The Moose Jaw (20 page)

I awoke well before first light.  There’d been a noise outside the cabin.  Something was moving out there.  I came awake instantly and reached a hand out of the sleeping bag and found my shotgun.  I always kept it handy and loaded with double-aught buckshot.  You never know what’s going to happen while you sleep, and if trouble comes in on you, it comes in fast.  You don’t have time to think about it and select the appropriate gun and load.  For in close, in the dark, there’s nothing more effective than a twelve bore loaded with double-aught buck. 

With my hand gripping the shotgun, I lay quietly in the dark and listened.  It wasn’t a bear.  Bears aren’t subtle.  They don’t worry about being sneaky.  Everything was quiet, but I knew someone, or something was out there.  I looked at my watch.  The luminous dial said it was quarter past one.  All was quiet for a good five minutes, then I heard the sound again.  Metallic, and close.  It sounded like the wind was rattling one of the side flaps on my Coleman stove.  I rolled out of the sleeping bag, eased across the floor, and found my flashlight hanging from its lanyard next to the door.  With the shotgun in my right hand and the torch in my left, I eased up the locking bar on the door with my knee.  The door opens in, so there was an awkward moment as I tried to keep the bar balanced on my knee while hooking the edge of the door with my toe.  I was also trying to maintain my balance exclusively on my right foot.  A tough combination of tricks, especially in the dark.  It didn’t work.  The bar slipped off my knee and dropped into its cradle with a resounding clunk.  I heard something beat an undignified retreat through the willows as I wrestled the bar back up and pulled open the door.  I switched on the torch and its beam lanced into the treetops across the creek.  I swung it quickly toward the rapidly fading sounds of crashing brush.  The light hit the yellow wall of willow leaves and couldn’t penetrate.  I switched it off and stood listening in the darkness.  I thought I heard gravel crunch on the bank upstream, followed by the knee-buckling roar of a bear, a scream, two shots – then silence. 

I stood paralyzed for a moment, then switched the torch back on and played its beam over the packed earth surrounding the cabin.  I couldn’t see anything definitive.  I considered going out to investigate, but quite frankly, I was scared.  There was someone out there with a gun, not to mention a very angry bear.  I could go poking blindly around in the darkness or I could just close and lock the door and go back to bed.  Whatever had happened had happened.  I could investigate in the morning.   I switched off the flashlight and went back into the cabin and lay it with the shotgun next to my sleeping bag before crawling in and zipping up.

Some time before dawn another noise outside brought me immediately out of a restless sleep.  Same metallic sound I’d heard earlier.  I slid out of the sleeping bag, took up gun and torch and went to the door.  This time I hung the torch around my neck by its lanyard so as to have a hand free to deal with the door.  I quietly lifted the bar, snatched the door open and stepped into the cold morning air.  My left hand instantly found the torch, and I switched it on as I brought it around toward the Coleman.  The muzzle of the shotgun followed the beam of light.   

Three red foxes stood frozen in the torch light, their eyes shining red in its glare.  They’d found their way across the creek.

“Ah, shit,” I said, relief flooding through me like a breaking wave.

They hesitated only a moment and then made their way off down toward the water.  My heart was thumping.  I clicked off the torch and sat down on the floor in the doorway in the moonlight.  ‘Bloody foxes,’ I thought.  Now there would be crap all over the place.  If I had another night like this one some of it would be mine.

I crawled back into my sleeping bag, but it was no good: I tossed and turned for another hour and finally gave it up.  Adrenaline wouldn’t let me get back to sleep.  I was wired.  I’d thought it was the McCaslins coming back around looking for Morgan.  It was a good bet they would, and I’d subconsciously known it and been waiting for it, but hadn’t really taken any precautions against it.  As I lay awake in the predawn I resolved to see to that problem first thing in the morning.  The geese would have to wait.

***

When a muted glow lit the east window I noiselessly slid out of the sleeping bag and dressed.  Morgan never stirred.  I eased the door open and went out into the cold morning.  All was quiet; small birds flitted in the willows, but they weren’t yet singing. I put together a pot of coffee and set it on the stove to perk.  Then I walked down to the creek, washed, visited the privy, and went to have a look around for whatever sign my night callers had left. 

I circled the cabin three times
, farther out each time.  I saw where the foxes had come up from the creek and knew without looking where their exit path had been as I had watched their departure.  But I wasn’t really interested in fox tracks.  I was looking for man tracks and bear tracks, and they were there.  Size nine, saw-tooth tread – Roy McCaslin.  Of course, it would have had to be Roy; he wouldn’t send Larry on a covert night recon.  He had come out of the woods near the outhouse and gone directly to my west window.  Across this stretch, his footprints were close spaced and the heel hardly left any impression at all.  It looked as if he spent some time under the window because the ground there was well compacted and several prints and partial prints were in evidence.  I was puzzled for a moment by the spruce bough leaned up against the cabin wall.  Then I realized he’d brought it along to erase his tracks on his way out.  He’d planned to take the same route back to the privy and wipe out both sets of prints as he went.  He was good.  I’d have to be very careful with our boy Roy.  The noise I’d made trying to get the door open had, no doubt, caused him to abandon that plan.  He had bolted for the willows, leaving the spruce bough behind.

His exit tracks were wider spaced and appreciably deeper than those of his approach, especially the heels.  They led straight into the willows on the upstream side of the cabin.  I followed them in.  I could only pick up a footprint now and again, but I didn’t need them.  He’d crashed and broken enough brush as he ran that his path was clearly marked.  I tracked him a hundred yards through the willows and came out on the creek bank.  That’s where he’d run into the bear.  Judging by the tracks it had been a very close call.  He’d come within forty feet of a very unpleasant demise!  His tracks took a radical jag to the left and became much deeper and farther apart all the way down the bar to water.  I studied them as I descended the slope to the creek.  I didn’t walk in his tracks, but kept off to the side six feet or so.  The bear had been right behind him, his three toed track superimposed over Roy’s until they were fifty feet from the water.  At that point the bear had wheeled and bolted into the willows, due to the shots no doubt.  When I neared the waterline I could see where Larry had waited.  The sand was well torn up where he’d paced up and down the shoreline by the canoe.  I found two spent .45-70 brass cases in the gravel.  Larry must have fired the shots that drove off the bear; I doubted Roy would have carried a rifle to creep the cabin.  I noticed Roy’s tracks ended eight feet from the water.  This made me smile; he must have vaulted into the canoe without ever breaking stride.  The sand bore the impression of the canoe bow with Larry’s right boot print stamped clearly in the middle of it.  The toe print was, at least, six inches deep.  He’d pushed off hard.  I guess they were in a hurry to get home.  I didn’t blame them.  They’d had quite a night.  I had spooked Roy; he had made a break for the canoe and run into the bear; the bear had chased him down the bar; Larry had fired a couple of shots and the bear retreated.  Then Roy had jumped in the canoe and Larry had pushed off as fast as he could.  Damn, I wish I had been there to see that.  Clever old Roy had hit the nail on the head.  The big griz had remembered him alright!  Too bad he didn’t catch him. 

I followed the giant bear’s tracks through the willows and up into the spruce stand.  Once again I thought of the prints I’d found in the mortar of the old hearth – a woman and a bear.  The same bear?  Charlie Manning had said Jake Larkin built the old cabin in 1961.  That was forty years ago.  I knew Grizzlies rarely lived over thirty years, so I couldn’t see how this could be the bear that left his print in the mortar.  But the track sure looked identical.  As I was looking for blood, I kept my focus on the tracks leading me through the willows.  I’d think about the mysterious footprints in the hearth later.

After twenty minutes of concentrated search, I turned up no sign of blood, so I assumed Larry had just loosed off a couple of shots to spook the bear.  Either that or he was a terrible shot.  In any event, he hadn’t hit the bear.  I let out a little sigh of relief.  The last thing I needed was a wounded grizzly prowling around the place.

As I walked back to the cabin, I thought about how to deal with the Roy and Larry problem.  They were looking for Morgan, and for whatever reason, suspected I might be harboring her.  Now, since the botched recon run and all the sign they’d left behind, they knew I knew they’d been snooping around.  If they came again, it wouldn’t be sneaky.  It would be full-scale frontal assault.  I had to prepare for that eventuality.

There’s a booby trap you can make
with a short piece of three-quarter inch plastic pipe, a pipe cap, a shotgun shell and a nail.  It’s sort of a mini-claymore.  It’s not a very effective weapon.  Invariably, the plastic pipe blows up when the shell goes off, but it makes a lot of noise.  Rigged to a trip wire, it makes a particularly good alarm system.  It also scares the shit out of the wire tripper.  After their ordeal with the bear, it might be just the thing to keep Roy and Larry busy with their laundry.

I rummaged through Haywood’s bucket, found the necessary components and set about constructing three of the little devices.  There were even a couple of six inch steel pipe nipples and caps with which I could have made two very nasty ones if I’d wanted.  But I wasn’t trying to build mini shotguns, so I stuck with the PVC.   No urgency in deploying them, that could wait for tonight, but I wanted to have them ready and I didn’t want Morgan asking any questions.  I put them together while having my morning coffee and tucked them into the spare parts box.  Then I made oatmeal for two.

What did mankind ever do before the advent of instant oatmeal?  It’s one of the greatest inventions of the modern era.  Rip open a packet, mix in a little water, heat for a bit and, presto, you have a hot, hearty breakfast, ideal for woodsmen and campers.  It also has the added benefit of not smelling like bacon, and therefore, doesn’t entice your neighboring bears to join you for the meal.

When the oatmeal was ready I added a little brown sugar, stirred it in and took the two bowls into the cabin.  She was still asleep so I sat at the table and ate mine while hers cooled.  When I was finished I went to the bed and knelt at the edge.  I took her by the shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.  She opened her eyes.  The light in the cabin was not yet good so it took her a moment to focus.  Then she gave me a radiant smile.

“Time for my bath?”

I was tempted.  “Breakfast.” I said, producing the bowl of oatmeal for her inspection. “Think you can handle something a little more solid than broth?”

“What is it?”

“Quaker’s finest instant oatmeal, with brown sugar.”

I dipped a spoon into the porridge and offered it.  She sat up a little, shifted to settle her weight on one elbow and opened her mouth.  I inserted the spoon.

“Good?”

“Mmmm.” She nodded.

So, I gave her another.  She took it and then sagged back on the pillow.  She’d spent what little energy she had just sitting up for a few minutes.

“Need a bit of help?”  I asked and sat on the edge of the bed so I could prop her up and hold her like usual.

She smiled softly and nodded.  I got her up into position, held her close against me and fed her the rest of the oatmeal.  When it was gone I set the empty bowl on the chair, but remained where I was for a long time, just holding her.  It was nice.  Romantic even.  Then I felt her tense.

“Oh, God,” she said, “I have to…”

Having been a father, I knew the signs.  I quickly leaned her head over the bucket so the mess would end up there, rather than on the bedding.  I should have let her finish the sentence.  I had the wrong end over the bucket.  The blanket was not spared.  Then her body locked in another spasm and she, once again, suffered the same indignity.  So did the bed.

She was crying now and sobbing.  “Oh, God, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s O.K., it’s O.K,” I kept saying.  ‘There, there’ didn’t seem to fit the occasion.  All the time, I was wondering how I was ever going to get this mess cleaned up.  Then, as if she could read my mind, she sounded even more miserable.

“I’ll clean it up.  Please let me clean it up.  Oh, god, you shouldn’t have to clean it up.”

‘Damn,’ I thought. ‘And I had been worried about the foxes!’

Twenty minutes later the trauma was over and I, at least, had regained a semblance of composure.  Somehow, I’d managed to make the cabin habitable again.  I’d had to leave her lying in her own mess until I could bring some hot water and rags over to the bed.  Then I cleaned her bottom like one does a baby’s.  I’d admired that same bottom at length during my scientific inspections.  Today I just cleaned it as best I could and tried not to gag.  Then I shifted her over to my sleeping bag.  Before I zipped her in I stroked her head and gave her a warm smile.

I said, “You don’t have any more rounds in that magazine, do you?”

She managed a weak smile in return and shook her head, but the tears of embarrassment leaked out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks.  I wiped them away with my thumbs.

Then I stripped the bed and was relieved to see the wool blanket had been spared.  Wool takes forever to dry.  But, the cotton sheet and the fleece blanket needed washing, and the foam mattress would need a serious wash and dry.  I bundled up the bedding, and with head and nose averted, marched them straight down to the river where I gave them a preliminary rinse before leaving them to soak in the current.  I placed a heavy rock on each to keep them from washing away, then went back in and delicately retrieved the mattress.  It too went into the creek, but since the foam was of the closed cell variety, it tended to float.   I had to give it a complete wash there and then.  I wrung out as much water as I could and lay it on the porch to dry.