by Hunt, Jack
There was a stretch of silence.
“Why do you think it entered the camp?”
“Maybe seeking food, maybe it perceived us as a threat, especially when an idiot lifts a flare gun to it.”
“Screw you, Shaw. If I hadn’t done that, we would have been dead.”
“You mean you would,” he shot back. “I told you not to point at it. That’s a last resort. You don’t want to make them think you’re a threat, and you pretty much put a bulls-eye on your forehead.”
“Yeah, well at least you’re alive. Thanks to me.”
Frank snorted.
“You think that’s funny?” Paul asked.
“No, I think you’re an idiot, and liable to get us killed.”
Paul lunged forward and grabbed hold of him and the whole plane shifted beneath them like sinking sand. “STOP!” Callaway bellowed. “Sit back down,” he said through gritted teeth. Although Paul was seething, he released his grip on Frank and took a seat.
“You both are going to have to start listening if you want to get out of here alive,” her father said. “We need to work together.”
Curious, or realizing the weight of the challenge before them, Callaway changed his tune. “You know. What I did back there, Henry. I’m sorry. I uh, wasn’t thinking clearly.”
She didn’t buy it for one minute and her father didn’t either.
He continued. “So…you were saying about defensive and predatory attacks. What are we supposed to do? I mean if we see one from a distance or get charged?”
“Well, you hope to God it doesn’t see you.” He took a breath. “Listen, grizzlies, and that’s what is down there, don’t usually attack people on sight even if you stumble upon one. More often than not they will avoid you but like everything in the wild, it can be unpredictable. One person’s experience on a trail won’t always mirror another’s. The key is to avoid them before you encounter one.”
“And how do you do that?”
“Make noise. Hikers do it all the time if they have hiking poles, you can use two sticks and clap them together every ten seconds, every few yards, anything that can give wildlife a heads-up someone’s coming. Carry bear spray. Travel in larger groups instead of alone. However, for all the precautions, it might not go the way you hope. That’s the risk of being out here. Hell, look around you, Callaway. We don’t have bear spray. We don’t even have a survival kit.”
“Yeah, I wonder why,” Kara said looking at the two of them. She couldn’t make out their features but she was sure Paul was glaring.
“But you’ve got experience with these kinds of things, right?” Callaway continued.
“Experience doesn’t mean you’ll have no problems, it just means you might not make as many mistakes.”
“Mistakes. And those would be?”
“The obvious things such as not ensuring your food and garbage are properly stored or not paying attention to your surroundings. Anything to minimize the chances of attack, but the rest comes down to how that bear perceives you. If it thinks you’re a threat, you’ve got to make it clear you aren’t. Don’t run, create some space. Don’t go looking it directly in the eye, and either stand your ground or slowly move away. And whatever you do, stay calm.”
Right then they heard guttural sounds, huffing, teeth popping, and felt a paw swatting the tree. The plane shook and each of them held on for dear life. A few minutes passed and they heard the bear stroll away.
Callaway let out a nervous chuckle. “You expect us to stay calm?”
“Yeah, your life might depend on it. It might bluff charge you but if it does, as much as you will shit your britches… stand your ground and use a firm voice but don’t go shouting. Chances are it will back away and give you time to do the same.”
“And if not?”
“You have a few options. If you have a pack or something you can toss on the ground between you and the bear, they’ve been known to stop and investigate. That might buy you a little time but don’t count on it saving your life.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Well, let’s be clear, you are not going to outwrestle or fight off a bear that weighs seven hundred pounds or more. I don’t care how big you are. If you have a deterrent, bear spray that is, you had better use it. If the bear knocks you down, you best roll on your belly, spread your legs so it’s harder for it to flip you, then protect your neck with both hands and play dead and hope to God it lets go.”
“Surely there’s a time to fight back?”
He nodded. “There are times when acting aggressive might work but let’s face it, it’s a bit of a fifty-fifty toss-up. If it’s not a defensive attack, and what I mean is if it doesn’t just bite a couple of times and then stroll off, well, Callaway, you better fight back or die trying.”
“That’s a lot to remember.”
“Yeah, and that’s why people do all manner of things. Sometimes they get lucky, sometimes they don’t. Those are the ones we hear about.”
It went silent.
Kara contemplated what he said, a refresher from when she was a youngster.
“We should try to get some sleep. We’ll have to leave tomorrow. Can’t stay here now.”
18
Kara was lucky to get three hours of sleep. Between the noise of the bear in the forest, the bitter cold, and those inside the cabin trying to get comfortable, it turned out to be a bad night for sleep. She glanced at her watch, it was a little after seven, still dark. At that time of the year, sunrise happened later, there were fewer daylight hours. She sat in the silence thinking about the day ahead, how they would get out if they could. Even some of the most experienced hikers got lost in the backcountry, succumbing to the elements or hunger. As the sun rose, bands of light filtered through the gaps in the body of the plane. She shifted in the passenger seat and looked down.
Conversation turned to the threat.
No one was eager to be the first to find out if it was gone. Paul, figuring he’d saved the day, wasn’t in a hurry to go down and explore nor was Callaway so Kara volunteered, taking the flare gun with her once she was sure she couldn’t hear anything.
Frank said he hadn’t heard the bear in over two hours but that didn’t mean it wasn’t out there, biding its time. She climbed down, eyes scanning the trees. As she searched the perimeter of the camp, Kara noted large bear tracks, except there wasn’t just one set, two sets were smaller.
It dawned on her.
It wasn’t a predatory attack, the mother had been protecting her young.
Once she was certain it was safe, the others joined her.
With the assistance of Frank, she started another fire. They didn’t plan on staying any longer than an hour but the drop in temperature overnight meant they were all shivering. They figured a few minutes getting warm would also allow them time to plan out the route. While it was best advised to stay with a crashed plane and not wander off, as it was common for a wreck to be seen from the air within 24 hours, their circumstances were unusual. The plane was buried in the forest and no one had filed a flight plan, nor was anyone expecting to be found anytime soon. That’s what came from attempting to sabotage a flight, though getting Callaway or Paul to admit to tampering would have been a stretch. Kara still wasn’t sure if they’d gone that far.
It very well could have been a faulty engine.
Paul leaned against a tree, tapping the flare gun against his leg.
He’d been adamant it was better in his hands.
Around the fire, Callaway went over where he determined them to be and the best course of action. “The Chickaloon River is 25 miles southwest from here. If we can follow that, we can travel south to Chickaloon and the Glenn Highway. It’s about 80 miles north of Anchorage. We are looking at roughly a day if we keep moving.”
“A day?” Her father chuckled.
“Yeah. Even if we are walking at three miles per hour, twenty-five miles, you are looking at eight hours at least. If we keep moving, we could be in C
hickaloon in sixteen, maybe twenty hours.”
“You haven’t ever hiked in the wild, have you, Callaway?” Henry asked.
“I’ve been on a few trails.”
“Did the trail ever cross mountains, rushing rivers? Did you ever get blisters? Need water, food? Get lost?”
He stared back. “He’s right,” Kara said. “This isn’t a simple jaunt down a well-worn path. We are way off the trail. We still have to cross that ridge and a mountainous area. It will be far colder up there than down here,” she said. “But we’re not just hiking out by ourselves, we’re taking my father. So you might want to add a few days to that, three maybe four. And that’s if we don’t encounter any problems.”
Callaway scoffed and rubbed his hands together. “Who said we were taking your father?”
“Well, he can’t stay here, not after last night.”
“He’ll slow us down,” Paul said. “No, we leave him here and come back.”
She rose. “He goes or you can find your own way out.”
“Lady, we already know the way out,” he said. He strolled over, arrogant like he had full command of the situation. “Isn’t that right, Callaway?”
Callaway nodded.
“Do you? Then which way is it?” she shot back.
He smirked and turned. “Well…” He swallowed hard and looked up at the sun. “It’s that way,” he said, pointing in a general direction but with no real sense of certainty.
“You sure about that?” Kara asked.
He took a few steps toward her in a threatening manner, tapping the flare gun against his head. “You’re not the only one that knows the backcountry. I’ve flown all over this land.”
“Flying over a jungle and being in it are worlds apart,” she said.
He glared at her.
“Let’s focus on getting out of here, shall we?” Callaway said to Paul before looking at Kara. “Look, I understand you want to take your father but logically think about it. He’s safer here. Protected in the plane. Sure, he’ll go hungry but people have been known to last weeks without food. As long as we make sure he has enough water, and he’s warm, he’ll be okay. And without him, we can move faster.”
“I’m not leaving him here.”
“We don’t have a search-and-rescue stretcher.”
“So we make one.” She pointed to the aircraft fabric from the plane that her father had been laying on. The material on a bush plane wasn’t the same as an airliner. In many ways, it was like flying in a cardboard box. “It’s light, bendable. It will do the job.”
Callaway put his hand up to his face and sighed. “No. Like you said, several things can go wrong. Problems will arise. Out there we can’t protect him, hell, with one remaining flare, we can barely protect ourselves.”
He had a point, it did make things harder, risky even, but there was no telling what could happen once they were out there. If they died, so would her father. She didn’t trust them, and she sure as hell didn’t feel comfortable leaving him here.
“You want that signature, right?” her father asked. Callaway met his gaze and nodded. “Carry me out and I’ll sign your papers.”
He offered back a puzzled expression. “Why the change of heart?”
“Let’s say I like to hedge my bets,” her father tossed his own words back at him.
Callaway found that amusing. He laughed and extended a hand to shake his. “All right. All right, Mr. Shaw. You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Whether he believed her father or not, it was irrelevant. The fact was his faith in Paul Ross was weak. That was obvious. And if there was one thing that mattered more to men like him than wealth, it was staying alive long enough to enjoy it.
“So how do we know which way to go?” he asked.
“That’s simple.” Kara lifted her left arm to the sun. “It rises in the east and sets in the west,” she said, raising her right arm and pointing in the opposite direction. “Now you know north, south, east, and west. You said Chickaloon was southwest. So that way,” she said, adjusting her direction. “We should get going, we have less than twelve hours of daylight.” That was the thing about Alaska. Where a person was determined how much light they got. Fortunately, they weren’t in the northern area where they experienced two months of darkness in Barrow over the winter, and in the summer the sun didn’t set for almost eighty-two days. South, where they were, closer to Fairbanks and Anchorage, it varied, with the longest day of the year seeing the sun set close to midnight. But at the beginning of October, it was roughly twelve hours of daylight.
“And what about night?” Callaway asked.
“We could use the stars but believe me, you’ll be too tired to walk by nightfall.”
They began to gather together what they could for the journey, and form what would become a coffin-shaped stretcher for her father. While they did that, Callaway and Paul ventured off to collect water in the two small empty sterile bottles from the medkit, and gather up clothing that had been torn out of the packs belonging to Frank and her father. While they were all wearing warm jackets and gear suited for the Alaskan fall, for hiking they would need to wear thin layers and remove them when they got hot. It was done to avoid sweating which could chill them to the bone.
Kara twisted the tip of her knife to create holes in thin sheets of metal that had made up the skin of the plane. Rope would be threaded through to create long handles, one on each side, long enough that they wouldn’t need to bend to carry her father. They would loop the rope around their shoulders. Kara worked the metal back and forth to bend up the sheet on all four sides. It wasn’t perfect but that wasn’t the goal. As long as it placed a barrier between him and the ground, and gave them a way to maneuver him over the diverse terrain, it would do the job. For comfort, she lined it with sliced up cushions from the plane’s seating. All the while her father studied her. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. You wouldn’t be here if not for me.”
She stopped. “I didn’t return because of the invite. I was concerned about you.”
“Kara, I…” Before he could finish, Paul and Callaway returned and dumped down what they’d collected. They looked at the makeshift stretcher with concern.
“There you go!” Paul said.
“You know these bottles aren’t big,” Callaway said, holding them up. “You sure there aren’t any others in the plane?”
“Go look.” Kara took a few extra T-shirts in her pack and some additional rope and created walking sticks that could be used both for support and to ward off any bears or wolves in the distance. As Callaway was climbing up, Frank came down with a handful of wiring from the plane. “Figure we might be able to use this for a fishing line.”
“Good idea.”
Without a survival kit, map, GPS, or even a compass they had to work with whatever they could find, and right now that was very little. The components inside the medkit would come in handy to tend to her father but only for a while. The thought that he might get an infection only solidified her determination to get moving. “Ready to go?”
19
In fear and trepidation, they trekked southwest following the winding river that cut through a rugged valley in the mountain range. Swallowing them, dense cottonwood, black spruce, and hemlock trees blanketed the steep slopes, making it perfect for wildlife to hide, and even easier for a predator to stalk them. Higher, treeless craggy ridgelines on either side and beyond that snowcapped mountains loomed over it all, majestic and all-powerful. That air was fresh, untainted by the hands of man.
The remote region of Alaska they were in offered solitude for daring explorers but a death trap for those who got lost. But lost they weren’t, at least at that point.
An hour in, using the sun as a guide, they moved through the heart of the backcountry, hauling her father across the trackless terrain.
To give Frank a break, Callaway offered to take his place. He looped one of the ropes ove
r his left shoulder while Kara had the other over her right. Her father glided over the uneven ground, at times groaning when they hit rough patches. They navigated through grassy meadows, around wetlands, and over dark black rock, threading their way through a forest of black spruce.
Huffing as he trudged forward, Callaway asked, “So is it true you came out here to find gold?”
Her father didn’t reply. The odds of him sharing anything were low, especially when he’d been guarded with Frank who he’d known for over forty years. Callaway chuckled. “I knew you were stubborn and a little eccentric but I never figured you as a man given to crazy rumors.”
“They’re not crazy,” he replied.
“No, then what are they?”
Callaway was luring him in.
“I’m not telling you.”
“Come now, Mr. Shaw. Do you think I care about some outlandish claim of the existence of unrecovered gold? Rumors have always abounded throughout Alaska but that’s all they are, rumors. Fodder for armchair treasure hunters, the desperate and insane.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” He chuckled as they pressed on, pitching up a rocky slope, then struggling to get him around huge boulders.
After only an hour Kara was sweating, and her muscles ached. If it was this hard now, she didn’t want to imagine how difficult the rest of the journey would be, especially if the weather worsened. The only upside was no mosquitoes were nipping at their skin. Had it been the height of summer, they would have been eaten alive. “Come on, we have time to kill. Humor me.”
“And waste my breath on a man that has had a silver spoon in his mouth since the day he was born?”
“Is that what you think? Because my father is wealthy, you think I didn’t have to work my way to where I am today?”
“Oh, right, work, so that’s where you got those calluses on your hands,” he replied, mocking him for how noticeably smooth they were.