The Savage Boy

by Nick Cole

  The Boy had known in the night what he must do.

  He’d waited for Sergeant Presley to tell him not to do it.

  You would say, he thought aloud, pretending to be Sergeant Presley’s voice. You would say it was fool’s business. That’s what you would say.

  He waited, listening to the rush of the water in the river.

  He looked upriver, his eyes falling on the small, steep, conical mountain.

  You would say that.

  Ain’t nothin’ but a thang, Boy. Mind over matter. You don’t mind, it don’t matter.

  You would say that also.

  You got to kill that bear, Boy. No two ways about it.

  15

  THAT MORNING HE collected three long poles of fresh wood that wouldn’t snap. Working with his knife he sharpened the ends into stakes, hardening them in the fire until the tips were black.

  By noon he’d fed Horse, who ate little of the fire-dried grass the Boy had placed before him. He sat by the fire putting a fresh edge on the steel tomahawk Sergeant Presley had given him. Its bright finish was a thing made in the past, never to be seen again. Often, when they had encountered strangers, he’d seen their eyes fall to it, wanting it for their own.

  Laying aside the sharpened tomahawk, he gave the knife an edge. They’d made these knives at the Cotter family forge. Sergeant Presley’s knife lay wrapped within a bundle the Boy had carried away from the grave on the side of the road surrounded by the wild corn that had seemed to grow everywhere; a bundle the Boy had no desire to open.

  You might need it for this one, Boy.

  But the Boy couldn’t see what an extra knife might do for him. He knew if his plan was a “no go” and he found himself down to his own knife, there wouldn’t be much hope left in an extra knife.

  That’s right Boy, work smarter, not harder. Knife work is hard work.

  Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that.

  The last thing the Boy would need for his plan would be what was left of the precious parachute cord. There was less than thirty feet of it now. As a child, the Boy had always been fascinated by the large coil; amazed at it, as he always was of the things from Before. There had been so much of the parachute cord, it had once seemed endless, always coiled about Sergeant Presley’s shoulder to hip as they walked. One time Sergeant Presley had even made a knotted section of it for him to play with, muttering, “Merry Christmas,” as he’d handed it to the Boy on that long-ago winter day. Years passed, and traps and snares and other bits that could no longer be salvaged had reduced the large coil to less than thirty feet.

  The Boy withdrew the last of it from his pack.

  I don’t want to use even this, but if I have to I will.

  He thought of the bear.

  He’d seen bears killed. The Cotter family hunted them for sport and meat. He’d followed one hunting party and watched them run down a small, fast black bear that was more interested in getting away than fighting. In the end, it had played dead until they’d put a bolt under its left shoulder blade.

  They had seen big bears in the Rockies. Most of them had kept their distance, or charged, only to veer off. Horse was good for scaring things away. Once Horse went up on his hind legs, most animals knew he wasn’t interested in running.

  He looked at Horse.

  Are you dying too? Like Sergeant Presley?

  He patted the big brown belly; Horse stirred only slightly.

  “I’m going to clear out a place for us to hole up in through the rest of winter.” Then, “I’ll be back.”

  He went down to the river and speared another of the broken-wine-bottle trout. Gutting and filleting the trout, he laid its body out on planks of charred wood over the embers of the fire.

  After eating the fish he collected his gear, shouldering the three heavy poles and placing the thin coil of rope over his head to hang down from his neck.

  Everything was moving too fast.

  He could feel the tomahawk hanging from his belt, the knife in its sheath at his back.

  What am I missing?

  Mind over matter, Boy.

  You don’t mind, it don’t matter.

  HE CLIMBED THE conical hill, hauling himself up its snow-covered granite ledges. He avoided any pines that grew out of the rock, knowing them to be untrustworthy because of the shallow soil they grew in.

  He found the cave just underneath the top of the hill. It would be a useless exercise if the cave was too low for Horse to squeeze into. What would be the use of dislodging the bear only to find his shelter too small? But the cave was like a wide frown on a mouth. It was tall enough at its highest point for Horse. Getting him up here would be another story—collecting wood also.

  It’s not ideal, but it’s all I have.

  You’re assuming victory, Boy. First you got to kill that bear. But it’s good you’re thinkin’ about tomorrow all the same.

  A wide, flat ledge lay before the opening and below that, a sheer drop to the river below. He set the poles down, laying them gently in a crevice running through the cold gray granite. The poles came together, echoing, and the Boy waited, unsure what he would do if the Bear were suddenly to appear.

  I’ll attack him.

  That would be bad, Boy.

  But what else was there to do? If he chases me I won’t get away. If I attack, maybe he’ll run.

  In the moment that followed, the Boy could hear only the distant sound of the river below.

  On a thick tree, stunted and growing out of the rock, he could see the deep indentations of the bear’s claw marks.

  What do you know about your enemy, Boy?

  It’s a bear.

  A sow.

  Cubs two years back, which means they’ve left.

  I don’t know if it’s a grizzly or one of the browns, which are the worst. Too bad it’s not one of the black ones.

  And you would ask me about the battlefield. That’s what you would ask me next, Sergeant Presley.

  Where you gonna fight, Boy?

  He looked at the flat ledge. It wasn’t more than twenty feet wide and as much across.

  I could make a trap, but I don’t know where. I’d have to get her down the hill and chasing me.

  Deadfalls are the best, Boy.

  To do that, I’ll have to get her down the side of the mountain and into the forest. Even then, the ground is frozen. It would take me a day or two to make a pit. One more night like the last and we won’t make it.

  So it’s the ledge then, Boy.

  I go in hard with a spear. If she’s asleep I put one into her. I back up, grab another and put it in. By the time I get to the third . . .

  You’ll be at the edge of the cliff. That drop’ll do the job, Boy.

  She’ll have to have a reason to go over.

  If you’ve put three spears into her, Boy, you’ll be the reason. All she can think of at that point is wanting you dead and then going back to sleep.

  Here’s what you do, you anchor the parachute cord and tie it about your waist, Boy. Wait until the last second and she’ll follow you over.

  Numbly he took the coil of rope off his neck. His heart was beating quickly.

  He told himself to calm down. To stop.

  Just do this. Don’t think too much about it.

  He crept toward the frowning entrance of the cave. There was a short drop inside. On the floor below, he could see a shapeless mass in the dark. The cave smelled of animals. He listened. He heard nothing. He waited, watching the shapeless mass. His vision narrowed as he stared hard, willing the details to be revealed.

  He blinked and looked away as his vision began to close to a pinpoint. His heart was pounding in his ears.

  Stop.

  He crawled back out onto the ledge.

  The drop was a good two hundred feet into the rapids.

  I’m not really going to do this, am I?

  Mind over matter, Boy.

  He played the rope out, tying it about his waist.

  They don’t make
this stuff anymore. Airborne Ranger gear, Boy. Best ever.

  You’d said that, every time you brought it out, Sergeant. Every time we made a trap or a snare, you said that.

  I was proud of what had once been. Proud that someone had made parachute cord. I had no right to be, Boy. But I was proud all the same.

  The Boy searched the underside of the ledge.

  A few feet below the edge and off to the side, a rugged little pine jutted out from the rock wall.

  It’s all I have.

  To the west, large clouds, gray and full, rolled across the high peaks.

  More snow tonight.

  It will be very cold.

  He climbed down the cliff face.

  He loved to climb.

  For a boy that had been born crippled and could not run as others did, climbing was an activity where the playing field leveled.

  He had always climbed.

  The Boy clung to the side of the rock wall. He spent more rope than he would have liked securing it to the pine. But he had to.

  When he’d climbed back onto the ledge his muscles were shaking.

  I need water and I’ve forgotten to bring the bag.

  What else am I forgetting?

  He felt fear rise again as he cupped a handful of snow and put it in his mouth.

  In just a moment I’ll have to do this.

  Stop.

  Mind over matter, Boy.

  I don’t mind. It won’t matter.

  That’s right, Boy. That’s good.

  A strong wind came off the mountain peaks above and whipped long hair into his green eyes.

  He brushed it away.

  What else am I forgetting?

  When he picked up the first pole it felt too light.

  It felt hollow like he could break it across his knee.

  He laid it down just in front of the cliff’s edge, pointing toward the frowning mouth of the cave.

  The second pole felt heavier. He placed it at the entrance.

  When he went back for the third, it felt lighter than the second and he switched it out. I’ll want the heaviest one first, he thought.

  Crouching low and entering the cave, he felt the rope pull taut at his waist.

  It won’t reach. I won’t be able to get close enough to make the most of the spear.

  He undid the rope about his waist and changed to a slipknot.

  This is how it works, he told himself.

  Change of plans, he’d heard Sergeant Presley say.

  Change of plans.

  He laid the loop of rope at the base of the second pole.

  When you fall back to this position, you slip the rope around your right wrist, Boy.

  What about the left?

  I can’t trust that side.

  What else am I forgetting?

  Stop, he told his heart.

  Stop.

  He crept into the cave, the tip of the spear dead center on the sleeping mass.

  There was a moment.

  A moment to think and to have thought too much.

  He felt it coming. He’d known it before at other times and knew it was best to stay ahead of such moments.

  He drove the spear hard into the mass.

  An instant later it was wrenched out of his hands as the bear turned over. He heard a dry snap of wood echo off the roof of the cave as he retreated back toward the entrance.

  For a moment, the Boy took his eyes off the bear as he slipped the loop about his wrist and grabbed the spear, making sure to keep the trailing end of the parachute cord away from the end of the pole.

  In that moment he could hear the roar of the bear. It filled the cave, and beneath the roar he could hear her claws clicking against the stone floor as she scrambled up toward him.

  When he looked up, following the blackened tip of the spear, he found the grizzly’s head, squat, flat, almost low beneath the main bulk of her body. She roared again, gnashing a full row of yellowed fangs.

  He jabbed the spear into her face and felt the weapon go wide, glancing off bone.

  He backed up a few steps and planted the butt of the long pole in the ground.

  The grizzly, brown, shaggy, angry, lurched out onto the ledge. It rose up on its hind legs and the Boy saw that it might, if it came forward just a bit, impale itself on the pole if it attacked him directly. He adjusted the pole right underneath the heart of the raging bear.

  The bear made a wide swipe with its paw smashing the pole three quarters of the way to the top.

  In the same instant that the pole was wrenched from the Boy’s grip, and as if the moment had caused an intensity of awareness, he felt the slipknot, its mouth still wide, float from off his wrist.

  Stick to the plan, Boy! You can’t change it now.

  He’d heard that before.

  His back foot, his good leg, planted at the edge of the cliff, the Boy raised the final pole.

  The bear on hind legs wallowed forward.

  The Boy checked to make sure the parachute cord was really gone.

  It was.

  The moment that hung between the Boy and the bear was brief and startlingly clear. To have questioned what must be done next would have been lethal to either.

  The Boy loped forward and rammed the pole straight up and into the chest of the bear.

  There is no other way but this, he thought in that moment of running.

  No other way but this.

  He felt the furry chest of the bear meet his grip on the pole.

  He pushed hard and felt the arms of the bear on his shoulders. He felt a hot breathy roar turn to a whisper above the top of his head.

  His arms were shaking.

  His eyes were closed.

  He was still alive.

  He backed away from the belly of the bear, letting go of the pole as the bear fell off to one side.

  He was covered in a thick, cold sweat.

  There was no other way.

  16

  IN THE MOMENTS that followed the death of the bear, routine took over, ways the Boy had known his whole life.

  Bleed the animal.

  Don’t think about how close you came to her claws.

  The knife at his back was out as he stood over the carcass, finding the jugular, his good hand shaking, and then a quick flick and blood was running out onto the granite of the Sierra Nevada.

  Don’t remember her hot breath on top of your head when there was little you could do but go forward with the pole.

  Next he made a cut into the chest. Working from the breastbone up to the jaw, he cut through flesh and muscle. When the cut was made he took out his tomahawk, adjusted his grip once as he raised it above his head and then slammed it down onto the breastbone several times. Soon he was removing the organs. Heart, lungs, esophagus, bladder, intestines and rectum.

  My hands are shaking, Sergeant.

  It’s just the cold, Boy. Just the cold. Keep on workin’.

  It is cold out and getting colder, which will be good for the meat, but I still have much work to do.

  Walking stiffly, he descended the mountain and returned to camp. He gathered his gear and when that was done, he began to coax Horse to get up one more time.

  Horse seemed stunned that the Boy would even consider such a thing, but before long, whispering and leading, patting and coaxing, the Boy had him up and on his legs.

  “I’ll carry everything, you just follow me. We’re going someplace warm.”

  Late afternoon turned to winter evening as he led Horse up onto the mountain. Halfway up, as they worked side to side across the gray granite ledges, snow began to fall, and by the time they’d reached the top, the Boy was almost dragging Horse. Never once did he curse at the animal, knowing that he was already asking too much of his only friend. And for his part, Horse seemed to suffer through the climb as though death and the hardships that must come with it are inevitable.

  At the top, the Boy dropped Horse’s lead and began to collect what little firewood he could find. Soon th
ere was a small fire inside the cave. He led Horse into the cave, expecting more protest than the snort Horse gave at the scent of the bear.

  The fire cast flickering shadows along the inside of the cave and though there was a small vault, the cave was neither vast nor deep.

  It’ll be easier to keep warm, Boy. That’s good.

  The Boy put his blanket over Horse, who’d begun to tremble. He fed Horse from a sack of wild oats he kept for the times when there was nothing at hand to crop.

  Horse chewed a bit and then seemed to lose interest.

  That’s not good.

  The Boy left the sack open before Horse and returned to the carcass of the bear.

  Snow fell in thick drifts across the ledge as the wind began to whip along the mountainside.

  It has to be done now, the Boy thought to himself.

  But I’ll need wood. The fire has to be kept going.

  In the dark he descended the mountain, working quickly amongst the howling pines to find as much dead wood as possible. Every time he stopped to look for wood in the thin light of the last of the day, he felt his weak side stiffen.

  When he’d collected a large bundle of dead wood, he tied it with leather straps and climbed the mountain once again, almost crawling under the weight, as the scream of the howling winter night bit at his frozen ears.

  I am so tired. I feel all the excitement and fear of the fight with the bear leaving me.

  Nearing the ledge of the cave, he thought, I could go to sleep now.

  And for a long moment, on all fours, the bundle of wood crushing down upon his back, he stared long and hard at the rock beneath his numb fingers, thinking only of sleep.

  Back in the cave he fed the wood that wasn’t too wet to the fire, watching the smoke escape through some unseen fissure in the roof of the cave. He held his cracked and bleeding fingers next to the flames.

  You’ll need that skin, Boy.

  The Boy knew what that meant.

  He’d known and planned what he must do next without ever thinking it or saying that he would do it. But if he was to have the skin of the bear, then what needed to be done would need to be done soon.

  The bear was too heavy to drag off the ledge, back here into the cave near the fire.