Surviving Bear Island (3 page)

“Dad,” I called. “Dad. Da-ad. Hellooooooo.”

Nothing.

I scanned north for smoke from a campfire. For an orange dot on the shore.

Nothing. My head fell forward. I sucked in another short breath.

Directly below me, in the cove to the north, a large stream poured out of the forest and ran over seaweed-covered rocks.

Stream.

Stream meaning fish.

Fish.

Maybe a salmon stream. And just that thought, that tiny flash in my mind, brought my hunger back up. I wasn't a salmon fan at home, but out here I'd eat salmon 'til I grew scales if I could get my hands on some.

Sometimes the streams are choked with salmon. You can almost grab 'em like the bears do.

Bears. Better be careful.

I just wanted to eat.

Eat.

Eat.

Eat.

Not because something tasted good, but because I was starving. And, maybe Dad was up that creek. Maybe that's why I couldn't see him. Maybe he was catching a fish right now, or cooking one. I sniffed the air for the odor of cooking fish. I couldn't be sure but I thought maybe I smelled something.

Too bad I wasn't fat. Then I'd have some reserves to burn. My eighth grade science teacher, Mr. Haskins, used to joke around about his reserves. He'd pat his belly and say he could outlast any of us in a hunger situation. We'd all laugh, but he'd just stand there, smiling.

Dad had more reserves than me, but he wasn't fat. We were the same height, about 5' 10”, but he had more muscle. He was a carpenter and had all those years carrying plywood and beams and flooring. I wasn't super skinny, but you could see my ribs when I didn't have a shirt on. But I was building up some muscle from working with Dad.

After Mom died he started taking me to work with him in the summers. Even then he barely spoke to me unless he had to give me a direction or show me how to do something, but at least I was with him. I started off doing simple stuff like stacking building materials, or coating boards with stain, but I helped with pretty much everything now.

My dad had a degree in biology, but he liked keeping his own schedule, deciding when he would work and what kind of work he'd do.
Just keeping it simple,
he'd say. Too simple, if you ask me. We had a TV that you could only watch movies on.

“Can't we have cable, like Billy does? Like everyone does?” I'd asked.

“When you get your own place you can rot your brain however you want.”

And no computer—at least not one that could get you on the Internet. And games in our house, they took place on a board, not a screen. That didn't really bother me when Mom was alive. Then I had someone who'd actually play something with me. We didn't even have a microwave. Walking into our house was like walking into the 19th century. Our porch railing looked like a hitching post for horses.

On the beach, I approached the stream. Partially eaten, rotting salmon corpses lay among the rocks on the shore. Eyeless heads attached to backbones with strips of shriveled gray skin clinging to the skeletons. Nasty stuff all around.

But in the creek was a wall of pink salmon. You could see their humped backs breaking the top of the water. Pinks—Humpies is their other name because of their humped backs—are mostly what's in Prince William Sound, according to Dad.

Grab 'em like the bears do.

I glanced around. Gave my head a shake. The voice sounded so real. Like he was talking into my ear. Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe it meant that he was close by.

I waded into the stream, but everywhere I walked fish swam away from me, hundreds of them. Before I could even get my hands in the water, they were gone.

So then I stood still in the water. In my mind I saw it. I'd scoop my hands under a salmon and just sweep it onto shore. Easy.

Easy.

Easy.

Easy.

But the fish wouldn't come. Wouldn't come near enough for me to even try to grab them.

I walked out of the stream and sat on the beach.

I pulled the survival kit out of my pocket and inhaled the other meal pack bar.

Still hungry, I faced the stream and felt the dead-salmon-stink hit my face.

My stomach growled.

“No. No way will I eat those.” I shook my head and looked away, but my eyes kept coming back to the carcasses. Like my stomach had taken over for my brain and was calling the shots.

Then I saw movement across the stream. I stood up. A black bear stood on four legs on the opposite bank just a football field's distance upstream. A distance a charging bear could cover in seconds. I wanted to run but knew that was the exact wrong thing to do. You don't give a bear something to chase. You don't make yourself a running target. Any idiot knew that.

I took a step backward, my heart pounding like a jackhammer. We'd seen a bear the second day of the trip. We stood at the edge of the forest as it nosed around in some tide pools. “Just stand still and watch,” Dad had said, his hand resting on his pepper spray. No gun. Dad didn't even own a gun. My best friend, Billy, his dad had, like, five guns. He kept them locked up but Billy said he knew where the key was. I wished I had one now.

The bear walked into the stream. I didn't even know if it saw me. Or if it did, it didn't seem to care, like it was thinking, “Yeah, Tom, what are you gonna do?”

The bear lunged forward and swatted the water with its powerful front paws, splashing water every which way. It plunged its head underwater, then surfaced with a fish bending side to side, flexing with all its might to return to the stream.

The bear settled into the beach grass and dropped the fish. The fish flopped, but the bear just put a paw over it, like a dog does with a bone. It tore into the live fish just below the head, eating one side of it while it was still flopping. With its mouth, the bear flipped the fish over and ate the other side. I watched that bear catch and eat five more fish like it was no big deal. Probably did it all the time.

And for a few minutes I actually forgot that I was hungry, forgot that my dad was missing, forgot that I was stuck on an island in Prince William Sound sixty miles from the nearest town. Yeah, it was all about the bear, and how it lived. How it ate things that were still flopping. Still living. How the fish's life passed into the bear, became part of the bear. Like some of the stuff my mom used to write and sing about. In my mind I saw her guitar sitting in my room. She had some songs she'd started. I was planning on finishing them.

Then a growl from my stomach pushed into my throat, and the hunger kicked back in.

I couldn't catch fish like a bear. Or could I? Could I dive in and grab one, and toss it on shore? But I had stubby fingernails, not sharp claws. And, I'd get soaked.

I could feel the digestive juices creeping up my throat—burning.

I wanted a salmon.

I needed a salmon.

I DIDN'T
dare move until the bear moved northward. I watched it disappear into the forest and then reappear several minutes later farther along the shore. Then it climbed the next point and was gone.

Two bald eagles moved in to clean up what the bear had left, along with a flock of gulls.

I walked upstream, opposite of where the eagles and gulls were feeding, found a shallow spot, and crossed. As I stepped out of the water, the gulls squawked and rose, flying down to the shoreline where they resettled at the mouth of the creek. The eagles departed silently, their long wings carrying them skyward.

I faced the carnage. Not much but heads, tails, and bones. Still clinging to the heads of the bear-killed salmon were bite-sized chunks of dull pink meat. Leftovers, but I'd take them.

I grabbed a salmon by the tail. It slipped from my hand into the matted-down beach grass. Fish slime and bear drool covered the carcass.

I wiped my hand on the beach grass. “Nasty.”

I hunted around and found five of the six fresh kills. Then I carried them across the creek and downstream to the spot where I had observed the bear. It was out in the open, so I could see if the bear came back or if another one showed up. Or, if my dad appeared from the forest or from up the coast, or even from the way I'd come, I'd see him.

I used another hunk of fire starter stick to get a fire going. I kept adding slightly damp sticks, and turned a steaming mass of wood into a small blaze.

The fire starter sticks, little brown rectangles of solid fuel, were
awesome. It was like having a mini-fire to start your real fire. You could focus on getting small sticks to catch over a steady flame.

My dad, he knew his stuff. Without the survival kit I'd be scarfing raw salmon, and probably puking it back up. That is, if I was even still alive. That first fire had kept me from freezing to death, kind of anchored me to my own life. I could've just curled up and let the cold take me.

Build up a bed of coals. Get some green alder branches. It grows just above the beaches. Lay the green alder crisscrossed to make a grill. Put the fish on the grill and cover it with alder leaves. Grilled, smoked salmon. And nothing to clean up.

He wanted to cook a salmon for me like this, but we hadn't caught any. Hadn't fished much, really. My dad really wanted to do an epic trip, that's what he'd said, a big journey. The kind he used to do with Mom before I was born. Said if I liked this trip, then next summer we could do a whole month.

I hadn't said anything. Didn't know if I'd even want to do another kayak trip. I wanted to get my learner's permit and then my driver's license so I could get to town when I wanted. So I could eventually have a freaking life outside our house in the sticks. So I could take guitar lessons and join any school club or play any sport I wanted. So I could do what I want without depending on my depressed dad to get off his butt and take me somewhere. Anywhere. But now, I'd kayak with him the whole summer next year if it meant finding him alive.

When Mom was alive, I didn't feel as isolated because she was always talking to me or getting the three of us to do things or taking me with her when she went to visit Heather's mom.

I missed Heather. We were the same age and our moms were best friends, but they moved away three years ago. Right after Mom died. Me and Heather even used to take baths together when we were little, and I've got pictures to prove it. They're planning on coming back after Heather's dad finishes law school. We get a card every year with a photo. In the last one Heather had her braces off.

A spruce branch bounced up and down just back in the forest. I took a step back, my heart pounding.

“Dad?”

Something dark flickered between the branches.

Bear. I took another step back.

Then two blue-colored birds with black crests atop their heads, flew toward me and landed in a tree closer to the fire.

I let out a sigh. What if that had been a bear?

Take a breath, Tom. Whenever you see something move. Just take a breath, focus and then respond. Alert but calm.

Alert but calm, I thought. It might sound easy but it's not, especially when you hope that every little sound, or movement is your dad, and not some animal that might try to eat you.

Get some green alder.

I turned back to the fire. “Green alder? Screw that. I'm starving. I'll just use the wood I've already collected.”

My stomach was an empty pit and I needed to fill it.

I crisscrossed some thin branches on top of the coals and laid the fish carcasses on them. Instead of alder leaves, I ripped handfuls of beach grass from the ground and used them to cover the fish. The beach grass stalks were stiff and about an inch wide.

I heard hissing from under the beach grass. I hoped it was bear drool burning off.

After a few minutes I started to smell cooked fish, a smell that never excited me at home. I spied a little orange flicker under the beach grass. Then the orange reached through the beach grass. I blew on the flames, which disappeared for a moment, then came back stronger. Again I blew, with the same result.

The beach grass caught; it turned black and started to curl. Flakes of ash drifted upward, and a wall of heat hit my face as an explosion of orange and red engulfed the fish. I grabbed a stick and knocked three of the carcasses out of the flames, then snatched the other two by the tails and flung them out, and they sat there steaming and smoking on the rocks.

I touched one and it wasn't as hot as I thought it'd be, so I picked it up by the backbone, turned the charred side toward my mouth and took a bite.

Burnt fish. Not bad. In fact, under the crispy skin it wasn't so burnt, just cooked, even a little juicy, and, seasoned with bear drool. But the unburnt side was still raw, so I gnawed on the charred sides of the other fish, then placed each one back on the coals to burncook the other side. As tasty as it was, I wanted to singe that drool off.

But there wasn't much meat, just a little below the heads, some flakes along the backbones, and a hunk by the tails. I sucked the backbones like a high-powered vacuum cleaner—the kind my dad used on building sites—until every speck of meat was gone. And then I wished for more.

“I want to burncook a whole fish, without bear drool.”

A fish that I'd caught.

I crossed the stream and hiked north, along the edge of the forest, calling out for my dad, but I'd strained my voice yesterday and after a while I could barely speak. So I walked just inside the forest dodging Devil's Club, peering behind the trunks of massive trees, hoping to find my dad leaning against one. My heart thumped in my raw chest, my eyes hungry for any sign of him. A scrap of clothing, a paddle, a dry bag.

When I reached the next point, I turned and retraced my steps. Maybe he'd swum to shore south of where I'd washed up. The wind and waves had pushed me south, so maybe he'd been pushed south even farther.

But now, the water was turning gray. And the pale red outline of the sun, barely breaking through the clouds, was sinking toward the horizon. I had maybe a couple hours of daylight left and I needed firewood. Tomorrow I'd climb the steep point south of my cove and keep looking.