Surviving Bear Island (23 page)

I yelled, “Hey bear,” and it just kept coming closer, like my voice was drawing it in, its eyes shining in the firelight. I could've pushed my spear through the fire and poked it but knew I didn't have enough leverage to make a difference, so I just stood my ground behind my fires, my thighs burning from the half-squat position I was holding, waiting.

The bear lowered its head and licked the ground.

I tossed more sticks on both fires.

The bear moved to one side and sniffed. Then it grabbed my alder grill and started chewing on it. I didn't care about the grill, but I wanted this bear out of my face because the next link in the chain of chewable treats was me. Then my dried fish.

I threw another rock, smashing the bear on the shoulder. It dropped the grill and looked up, and I pelted it right between the eyes. The bear let out a sharp scream and turned. Whether my next throw hit the bear's hind end as it was running away, I couldn't tell.

“And stay out!” I yelled.

Sometimes older bears won't find enough food to be able to go into hibernation. Watch out for these, they're the most dangerous.

I added more sticks to LF and RF, my eyes glued to the darkness beyond.

I STUMBLED
on a slippery rock, and grabbed a tree leaning over the water. Thick clouds were piling up. Dark gray clouds that said, “I'm gonna soak you.” The wind stung my face, blowing the first raindrops sideways.

Two days of calm, where I'd made my way southward, were coming to an end. I'd spent last night leaning against a big tree within a semi-circle of fire, keeping the bears and the cold away.

It'd taken me a day to get out of the inlet, and now I was making my way down the open coast, but the walking had been slow, with thick stands of trees to weave through, and way more cliffs than beach.

Now I needed to build another shelter. But I didn't want to put the time and energy into building something I'd only be spending one night in. I just wanted to get to the Sentinels before I ran out of food.

The rain came in cold sheets with the wind backing it. I huddled in a four-foot-wide crevice between two boulders. I'd piled some sticks and boughs over the opening to make a roof, and was hoping the wind wouldn't blow it all onto me. I fed a sputtering fire, then wrapped myself in an emergency blanket. And I'd used the last of my matches.

By crouching over the fire with the blanket partially open, I trapped heat but not enough to keep from shivering. And when I sat back I got even colder. But my legs kept cramping up and I had no choice but to sit back unless I wanted to fall into the fire. So I did this back-and-forth
thing for a while. I couldn't stand up because my head would've crashed through the roof.

Smoke kept pouring into my face, but I just squeezed my eyes closed and my mom's lyrics flooded my mind.

Every fire's a ceremony.

Every story's a testimony.

If you pay attention, you will know what the river knows.

All I knew was that I was freezing. I felt damp under my raincoat, like maybe water had been running down the back of my neck. The cold just kept creeping down my spine, and seeping into my fingers and toes, then up my arms and legs.

I'd come a long way since the accident. Fish Camp. Deer Camp. Silver Camp. All the distance I'd covered. I saw it all in my head, like a movie. I had to be close to the Sentinels.

I didn't want to die now. Frozen between two rocks in a rainstorm. “Noooo!” I screamed. “Not after all this!”

I chewed and swallowed a piece of smoked salmon.

My upper and lower teeth knocked together. My hands and feet numbed as my brain directed more blood to my core. Just like Mr. Haskins said: Your blood retreats to keep your organs working. You can live without your fingers, but try living without your stomach, or your liver or your lungs.

I added more sticks to the fire. Sticks I grabbed between my wrists because my fingers were limp, useless pieces of meat.

When I tried to squat over the fire my legs wouldn't budge, so I just kept leaning against the big rock, and that chilled me even more. You'd think the fire would heat up the rock some, but the fire was small and my body prevented most of the heat from even reaching the rock. If only I could've built a huge fire between the two rocks and let it rage for a few hours, then it would've been like stepping into a heated room, like a sauna. Instead I was trapped in a refrigerator and trying to draw warmth from a candle.

Don't die.

Don't die.

Don't die.

Not here. Not now. I still had my whole life in front of me. Even if I never made it off this island.

I'd build a killer shelter and look for food everywhere, and I'd learn how to use the flint. And if someone came, fine then, but I wanted to live either way.

Sometimes you do all you can do and you still die. I'd fight till the end.

Just like that deer in the hole, it never gave up. It kicked and kicked and even with two broken legs was trying to get out of that hole. Trying to stay alive.

Sometimes you do everything right and you still get hammered.

I turned my head and coughed smoke. Hammered? My dad, he'd want me to live, to survive. If I just gave up, that'd be exactly what he wouldn't have wanted.

And what about my mom? No way would she have given up.

If my mom were still alive, everything would've been different. Our trip would've been different.

But it wasn't different. Mom
had
gone on the bike ride that took her onto the highway and Dad
had
decided to paddle the exposed side of Bear Island. And they'd both taken all kinds of risks in their lives. But how were you supposed to live, anyway? All cautious, never doing anything because you were scared of some unlikely disaster? What kind of life would that be? What they did and why they did it was part of who they were. And what I did, like deciding to not go on that bike ride—that was part of who I was.

Sometime toward morning the heavy rain and wind died, replaced by a fine mist, like the ground had taken as much moisture as it could and was spewing it back as fog.

I jumped up and down, slapped my hands together and rubbed them, slapped my thighs and jumped some more. When my fingers started working, I shoveled salmon into my mouth, then set off southward in the gray of dawn. Slippery rocks made for slow going, but I knew I had to keep moving. Knew, at this moment, that movement was the key to my survival.

I knew I had to make it to the southern end of the island if I was to have any chance of meeting up with other people.

But also, the Sentinels wouldn't be a bad place to die, if it came to that.

At least there I'd be more likely to be found. I could scratch a note into a piece of driftwood, or carve something into a tree so people would know, even if I didn't make it, who I was and that I was a survivor, too. They wouldn't know all that I'd done, but at least they'd know something. That I'd tried my hardest. I could scratch in how many days I'd been out here. Fifty-one so far, if I'd counted right. And I could carve pictures of the deer, porcupine and salmon. The shelters I'd built. And the kayak. The accident. My dad. His voice. The footprints. The life vest. His raincoat. I could tell the whole story in pictures.

The next headland jutted out. I turned inland and clawed my way up the steep, forested land one step at a time. The feeling was coming back in my feet. And I could feel a little sweat on my back from the climb. I topped the spine of the narrow ridge, and looked down on a thumb-shaped bay.

A tingle traveled up my spine and over the top of my head. My breath caught in my throat. One day after the Sentinels we'd paddled around this little bay and then continued north. Close, close, close, I thought, as I studied the drop, seeking an easy way down.

I was so absorbed in my searching that I almost didn't turn around in time. But some way, somehow, a part of me had known—and I turned. And I caught movement, just down the hill, coming my way.

Black, furry movement.

I yelled, “Hey bear,” but it kept coming, nose to the ground, not hurrying, but moving steadily. Meandering, as if following my scent. Hunting me.

I looked for a way to get out of the bear's path, for a place I might sit, stand, or crouch so the bear might not notice me, or if it did detect my presence, might not be able to get at me. My eyes turned up nothing at first. Then, far down the hill I spotted some rocks, big rocks. If I could just get to those rocks before the bear got to me.

I UNTIED
my raincoat fanny pack, took about half my dried fish and scattered it.

Everyone says, never feed a bear. You'll create a problem. Well, I already had a problem. I ran toward the big rocks, my bowl in one hand, my spear in the other. The hookless gaff I left behind.

Three pillars of black rock, mostly bare, poked out of the ground about two-thirds of the way down the slope. I climbed over a couple fallen trees and kept running, glad that I was going downhill.

I plowed through a patch of leafless blueberry bushes, then dodged some old devil's club stems. I hit another patch of berry bushes. I was high-stepping, twisting my body, just trying to get to those rocks, which were still at least a couple hundred feet below me, when one of my boot-tips caught a root.

I tried to regain my balance, but my other foot got hung up on something and I stumbled, took a few big crazy steps, but then I was falling forward. I tossed the spear sideways before I hit the ground but landed on the backside of the bowl. The bottom of my rib cage on the right side slammed into the bowl at its high point. My side burned like it'd been doused with jet fuel and touched with a match.

I pushed myself up, grabbed the bowl and spear, and kept going, but every breath sent stabbing pains into my side.

I hit the clearing with the rocks and veered left, hoping the bear was still busy. The raincoat that I carried the fish in had loosened up some and was sagging in the back but it was still around my waist.

The top of the middle pillar towered about ten feet off the ground. I
dropped my bowl, stuffed a few rocks in my pocket, grabbed onto some brush and climbed up there.

If I could climb this, then so could the bear, but at least I'd be above it if it tried. I stood on top of the pillar and looked upslope. I took tiny breaths to lessen the pain in my side, but even those jabbed me.

I watched as the bear finished the salmon. It kept licking the ground and sniffing around. I was hoping it'd just go back the way it'd come, but then it headed toward me and the pillars.

I crouched down, trying to make myself as small as possible, to become part of the rock. As it came closer I could see that it was a skinny, ragged bear. I didn't know what I'd do if the bear stopped at the pillars, but was hoping for an idea when the time came to act.

Noise hadn't worked with this bear if it was the same one that threatened me at Silver Camp. Banging on a bowl and shouting had brought it closer. And back on the ridge-top it hadn't even looked up when I'd shouted.

Rocks had helped. I wished I had more. And, I really wished I had a big fire between me and the bear. But I didn't.

I couldn't die now. Not by the claws and jaws of some old, deaf bear that probably wouldn't even last the winter. Not after surviving this long and being this close to the Sentinels.