Zoey sighed again. One more way to become a dead fisherman. Even going to bed was a hassle in Bristol Bay.
“Wait a sec, and I’ll give you some warm water to wash with.” Her mom poured from the teakettle into a metal bowl. “Here, take this.”
Patrick grabbed his backpack and began pawing through it. “And come back in when you’re done. I have something to make your hands feel better, if I can find it.”
Outside, on the edge of the tent platform, Zoey put down the bowl, sat, and eased her hands into the warm water. She closed her eyes in appreciation. For the first time all day something actually felt good. When she rubbed her hands with soap, her skin stung, but she kept washing, testing every few seconds with her nose.
Once the smell was mostly gone, she went back inside, patting her hands lightly with a paper towel. Patrick handed her a small jar.
“Bag Balm?” she said. “You’re kidding, right? This is what they use on the cows back in Colorado. See, here’s a picture of a big udder right on the label!”
Patrick opened the jar and rubbed some of the gooey stuff onto Zoey’s hand.
“Cows, sheep, horses, dogs … and Alaskan fishermen. This is the best stuff to have between your hands and those fish.”
“It’s got lanolin in it, honey,” said Zoey’s mom. “Put it on every day and it will keep your hands from getting cracked.”
“Fish slime loves to get in those cracks and cause infections,” said Patrick.
Without looking at Patrick, Zoey stretched out the other hand and let him apply more of the sticky stuff. His hands were huge compared to hers, but his touch was gentle.
“I feel like a postage stamp,” she said. “If I touch the side of the tent, someone’s going to have to peel me off.” But the truth was the salve immediately soothed the stinging stiff feeling. She opened and closed her fist.
Ahhh. Better.
A while later, when they were settled in their sleeping bags and Eliot was asleep, Zoey blotted her still-sticky hands with more paper towels and took out her stationery.
Even though she still didn’t have her dad’s address, she wanted to write to him again. In another couple of weeks, it would be her birthday, the first one since they had left Colorado, and she was sure there would be a card from him. She hoped it would have a return address.
June 23
Dear Dad,
What a place Bristol Bay is!!! I had no idea there could be this many fish all together at once! And I definitely do have a way to make enough money to come see you. I got a job. A real job where I get paid, just like the grown-ups. I worked all day picking salmon out of a setnet. My hands are all raw. It’s stinky, hard work, but it’s kind of cool to see the big totes full of fish when we’re done. And the fish are so beautiful when they first come out of the water.
I work with this boy named Thomas. Even though he is older, I am sort of friends with him. At first I wasn’t so sure, but now I think he’s nice.
Dad, you would love it here because you like to fish so much. The salmon are MUCH bigger than trout. My arms are sore from lifting them all day.
Where are you, Dad? How come you haven’t written? Mom said she left a forwarding address with the post office. When you write to Anchorage, your letters will go here. Or send them to General Delivery, Dillingham, Alaska, 99565.
I wish you could see me now. I feel like I’m much older than when we left Colorado. I’m almost a real teenager. I haven’t gotten paid yet, but I might have enough by the end of the summer. But right now I’m having a hard time writing because my hands hurt so much from the fishing. More later …
From your not-so-little-anymore daughter,
Zoey
Zoey folded the letter and slipped it back in the box. She tried to picture her dad reading the letter, but it wasn’t working.
18
A Cake in the Coleman?
It seemed like Zoey had just put her head on the pillow when she awoke to find Eliot pulling on her.
“Hey, cut it out.”
“Everyone’s already gone. Mom’s all better. She said to get you up.”
And that’s the way it went for the next couple of weeks. Zoey rushed to get ready. Then she rushed to the fish camp where she rushed to pull fish out of the net. She felt like she was caught in some kind of current, pulling and pushing her life along, but she didn’t know where to. She wondered if the salmon knew where they were going or what would happen when they got there.
She thought about Naknek and how just about everyone else around Bristol Bay must be busy with fishing. People doing jobs that hadn’t existed three weeks before: picking, packing, or cutting strips to smoke or dry for the family freezer.
Harold said Eliot was too young to wade out in the mud. He got to pick up fish that slipped out of the raft onto the beach, but mostly he and their mom helped Carolyn prepare the subsistence fish the Gambles would need in the winter. Carolyn taught them how to split the fish for drying and smoking. It was a complicated and precise process she said she learned from the elder women in Naknek.
Carolyn split the fish with a special knife she called an ulu. It looked like a half-moon with a handle stuck to the flat side. And it was sharp! She started by cutting all the heads off. Then she cut the fish in half the long way almost to the tail, but not quite through. She pulled out the backbone, then made careful slits all the way down the meat on both sides almost to the skin, but not quite. Zoey’s mom hung the fish by their tails on the horizontal poles of the fish rack. A tarp roof kept the rain off.
Carolyn was also the official Power Wagon driver, always on call to reposition the net. Thomas and Zoey did the picking during the day, then Harold took over for night shifts. Thomas sometimes helped Harold as well. Sleep was a precious luxury in Bristol Bay during salmon season.
For Zoey the days of fishing flowed together. It seemed like the thick schools of salmon would never stop. Sometimes she watched Eliot from the water while she picked the net. He would walk up and down the beach, suddenly morph into Raven Boy or maybe a giant eagle and swoop down on a helpless fish. He also delivered snacks with a proud grin from Carolyn’s kitchen to the crew, which now included his big sister.
Everyone had some sort of job. Zoey’s mom often went with Patrick on his flights to Dillingham, leaving Zoey in charge of Eliot. Sometimes she took a big bag of stinky clothes with her to wash.
Thomas and Zoey picked fish, fish, and more fish. Just as Harold had predicted, the catches were much bigger than the first week. Now they were getting two hundred wild sockeye in the net from just one set, and filling about twenty totes on a good day.
Sometimes, when the tides were right, Harold would work well into the night. Patrick helped too. “If we don’t catch ’em, someone else will,” was Harold’s favorite line of encouragement. Luckily Zoey’s mom put her foot down at the idea of her children working the night shift.
Even so, Zoey worked harder than she thought possible. This wasn’t just busy work, people were counting on her. She didn’t want to let them down, especially Thomas. Plus, although she hadn’t seen any yet, there was the money.
Harold still teased her. If she complained, he reminded her that these were “puny” sockeye salmon. “They only weigh six or eight pounds. Now kings, they’re something else,” he said as they tossed the fish from the brailer into the totes. “Some of those king salmon are bigger than you.”
Still, the sockeye seemed plenty big to Zoey. Her arms ached, and in spite of the Bag Balm, her hands remained rough and chapped.
The best part of the day was the hour or so after fishing and before dinner. Once the last tote was filled, Zoey and Eliot hurried along the beach to the old fishing boat to hang out, sometimes with Thomas, sometimes with Midnight, always with Lhasa. On the way there, Zoey would collect interesting shells for her growing collection. At the boat, they played and talked about what they would do when the fishing slowed down. Zoey wondered if that time would ever come.
The lo
ngest day of the year, the summer solstice, had long since come and gone, but as they entered July, the mornings still stretched magically into afternoons and well into the middle of the night. From one dawn to the next, the sky never got completely dark. A few hours of deep twilight were the only sign that tomorrow had come. Harold told them to “enjoy it while it lasts ’cuz winter will be here soon enough.”
Winter! To Zoey, it didn’t feel like that long ago when the snow had drifted over her bedroom windowsill in Anchorage.
Even with light in the sky, Zoey fell asleep well before her sleeping bag could warm down to her feet. She occasionally worked on her carving, but made little progress. Writing her dad wasn’t happening either. She just couldn’t stay awake long enough.
One afternoon, after five hard sets, Patrick and Zoey’s mom took fifteen hundred pounds of sockeye to Dillingham in one trip in the shaky old plane. When they returned, Zoey’s mom asked, “How about a party for your birthday?”
Finally! Zoey was going to be a teenager!
“We could invite the Gambles, and I think I can bake a cake in the Coleman.”
“Really, a cake and everything?”
It wouldn’t be much of a party without Bethany, but it was better than nothing. Zoey wished her friend could come and visit. She would show her how to pick the nets, they could play together on the old fishing boat and meet Thomas. But Bethany’s mom couldn’t afford a jet trip to Dillingham.
Zoey knew she would at least get a card from Bethany, and she was sure her dad wouldn’t forget her first teenage birthday either.
“How can you have a birthday party in a tent?” Zoey asked. But she knew it could be done. Nothing was easy out here in Bristol Bay, but you could make things happen if you put your mind to it.
19
Blue Skies and Brown Bears
The next morning Zoey woke with a start. A woman’s voice in the other tent, and it wasn’t her mom. Carolyn! What was she saying?
“Harold saw her. A big female. She had her head inside a fish tote. He shooed her away by banging on a gas can, but she might still be around. Usually, they stay up the rivers and don’t bother us, but it means trouble if they get in the habit of nosing around camps. Sometimes we have to shoot them. No choice. Maybe with no fishing today, that grizzly’ll head off somewhere else.”
A grizzly? Here in camp? And no fishing?
“We’ll be on bear alert. Appreciate the heads up,” Zoey heard Patrick say.
“Okay. See ya tomorrow then.” Carolyn’s voice faded.
Zoey dressed quickly and slipped from the tent without waking Eliot. She watched Carolyn walk away down the beach. She had a rifle strapped over her shoulder. Then Zoey noticed Patrick at the tent door.
“You got a day off.”
“What happened?” Zoey entered the big tent. She could see her mom still in her sleeping bag.
“No fish.”
“No fish? How can that be? And what’s this about a bear?”
“Shhhhh. Don’t wake your mom. Sometimes the wind can churn things up so bad the fish don’t come near shore. Or maybe there’s a break in the run or the fish just move around. Nobody really knows. It’s okay for a day or so, but you know how everyone here depends on those fish.”
“But there were millions yesterday.” Zoey rubbed the sleep from her eyes and sat on the log chair.
“What’s going on?” Eliot came in. His hair stuck straight up in the back where he had slept on it.
“No work today. No fish,” Patrick said without looking at them. “I guess you two have a day off. But we’d better hope they’re back tomorrow or we’ll leave Bristol Bay as poor as we came.”
Zoey could see the trouble if the fishing didn’t start again soon, but she was ready for a break from the grinding work of fishing.
“And what about the bear?” Zoey asked.
“There’s a grizzly bear nosing around.”
Eliot jumped up and down. “Yeah! A bear! Yeah!”
“Shhhh! Eliot. Your mom’s asleep. ” Patrick brought his finger to his lips.
“Eliot, are you crazy? Bears are dangerous,” said Zoey in a loud whisper.
“I just want to see one.”
“That bear is a serious matter,” Patrick said. “Don’t you two go anywhere by yourselves as long as it’s around. Not even to the latrine. And stick close together, even in camp. Do you hear me?” Patrick looked like he meant it. He reached up to the highest shelf in the tent, pulled down his rifle, and checked it. “Good, loaded and the safety’s on.” Then he put the gun back on the shelf.
Lhasa’s loud barks erupted from somewhere not too far away. They all fumbled into their boots and jackets and rushed outside. The barking came from near the old fishing boat. Patrick raced toward it, the rifle under one arm.
“Back in the tent!” he yelled. “If Lhasa’s onto our bear, I don’t want you outside. Go in and tell your mom what’s happened. I’m going to see if I can find that dog and get her back before she gets us all into trouble.”
“But Lhasa might not come for you,” Zoey was frantic. “She hardly knows you. She knows me.”
“Do what I told you. I don’t have time to argue.” Patrick disappeared around the grassy hill.
Zoey was furious.
“Come on, Eliot, let’s go.”
“But Zoey, Patrick said it might be dangerous!”
But Zoey was already running in the direction Patrick had gone. Eliot followed, but he couldn’t move as fast as Zoey and quickly fell behind. Zoey passed the boat and rushed through the tall grass that marked the end of the sand, then onto the tundra beyond. She stopped short, stunned by the vastness of it. She had never come out this far before. The great plain of Southwest Alaska swept out before her for miles and miles, until it melted into the horizon. The land was nearly flat, except for patches of scrubby green and brown shrubs, sprinkled with tiny bright purple, blue, white, and yellow flowers. The sky above was Zoey’s favorite shade of paint, cornflower blue.
She could see Patrick’s head and shoulders above some bushes in the distance, but not Lhasa. Patrick did not move, and the barking had stopped. Eliot caught up with Zoey and together they walked as quietly as they could toward Patrick.
When they were perhaps a hundred feet away, they could see that Patrick was kneeling and holding Lhasa’s collar while the dog stared intently at something beyond them. Zoey could make out a small pond, and on the far side of the pond two little bear cubs pawed each other playfully. They were round, almost fluffy looking, and as cute as puppies.
Her eyes widened. An enormous rock beside the cubs suddenly stood up and stretched itself into a huge brown bear. Zoey’s heart pounded. The mother bear rocked on her hind legs waving her nose in the air. She sniffed in their direction and then turned and stared straight at Zoey and Eliot.
Zoey held her breath. Everything began to play like a movie in slow motion. The bear huffed, came down on her front paws, and lumbered toward them. Zoey’s eyes were locked on the enormous animal as it moved closer and closer. She saw its golden fur rippling in the sun, its body hulking and graceful at the same time. The bear moved around the pond at a speed Zoey would never have thought possible. The slow motion sped up.
Patrick was still kneeling, but now he had the rifle aimed at the mother bear.
Zoey and Eliot stood transfixed, unable to move, breathe, or even blink.
He’s going to shoot the bear! Zoey thought. The cubs will be all alone. They’ll die.
Zoey closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch.
An explosion cracked across the tundra. Then two more, so loud they hurt Zoey’s ears.
Zoey dove to the ground and pulled Eliot with her. She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want Eliot to see it.
That was the gun. Patrick killed the bear. Did he shoot the babies, too?
Afraid to look, but more afraid not to, Zoey lifted her head and peeked out. She glimpsed the mother bear as it ran away from them, the cubs close behind her.
They disappeared in the brush beyond the pond.
“Back to camp. Now!” Patrick yelled as he stalked toward Zoey and Eliot. Zoey and Eliot stood, and even from that distance she could see his face was dark and twisted. She had never seen him this mad before.
“What were you thinking, Zoey?” he yelled when he caught up to them. “You have to listen to me when I tell you things out here! You almost got yourself and Eliot killed.”
Zoey took a deep breath and then threw her arms around Patrick.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you for not killing that bear! I thought you shot her and the babies, too.” Zoey squeezed him hard before letting go. “I’m sorry we followed you. It was dumb, I know it was dumb. But I was so worried about Lhasa.”
All the thunder seemed to evaporate from Patrick. His mouth dropped open and he shook his head as if in wonder. After a moment he recovered and said, “We can’t talk now. We need to hurry. Sometimes a bear will circle around and come after you.
20
Swallowed a Lead Line
As they got closer to camp they heard Zoey’s mom.
“Zooooooooey, Elllllliot … Where are you?”
Eliot got there first and ran into her arms. Zoey, Lhasa, and Patrick gathered around.
“What happened? I heard gunshots. I woke up and you were all gone. Where were you? Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Slow down. One thing at a time.” Patrick hugged her and smiled. “I’m glad to see you’re up. Come on, let’s talk inside.”
They trooped into the tent and little by little the entire bear story spilled out.
“And then I was sure Patrick killed the mama bear and even the babies. I was so mad, but then I was so happy that he didn’t.”
Bristol Bay Summer Page 10