Season of Death (7 page)

“Old Ezkeemo way?” Billy Bob asked. He was tying a spinner on his own rod.

“No,” Ray answered, working the line. “Nets are the old Eskimo way.”

“What gotcha started fly fishin’?”

“A River Runs Through It
,” Lewis threw in.

Billy Bob chuckled and started up the bank.

“Won’t catch nothing with dat rig,” Lewis promised the cowboy.” ‘Cept sticks.”

“We’ll just see about that now, won’t we.”

“Betcha ten dollar you get snagged.”

“Yer on,” Billy Bob answered. “I fished plenty down in Texas. Caught me a heap a catfish ‘n bass …”

“Gonna get snagged,” Lewis taunted.

“Am not.”

“And gonna scare da fish away. Aiyaa! Got a aunt wears too-small clothes like dat. She crazy. Outta da head.”

Ray continued casting: eleven o’clock, one o’clock, eleven o’clock, one o’clock … The line danced and curled through the air. The final cast put the fly right where he wanted it, inches from where a fish had just turned. He tugged on the leader, fully expecting a strike. When nothing happened, he reeled in the gnat and began the process again.

Before he had released the fly a second time, a curse arose from up the bank.

“What’s the matter?” Ray asked without taking his eyes from his target spot.

Billy Bob swore again, turning a four-letter word into a crisp, two-syllable pronouncement. Looking up, Ray saw him fighting with the rod, yanking on the end with both hands. The line was tight, disappearing into the water near where the brook met the lake. Either he had a whopper or he was snagged.

Lewis was laughing. “Pay up!”

SEVEN

“T
OLD YOU,”
L
EWIS
said, rising to gloat. “Dis not spinner terrtory. Use da heavy gear on da salmon in da Colville. Here, in da Bush—flies.”

This short sermon was lost on Billy Bob. He had discarded the rod and was yanking desperately on the line, fist up high, then down low, to one side, to the other. Not usually given to profanity, he was swearing like a sailor, close to ripping out Lewis’s shirt.

“Look at dis, Ray,” Lewis scoffed.

Ray glanced in their direction, line whipping. “Huh?”

“Snagged. Look where.” He shook his head, frowning.

“What?” Billy Bob asked stupidly.

“Dis stream … no fish.”

“How do you know?”

He pointed along the ribbon of water, at the mountain that rose like a stone wave upstream. “See da blue?”

“Way on up there? Yeah …”

“Glacier. Not dat many in da Range. But dis little creek from glacier. Snowmelt too, prolly. Edder way, no fish.”

“Yer makin’ that up.”

“No! It be true. Right, Ray?”

Ray grunted, his disinterest in the conversation complete. He was concentrating on dropping the fly into a smooth, glassy oval just beyond the reach of his last cast, certain that a hungry grayling or Arctic char was hiding there, waiting for lunch to tap the surface.

“Here,” Lewis said, taking the pole. “I get it loose.”

“Could be a fish,” Billy Bob proposed.

Lewis snorted at this. “Yah. Big, heavy, dead fish.” He continued the effort, walking along the bank of the lake, then along the bank of the brook.

“Maybe we should just cut the line,” Billy Bob said, watching.

Ray grinned as the gnat nailed the spot. The fly floated, came toward him as he tugged the leader, then disappeared in a splash. “Yeah!” Pulling up gently on the rod to set the hook, he was about to reel in his catch when something caught his eye. Something across the lake. Squinting, he saw movement: a blur of brown and black.

“Lewis!” he said in an exaggerated whisper.

“What?” He was raging against the line now, twitching angrily.

“Aklaq
at one o’clock!”

Lewis’s head jerked around. “
Aarigaa
…” He gave the line a final, preoccupied yank and the spinner flew out of the water, directly at Billy Bob. The cowboy ducked just in time. “Whad a beau-tee …” Lewis observed with breathless reverence. “Whad a beau-tee.”

“What is it?” Billy Bob wanted to know.

“Aklaq
,” Lewis answered dreamily, like a man gazing at his beloved.

“Grizzly,” Ray told him. “In the meadow. One o’clock.”

Thirty seconds later, the cowboy gushed, “Why, it shorely is! My, oh, my …

“Dem beau-tees,” Lewis said. Handing the binoculars to Billy Bob, he reached for his rifle and hurriedly loaded two gold cartridges.

“What are you doing?” Ray asked, watching him snap the 300 shut. “You can’t. You’ll violate the fly-in rule: no game until we’ve been here overnight.”

Walking away, Lewis responded, “Don’t apply to Inupiat. Just
naluaqmiut.”

“Exactly. And that’s who you’ll be taking out on these ‘adventure’ trips: whites.”

This slowed him down. “But dis not real thing. Just dry rehearsal.”

“Dress
rehearsal,” Ray corrected. “Which supposedly means you run the trip by the book, as if this was real and we were white.”

The cowboy shrugged. “I am.”

Muttering a curse, Lewis stood, gaze still held by the bears. A full minute later, he sighed, “Aiyaa … Hate to miss dem … So beau-tee-M …”

“They certainly are,” Ray agreed. He tested his line and found the fish AWOL. He got his line airborne again and aimed for the spot of his last strike. Maybe that fish was still hungry.

Fifty feet up the bank Billy Bob launched into a swearing fit. “Danged if I didn’t get it snagged: first darned cast, in the very same place.”

Lewis removed the cartridges from the 300 and shoved it back into his pack before marching to the creekside. “I tell you, dis no got fish. But you try anyway.” Taking the pole, he gave the line a terrific jerk. The pole flexed and the reel sang.

“Didya break it?”

Lewis stared at the pole. It was bent nearly in half. He tried the reel. It clicked and accepted more slack. “Eh … Hook something.”

Billy Bob beamed. “I did?”

“Hook log.” Another jerk brought more slack. Lewis continued to reel.

“Could be a pike,” Ray offered, rod in motion. “They feel like logs sometimes.”

“Eh …” Lewis grunted, frowning. “Dis no fish. Just heavy. Real heavy.”

A fish jumped not ten feet from Ray. He hurriedly called back his line and leader and tried to drop the gnat into the center of the ripples.

“What da …?” Lewis crouched, staring into the brook.

“What is it?” Billy Bob wondered. “A rock?”

“Ray!”

“Not now,” he said. There was a slight pressure on the line. The fly disappeared.

“Ray!” Lewis demanded.

“Oh, ma gosh!” the cowboy exclaimed. “Is that what I thank it is?!”

Ray pulled the line in gently, expecting to feel the fish run at any moment.

“Aiiyaa!” Lewis yelled. “Ray!”

The fly bobbed to the surface. Apparently the fish had found it lacking and spit it out. Disgusted, Ray set the pole down and answered the summons. “What is it?”

“Head,” Lewis answered without hesitation.

“A head? A fish head?”

“Uh … More like people head.”

When Ray got there Billy Bob and Lewis were kneeling on the edge of the stream.

“Where? I don’t see any …” Suddenly, he did see. There it was, perched along the bank like just another rock. Except it was bigger than its companions. And it was covered with flesh. Partially covered. Barely covered. Bone was exposed around the empty eye sockets, around the mouth and teeth, around the points where the ears should have been, where a nose had once been attached. The chin bore a ragged patch of bluish, bloated skin, as did the forehead. Shocks of strawlike blond hair were matted against a ragged patch of scalp near the crown.

Ray stared in disbelief.
A skull? Here? In the Bush?
His head twisted left, then right, as if he might catch a glimpse of the rest of the body. But there was nothing else: swaying willows, silty water rushing past, alder bushes, a screen of limestone peaks …

He stepped closer and dropped to his knees, scrutinizing the catch. “Looks fresh.”

“Good golly …” Billy Bob observed distastefully.

“Aiiyaa …” Lewis agreed. “Never saw dat before.” He seemed surprised, but calm, as if reeling in a skull was a novelty on par with landing a salmon in an alpine lake—odd, curious, but not unimaginable. “What we do with it?”

Ray shrugged. “If it was old, you know, a fossil or something, I’d say leave it alone. But …” He stared at the skull, trying to imagine what it might look like fully skinned. Was it a man or woman? Old or young? It was hard to tell.

He tested the water with a hand. It felt brutally cold. “Glacial stream … Temperature just above freezing. Could preserve somebody for a while,” Ray thought aloud. “Still … I’d say we have to be talking this summer. Maybe last week. Recent.”

“Think it got missing person bull-tin on it?” Lewis asked.

“Possibly,” Ray grunted, still fixated on the skull. “Of course, without a phone or a radio it’ll be tricky to find out if anyone filed a report.”

“Next time—when I bring tour-eests,” Lewis said, “I bring phone.”

“Good thinking,” Ray said. A little late, but …“Let’s get it out.”

Lewis stood and reeled the skull up the bank like a prize grayling. It twirled in circles like a ghoul suspended between heaven and earth, the spinner having lodged in the teeth. Lewis deposited it, unceremoniously at their feet. “Now what?”

Ray bent for closer look. The face, or what had once been the face, was against the dirt, giving him a view of the back of the head. Between swatches of scalp and hair there was a gap … a crack.

“Aklaq?”
Lewis asked without emotion, as if having a dead man’s cranium a foot from his boots was a common occurrence.

“Could be.”

“Cheechako in da Bush?” Lewis submitted, blinking at the skull. “No respect da Land. No learn ways. Walk up on
aklaq.
Spook ‘em. Get mauled—chewed up good. Da bear eat out da eyes, da tongue …”

“Ulp …” Billy Bob ducked toward the lake.

Ray nodded at the scenario. “Except for the bash here.” He pointed to the crack.

“Bear chase to river. Cheechako hit head on rock. Then
aklaq
eat.”

It made sense to Ray. If there was any sense to be made of hooking a skull with a spinning lure meant for small-mouthed bass. The question now was: what to do with it?

Lewis read his mind. “We go get us caribou. When Jack pick us up, we radio da captain. Tell him story. Maybe he want us come back up and look around. Maybe not.”

“We can’t bury it,” Ray mumbled. “Not before it’s IDed.” He rolled the head over with his boot, and the two vacant eye sockets stared up at them.

Lewis shrugged. “Don’t got to. Not going anywhere. Let Land have it.”

Ray frowned at this. According to tradition, the dead were cursed, something to avoid at all costs. Therefore, corpses, even people who were still alive but suffering from terminal diseases, were cast out of villages and left in shallow graves for the Land to consume. It was part of the circle of life, the way the environment replenished itself.

Two generations removed from the “old ways,” Ray cringed at the idea of leaving a human head in the open, unburied.

“If we leave it, we might not be able to find it again. So …”

Lewis raised his eyebrows, taking a step backward. “Aiyaa! No way!”

“Lewis, we have to.”

Billy Bob squinted at them. “Have to
what?”

“Take it with us,” Ray retorted. “Or rather, take
him or her
with us.”

EIGHT