Surviving Bear Island

by Paul Greci

  By morning I’d dried all the fish, so I stoked RF and LF, took the dried fish, and set off for the creek with my spear and knife. I hadn’t slept, but didn’t feel tired. I guess that nomad part of my brain clicked on and said: “Food! You better get it while you can!”

  I stepped onto the beach grass and the frost crinkled under my boots. The wet cliffs, without the sun, were a drab gray.

  I peered into the creek channel, searching for movement, for fish. Finding none, I headed upstream, hoping that some fish had returned to the pool under the waterfall.

  Below the waterfall four fish rested in the middle of the pool, their snouts hooked, their fins ragged with spotty white skin.

  The end of the run, I thought. And hopefully not the end of me.

  Nature never loses.

  Never.

  It didn’t matter who died and who survived, the dead were continuously recycled.

  Those four fish were valuable to me. Alone, they could keep me going for a little while, but combined with what I already had, they might get me all the way to the Sentinels and then some.

  I just had to catch them.

  I killed three of the four fish, but got soaked to my waist. And the fourth fish stole my hook when the line broke and it somehow powered its way over the small waterfall. I tried to find it upstream, but stopped when the creek turned into a quarter-mile-long lake bordered by thick brush.

  Back at my shelter, I built up RF and LF and stripped so I was naked from the waist down. My feet were hunks of frozen meat. I stood on a life vest between LF and RF. My toes, which had turned white, stung as they began to thaw; like a swarm of yellow jackets was attacking them.

  I dried my socks and long johns and the insides of my boots as best I could. I pushed through the night drying fish, working on a song.

  I live in the trees by this salmon stream.

  In my house of sticks I dry fish and I dream.

  In my dream I see my dad looking for me.

  Searching, searching, searching, under every tree.

  I hear his loud shout, and I answer back.

  I scream, “Keep coming. You’re on the right track.”

  He’s looking kind of skinny, but he’s alive.

  Now we’ll go home, and together we’ll thrive.

  The predawn sky was turning a yellowish gray as I put the final batch of dried salmon into the raincoat. I kept RF and LF going. The heat made me drowsy, but kept me from freezing. I’d be able to sleep tonight, but right now I had work to do.

  First, I checked out my stuff. I did that every couple of days. I knew what I had, but I wanted to see it, check for any damage. Plus, these things were my connection to the outside world. They reminded me that I was trying to get off this island, back to civilization. If I didn’t get off the island I was toast.

  I had one fishhook left. And four matches. A lighter, which I hoped would keep working. The flint pieces, at least I had those, but I had my doubts about starting a fire with them since all I’d gotten was smoke. But I had a little hope too. I mean, there was a time before dryer lint when people started fires.

  The knives—they were still in good shape, but if I didn’t find fish or some other animals they weren’t of much use.

  And two Meal Pack bars.

  And my clothes. Rain pants torn in several places. My long underwear tops and bottoms had worn out some but didn’t have any holes. My gloves appeared to be stable thanks to the strips of deerskin I’d used to repair them. My raincoat, wool cap and pile jacket were in decent condition. But my rubber boots were paper thin at the ankles, and my socks had no heels.

  This late in the season with the clothes I had, I needed to keep moving to stay warm unless I was by a fire.

  And just like Fish Camp, I didn’t want to leave this place—Silver Camp. I just wanted someone to find me here. To come zipping into the cove with a boat and take me out of here. I didn’t want to start walking again and have to spend the night shivering or fending off bears, or both. And I didn’t want my feet to get all torn up again.

  I looked around and took it all in. The back part of the shelter still had dry, small- dimension wood, good for rekindling fires. The bough nest had all that silver salmon, smoked and dried, packed in a raincoat. Behind and to my right, a small pile of bigger sticks lay ready for burning. Directly to my right was a pile of palm-sized throwing stones.

  The fire rings. RF with the six stakes. The rack lay off to the side, just outside my shelter. And LF, who had a knee-high blaze radiating heat. Between them lay a pile of firewood covered in boughs.

  If I did stay, I could live for maybe two weeks on the fish. Longer if I caught a few more or killed something else. And I could stay pretty dry and warm. But then, what if no one came? The sea otter pup flashed into my mind. If I’d taken it instead of giving it back to its mom, maybe I wouldn’t even be here. Maybe that would’ve been enough meat to get me to the Sentinels. But I had done what I had done. And, I was here. And that mother otter had gotten her baby back.

  I used the last of my fishing line to attach the last hook to my spear, and checked the creek from the mouth to the waterfall twice. No sign of fish. I hauled some rocks from the creek and spelled ‘Sentinels’ in front of my shelter. In the morning, I’d go.

  End of the Island. The Sentinels. My only chance. And people might not even be there.

  Just beyond the beds of glowing coals, something lurked. I could feel it.

  I swung my left arm, grabbed a stick and fed it to the coals on RF. I did this several times, then scooted forward and blew. Small flames licked the kindling and reached upward. I waited for RF to grow, then sat up. My right hand rested on the pile of throwing stones, my fingers curling around one.

  Then I heard it. A snuffing sound. I set down the stone and gripped my spear. Maybe it was another porcupine, another meat meal. With the other hand I fed RF small sticks to increase the light. And then piled a bunch of sticks on LF’s coals.

  I could hear it breathing, sniffing—probably looking for a meal.

  Then I heard a slight scuffing, a scratching noise. All this along with my own heart pounding in my ears like it was trapped and wanted out.

  I heard a short grunt. Then a snort. Then another grunt.

  The sticks on LF caught, and threw light, and I saw it rubbing its snout on the rock pad where I’d cut up the fish.

  But it wasn’t a porcupine.

  This bear looked thin and ragged compared to the others I’d encountered. Its fur hung off its body the way my clothes hung off mine.

  I set down my spear and picked up a throwing stone.

  The bear grunted again as it continued to root around, licking the salmon-flavored duff and the flat rocks where I’d cut up the fish. I was gonna yell, but the bear hadn’t even paid attention to me. Maybe it would just leave.

  I kept adding sticks to both RF and LF.

  Minutes passed and it just licked and licked, like a little kid with an ice cream cone. I kept building both fires, the flames were waist high and growing. If I wasn’t careful I’d catch the roof on fire.

  The bear stopped licking, turned its head toward me, and emitted a long, low growl. I stood up in a half-squat, grabbed the bowl and banged on it with a stick.

  “Get!”

  The bear came forward and growled again. I pounded on the bowl and yelled. Again the bear pawed forward and growled another long, low growl. It definitely knew about me now. But it was acting strange. It wasn’t running, but it wasn’t attacking.

  I had to let it know that this was my place so I rifled a throwing stone, but missed its head.

  The bear grunted, then took another step toward me.

  I yelled, “Hey bear,” and it just kept coming closer, like my voice was drawing it in, its eyes shining in the firelight. I could’ve pushed my spear through the fire and poked it but knew I didn’t have enough leverage to make a difference, so I just stood my ground behind my fires, my thighs burning from the half-squat position I w
as holding, waiting.

  The bear lowered its head and licked the ground.

  I tossed more sticks on both fires.

  The bear moved to one side and sniffed. Then it grabbed my alder grill and started chewing on it. I didn’t care about the grill, but I wanted this bear out of my face because the next link in the chain of chewable treats was me. Then my dried fish.

  I threw another rock, smashing the bear on the shoulder. It dropped the grill and looked up, and I pelted it right between the eyes. The bear let out a sharp scream and turned. Whether my next throw hit the bear’s hind end as it was running away, I couldn’t tell.

  “And stay out!” I yelled.

  Sometimes older bears won’t find enough food to be able to go into hibernation. Watch out for these, they’re the most dangerous.

  I added more sticks to LF and RF, my eyes glued to the darkness beyond.

  THE ACCIDENT

  “Swim for shore!”

  I turned toward my dad’s distant voice and saw him bobbing with his back to the reef.

  “Dad!” I raised my arm.

  The back half of the boat was under water and the front half was sinking.

  “Dad!”

  I started to kick toward him, saw him reach his arm toward me, but another wave pounded me under. I pulled upward with my arms, got my head above the water and turned toward where I’d last seen my dad, but backwash from the rock reef filled my mouth and eyes with salt water. Then another wave forced me under.

  CHAPTER 32

  I STUMBLED on a slippery rock, and grabbed a tree leaning over the water. Thick clouds were piling up. Dark gray clouds that said, “I’m gonna soak you.” The wind stung my face, blowing the first raindrops sideways.

  Two days of calm, where I’d made my way southward, were coming to an end. I’d spent last night leaning against a big tree within a semi-circle of fire, keeping the bears and the cold away.

  It’d taken me a day to get out of the inlet, and now I was making my way down the open coast, but the walking had been slow, with thick stands of trees to weave through, and way more cliffs than beach.

  Now I needed to build another shelter. But I didn’t want to put the time and energy into building something I’d only be spending one night in. I just wanted to get to the Sentinels before I ran out of food.

  The rain came in cold sheets with the wind backing it. I huddled in a four-foot-wide crevice between two boulders. I’d piled some sticks and boughs over the opening to make a roof, and was hoping the wind wouldn’t blow it all onto me. I fed a sputtering fire, then wrapped myself in an emergency blanket. And I’d used the last of my matches.

  By crouching over the fire with the blanket partially open, I trapped heat but not enough to keep from shivering. And when I sat back I got even colder. But my legs kept cramping up and I had no choice but to sit back unless I wanted to fall into the fire. So I did this back-and-forth thing for a while. I couldn’t stand up because my head would’ve crashed through the roof.

  Smoke kept pouring into my face, but I just squeezed my eyes closed and my mom’s lyrics flooded my mind.

  Every fire’s a ceremony.

  Every story’s a testimony.

  If you pay attention, you will know what the river knows.

  All I knew was that I was freezing. I felt damp under my raincoat, like maybe water had been running down the back of my neck. The cold just kept creeping down my spine, and seeping into my fingers and toes, then up my arms and legs.

  I’d come a long way since the accident. Fish Camp. Deer Camp. Silver Camp. All the distance I’d covered. I saw it all in my head, like a movie. I had to be close to the Sentinels.

  I didn’t want to die now. Frozen between two rocks in a rainstorm. “Noooo!” I screamed. “Not after all this!”

  I chewed and swallowed a piece of smoked salmon.

  My upper and lower teeth knocked together. My hands and feet numbed as my brain directed more blood to my core. Just like Mr. Haskins said: Your blood retreats to keep your organs working. You can live without your fingers, but try living without your stomach, or your liver or your lungs.

  I added more sticks to the fire. Sticks I grabbed between my wrists because my fingers were limp, useless pieces of meat.

  When I tried to squat over the fire my legs wouldn’t budge, so I just kept leaning against the big rock, and that chilled me even more. You’d think the fire would heat up the rock some, but the fire was small and my body prevented most of the heat from even reaching the rock. If only I could’ve built a huge fire between the two rocks and let it rage for a few hours, then it would’ve been like stepping into a heated room, like a sauna. Instead I was trapped in a refrigerator and trying to draw warmth from a candle.

  Don’t die.

  Don’t die.

  Don’t die.

  Not here. Not now. I still had my whole life in front of me. Even if I never made it off this island.

  I’d build a killer shelter and look for food everywhere, and I’d learn how to use the flint. And if someone came, fine then, but I wanted to live either way.

  Sometimes you do all you can do and you still die. I’d fight till the end.

  Just like that deer in the hole, it never gave up. It kicked and kicked and even with two broken legs was trying to get out of that hole. Trying to stay alive.

  Sometimes you do everything right and you still get hammered.

  I turned my head and coughed smoke. Hammered? My dad, he’d want me to live, to survive. If I just gave up, that’d be exactly what he wouldn’t have wanted.

  And what about my mom? No way would she have given up.

  If my mom were still alive, everything would’ve been different. Our trip would’ve been different.

  But it wasn’t different. Mom had gone on the bike ride that took her onto the highway and Dad had decided to paddle the exposed side of Bear Island. And they’d both taken all kinds of risks in their lives. But how were you supposed to live, anyway? All cautious, never doing anything because you were scared of some unlikely disaster? What kind of life would that be? What they did and why they did it was part of who they were. And what I did, like deciding to not go on that bike ride—that was part of who I was.

  Sometime toward morning the heavy rain and wind died, replaced by a fine mist, like the ground had taken as much moisture as it could and was spewing it back as fog.

  I jumped up and down, slapped my hands together and rubbed them, slapped my thighs and jumped some more. When my fingers started working, I shoveled salmon into my mouth, then set off southward in the gray of dawn. Slippery rocks made for slow going, but I knew I had to keep moving. Knew, at this moment, that movement was the key to my survival.

  I knew I had to make it to the southern end of the island if I was to have any chance of meeting up with other people.

  But also, the Sentinels wouldn’t be a bad place to die, if it came to that.

  At least there I’d be more likely to be found. I could scratch a note into a piece of driftwood, or carve something into a tree so people would know, even if I didn’t make it, who I was and that I was a survivor, too. They wouldn’t know all that I’d done, but at least they’d know something. That I’d tried my hardest. I could scratch in how many days I’d been out here. Fifty-one so far, if I’d counted right. And I could carve pictures of the deer, porcupine and salmon. The shelters I’d built. And the kayak. The accident. My dad. His voice. The footprints. The life vest. His raincoat. I could tell the whole story in pictures.

  The next headland jutted out. I turned inland and clawed my way up the steep, forested land one step at a time. The feeling was coming back in my feet. And I could feel a little sweat on my back from the climb. I topped the spine of the narrow ridge, and looked down on a thumb-shaped bay.

  A tingle traveled up my spine and over the top of my head. My breath caught in my throat. One day after the Sentinels we’d paddled around this little bay and then continued north. Close, close, close, I thought,
as I studied the drop, seeking an easy way down.

  I was so absorbed in my searching that I almost didn’t turn around in time. But some way, somehow, a part of me had known—and I turned. And I caught movement, just down the hill, coming my way.

  Black, furry movement.

  I yelled, “Hey bear,” but it kept coming, nose to the ground, not hurrying, but moving steadily. Meandering, as if following my scent. Hunting me.

  I looked for a way to get out of the bear’s path, for a place I might sit, stand, or crouch so the bear might not notice me, or if it did detect my presence, might not be able to get at me. My eyes turned up nothing at first. Then, far down the hill I spotted some rocks, big rocks. If I could just get to those rocks before the bear got to me.

  CHAPTER 33

  I UNTIED my raincoat fanny pack, took about half my dried fish and scattered it.

  Everyone says, never feed a bear. You’ll create a problem. Well, I already had a problem. I ran toward the big rocks, my bowl in one hand, my spear in the other. The hookless gaff I left behind.

  Three pillars of black rock, mostly bare, poked out of the ground about two-thirds of the way down the slope. I climbed over a couple fallen trees and kept running, glad that I was going downhill.

  I plowed through a patch of leafless blueberry bushes, then dodged some old devil’s club stems. I hit another patch of berry bushes. I was high-stepping, twisting my body, just trying to get to those rocks, which were still at least a couple hundred feet below me, when one of my boot-tips caught a root.

  I tried to regain my balance, but my other foot got hung up on something and I stumbled, took a few big crazy steps, but then I was falling forward. I tossed the spear sideways before I hit the ground but landed on the backside of the bowl. The bottom of my rib cage on the right side slammed into the bowl at its high point. My side burned like it’d been doused with jet fuel and touched with a match.

  I pushed myself up, grabbed the bowl and spear, and kept going, but every breath sent stabbing pains into my side.