The Moose Jaw (15 page)
It didn’t take long to wash out the canoe. I simply walked it a little way out into the creek, tipped it up on edge until it took on a few inches of water and then scrubbed the bottom out with a pig bristle brush I had brought along for just that purpose. I repeated this a few times, giving it a good rinse in the end, and then dragged it back up onto the gravel and upended it to drip dry. When I’d finished, I went back up to the cabin and spent the rest of the afternoon inside, boring pilot holes in the logs for my wooden pegs. I used an old fashioned brace and bit. I only had to drill three inches into the logs, but it was all overhead work. After five holes I had to give my arms a rest, so I went out to the porch and dragged the bench in so I’d have something to stand on. This made things much easier, and by dinnertime I had set all the pegs and hung up my coats and jackets and anything else I wanted to keep from under foot. I drove several pegs into the wall above the counter and these provided a place to hang pots and pans and towels and such. I even put pegs over the door and windows, after all, I needed places to hang up my fly-rod and shotgun and rifle. What better place than over the door and windows – it added a decorative touch. After I’d hung up everything hangable, I stepped back to admire my work. I was very pleased with my efforts; the cabin was beginning to take on that “lived-in” look.
The evening was cool and clear, but the stars were so beautiful, I cooked dinner outside, on the Coleman. I fried up the fresh liver with the last of my onions, and sat on the porch steps to eat. After dinner I built a small fire inside, poured myself a generous glass of Dew, added a splash of water and got out my journal. I wrote about the caribou that came to breakfast and stayed for dinner. I knew Haywood would appreciate my, somewhat heavy-handed, humor. I wrote for nearly an hour before the long day caught up with me. Then I added another log to the fire and called it a night.
The nights were cold those last two days of August, and there was a frost on the ground each morning. The willows above the gravel bars showed a little more yellow each day and I noticed the beavers had begun coming down to the creek to cut and haul them back to their pond. The cool weather was perfect for the meat, so I left it on the drying rack an extra day before hanging the quarters from the roof poles of the cache. I took the back-strap and stew meat with me when I returned to the cabin, made a stew with some, and stored the rest in the Alaska cooler under the floorboards.
As I sat there, that first night in September
, puffing on my pipe and rocking in my new rocking chair, I thought how lucky I was to have had this summer. It would all be over in two more weeks. Haywood would come and we’d spend a few days hunting and then I’d fly out with him. It saddened me that I’d be leaving this cabin behind until next summer. The time had gone by so quickly. I’d gotten over the initial loneliness and learned to enjoy my own company. I may have been talking to myself a little more than was considered normal, but that didn’t make me crazy. I had to have someone to talk to. I didn’t have a pet, and I had never been creative enough to conjure up an imaginary friend – even as a little boy.
“So,” I said aloud, “I guess you’re stuck with me, Gus.”
“Could be worse,” I answered myself. “I’m a good listener.”
I chuckled at this nonsense, poured a whiskey and took it out on the porch to look at the sky, as I always did before turning in. There were a few clouds, and as they slid across the sky, the moon came out from behind them clear and bright. It would be full in just over a week. I could never remember if September’s full moon was called the Harvest Moon, or the Hunter’s Moon. But it wouldn’t really matter this year; Haywood and I would be doing both with regards to our moose. I rapped my knuckles against the door frame.
“Knock on wood”, I said aloud.
The following night the moon was even brighter, and by its silvery light, I found the woman at the water’s edge. I had taken the canoe downstream for a mile or so to get a few buckets of mud for chinking the cabin. There was no lack of the stuff near the cabin but the mud downstream had a bit more clay in it and it stuck and dried better. I’d noticed it when I’d been butchering the caribou down there a few days before. I also wanted to scout that bar again for fresh tracks. Haywood would be coming soon and I would need to know the best places to hunt. I’d deliberately chosen the close of day for my trip downstream. There was a better chance of seeing game on the banks at that time, but I didn’t see any on the way down.
I beached the canoe on the same bar where I’d left the carcass. There wasn’t much left. What the bears hadn’t eaten the wolves had. I checked the area for other sign, didn’t see anything interesting, so I gathered my mud and headed back upstream. I did see one good bull on my return trip. He was standing chest deep in a slough, a little way back in off the creek. It was only a few bends below the cabin. I thought he might have been the big guy that had made the tracks I’d seen while scouting the banks near my clay pit. I guessed he’d weigh close to twelve hundred pounds, and hoped he’d stick around till moose season.
It took no more than ten minutes to paddle the rest of the way home. The day had been quite pleasant, but now there were a few scattered clouds in the sky, and as the sun went down it started getting chilly. As I swung the bow of the canoe toward the shore in front of the cabin I was startled by the cry of a wolf, just upstream and around the bend, and very close. Then other wolves, farther off, joined the chorus, singing to the moon. I had gotten used to their presence, but their mournful keening, wailing voices never failed to send a little shiver down my spine. As I drifted in toward the bank I caught motion out of the corner of my eye and heard the faint clatter of rock on rock from the bar upstream. I squinted my eyes, trying to see what had moved in the dim light. It was too dark. I thought it was probably that first wolf. If so, he was coming in a bit too close. I’d have to run him off. I beached the canoe, toted the buckets of mud up to the cabin, grabbed my jacket and my rifle, and went to investigate.
By the time I walked up around the bend, the moon’s light had grown stronger, and my eyes had made their slow adjustment to night vision. I could see pretty well now, and just as the moon slipped behind a cloud, I picked out the shape on the creek bank. Nothing more than a low, dark form really, but I knew the ground well here, and it wasn’t part of the landscape. I levered a round into the chamber.
I moved cautiously across the gravel toward the mound, watching it all the way for any sign of movement. The clouds parted and I saw a hint of red in the moonlight. As I neared, I realized the red was crosshatched with yellow – a plaid shirt. Then I saw the Levis and I knew it was a body. I broke into a trot, thinking as I did, there was probably no reason to hurry. The body wasn’t moving. But when I got close, I could see a wet drag trail coming a few feet out of the water, up across the rocks, ending at the booted feet. The body hadn’t washed up, it had crawled up! And not long ago. I ran the last few steps of the way.
The tangle of red hair and the swell of breasts beneath the sodden plaid shirt left no doubt it was a woman.
Her pulse was weak and her breathing shallow
and a bit bubbly. The fact that she’d been able to crawl up on the bank coupled with the fact that she was still breathing, although weakly, told me she wasn’t your classic drowning victim. Nevertheless, she’d probably swallowed a good bit of creek water and it sounded as if there was some in her lungs. I rolled her up on her side, checked to see if there was anything clogging her mouth, gave her a solid blow between the shoulder blades, then rolled her on her back and gave her about twelve puffs of mouth-to-mouth before I saw her abdomen heave and heard the warning gurgle. I quickly pulled back and rolled her up on her side again as she spewed out a burst of air and river water. We went through this twice more; up on side, clear mouth, flop on back, puff-puff-puke. But the volume of water was less with each discharge.
I continued until she was breathing well on her own and then took off my jacket and covered her with it. I sat back on my haunches and waited for her to recover. While I waited, I studied her. Early thirties; lean; quite tall; lightly freckled; red hair. She was probably pretty, but it was impossible to tell because of the bruising and the mud. Scalp wound, swollen and puckered but not bleeding; three long fingernails on the right hand, all the rest dirty and broken; minor scratches on face and backs of hands; left cheek bruised and puffy; hair tangled with twigs, grass and mud. No watch, no jewelry, no kit of any sort.
I wondered how she’d come to be in the river and assumed her raft or canoe must have capsized in the rapids up in the narrows. But the leather hiking boots didn’t fit that theory. Float trippers favored rubber – hip boots, waders, ducks, even wellies. But, if she’d been hiking, how’d she get in the river? I’d been thinking this over for a while when it occurred to me that she should have come around by now. I checked her breathing and pulse. They seemed steady and strong, but she had not yet regained consciousness.
The sun had been down a good hour now and the earth was loosing its heat. I couldn’t wait for her to come around. I had to get her back to the cabin before hypothermia set in, if it hadn’t already. Before I moved her I felt her all over for broken bones. Everything seemed intact, and the shoulders, elbows and knees appeared to be in working order. So I sat her up, got one arm behind her back and the other under her legs, lifted and carried her back to the cabin. The moon lit my path.
She probably didn’t weigh much stripped down, but with her wet clothes and boots, she was a load. I’d gotten in pretty good shape over the summer with all the chopping, dragging, cutting and lifting of logs. But it took me over ten minutes, with several rest stops en route, to get her back to the cabin. I kept hoping she’d come around and maybe help out a bit by walking, but she never stirred. When I finally reached the cabin, the wolves, now up on the ridge, took up their song again. They sounded disappointed. Perhaps they felt I’d cheated them.
I didn’t want to lay her on the bed in her wet clothes, so I deposited her on the bearskin in front of the cold stove. It was still relatively warm in the cabin from the day’s sun, but it was quite dark. I lit a candle. Since I’d worked up a pretty good sweat carrying her up from the river, I toweled off my face and took a couple of minutes to catch my breath and let my heart settle to a slower beat. Then I set about getting her out of her wet clothes.
I started with her sodden leather boots. No socks. Odd, but I didn’t have time to ponder. I unbuckled her belt and skinned her out of the tight jeans; I thought I would have to cut them off her, but with a bit of shifting and tugging, they finally cooperated. No panties either – at the time I assumed they’d peeled off with the tight, wet jeans. I was more concerned with what I found, and didn’t find, under the flannel shirt. She wore no thermal undergarment or bra. This was September in Alaska after all. Instead, I found three ugly, parallel groves running from her left shoulder blade to the small of her back. They were deep – not deep enough to expose bone, but deep enough to be very painful. The spread between them made it clear they had been made by the claws of a very large bear.
A grizzly’s claws are non-retractile
; even when they walk each claw leaves a clear print. Something stirred in the back of my mind. I recalled the print of the three-toed bear in the hearth stone, beneath the floor I now knelt upon. And, I recalled the small, human footprint beside it. Coincidence, I thought, the hearth stone had been there before the original cabin was built. The bear that had made that track would be long since dead. There was no way that same bear could be responsible for the wounds I was studying. No, these wounds had been suffered recently. They were not fresh today, because they appeared partially healed, as if the bear had raked her some days earlier and the wounds had been cleaned and dressed. But, there were no bandages. Everything I discovered about this woman posed a new question. If I could keep her alive, it would be interesting to hear her tale.
When I’d stripped off the last of her clothes, I rubbed her down with a towel and hefted her up off the bearskin and settled her in the bed. I covered her with a polar fleece blanket and added a wool one over that. Then I set about laying a fire in the stove. I knew I should try to get some hot liquid into her, but it took longer to heat water on the camp stove than it did to warm up the cabin. Within twenty minutes the interior was toasty and the redhead felt warm to the touch. At least hypothermia wouldn’t take her.
With the fire crackling in the stove, I turned my attention to dinner. I took the pot of leftover caribou stew out of the cooler. It wasn’t the best stew in the world, due to lack of onions. I’d used the last of them with the liver the night I shot the cow. But, if the redhead came around, I had to have something warm to feed her. I put the pot on the cook top to simmer. I was still cooking most of my meals on the Coleman, which I had moved from the tent and set up outside, between a couple of stumps under the east window. But, since I already had a fire going in the cook stove, and I wanted to keep an eye on my guest, I decided to stay inside. When the broth had warmed a little, I gave it a stir and added a dollop of water to thin it. Then I sat at the table and smoked my pipe and thought about the girl in my bed.
Her breathing and pulse were strong, but she’d been unconscious now for at least three hours. I was no doctor, but I knew that was not good. She should be in a hospital. I had no radio because, as Haywood had pointed out, I’d been an asshole about it. The only way I could contact the outside world was to paddle two days downstream, portage over to Wolf Creek, and then paddle another half day upstream to the town of Chekov and call for help. As I’d have to leave her unattended for a good three days, that wasn’t a viable option.