I didn’t seek conflict, but I didn’t avoid it either. And in that moment, I had reached my limit.
After I picked up my books and papers and got to my feet, I shuffled back down the line with my head down. The eighth-graders were still laughing. I’m sure they thought I was being submissive. But I was looking at shoes. During my inglorious fall, I’d caught a glimpse of the shoe on the leg that tripped me: a black Converse.
It didn’t take long to find a pair of black Converse sneakers on the left side of the line. They were Scott’s.
I glanced up. Scott grinned, revealing his braces. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Didn’t you see my leg out there?”
My balled fist hit Scott in the jaw before he could utter another word. He dropped to the floor faster than an elevator without a cable.
I didn’t stick around to see how Scott was doing. I hurried off to math class. But I knew I was in trouble. It wasn’t long before I was called out of class and into the office of Mr. Metz, formerly a professional baseball player and now our principal. My punishment was ten home run swings with a paddle on my backside and a weeklong suspension.
Much worse, however, was seeing Dad.
When Dad left our family four years before, my brothers and I stayed with Mom. My parents divorced soon after. Dad paid child support, but Mom still couldn’t afford to keep the house. We moved into a smaller home across the street. Mom did the best she could, working part-time as a dental assistant or tending bar, anything to bring in a few dollars. But we never had much. Dad lived in a series of apartments and started going out with Brenda, a highway patrol dispatcher and nurse. When Dad bought a house near Pepper Drive Elementary, he and Brenda moved into it.
The house was far nicer than the place where Mom and my brothers and I lived. He’d bought a ranch-style home with a beige stucco exterior and ample front and back yards. During the summer before my sixth-grade year, when my parents asked where I wanted to live, I decided to move in with Dad and Brenda. My brothers decided to come too. I still couldn’t believe everything had fallen apart, that our family was split and I had to choose between parents. I was nowhere near ready to deal with the emotions swirling inside me.
On the day of the hallway fight, I wasn’t ready to deal with Dad either. My father hated to be embarrassed. I knew he would be furious and disappointed in me. As I sat on a chair in the waiting area outside of Mr. Metz’s office, I dreaded Dad’s arrival. Soon enough, there he was, in his uniform, walking down the hall in my direction. One look at his face was all it took to confirm that he was not pleased. I dropped my head. Dad was the one who’d taught me to defend myself and to not be a victim. I wanted so much to make him proud of me, to show him that I had what it took to be a man like him. Unfortunately, the principal was convinced I was being a bully. That look of disappointment from Dad brought on a hurt and a feeling of failure that burrowed deep.
Dad met with Mr. Metz behind a closed door. A few minutes later, Dad emerged, still grim-faced. “I’ll make sure to take care of this,” he said to Mr. Metz. “This won’t happen again.”
I sat in the back of the car on the way home. Dad glanced at me in the rearview mirror as he drove. “This is getting to be a regular thing with you,” he finally said.
I tried to explain what had happened. But when Dad asked if I was defending myself when I threw the punch, I had to admit that I wasn’t. That was all he needed to hear.
“You’ve had other fights this year already,” he said. “Now you’re suspended. We need to do something about this. You’ve lost your summer. You’re going to be restricted to your room.”
I knew there would be no negotiating or further discussion. My sentence was final. As soon as the school year ended, I spent all my time in my room. The only exceptions were meals and yardwork.
That first week was horrible. I had no TV. I knew I faced a summer with no hunting, no fishing, no baseball, no exploring. I shared the room with my brothers, but they had the freedom to roam the house or to leave and play with friends. Since the room included bunk beds and the captain’s bed I slept in, it left me little room to move. I was reduced to looking out the bedroom window at the street and watching my friends throw a football.
I was miserable and mad about everything. My whole world had fallen apart. I felt I’d lost everything that I enjoyed, that I was in jail. I thought, I am done with this.
So I hatched a plan.
One day when I was alone with Shane, I said, “I’m thinking about running away to the wilderness and living off the land.” For better and worse, my brothers looked up to me. When I explained more details of my scheme to Shane, he was all for it.
“I’m going with you,” he said.
Suddenly my summer had a purpose. Since this was in the days before the internet, Shane and I examined encyclopedias and maps to decide on a destination. Our choice was the mountainous area around Dixie, Idaho, a remote and unincorporated community in the center of the state. It offered wildlife, forest, and streams, everything we thought we needed to make it on our own. Shane jumped on his bike each week and pedaled to the library to bring back books about fishing, hunting, travel, woodlore, and survival in the outdoors. We pored over those books, absorbing every ounce of information we could. We read about how to build fires, treat water, smoke fish and game, survive eating roots and berries, and build a log cabin with a chimney. We recorded detailed notes in a journal we kept hidden. We made lists of the equipment we’d need to survive the trip and that first winter and began scrounging around the house for supplies. Even Matt joined in, though he’d only just finished second grade. We promised to come back and visit and made him promise not to say a word about our plans to Dad.
I realized that knowledge and a few supplies from home wouldn’t be enough to sustain us. We needed more materials and transportation, and that took money. So we asked Dad if we could work around the house and yard to earn cash during my confinement. Since my dad believed that manual labor was good punishment, he quickly put us to work installing a sprinkler system and building a retaining wall. Little did he know that we were rat-holing every dime and quarter he gave us in our getaway fund. I wasn’t allowed to use the phone, so Shane called the local Greyhound bus station and learned we needed ninety-nine dollars apiece for a one-way ticket to Dixie. That was going to take a lot of yardwork.
The plans that Shane and I made in my room were more than a pipe dream. We expected to make our wilderness adventure a reality. What I didn’t realize until years later was that it was less the adventure itself than the vision of it that gave me hope and got me through that summer. Each day was a full-blown operation filled with reviewing lists of techniques, tactics, and supplies. Shane and I dreamed of hunting deer, elk, and bear, and of surviving by our wits. It gave me a release for all my frustration. I already loved the outdoors, but during that summer of intense planning my appreciation for the wilderness skyrocketed. So did my bond with my brothers. Though they weren’t obligated to hang out with their grounded older brother, they spent hours nearly every day with me. It was a time I would never forget.
Though each day brought me a little closer to my brothers, it was a different story with my dad. To me, my punishment seemed over-the-top. I was frustrated and angry, but I knew there was no arguing with Dad. I dealt with it by trying to avoid him and by enduring my pain in silence. At dinnertime, my brothers, Dad, Brenda, and I all sat at the table together, but our conversation was surface and minimal. Dad certainly didn’t ask how I was feeling, and I wasn’t about to tell him. As soon as the meal was over, I went back to my room.
I was sure that I was a continual disappointment to my father. It seemed I could never measure up. The only solution I could come up with was to get free from all of it and run away.
Our plan was to continue preparations, keep saving money, and sneak off the following spring. Then school started and my restriction was finally lifted. I was still angry, but my newfound freedom made life a bit more bearable.
I found my thoughts turning more and more to baseball, friends, and girls. The dream of disappearing in Idaho died a slow and quiet death. My desire to pursue adventure in the wild and live a life without depending on anyone, however, was only beginning to grow.
4
* * *
OMENS
The Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
—MARK 16:20 ESV
2 P.M., TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
ABOVE ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
The captain’s voice boomed over the intercom, waking me from a light sleep: “Please fasten your seat belts. We are making our final descent into Anchorage.”
When I peered out the window of our Boeing 767, the clouds parted and wild Alaska materialized below me. Although the skies were cloaked in gray, a sea of green forests, brilliant-white snowcapped mountains, and miles of blue oceans and crooked rivers stretched for as far as I could see. The vastness and majesty of Alaska never failed to captivate me.
I had been here before. In 2004, I brought my family up to visit Matt’s clan for a vacation. We all had a great time. And in 2012, I joined Matt on a weeklong fishing trip on the Kenai River. On that visit, I hooked a fifty-pound king salmon that I brought all the way to the boat on a fly rod, though it was out of season for salmon, so we had to cut the line. Those were great memories. Now I was thrilled to be back in the “last frontier.”
After disembarking the 767, I hurried toward the baggage claim. My worst nightmare was that some of my gear didn’t make it on the plane. I stopped in mid-stride, however, at the sight of an enormous glass display case in the middle of the airport. Inside it was the biggest stuffed grizzly I had ever laid eyes on. The brown bear, standing on its hind legs, dwarfed the stuffed wolf that gazed up in apparent terror from the bear’s feet. The grizzly was nearly twice as tall as I was. Its open jaws revealed huge and deadly fangs. Four-inch-long claws extended from its massive paws. Its bulk was supported by powerful haunches that looked like tree stumps. While alive, that thing must have weighed four or five times what I did.
I shook my head. I would hate to meet anything in the woods as ferocious and terrifying as that.
I was too pumped up to dwell on that grim thought for long, however. This monster had been someone else’s problem. I moved past the grizzly and continued to the baggage claim, where my dry bags were the first off the carousel. It took only a few moments more to pick up my gun case at the claim counter. All my gear had arrived safely. I finally breathed a sigh of relief. This was surely a good sign.
I was barely out the terminal doors when Matt pulled up in a new deep-blue Ford F-250 king cab truck. He grabbed me for a hug and hoisted my gear into the back of the truck. We were on our way.
“I am so excited,” I said. “You have no idea. I am finally on the ground in Alaska.”
Matt laughed. “You’re right, Greg, you made it. It’s time for the Matthews brothers to take adventure head-on.”
I started talking faster than a giddy schoolgirl. “So what else do we need to get? When’s the boat going to be ready? When should we go food shopping?” I pulled out my supply list and we went over the details. I was on such a pre-hunt “high” that our ninety-minute drive felt more like ten.
Matt and his family had just moved into a big, beautiful new split-level home in a rural area of Wasilla, a town about forty miles northeast of Anchorage. Their house overlooked an eighteen-hole golf course. When we arrived, Matt’s wife, Melinda, and the kids seemed as happy to see me as I was to see them. My brother had an amazing family. Logan, the oldest at twenty-one, was introverted, smart, and tough. Even in snow and freezing temperatures, he used to ride a bicycle to his job at a local market. Now he had a four-wheeler. I was sorry to miss Rhiannon, a studious and affectionate nineteen-year-old who was away at college in Atlanta. Gareth, fourteen, had a big heart and had just purchased a new Nerf gun so he and I could do battle. Ariel, eleven, had a sparkle in her eyes and was ready to dote on me. “Uncle Greg, do you need anything?” she asked. “Are you warm enough? Do you want me to bring you a blanket?” The baby of the family was Lorilli Allana, a six-year-old with a bright smile and questions of her own: “How long have you been my daddy’s brother? How come my daddy is taller than you if he’s your little brother?”
Melinda was the one who kept this impressive herd going. She had homeschooled all the kids, organizing their academic lessons as well as coordinating activities such as music and tap dancing lessons and cheer and tumbling practices. Since Matt’s work as a government contractor took him away from home for two months at a time, she’d also served as the general contractor on their new house. Now that I had arrived, she began preparing a delicious dinner: black bear meat loaf, potatoes, and kale chips, with blackberry cobbler for dessert.
After our meal, Matt and I retired to deck chairs on his wraparound back porch. We needed some beer and burping time to regain our man cards. We each sampled some Copenhagen dip (I’ve since given up tobacco chew) and enjoyed the spectacular view. The September sun seemed to move horizontally rather than set, splaying shafts of yellow and orange through pockets of towering Douglas fir trees. Beyond the tall timber, manicured greens, and fairways awaited the next day’s links players. We’d been sitting only a few minutes when I observed a bald eagle flying overhead. This was as close to paradise as just about anything I could imagine.
Matt flashed a satisfied grin. “After all these years, I’ve finally got you up here to experience a true wilderness adventure,” he said. “I’m so glad this is finally coming together. The Matthews brothers are going to test themselves against Alaska.”
“Well, you know how glad I am to be here,” I said. “I can’t wait for us to get out there.”
We still had details to take care of, however. Matt had ordered a new motor for his boat. I had to buy a hunting license and bear spray. And of course, we needed to stock up on food. So we spent the next two days getting ready, as well as relaxing with Matt’s family. I learned that all of the kids were huge Star Wars fans. On both of the next two nights, we all sat down with bowls of popcorn and watched one of the franchise’s original movies. The kids knew every line.
During our preparations, I also practiced my moose calls. When Matt told me that they sometimes spotted moose on the golf course, I immediately took my mechanical call onto the back porch and tried to lure one in. I had to admit that my first efforts sounded more like a dying moose than anything else. Matt could make a great moose call just by cupping his hands around his mouth and using his voice. He tried to encourage me, but in the end Matt said, “Yeah, I’ll do the first set of calls, just to make sure we get ’em going in the right direction, toward us.”
My brother must have realized how impatient I would be during these last few days to start hunting. To scratch my itch, he’d planned for us to go grouse hunting, something I’d never tried. We set out on an early morning for a lake southeast of Wasilla. Matt wanted to make sure that hunting was still allowed, so we pulled into a driveway to talk to a man who owned land in the area. As we got out of the truck, a portly gentleman with a brown-and-gray beard, wearing a Carhartt jacket and jeans, walked in our direction.
The land owner soon confirmed that it was fine for us to hunt in the area. But he added a warning.
“You need to be careful,” he said. “I noticed a sow black bear and cubs have been coming up through the woods here. So just be aware of that.”
Those words got my attention. I’d never confronted a bear face-to-face, but now that I was in Alaska it was a real possibility. Getting between a mama bear and her cubs was about the most dangerous place a man could be. I definitely didn’t want that to happen, especially since I was carrying only a shotgun armed with bird shot and my .357 Magnum revolver. Those would not be near enough to stop an angry she-bear.
I was quickly distracted from my concerns, however, by what happened next. As we talked in the driveway, I spotted movement in the woods about seventy yards
away. I blinked to make sure that what I was viewing was real—it was a cow moose, her ears twitching, eating leaves off a tree. Then a baby calf emerged from the woods and joined her.
Man, I thought, these animals are just waiting for me to start flinging arrows at ’em. It’s all right here!
I was more eager to hunt than ever. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Matt and I reached our destination and began winding our way on foot through a heavily wooded area. The sky was overcast and gray, but the stands of alders had already started changing to yellow and gold, creating a picturesque contrast to the greens of Douglas fir, spruce, and pine trees. We walked slowly, thirty feet apart, across a series of small hills and gullies. Both of us carried our shotguns.
I was used to wing shooting, where our presence would flush a bird from its hiding place into the air. Though I hadn’t seen or heard a thing, Matt suddenly raised his weapon.
Boom!
“I got one!” he yelled.
Sure enough, we quickly found the body of a grouse not ten yards ahead. I was clearly a rookie when it came to this kind of hunt.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“Watch the branches of these trees,” he said, pointing ahead and up at a group of pines. “You’ll see a little bit of movement. They’ll be hiding on these branches.”
Matt’s advice led to good fortune. In an hour of hunting, we both bagged two grouse. We did a field dressing on the grouse at the back of Matt’s truck and made a tasty meal of them that evening.
I’d had a wonderful time with Matt’s family. But after watching The Empire Strikes Back on the third night, it was time for final preparations and bed. Matt and I filled four thirty-gallon containers with gasoline for the boat and made sure everything was packed and ready. It was after twelve-thirty in the morning when I finally retired to Rhiannon’s room. In just three and a half hours I would at last embark on the primary purpose of this trip—a moose-hunting adventure with my brother in the Alaskan wilderness.
Wild Awakening Page 3