Surviving Bear Island (16 page)

I jabbed the spear toward the deer, and grazed its neck. The deer kicked harder and moved from side to side and rose up on its front legs for a second, then fell again. It turned its head so it was looking me right in the eye. Staring through me. My dad's face flashed before my eyes. I blinked and then I was staring at the deer again.

You can respect a life and still take it.

I needed to wait until the deer was still and then thrust hard—from close range. As hard as I could.

I had to kill if I wanted to live.

I imagined stabbing the deer so hard that the spear poked in one side of its neck, then out the other. I closed my eyes, saw myself doing it, then opened them.

It's kill, or eventually be killed. As much as I didn't want to do it, I knew I had to.

The deer looked all cute and cuddly, but it wasn't. Given a chance, that deer would kick me until I couldn't stand. Animals didn't just lie down and die. Especially trapped, injured animals. Just like that porcupine, or all the fish I'd killed. They fought for every last gasp of air, and in any way they could.

When the deer stopped kicking, I knelt at the edge of the hole. The deer kicked again, then lay still. I clutched the spear in both hands about a foot from the base. I raised it over my head, and to the side.

I took a breath, held it, then thrust the spear downward as hard as I could and felt it grinding into the deer's neck.

The deer rose up and jerked its head to one side. The spear was yanked from my hands and thrust back at me.

I HUGGED
my chest. I was cold.

I felt around for the blankets, but couldn't find them. Then I opened my eyes and this pale light made me squint.

The moon. The full moon.

I tried to sit up, but one of my legs was dangling in space from the knee down. So I scooted backwards and tried again.

I succeeded, but sitting up sent my head into pound-mode. Like someone had shoved a balloon inside my ear and was inflating it.

The deer, I remembered.

The deer.

The deer.

The deer.

And, the spear.

But my head—that balloon was gonna pop.

I ran my hand along the left side of my head and felt a lump. I probed it gently with my fingers, searched for moisture, for blood, and found none.

I let my arm fall to my side and it bumped into the end of the spear. I gave it a pull, but met resistance.

I'd lost control of the spear, I remembered that much. I touched the side of my head, and nodded. Clocked by my own weapon.

I followed the spear, and could just make out the form of the deer in the hole. It wasn't moving. It had to be dead.

Had it lived long after I'd stabbed it? Had it suffered? Then I remembered that it was already suffering. It was gonna die anyway. But I knew that I'd try to kill a healthy deer, too.

I'd kill any animal—a baby seal, a bald eagle, ducklings, a sea otter pup. I didn't care where the food came from as long as it kept on coming.

I crawled out of the circle of dirt surrounding the hole, then stood. The large tree that had fallen created an opening in the tree tops where the moonlight flowed freely. Beyond, the forest was inky black, cut up by slices of moonlight. I looked in the direction of my camp. I thought I could find it. I hugged myself again, then pulled my hat out of my raincoat pocket and put it on.

But I couldn't just leave the deer because a bear might get it. I needed a fire. Right here. Right now.

I followed the fallen tree to a pile of sticks and branches that I'd collected and then dropped when I first approached the root wad hours ago.

The damp branches would catch in an already burning fire, or on a bed of hot coals, but I needed dry wood.

Pick a piece that you know is dead and start shaving. Make the shavings as thin as you can. It'll take some effort, but sometimes it's the only way.

How did my mind do that? I didn't control it, but what did? If it really was just all in my head, then I guess my mind was smarter than me.

Too bad he hadn't yelled,
“Watch out!”
when that spear was coming toward me.

I grabbed a branch, took the knife from my pocket, and started whittling. Every time the knife skipped on the wood, my head pounded.

When I had a pile of shavings the size of a softball, I held the lighter under them.

The shavings curled, then caught fire. I slipped twigs and small sticks between the flames, and nursed my fire out of the danger zone into a small blaze. I added larger branches, which steamed at first, but eventually caught fire.

I wanted my life vests and blankets, the last of my fish, and my bowl, so I picked my way downslope in the direction of my camp, hoping to use the firelight as a guide for my return trip.

In the morning, I sat next to the deer-hole in the full sun. I knew I needed
to keep the meat as cool as possible, which meant I had work to do. Work that I'd never done before.

A dark area lay around the deer's head and neck where she had bled to death. An image of my mom, her smile framed by her bike helmet flashed into my brain. Did she bleed like this? I took a breath and pushed it out. I needed to concentrate on what I was doing.

I took the spear in both hands and pulled. The carcass moved with it, so I squatted next to the hole and hauled up on the spear. If I could just get it out of the hole, that was the first step.

So I kept hauling, and saw one of its ears peeking over the edge. I pulled harder, bent away from the deer with all my weight. Now its head was over the lip of the hole. I kept pulling and leaning but then tumbled backwards with the spear. I hit the ground, and the butt of the spear smashed into my chin.

I threw the spear down and grabbed my chin, held it with my hand for a moment, then released it.

My hand came back moist and red.

With my thumb I felt a curved gash just under one side of my jawbone. I couldn't tell how deep it was, but my thumb came back coated with blood. Dark red blood.

I pressed my palm into the wound. I just wanted it to stop bleeding. I didn't know how deep it was, but the blood was flowing like it was coming from an open faucet. I could feel it on my palm.

Some razor-sharp rocks had sliced my mom deep. Did she try to stop the bleeding or had she passed out immediately? I knew you could only lose so much blood, but didn't know how much. My mom had bled through her stomach and her thighs. An image of her covered in blood took over my mind. I felt my stomach clench, then my mouth was open and I was gagging but nothing was coming up.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead, then pressed my palm back into the wound. Why hadn't I seen the danger in what I'd been doing? Another stupid mistake. I took one breath. Then another. I still needed to get that deer out of the hole, gut it and skin it, but if I bled to death while doing it, that'd be pointless. And just sitting here my chin was leaking pretty bad, about a hundred times worse than my swan bite had.

Your blood is your life. You lose enough of it and you no longer exist.

That's how my mom died. That's how the deer died. That's how I might die.

Use what you've got. Use what you know. That's all you can do.

I felt moisture on the palm of my hand so I increased the pressure. My heart pounded like I'd just sprinted up a mountain. I took a breath. “Slow it down. Slow it down.” The faster my heart beat the more blood I'd lose. Constant pressure. Relentless pressure. But I needed my hands free.

I unzipped my raincoat and took it off. Then I pulled my pile jacket off. The back of my hand grazed the wound, and it came back bloody.

I pulled my long underwear shirt off, which was like having a skunk crawl over my face. That shirt was my second skin. I never took it off.

It was stiff with layers of dried sweat, so I bunched it up in my hands to loosen it, then spread it on top of my raincoat, and as I rolled it up, leaving the sleeves free, a drop of blood hit the back of my hand, then another, and another.

Using the sleeves, I tied the skunk-shirt-bandage over the top of my head and under my chin, with the rolled up part pressing into the wound.

I saw the red draining from my mom's legs and stomach. Saw it soaking the ground. If only someone had been there to put pressure on her wounds to keep the life from draining out of her. If only the driver would have stopped. If only I'd gone on that bike ride.

I reached for my pile jacket, then stopped. Even with the sun, the cool air prickled my skin. Goosebumps covered my arms. But gutting a deer could get messy.

I cinched down the sleeves of the skunk-bandage and adjusted the knot so it centered on the top of my head and hoped it would do the job.

Okay, if the deer's too heavy to haul out of there, I thought, then I'll just gut it in the hole, then haul it out. It'd be lighter.

I eased my legs over the edge of the hole, and dropped to the bottom.

My hand brushed against the fur. Soft like a cat's fur. I knew it wasn't going to spring back to life, but it was spooky being next to an animal that looked like it was just asleep. Like I could shake it and it'd wake up.

I closed my eyes. “Just like a fish, or a porcupine,” I whispered. “Just slit the belly, clean the sucker out, and get it back to camp.”

I pushed the deer against the side of the hole to increase my leverage. The ends of the sleeves on my skunk-bandage kept grazing my eyes, so I tucked them under themselves.

I took a breath and poked the knife into the white furry belly and slit it up to its sternum. Some of the intestines poured out, partially covering my rubber boots.

I tilted my head away from the mess on my boots, took another breath and told myself, “don't stop now.”

I reached inside the deer, and pulled and scooped and scraped, trying to get all the organs out. Then, I cut along the inside of the ribs and worked the lungs and heart out.

I turned away and heaved, but my stomach was empty. I guess the air was pretty rank down here between the guts and the skunk bandage. I stood up and sucked in the freshest air I could.

I hoped I'd gotten everything out of the deer to keep the meat in good condition. I'd heard stories from Mr. Haskins about meat spoiling when someone like me, who didn't know jack about what they were doing, cut into an animal.

Keep the guts from spilling on the meat, that's what I remembered. And get the skin off the animal. That would help cool the meat. My dad wasn't a hunter. He loved fishing and talked about taking up hunting someday, but never had. Billy's dad had a riverboat and took him hunting last year. Billy didn't say much about the trip. Just that his dad was a jerk with a drinking problem even when they were away from home.

I tried lifting the deer out of the hole, but it kept falling on top of me, and the guts. I cringed every time the deer hit the guts.

This was my meat. No way could I ruin it. Without the deer, I may as well turn the knife on myself.

I tried lying on my stomach at the lip of the hole and pulling the deer out, but could barely reach it, and couldn't get enough leverage.

I stood up and looked around. I needed to get the deer away from the gut pile, which I knew would attract bears.

I leaned the spear on the edge of the hole, took a couple of pieces of rope out of my survival kit, and climbed back down, my boots squishing through the intestines. I tied the front legs of the deer together and slipped the spear through the rope. I lifted one end of the spear, rested it on the lip of the hole, then did the same with the other end so the deer just hung there.

I hoisted myself out again. I tried brushing the dirt off my bare chest
and arms but just smeared it around. I mean, it was a combination of deer guts and blood, my sweat, and dirt. I was bear bait.

I touched my skunk-bandage and felt moisture right under the wound—it'd soaked through at least four or five layers of sweaty cloth. An image of my mom's white biking shirt saturated with blood invaded my mind, and I wondered what was flashing through her mind if and when she realized she wasn't going to make it. What do you do with the last moment of your life when you are alone?

I grabbed the spear—a hand on each side of the hooves—and started pulling. The deer's front hooves came over the lip of the hole. Its head appeared. Then the deer lay in the dirt next to the hole.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. I'm gonna be all right.”

I draped the small deer over my bare shoulders and started downslope, dodging deadfall. I figured it weighed about sixty pounds, as much as a sled dog.

Just outside my shelter, I dropped the deer, then jogged back upslope for the rest of my stuff.

I was gonna put the pile jacket on but still didn't feel cold as long as I was moving, so I just kept moving. Plus, I was a stinking wreck and didn't want any of my clothes touching me right now.

I collected wood for strengthening and enlarging my shelter, and for burning. Then I broke boughs and dragged them to my shelter.