Surviving Bear Island (25 page)

“Thin. Thin. Thin. Thin.”

Back at the wall tent I always thought things were so primitive, so basic. But not anymore. I mean, things were simple out there, but anything we wanted, we could just bring it from the house. Need some really dry fire-starting material? Just let it sit behind the wood stove for a few days, that'd suck the moisture out of it, or grab some dryer lint. They didn't call it a dryer for nothing. It dried things. And dry things caught fire a lot easier than damp things, especially if you're starting a fire from a spark.

Curly shavings were piling up on the raincoat and mixing in with the pulverized bits from the twigs, all in the fading daylight. I scooped the shavings and wood bits up with two hands and packed them together like I was making a snowball. I set the ball down into the center of what I hoped would become RF. It sprung outward when I released my hands but still held its shape. I molded the mess back together, then stuck my finger straight down into it, making a little depression. This looked as close to a nest of dryer lint as I'd ever gotten.

I stood up and stretched my arms over my head and took a deep breath. And I was struck again by the fact that I was here—that I'd made it here on my own. I felt a shiver go up my spine, and then tingles at the back of my nose. Would anyone come? And, would they come in time?

I knelt in front of the wood shavings, and positioned the flint so the tip rested in the depression I'd made.

See the fire. Just see it happen. Believe it will happen.

I closed my eyes and saw sparks, hundreds of sparks. Thousands. Like fireworks. Exploding from the flint. Raining everywhere. Starting fires everywhere. I heard the flames crackling and spitting.

I opened my eyes and ran the knife up and down on the flint. At first a couple sparks fell and died in the wood-shaving nest. Then I got the angle right and I was getting a shower of sparks with every swipe of the blade. The nest started to part in the middle as the flint pressed into it, but I kept running the knife faster and faster.

A thin wisp of smoke rose from the side of the nest and I dropped the flint leaned forward and blew gently. A red glow answered, followed by more smoke, then nothing.

My shoulders collapsed forward. All those sparks for one tiny wisp of smoke that didn't even turn into a fire. I cupped the shavings and wood particles in my hands, squeezed them into a ball, set them down and rained more sparks onto them.

Come on, I thought. Just this one time. All I need is one flame. I closed my eyes and just kept running the knife up and down the flint. In my mind I saw sparks, or maybe I was seeing images of the real things through my eyelids. Part of me didn't believe the flint would work, and part of me felt like I was failure because I had this fire-starting tool and couldn't get it to work. And all the time I just kept running the knife on the flint, keeping my eyes closed. I could feel the wood shavings brushing my knuckles as my hand moved.

“Fire, fire, fire,” I started singing.

Light of life in my soul

Warm me with flame

Make me whole

Lyrics from one of my mom's unfinished songs scribbled in a notebook she'd kept in her guitar case. I kept singing the lines over and over even though I wasn't sure what they meant.

My arms grew warm from the movement while my feet were turning to ice. I kept running the knife and concentrating on the lyrics. I sucked air through my nose, and my eyes flew open. Three streams of smoke were rising from the wood-shaving nest. I sat back on my heels, pivoted on my hips so my face was almost in the smoking nest and gently blew. Several red eyes stared back at me and one of them burned brighter than the rest, and then burst into a thin flame.

That night I dreamed of the accident, and this time I saw it, the whole thing. My dad bobbing in front of the rock reef and then the big wave, the wave that pushed me under, smashing him against the rocks, and then him floating—facedown. I saw it happen three times. Saw his life vest hanging off his bare arm because he wasn't wearing his raincoat. I saw it all.

In the morning I stoked RF and LF and then leaned against the Sentinel. My mind was a mess of thoughts. Was the dream telling me what had really happened? Was that my dad communicating to me? Or had I known it all along? Did I see that happen for real during the accident? I mean, it seemed so real in the dream. But the bandana I'd found. I'd dried it out last night and then tied it around my neck as an added layer for warmth. And the raincoat? Was it really his?

“Whatever happened, happened,” RF said.

“What's happening now is what matters,” LF said.

“Just shut up so I can think.” I ran my hand across the bandana. “This could be his.”

“If you're gonna think,” RF said, crackling. “Think about something helpful. Not something that'll drag you down.”

“You said it yourself,” LF said. “No matter what happens, everything will be okay.”

“Yeah, but that was before the dream,” I said. “If only I'd seen that rock sooner. If I hadn't closed my eyes…”

“You're not telling yourself anything new, big boy,” RF said. “You're just finally accepting it.”

“Sometimes your mind won't let you see things for a while,” LF said, “because it's not good for you. And then when the time is right, the information seems new, but really it's always been there. You never discover anything that didn't already exist.”

“But if I'd known,” I said, “then I would've eaten these the minute I found them.” I laid the Meal Pack bars down in front of LF. My whole body was shaking, trembling. I touched the bandana again. I lay on my back and rested my head on my dad's life vest. I took the shredded raincoat in my hands, brought it to my lips, and then hugged it to my chest. In my mind it'd always be his even if I didn't know for sure anymore. What were the chances I'd find a raincoat that looked just like his? I reached out one hand, grabbed the Meal Pack bars and laid them on top of my stomach and let my breaths raise and lower them. And I listened.

Eat them now. It's okay. Everything is okay. Everything you did was okay. Everything.

THE MEAL
Pack bars I'd saved forever lessened my hunger for a couple of hours and then I was right back where I'd left off—starving. My stomach was like an eroded riverbank with my rib cage hanging over the top. And then when I'd drink a few bowlfuls of warm water, my stomach would bulge like I'd swallowed a big round rock. And the dream kept popping into my mind. Was it just a dream or was it really what had happened? And my dad's voice saying: Everything I did was okay.

I touched the bandana covering my neck and said, “Everything you did was okay too, Dad. Everything.”

In the cold rain I walked to the shore and scanned the horizon. No boat. No boat. No boat. It was low tide and the mussel beds stretched out in front of me.

What did Dad say? Eating shellfish is risky. They could be good one day and bad the next. You never know if they're going to be toxic. You could die.

I thought about all I'd been through. The mistakes I'd made and the consequences I'd lived with. What I had to lose. What I had to gain. And then I knew what I had to do.

I pulled the mussels from the cold mud and threw them into a bucket. They came away in groups, still attached to the rocks anchoring them. Small, black, and hard, each one closed tight. I kept tossing them in until the bottom of the bucket was covered, then headed to my shelter.

I warmed my numb hands by LF, then cut the mussels from their anchors and plopped half a dozen of them into the bowl, which was filled with water and just coming to a gentle boil on RF. I decided to start with a few mussels on the outside chance that if they were poisonous, then eating just a few might only make me sick and not kill me.

I let them roll in the boiling water until I could see the shells separating, then herded the mussels to the side of the bowl with a piece of driftwood. With my fingers I fished them onto the lid of a five-gallon bucket.

In the firelight I could see steam drifting from the hot shells. At least I had a warm shelter. The windbreaks, plus the killer roof, kept it pretty warm as long as I had wood to keep RF and LF going.

But without food, it was just a warm place to die.

If only I could've killed that bear. All that meat. Maybe it was dead, but I'd never know. And I hadn't tried to kill it. I was just trying to keep from getting killed. Maybe I should've driven the spear farther instead of pulling it out. Or stabbed it again instead of throwing that second rock. Maybe that was the difference—I had to think like a predator, instead of prey.

As for the mussels, I think I'd rather fight the bear again than eat them. The closer you are to death, the more chances you take, that's what I thought. If Dad were here, and was a shriveled up wreck like me, he might make the same choice.

I lifted a mussel off the lid and pried it the rest of the way open with my thumbs. In one of the half shells lay a small hunk of gray tissue.

“Sure you want to do that?” RF asked.

I nodded.

“There's no going back, once you do,” LF said.

“Back to where?” I said. “Back to starving?”

“Forget it,” LF said. “Just eat.”

I scooped the mussel partway out of the shell with my index finger, then grabbed it with my front teeth and pulled. It was chewy and had a strong, fishy taste.

After consuming the six mussels, I stoked the fires, lay down on top of the life vests, and covered myself with the emergency blankets, hoping to be alive come morning.

HOURS LATER
, I woke.

The mussels.

My stomach, it felt okay. I pulled air through my nose, and smiled.

I placed small sticks on top of RF's coals and blew until I saw smoke, then flames. I built up the fire and let it burn down. Then from the bucket I added more mussels to the bowl and put it on the coals.

I pulled my boots on and stepped outside. A cold, wet wind was blowing snow sideways. I jogged to the shore to take care of business and a small flash of light caught my eyes and disappeared. I squinted and tried to see through the blowing snow across the water. It flashed again.

“Hello!” I yelled. “Hello! I'm over here!”

And I kept on yelling, and every yell stabbed my side. And I kept looking, squinting. Now I could hear the deep hum of a motor. I saw the flash again, then again. It was moving away from the cove toward the point closest to the mainland. Of course, it was gonna cross at the point, the same way Dad and I crossed to get to Bear Island.

I kept screaming and waving through the snow, and jumping up and down, hoping that whoever it was would hear me or see me and turn.

I looked for that flash to grow closer, but the next flash I saw was farther away. I kept looking and looking. And yelling. And the hum of the motor faded in and out. After a while I didn't hear it anymore. I yelled and yelled and kept scanning the water but saw nothing. Probably motoring across to the mainland by now.

I fell to my knees and they sunk into the wet gravel. Then I lay on my side, facing the water. I felt a few snowflakes land on my cheek. Just
cover me up, I thought. Cover me up and get it over with.

So close, I was so close. But close didn't matter if I didn't make it off the island. I was still here. I wasn't any closer to anything. Nothing had changed. And I felt farther away than I ever had.

Farther than when I'd found my dad's vest and not him.

Farther than when I'd learned that my mom had died in a hit and run accident.

Farther than after I'd had that dream about my dad.

The wake from the boat started washing onto the shore. A wave touched my feet and I pushed myself up from the beach and headed back to my shelter.

I had to live like I was never gonna get rescued because if I didn't live like this, then there was no way I'd gather enough food and firewood to keep me going. I couldn't rely on anyone. Maybe a dozen boats would pass by off shore like that one.

I fished the mussels from the bowl and ate them. There had to be thirty or forty of them, but they were small and I was still hungry so I took a bucket and got more mussels, boiled them up and ate them. I'd just eat mussels every day and gather a ton of firewood. And wait. I'd wait forever if I had to. I'd wait for the rest of my life.