The Moose Jaw (4 page)

Despite the little detour around Denali, we still managed to arrive in Fairbanks just after five o’clock. 
By six-thirty we were sitting in the living room of Haywood’s split level, twenty minutes south of downtown, sharing a bottle of Tullamore Dew
, The Legendary Irish Whiskey. Or so it said on the label.  Haywood was comfortably seated in his rocker, savoring his drink.  I was sharing an overstuffed chair with Bosworth, Haywood’s overstuffed Maine Coon cat.  Bosworth liked me and never failed to make me feel welcome by crushing my lap with his enormous bulk, and kneading my manhood into imaginary biscuits.  I settled deeper in the chair, did my best to keep cat hairs out of my whiskey, and told Haywood the story.  I just gave him the high points – the collapse of ConSort in Europe, Sylvia’s announcement that she had a lover there with whom she intended to stay, and the awkward situation I’d found upon returning home to Morning Rock.

Haywood never interrupted.  He just rocked and listened and sipped his whiskey.  When it was clear I had finished, he refilled our glasses and lit one of his noxious cigars. Then he leaned back in his rocker, puffed a bit and said, “So – what now?”

“So, now I’m going to spend a few months doing exactly what I damned well please.  And, what I damned well please is to go into the Moose Jaw, camp, fish, and build that cabin we’ve been talking about for the past millennium.  I’ll stay there right through moose season.  At least we’ll have the luxury of a base camp this year.”

He rocked and puffed and nodded.  He’d suspected as much.  “We’ll have to get you outfitted.  Better make a list.”

Haywood loved lists.  He went to his cluttered desk and brought back a legal pad and pen.  By the time the bottle was gone we had filled three pages and were working on a fourth.  He had two surgeries scheduled for the morning so we were saved from opening another bottle.  After he’d gone to bed I sat at the table for a while, pondering the list through bleary eyes.  When I realized I was trying to read through closed lids I gave it up, clicked off the upstairs lights, and made my way down the dimly lit stairway to the guest room.

Haywood was up at 5 a.m.  He’d already had his breakfast, and was at the stove preparing mine when I came up to the kitchen an hour later.  He handed me a cup of coffee and gave me a cheerful smile.  It never mattered what time, or in what condition he went to bed, he was always up at five, fresh and chipper.  When my son, Casey, was a little boy he had once observed that Haywood was a lot like Tigger, the bouncy tiger character in the “Winnie the Pooh” series.  It was a good comparison; both were filled with a wonderful zest for life, a golden heart, and a cast iron stomach.  Haywood had also been born with a world-class liver, and suffered no ill effects from excessive alcohol consumption.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t blessed with the same constitution.  I always woke groggy and grumpy, and couldn’t form a coherent thought until I’d had a cup of strong, black coffee.  He knew this and didn’t bother trying to communicate until I broke the ice asking for a refill.

 He poured and said, “You’ll need the truck today.  Drop me at the clinic and come back and get me this evening.  I’m doing my usual seven-to-seven.  That should give you plenty of time to get started on the shopping.”

I grunted something that sounded like concurrence and sipped my coffee.  I could communicate this early, but I had to keep it simple.  He dished my bacon and eggs out of the skillet, plopped them on a piece of toast, covered them with another piece, and handed me my breakfast.

He chattered on.  “Took the liberty of reviewing the list this morning and made a few adds and drops.  Gotta consider the weight.  I don’t want to be running a shuttle service into the Moose Jaw.  Like to get you and all your gear in with two loads.”

I gave him another of my affirmative grunts and took a tentative bite of my sandwich.  Hot yolk and bacon grease oozed out between my fingers.  I licked them off and continued eating.  The sun was already well up in the sky, and its light came in through the kitchen window and gave everything a warm glow.  Together with the coffee and hot breakfast it worked its magic, and I felt myself emerging to the next level of my morning consciousness.  I wouldn’t say my mood became suddenly rosy, but it was no longer black.

Haywood took his coffee into the den and booted up his computer.  He always read the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on-line in the morning, and caught up on his email.  I dragged the legal pad across the table and scanned it.  It was a daunting document, almost four pages long, listing everything I’d need in the way of camping, cooking, construction, and survival gear.  My hangover headache had been bad enough before I started reading.  Now my eyes were beginning to hurt.  I pushed the pad aside and poured another cup of coffee.  It would take a week to gather all that kit.

Haywood finished his e-business, buttoned up the computer, and came sailing back into the kitchen.

“Cheer up Pal,” he said.  “We’ve got a lot of that stuff already, and if we stick to plastic and keep the metal to a minimum, the loads won’t be too heavy.”

“Right,” I said sourly.  “Plastic saws and axes.”

He smiled.  He enjoyed my morning miseries.  “Come on,” he said, “time we got rolling.  You can suffer in solitude after you deliver me to the clinic.”

The next week was spent in spurious bouts of shopping, packing and planning.
  I did the shopping during the day, while Haywood was at the clinic.  The packing consumed a good portion of our evenings, as we had to vacuum seal all the food stuffs, and bag up everything else.  When the packing was complete and all the new bags were labeled, we would pour a whiskey and devote ourselves to detailed planning.  One evening our focus might be upon load and transport logistics; the next we’d concentrate on cabin construction.  For the most part we’d discuss anything having to do with my upcoming adventure.  Toward the end of the week, we brought out the plot plan for my property, and compared it with the topo maps and notes we’d made on our two previous float trips down the Moose Jaw.  We remembered that particular stretch of river, but neither of us could recall a stone chimney.

Haywood conceded that I was the engineer, and cabin design was entirely in my hands.  Nevertheless, he insisted my wilderness get-away had to have a name.  All places of importance had names.  He suggested The Hermitage.  It sounded O.K. to me, Andrew Jackson notwithstanding, so we fell to calling it by that name.

We did get one break from our preperations during that week.  Our good friend and legendary detective, Hard Case Calis, dropped by to put his blessing on our enterprise.  When I say legendary, I do not exaggerate.  His bulldog features and powerful frame have graced the pages and T.V. screens of the local news media for nearly three decades.   Although officially retired, the Alaska State Troopers have kept him aboard as a consultant.  He is the most famous Crime Scene Investigator in Alaska, and still gets calls from the FBI to assist them in cases in the Lower Forty-eight.  Aside from Haywood, he was my closest friend, and I was delighted to see him.

He brought a bottle of good single malt Scotch, and the three of us nursed it while Haywood and I briefed him on “The Hermitage Project”.  He was as excited as we were, and volunteered to fly in and give my cabin a “test sleep” as soon as all the work was done.

Hard Case, of course, wasn’t actually his name.
  It was a sobriquet bestowed on him, many years ago, by admiring subordinates in the State Troopers.  He’d been born Kees Calis to a pair of Dutch immigrants.  Kees had been the name of his maternal grandfather, and he’d been named in his honor.  Kees, by the way, is actually pronounced Case, so he never objected to the nickname.  In fact, we suspected he secretly liked it.  Nevertheless, few, if any, called him Hard Case to his face.  Even Haywood and I didn’t cross that line.  We all had the good sense to call him, simply, Case.

I’d first met him six years ago when Haywood had invited me up for a few days of waterfowl hunting at Case’s place.  They had met at a Ducks Unlimited meeting two years before.  They were both avid duck and goose hunters, and had become fast friends.  Hard Case had a hunting cabin back in a slough off the Yukon River with a heated three man blind and several hundred decoys.  It was a good set up.  We spent four days in there, just the three of us.  We’d limited out on both ducks and geese by ten in the morning every day.  We spent the rest of our time plucking feathers, playing poker, fishing off the dock, and getting acquainted.  Hard Case and I had hit it off and, since, had become good friends.

Over the last of the whiskey, he leaned forward and placed a big, meaty paw on my shoulder. 
“Gus,” he growled, “you’ve got to remember a few things when you’re by yourself in the bush.  Strange shit happens out there sometimes,
and you need to keep your head screwed on straight.  The native Alaskans believe that white men, alone too long in the bush, go mad.  Considering some of the things I ran across during my days with the Troopers, I’d have to agree with them.”

“O.K., I told him.  I’ll try to keep my wits about me.” Hard Case had spent a lot of years investigating crimes in remote Alaska.  I respected any advice he was willing to share.

“I’m sure you will, Gus,” he said.  He finished his whiskey and went on.

“Another thing to remember is to never be without your gun.  You were in the Marine Corps so you know your weapon is your best friend.  Things can go bad fast out in the bush, and you won’t have anyone watching your back.”

I nodded that I understood.  That had been a long speech for Hard Case.  I realized he was a good deal more concerned about me than he’d ever let on.  He removed his hand from my shoulder to indicate he had finished, stood up, patted his impressive table muscle, and announced he had an early morning and it was time to go.  We said our good nights.  He wished me luck with the cabin, and made his way down the stairs to the entry hall.  His voice boomed back up the stairwell.

“Don’t let the bears eat you, and keep an eye out for the Snow Viper.”

With that, he left and we heard the door slam behind him.

As daunting as the “outfitting” task seemed, the shopping was, actually, quite enjoyable.  Haywood needed his own chainsaw during the summer, so I had to buy a new one.  I settled on a big red Husqvarna with a sixteen-inch bar.  I also bought six extra chains, including three for ripping lumber.  Hard Case had an “Alaska Saw Mill” that attached to a chainsaw for ripping planks out of logs.  He’d never used it, so he donated it to the cause.

I had a grand time at the shop that specialized in wood burning stoves.  They had quite a selection.  I’d intended to go with the simple barrel stove that seems to be the stove of choice for bush cabins, but a small, green cook stove caught my eye – The CozyGlow Cooker.   It was almost the color of the Jag I’d left Sylvia.  And, like the Jag, it was English made, and very expensive.  But, it was perfect.  It was only thirty-two inches wide, twenty-one inches deep, and stood twenty-nine inches high.  It had the equivalent cooking surface of a four-burner range, a small oven, and was capable of heating six hundred square feet.  It even had an optional boiler that attached to the side and would give you eight gallons of hot water! 

 It was extravagant, granted.  And its shiny, dark green, enamel finish was a little fussy for a trapper’s cabin, and it weighed about four hundred pounds.  I didn’t care.  A barrel stove is really only good for heat.  If you had one, you still had to do your cooking on a Coleman camp stove.  I had nothing against my Coleman, but an oven for Pete’s sake!  And a boiler!  I bought it.  Haywood couldn’t believe his eyes when it was delivered.

“You’re mad,” was all he said.

It seemed the preparations would never end but, mercifully, on the last day of spring, we were ready.  My non-resident hunting and fishing licenses, which I had been eagerly awaiting, arrived in Wednesday’s mail.  Early on Thursday, the twenty-first day of June, we loaded all the gear aboard Haywood’s pickup truck, and drove out to the airstrip where he kept his plane.  The contents of each bag and container were clearly listed on its side.  We’d sorted everything into two piles labeled “Load 1” and “Load 2”.  Load Two was noticeably larger, as I accounted for roughly two hundred pounds of Load One.  Everything absolutely vital to survival was included in the smaller load, which would accompany me on the first run.  This was Alaska, after all.  Anything could happen and, if, for whatever reason, Haywood never returned after dropping me off, I had to be able to set up camp and eat for the duration.  Therefore, tarp, water filter, sleeping bag, firearms, and foodstuffs were all included in the first load.  The wall-tent, canoe, tools, hardware, and odds and ends for building the cabin were relegated to the second load.  My little green cook stove would be coming in at a later date, after the cabin was complete.

With the weighing in and loading, and the regulatory and administrative details behind us, we took off from Fairbanks at ten o’clock in the morning. 
The flight into Moose Jaw Creek took a little over an hour.
 Haywood had, first, to get us to the right coordinates, and then find a suitable landing strip as close as possible to the property.  The term “creek” was really a misnomer; the Moose Jaw was actually a river; Creek just happened to be part of its name.  What one called it pretty much depended on one’s relationship with it – if you were wading in it, it was a creek – if you were drowning in it, it was a river.

We knew the country pretty well by now.  We’d hunted the Moose Jaw for the past two years, and the place I’d bought was on a stretch of the river we’d come to consider as particularly “moosey”.  We’d bagged four respectable bulls in the country just downstream over the course of those two years.  The area also had its share of bears, caribou, Dall sheep, upland birds, and waterfowl.  It was famous for its Arctic grayling and, in the past, had been renowned for its Rainbow trout and its salmon runs.  But, its best feature, for us at least, was the fact that the Moose Jaw attracted very few visitors these days.  Its popularity had faded.  It had been over-hunted and over-fished during the fifties and sixties and the game population fell off and, eventually, the hunters and fishermen had stopped coming.  It had seen very little pressure from man over the past forty years and we considered it our own secret, pristine Eden.