of anything.
I dropped my spear and gaff, knelt with my back to the wind and gorged on the seedy berries. More of my mom’s lyrics invaded my brain.
Food for the stomach and food for the soul.
The land will feed you until you’re still.
Let your body sink into the ground.
Feed it what you’ve got and it’ll come back around.
One thing Mom liked about Fairbanks, the town was an island surrounded by an empty sea of forested hills and tundra. She said the landscape fueled her stories and songs. And she wrote and wrote until the very last day of her life. In her stories, she was always sending some girl out into the woods with almost nothing. Her characters ate crowberries, insects, voles, and chewed on willow bark. But her characters always survived, except for one. And I remember Dad saying something like, “Yeah, it’s sad that she died, but it’s realistic.”