One man’s wilderness (21 page)

Was he going to try climbing up the woodshed? Maybe it would take the heavy artillery to scare him off. I loaded the ought-six, opened the window, and rested the barrel on the sill. Then I turned loose a rebel yell.

He must have been a reincarnation of Jeb Stuart. He spun with unbelievable quickness and came on like the cavalry. I drove a slug into the path in front
of him, making the gravel fly. He put on the brakes, whirled in retreat, then stopped, rising to his full height as if trying to peer beyond the cabin logs and solve the strangeness there. Noiselessly he dropped to all fours with an almost fluid movement and was gone.

Less than five minutes later, here he came from another direction, this time toward the front of the cabin, stalking—silently and ominously.

I didn’t like it at all. There was an orneriness about him I could feel. I couldn’t have pets like this running around the place. The best thing to do would be to shoot him, skin him out, and write a letter to Fish and Game.

He must have picked up warning vibrations. Off he went in a sudden huff, slinging his forepaws in pigeon-toed strides until the willows closed behind him. I checked the latch on my door and went back to my letter writing.

This evening I went on bear patrol. No sign of him. Just passing through, I hope. I think he has headed out of the country. I guess I made myself a pretty good door at that. One thing I can’t understand though: If that character wanted in, how come he passed up the big window?

Let’s have some rain. Every day I have been watering what is left of my garden.

I need an outside bench. Some slabs from my board ripping operations are available. Well, what do you know about that? I got carried away. That bench just grew and grew into a small table and a rather handsome one at that.

The top is fifteen inches by thirty-two inches. It stands twenty-eight inches off the ground.

Now for a general cleanup of the area. I moved all my scrap to the woodshed or under the trees nearby. Some I would be able to use so I kept them separate. I found one four-inch-diameter log end that wasn’t split, so I augered a one-and-a-half-inch hole into one end, three inches deep, and planed it smooth. Then I cut the piece down to a three-and-three-quarter-inch length. A dandy holder for pens and pencils.

I cut the brush under my clothesline and raked up two buckets of wood chips. Now the cabin looks landscaped.

A good day, like all days, at Twin Lakes.

August 9th
. No sign of that psycho in the fur coat. He’s far away, I hope.

Heavy gray clouds. Might bring some rain. The lake is rising slightly. Must be the warm weather has been acting on the snowfields in the high mountains. No sign of game at all. Strange I don’t see a caribou on the slopes now and then.

While cultivating the garden, I rolled out a potato the size of a walnut. The green onions look respectable. The crops to grow at Twin Lakes are rhubarb, potatoes, lettuce, green onions, and radishes.

I have decided that no more chips and sawdust will be made in front of the cabin. I scraped up the entire area slick and clean and dressed it properly with a new coat of beach gravel.

Fishing at the mouth of Hope Creek has been poor. Where have the fish gone?

The wind is strong this evening, and the lake is churning as if it wants to turn itself loose.

August 10th
. Gray clouds racing across the sky. This must be a real blow on the Gulf of Alaska.

Today, among other things, I’d build a butcher’s block for outside the door. A ten-inch length of eleven-inch-diameter log with three legs. I finished it in short order. Then from the same log I sliced off two five-eighths-inch slabs cut on a diagonal and planed them to bring out the grain and the growth rings. They will make proper decorations for the wall or the fireplace mantel. I coated them with clear shellac. I shellacked my plaster wolf track, too.

The rest of the morning I spent supplying wood for the stove. I sawed up pole ends and short sections of logs left over from the building program.

After lunch I bucked up a tree that had blown across the trail last winter. I packed in the log sections and chopped up the limbs into stove lengths. Sharp tools make wood cutting a pleasure.

I am getting hungry for a fish. Decided in late afternoon I would have to catch one. After many casts beyond the gravel bar at the mouth of Hope Creek, I was onto a fish. I worked him easy, for I was fish hungry and didn’t want to lose the grayling. A rock on the head stopped his flopping. His colors faded
quicker than a sunset. I could see him browning in the pan as I dressed him out and left his entrails for the birds.

Picked some blueberries but found very few cranberries.

August 11th
. A big caribou bull on the Cowgill Bench. Very dark, with his cape starting to whiten and the velvet graying on his antlers. The insects were giving him fits.

The camp robbers have still not come to the cabin.

Stayed close to home today. The boss hunter has brought hunters. Two-legged animals will be prowling the hills for a spell.

August 12th
. The spruce boughs are glistening with raindrops. The land had a bath last night.

Calm after the big blow of yesterday. I decided to take a trip down to the lower end of the lake. I could use a fish or two.

An easy paddle down. An arctic tern sliced above, hovering to look me over, his breast picking up a pale blue cast from the water. Rags of fog are strewn about the high peaks. I pulled the canoe up high on the gravel of the lower end. Fish were breaking. One that looked two feet long rolled on the surface. If I could only sink a hook into that one—but no luck after many casts. To make matters worse, the breeze was coming up strong, and down the lake at that. One last try. I let the lure sink way down and twitched it toward me. Wham! A heavy fish but not much fight. More color than I have ever seen in a lake trout. Bright yellow fins and belly, big lemon spots against gray-green sides. This one should break my record of nineteen inches. I had my fish but now I was in trouble. Whitecaps all over the place and that seventh wave a big one. I could leave the canoe tied to the brush and high on the beach and then walk the three miles back, or give it a try.

I shoved the canoe out into the wind, crouched low with knees spread against the bottom. It was a battle. I finally made it to a bight in the shoreline near Low Pass Creek, and it was a relief to get behind the steep beach out of the
wind. I slid the canoe into the shallows, tied her fast, and gorged myself in a blueberry patch.

Still blowing. I tied one end of my long line to the bow and the other end about two-thirds of the way back toward the stern. Holding the line in the middle, I kept adjusting until the bow of the canoe was farther from shore than the stern, and started walking the beach. It worked real well for a time, until it got broadside to the wind and was blown ashore. Then I got in to paddle to the next favorable section of towing beach.

I was getting home, but it was a slow process. I got slowed down even more when I hit a section of no beach and big boulders. I took to the open water and battled my way. As I passed the boss hunter’s cabin, I saw something hanging on the meat pole, with birds flying around it. The fresh meat looked like a front quarter. No other sign of life around the cabin.

By the time I made my beach, I had had a workout. My trout measured nineteen inches on the nose. It was a female loaded with eggs. I fried them in bacon grease with lots of corn meal, a dose of Tabasco sauce, some poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper. When the eggs got hot, they commenced to pop like popcorn and flew every which way when I lifted the lid covering the pan. They were different.

August 13th
. It could rain today without too much trouble.

I made a paper-towel rack out of some spruce stock. Two end pieces supported a dowel that could be easily removed. Next I made a curtain rod out of a skinny piece of driftwood and hung the burlap curtains sister Florence had sent.

Clean up my beach—that was a job that needed doing. I wanted to make it a beach that a pilot would enjoy coming into. I piled the driftwood in one pile, the rocks and boulders in another, and waded out to pick the large stones from the bottom to pile them also. When I finished, I was sure I had the best plane-landing place in both lakes.

A heavy fish splashed just out from the cabin. Have the sockeyes arrived? I must watch for them.

A little later I looked up from applying a coat of Varathane on my furniture to see a scarlet fish with a green head slice through a wave. It is the end of a long journey for them. They will spawn and die. Their escape from the can is a very brief reprieve.

This evening I sat on my driftwood pile admiring my cabin. Pale blue wood smoke rose up through the dark boughs of the spruce, and beyond, looming huge and majestic, the jagged peak of Crag Mountain. The cabin was complete now except for the fireplace and, maybe later on, a cache up on poles. It was a good feeling just sitting and reflecting, a proud inner feeling of something I had created with my own hands. I don’t think I have ever accomplished anything as satisfying in my entire life.