She finished making the second pole, walked to Sam’s side, and said, “This how.” She threw the hook with her hand as far out in the bay as she could. Then she immediately started to yank the line from side to side with the pole, making the hook skim closer to the surface from side to side. At the same time she stepped backward slowly until the hook came up on shore. She didn’t have a spinning reel, but this technique worked if there was a fish in the water. She hoped to just snag one anywhere.
The two of them worked all morning and eventually did snag the tail of an eight-pound red salmon. Once Lillian had the fish on shore, Sam took a rock and hit the fish hard several times in the head. Lillian ripped the gills with her little fingers so the fish would bleed out and put the animal in the shade of a rock. She wanted to get at least two salmon. They had a big group to feed.
A couple of hours later, they got the second one. It wasn’t a lot, but it would do. They carried the two fish to the creek. Lillian rinsed them and tried to gut them for cooking over the campfire. The knife was so dull that she just hacked up the tough skin. She looked carefully on the beach until she found a smooth rock that looked and felt like the one her old grandma had used at fish camp to sharpen the knives. She carefully rubbed the little blade on the rock and then tried to cut the fish. It was still dull, but not as bad as before. With time, she had both fish headed and gutted out and the meat all cut open, spread with willow twigs, and ready to cook by a campfire. The meat was still attached to the skin and was spread open like butterfly wings. They left their poles at the creek after Lillian pocketed the other hooks and line. Each carried a skewered fish to camp. Nicholi also carried the pot with the two fish heads, a little water, and seaweed.
Once back in camp, Sam added wood to the fire to get it going again. Lillian took the little ax and hammered the willow sticks holding the fish into the ground so the fish were freestanding close to the fire. They would stay there for several hours and would both smoke and cook to perfection if someone maintained the fire.
“Fish head soup, your favorite?” questioned Marie.
Lillian looked at her with her quiet stare and smiled.
“Is it?” she repeated.
“If she’s lookin’ at you directly when you’re asking her a yes-or-no question, her smile and stare mean ‘yes,’” said Helen. “I’m sure it is.”
Lillian put the pot of gill-free fish heads in the fire. She checked the water level and added a little more to immerse the heads so they would cook along with the seaweed.
Once the fish was all set up, she looked for Nicholi. He wasn’t there and hadn’t been back since she and Sam had arrived. She walked over to his sleeping spot and put one hand on his bed site and the other on his duffle while looking at Patrick.
“I take it you’re asking me where he is?” he said.
She continued to stare intently at him and smile shyly.
“We don’t know,” said Marie.
“He just wandered off hours ago,” said Patrick.
Lillian looked worried. She went over and touched the bear spray can and looked at Helen.
“Don’t worry, Lillian,” said Helen. “He’ll be fine. We’re more in danger than Nicholi because of the cooking fish.”
Sam had the ax and was already off in the woods in search of more dry spruce branches. Lillian stood on the trail to the beach and looked at everyone.
“You going to look for Nicholi?” asked Helen.
Lillian shyly smiled, looked down at her feet, and headed down the trail.
“Guess she is. If anyone can control that hot-tempered Nicholi, it’s Lillian. She definitely has a way with him,” said Patrick.
Lillian had been looking up the hillside for at least 45 minutes as she walked slowly down the beach in search of her friend. She had paused and was standing beside a tree when a plane flew directly over her. She could see the undercarriage with its fixed landing gear. It looked like Helen’s plane. She froze right where she was. No one was on the beach. No one was visible. What should she do?
Back at camp, Marie was helping Helen use the latrine and couldn’t let go of her. Sam was chopping hard under the canopy of a large tree trunk, trying to release a wonderfully dry, thick branch that would help cook their dinner and wasn’t paying attention. Patrick couldn’t move out of the tarp fast enough. He yelled, “Sam, run down to the beach, now! Sam, run NOW!”
Sam never heard Patrick because of the roar of the engine. He kept chopping, and ten minutes later he happily came back to the shelter and placed the limb strategically on the fire to burn.
“Didn’t you hear the plane?” asked Patrick.
Sam was happily humming to himself as he fiddled with the fire.
“Guess you didn’t. Sam, we need to get me in my chair and out of this tent so I can keep an eye out for search planes that fly over. Sam—Sam—Sam—Marie, good you’re back. We need to keep an eye open for these planes. The weather is good and they’re going to start looking for us now. Can you and Sam get my chair and help me set it up on the rock so I can be lookout? It’s something I can do.”
After she got Helen back in her bed site with a shirt pillow under her head, Marie grabbed Sam and led him to the chair under the tree. They carried it over to the rock and set it up after putting the seat back in place, but they were stumped as to how to get Patrick over to the chair.
Patrick said, “Drag me over with the cargo net. It’ll hurt a bit, but I’ll be okay.
They put the net next to Patrick on the shelter floor, and he rolled over onto it. Once he was set, face-up, they put some clothing under his head and started to pull the net and cargo across the tarp and onto the wet forest floor in the direction of the chair. Using their combined strength, they were able to get him close. It was a good thing that Sam was so strong and Marie was a workhorse of a girl.
“One, two, three,” called Marie as the two struggled to get Patrick’s stiff, flat body into the chair.
“Relax, you have to bend into a chair shape,” she said emphatically.
He finally folded at the waist with his feet sticking out straight. He was crooked, but his rear was in the seat. “Help me get my feet down,” he said to her. “Be gentle.” Once his feet were strapped in place on the footplates, he was able to bend, push, wiggle, and stretch for about ten minutes until finally he was comfortable in his preformed seat.
“Good thing this seat is built to fit your bony little tush,” she said, panting as she clicked his waist belt securely so he wouldn’t slip out somehow.
“It feels so good to sit up again. I can’t remember the last time I stayed in bed that long.” He scanned the horizon on the beach side and listened for planes flying by, but the only plane in the vicinity was too high to see them. “That last plane had to be a search and rescue plane because it was low. Why else would anyone be flying so low unless they were coming here to go clam digging?” He had heard there were a lot more clams on this side of Cook Inlet because it was harder for all the clammers to get there.
“Okay, I’m on guard now. Sam and Marie, if I call you, I want you two to run out on the beach and wave your hands wildly. Try to get the pilot or the spotter’s attention.”
“Sure,” said Marie.
Sam looked at Patrick and nodded his head, indicating he understood what he needed to do.
Helen closed her eyes to sleep. It was obvious that all the sleep was helping her to get better, so she didn’t fight it. The only way she could help was if she stopped being a burden to everyone. Soon she was breathing lightly and rhythmically.
While looking up the sloping hillside, just past the creek, Lillian noticed something shining. What was it? As she gazed at it, she spotted Nicholi coming down the hill between the reflection and the shore. She sat down on a rock and was watching him coming closer when the earth rumbled around her. The trees swayed from side to side, and when she looked down the beach, it seemed to wiggle up and down like a wave in the ocean. The earthquake lasted about ten seconds and
had her heart beating faster, causing her to grab her chest and focus on her breathing.
Once it was over, Nicholi ran out of the bushes to her side. His eyes were wide open, his hands flexing open and closed rapidly out to the side about shoulder height. He grabbed her hands and squeezed them tightly, not realizing his strength. Lillian cried in pain and shocked him out of his panic attack.
He let go of her and said, “Oh, sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His hands went back up to shoulder height and started flapping again.
Lillian rubbed her sore hands together and tried to flex them. She didn’t think he had broken anything, but they sure hurt, almost like when she had slammed one in a plane door years before.
“Where you were?” she asked him.
“Cabin.”
“Show me.”
Nicholi didn’t want to go back up because it might cause another earthquake.
Lillian sensed that and said, “It okay. Ground fine.” She grasped his arm softly and turned him back toward the bushes. “We go now.”
He didn’t head back to the bushes, but led her to a narrow overgrown trail that she had not spotted before. Slowly they hiked up the hill through heavy brush, tall fireweed, grass, and moss to the shiny thing.
When they arrived, panting from the exercise, Lillian looked around at a collection of small homestead cabins and outbuildings. She gasped gleefully, “Ah, steam.” She wanted a bath badly. Then she walked up the wooden rough-cut stairs and peered into the largest cabin window that didn’t have bear boards up to protect the glass. “Look safe to live.”
She stopped, turned, and pondered the woodshed. It was filled with precisely cut and split wood. The kindling was no larger than half an inch in diameter but fourteen inches long. The firewood was split to pieces no more than four inches thick, all of the same length. “Good cook wood. I see this, Lake Clark when visit.” The largest size of firewood was also the same length but in the round, ready to split to whatever size was necessary for cooking, heating, or the steam bath. A splitting maul was hanging inside the woodshed on the wall. She stopped on the porch and looked down at the bay below. It must have been the shiny, reflective window that she had seen. “Nice here.”
Nicholi nodded his head in agreement. “The door is left open, no lock for people.” The two walked inside. The cabin had tools for cooking: pots, pans, ulu, etc., by the cook stove. There were Indian masks and decorative native dance fans hanging on the walls. Pinned to the table was a letter that said,
Dear friends,
You are welcome to use our cabin in an emergency. Just remember that when you go to leave, leave the woodpile in the same condition you find it and make sure you restock the pantry. Take good care of our home.
Sincerely,
Ruth and Joe Trefon
Lillian wasn’t a good reader and could pick out only a few of the words, so wasn’t exactly sure what it said. Nicholi, sounding it out, read it to her, bringing a big smile to her face. “Let’s get others,” she said.
The two walked out, closed the door, fastened the gate to the porch, and started down the hill. Smoke was rising off the top of the mountain in the bay, but the two didn’t know what that meant. It was just a dirty-looking cloud to them.
Chapter 20
Danger
When Lillian and Nicholi finally reached the beach, they could see the smoke from the little fire that was cooking their dinner. The smell of cooking salmon permeated the surrounding beach. There was no wind now, nothing to blow it away.
The two were walking calmly back to camp, looking forward to their dinner, when Lillian sensed danger. She stopped and continued to look at camp.
“What’s the matter?” asked Nicholi.
Lillian just stood still for what seemed like eternity to Nicholi.
“Well, I’m going to go see if dinner’s ready yet,” he said flatly.
She slowly turned around 180 degrees and looked down the beach in the opposite direction beyond where she had walked that day. She stood still in her tracks and just stared while Nicholi, with his rumbling stomach, continued to watch her.
“You pee down there since we be here?” she whispered to Nicholi.
He looked at her, smirking, amazed with her question before answering, “Yeah, and so did Sam.”
“Good.” She continued to look, and suddenly Nicholi saw some movement on the beach where he had been walking alone earlier in the day. Whatever it was was coming around the shoreline about 300 yards away. “Big dog?” he questioned.
“Don’t know,” she said with her flat tone.
“It’s brown and walks like a big dog. A big, fat dog.”
Lillian stood watching for a few more seconds. Then, “Bear here,” she said with confidence and a slight tremble in her voice. “Back up, walk to camp. Watch bear.”
Nicholi did as he was told. He walked backwards slowly down the beach until he was almost out of sight of the bear. Then he saw something that surprised him. The bear stood up on his back legs and looked in their direction. He started to run toward them as if curious as to what they were. At about 100 yards he abruptly stopped, skidding on all four feet. He looked at the bushes beside him and stepped cautiously toward them. Then he barked a “woof” and ran into the bushes. Nicholi and Lillian stood still listening as the animal ran up the hillside, crashing through the bushes of heavy alder and willow. In a minute, they could no longer hear a sound.
Lillian grabbed Nicholi’s hand and held on tight. “I no like bears, but they no like us either.”
They jogged back to camp, shaking in their dirty tennis shoes, and sat down, trembling, unable to talk for a minute. Everyone watched them with curiosity, but only Marie said anything.
“You see a ghost or something?”
Nicholi said, quaking, “Bears here.”
They all looked at each other with fear in their eyes.
Helen was awake again and said very calmly, “Bears where?”
“Pee scared him, ran up hill,” said Lillian.
Helen, Patrick and Marie didn’t understand what she was saying.
Lillian stared at Nicholi as he sat shaking. She took his hand to calm him down and said, “Bear scared. Ran up hill. Say it, Nick.”
Finally he said, “My pee scared him. He ran up the hill.”
“Well, great,” said Helen with a little more confidence in her voice. “You put out a little of your scent, and he interpreted it as stating your territory. He didn’t know what you were so he ran away.”
“Guess so.”
Helen handed him her water bottle and said, “Drink up, boy. You saved the day.”
He smiled and looked over at the fire as he took a swig of water. “Oooh, salmon.”
Patrick, still on plane observation duty on the rock, said, “Looks and smells cooked to me. We gonna eat now that everyone is here?”
Sam, Marie, and Helen all said in unison, “Yeah!”
Marie and Sam pulled the salmon sticks down and put them next to the fire. Then they divided up the fish into chunks, and everyone that could walk grabbed a chunk. Marie took her sister a piece and started to feed it to her, but she said, “I think I can do it. Let me try to feed myself.” She lay there, holding her head still and slowly nibbled on the pile of fresh salmon in the tin can. “Lillian and Sam, it tastes like heaven. Excellent dinner.”
Lillian had nibbled a bit of her salmon, but what she really wanted was her favorite, the fish head soup. She pulled the pot off the fire and looked in the pot. Then she took the spoon and popped the eyes out of the heads and gobbled them down.
“Ahhhhh, yuck!!!” exclaimed Marie. Then she looked in the pot and found that the heads were falling apart and swimming in fish fat. She curled up her nose and acted like she was going to throw up.
The soup had a slightly burned odor to it, but Lillian ignored it. She spooned the fatty flesh from the cheeks and head into the one bowl and poured the fat liquid on top. With the one spoon she slowly devoured
the soup, smiling after each bite.
Sam decided to feed Patrick. He stood beside the chair and stuffed the fish in Patrick’s mouth, managing to smear a large percentage of the meal all over his face. It dribbled down his chin and splattered on his already very filthy clothes. Patrick was a mess, but it tasted so good, he didn’t mind.
Nicholi decided to try the fish head soup. “Hey, it’s not bad, just looks awful.” He ate two bowls of it. When they were all finished and were lying around the fire, burping up their fabulous meal, Lillian started to stare at Nicholi. Then she said something that, as usual, only he could hear.
“What she say?” said Marie.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot. We found a cabin.”
“A cabin!” exclaimed Helen. She bolted upright and instantly found her head was still swimming. A headache struck like lightning, and for a second she thought she was going to lose all her dinner. She quickly put her head down and closed her eyes, and only after the spinning went away did she ask for more details.
While everyone was learning about the new cabin, Patrick had his eye on the top of Mt. St. Augustine. “Helen, I think that thing is going to blow. Maybe we should move to the cabin. If not tonight, then early tomorrow morning.”
“What thing?”
“Augustine. It’s been really smoking all day. I didn’t want to say anything ’cause there wasn’t anything we could do about it, but it’s smoking more now than it did this morning. A flimsy shelter like this one wouldn’t be a good place to be if it did blow. What if it shot rocks up? Wouldn’t we get buried in the ash?
“Sam and Marie, help me out of this tent so I can see what he’s talking about.”
The two strong young adults took her by the armpits and dragged her outside, propped her up against a tree, and held tightly onto her.
Helen kept her eyes shut during all the movement, but once she stopped moving, her head seemed to only ache. She could handle that. She opened her eyes slowly and looked across the water toward the mountain that stood only a few miles across the bay to the south of them. “Oh, God help us!” she said when she saw it. “I think you’re right, Patrick.”
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