Brian's Return

Chapter NINE

Brian awakened and for a second did not remember where he was. There was a scuffling outside and he thought of bear and how stupid he’d been to leave his pack on the ground next to the tent. When he looked out he saw not a bear but a skunk and it wasn’t near his pack but smelling around the dead embers of the fire.

The fish leftovers. When he’d finished the soup he’d put the skins and heads and bones on the fire and burned them. The smell must have traveled up and down the lakeshore. There was half a moon and enough light to make out what was happening. He sat up to watch and the movement startled the skunk, which immediately raised its tail and aimed at him — from six feet away — but held fire.

Brian sat very still and the skunk seemed to shrug and then lowered its tail and went back to snooping around the fire. When it didn’t find anything it looked once more at the screened tent, snorted and waddled off into the night.

Brian smiled as he watched it leave. He didn’t know if it was a female but thought of it that way because the only other skunk he’d known closely had been a female that had ‘‘adopted’’ him and moved in with him when he’d spent the winter in the North. She had saved him from a bear and he would always have a soft spot for skunks.

In the east the sky was faintly light and Brian decided to get up and get ready. The pilot had said daylight-thirty and that would be in not much over an hour.

He made a small fire and put some water on to boil and dropped a pinch of tea in the water. While it was heating and boiling he rolled his bag and took the tent down and repacked it.

For a time he had nothing to do and he sat watching the fire, feeling hunger come back. The fish and broth had filled him but hadn’t lasted long and he didn’t have time now to fish and cook before it was time to leave. Hunger was an old friend. Once it had been an enemy and he had panicked whenever he felt the edges of it, but now he knew he wouldn’t die if he didn’t eat right away, or even this day, and he mentally tightened his belt.

Besides, he had some sugar cubes. He put three of them in the tea and drank it out of the pot as soon as it had cooled enough, and the hunger was knocked down.

He used the empty pot to pour water on the fire, killed it completely and stirred the ashes into slush. Then he loaded his pack and sleeping bag back on the plane and sat on the dock waiting.

Somewhere nearby a loon called for the morning, the sound flowing gently across the lake, and it seemed then, for a moment, as if he’d never been gone. As if the past two years and more had not existed and he’d stayed in the bush.

This lasted until he heard a motor and looked up to see an old Jeep Cherokee rattling down the ruts to the shack. There was a canoe on top and the pilot and two men inside.

Brian stood and waited as the Jeep parked. The three of them got out and took the canoe down and moved onto the dock.

He’d been dreading meeting the fishermen. All the magazines he’d read and some of the shows he’d watched on television had left a bad taste in his mouth about so-called professional fishermen. He didn’t feel like explaining himself to anybody. The pilot knew who he was, knew the Small horns and that he was going to visit them — or assumed it. Now there were two others who would ask questions.

But Brian was wrong.

The men were old — past sixty — but still moving well. They took the canoe down and tied it on the off float of the plane, the one away from the dock, with practiced ease. They looked so much alike that Brian thought they must be brothers. Square-jawed and balding; what hair they had was gray and bristly. They smiled easily, said hello to Brian, but didn’t ask more from him.

The plane was almost full by the time the men got their gear behind the rear seat. Brian moved his packs back as well and slid into the rear seat. The plane only took four adults so one of the old men sat next to him and oddly enough it was Brian who wanted to question them. Their fishing equipment wasn’t new or high-tech. The reels were old casting reels, obviously well kept, and the men handled them with an almost loving care.

Brian was silent until they were in the air and then he turned to the man next to him. ‘‘Do you fish a lot?’’

The man had been looking out the window, down at the lakes, and he turned and smiled. ‘‘Once a year. We go up into the bush lakes and fish for muskies. We catch and release them — actually, we hardly ever catch them because we cast and use plugs we made ourselves. I haven’t caught one now in. . Ben, when did I last catch a muskie? Was it two years ago?’’

The man in the front turned. ‘‘Yes. No. I think it was three. We’ve had a lot of strikes since then but no boaters. Why?’’

‘‘I was just telling the boy about our fishing.’’

‘‘Nonfishing, you mean. We never seem to catch anything.’’

The man next to Brian nodded. ‘‘But we see the country and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?’’ He studied Brian, his eyes questioning.

‘‘Yes.’’ Brian looked out the window. ‘‘That’s what it’s all about. .’’

‘‘We worked the woods all our lives.’’ Ben, the man in front, turned. ‘‘Cruising for the lumber companies, living. Just living. We’re down in the Cities now but once you’ve been in the woods — well, you can take the man out of the woods, but you can’t take the woods out of the man. We like to get back. Muskie fishing is just an excuse.’’

The man next to Brian nodded. ‘‘It must be the same for you. We heard about you, saw it all on television back when it happened. You must have got the woods in you then.’’

Brian nodded.

‘‘It’s a wonderful thing,’’ the old man said, looking again out the window.

‘‘What?’’

‘‘To have the woods in you. Young people almost never have it now. You’re very lucky.’’

And Brian knew he was right. He’d never felt he was particularly fortunate before but the old man was exactly right. He was very lucky to have the woods in him and to be getting back to it. ‘‘I hope you have good fishing,’’ he said, and meant it.

‘‘And you as well. I hope everything comes to you that you want.’’

Brian smiled and watched the woods and lakes unroll beneath the plane. The droning of the engine made him drowsy and his eyes closed, then opened again, and he thought — looking across the wilderness, half-asleep — he thought, lord, what a wonderful place this is, and knew it was a kind of prayer.

The List

CANOE, 17-foot, Kevlar, named The Raft, from my time with Derek on the river. With two wide wood paddles with glassed tips. Repair kit with a piece of glass cloth and epoxy resin. Light life-vest flotation device.

STRAIGHT BOW, Wood-and-glass-laminated, 45-pound pull at 26-inch draw, 4 extra strings. 100 cedar arrow shafts, all spine tested for stiffness to match the bow. 60 field points, 50 MA-3 broadheads, nocks, precut 4-inch feathers — turkey, not plastic — glue to make everything, point cement, small fletcher to put feathers on, plastic tapering tool to work shafts down to take the points and nocks.

He debated long on the arrows — whether to take premade arrows or the materials to make them and in the end did both. He had two dozen finished arrows, half broadheads and half field points.

Small stone and file to sharpen broadheads. Plain leather quiver to hang down the center of my back.

Again, he debated whether to use a standard over-the-shoulder quiver or a center-hung with double harness. He decided on the center quiver because his head would protect the arrows and keep them from hitting things when he was moving through the brush.

KNIFE, Plain hunting-style knife with cross hilt and straight 6-inch flat blade sharpened on one side except for the tip, to be sharpened also on the top back about 2 inches. A tool — and a weapon. Use the same stone and file for sharpening the broadheads to sharpen the knife and hatchet.

HATCHET

There were many variations he could have gone with here, as with knives, but he chose a plain belt ax, not unlike the one his mother had given him when he started north the first time. Like the knife, it was always on his belt and would always be there. He had learned that it was much better to have a tool-weapon with you and not need it than it was to need one and not have it.

FISHING GEAR, Nothing fancy. 2 spools of braided line, 20-pound test, a dozen metal leaders and a container of small sinkers, the kind with the rubber twist center. Small plastic box with 100 assorted fishhooks. No rod, no reel, just the hooks, line and sinkers.

At this point in compiling the List a kind of stubbornness had come into Brian’s thinking. He had lived before with much less — just having a modern bow and good arrows and real fishing gear was like being rich — and part of him wanted to just go with that. Maybe throw in a pot for cooking and of course some clothes. But he had not been completely idle in the two and a half years since he’d been ‘‘lost in the wilderness,’’ as some put it. He had been reading, expanding his knowledge, and most of the reading he’d done had been not about modern survival gurus or people who used high-tech gear to go off for a week or a month and then write a book or do a documentary about it and get rich. He had instead studied the true winners, the people in history who had survived in the wild because they had no other choice — the primitive Native Americans of the past, as well as Inuit, Cree and even the peoples of the U.S. Southwest, though the terrain in that region was radically different from these north woods. For them it wasn’t a game but their lives; what Brian knew now as primitive living had in fact been modern for them. It was how they lived — or died. He read and reread and in the end decided that if those people had had modern conveniences available they would have used them — just as they did when new things came along. Very few Native Americans still chipped stone arrowheads to use for hunting, though he suspected some of them still hunted with a bow.

Brian decided he would still draw a line. If he went crazy and took everything available — guns, water makers, special clothing or gear — he would lose what he had found, the beauty, the connection with the wild that had come into him.

So he added carefully to the List:

BOOKS, Compact 2-volume set of the complete works of Shakespeare. Definitive guide, with pictures, of edible plants, nuts and berries of the north woods.

He had come to love reading as much as he disliked television and he’d chewed on which books to take — they were heavy and could not stand much rough use — and decided to ask Caleb, who in turn had asked him, ‘‘Who is the greatest writer of all?’’ Brian had been stumped until Caleb told him.

‘‘Shakespeare.’’

‘‘I’ve never been able to read him.’’

‘‘Well then, now is a good time to start,’’ Caleb said. ‘‘And when you do, read aloud.’’

‘‘Even alone?’’

‘‘It’s easier to understand. They’re plays, meant to be read aloud. Just try it.’’

He had learned a lot on his own in his time in the woods — sometimes with disastrous results — and he brought the field guide because he wanted to have a wider knowledge of what he could safely eat. Shakespeare for the soul, the guide for the stomach.

3 mechanical pencils with extra lead. 4 small books with blank lined pages.

He didn’t usually keep a journal, and he didn’t want to lock himself into it now. But he had become very close to Caleb, in some ways closer than he was to his parents, and he thought he could keep a running letter to Caleb and instead of trying to send him pages in envelopes, he could send the book all at once when he found a way to get it out.

CAMPING GEAR AND SUPPLIES, 1 good compass.

He thought of taking a Global Positioning System which relies on satellite signals, but had a distrust of complicated systems and decided against it. One drop of water in the wrong place or a fall or dropping it on the rocks and it was useless. Besides, he would have a good map from the pilot and every lake was a landmark.

2 decent-quality backpacks with external frames. 1 small camp shovel.

Here the concept of world politics helped him. The Soviet Union had come apart and one of the things its crumbling military complex had was surplus titanium. Some enterprising Russian had come up with the idea of making titanium — superlight and superstrong — camping shovels and Brian bought one through a catalog.

1 small but good-quality 2-man tent, the kind that becomes a dome with a screen entrance.

He was not sure how long it would last — probably until the first bear decided to tear it apart — but it would give him a chance to sleep mosquito-free for a while.

Sleeping bag rated to 0 degrees.

This was much too warm for a summer bag but in the back of his mind were the fall and winter nights, the still, deep cold. For now he could always open the bag and sleep on top of it.

2 aluminum pots, a 2-quart and a 4-quart, with lids. A large metal insulated cup. A 2-quart plastic water container.

No frying pan, no oil. No stove. He’d become accustomed to cooking over fire and preferred it. Besides, if he used a cooking stove he’d have to carry fuel for it and that was a whole new problem.

A container of salt in a plastic bag.

He had missed salt a great deal in the bush.

3 boxes sugar cubes in a plastic bag.

For his sweet tooth.

3 boxes of 1-gallon zip-closure plastic bags. Tea for several months. 4 plastic bottles vitamin C tablets and 3 bottles of multiple vitamins.

He hadn’t had vitamins the first time out, but his mother and Caleb had insisted on it. His mother didn’t know Brian would be on his own for a time, perhaps for a long time, but she wanted him to take the vitamins anyway. ‘‘Don’t those people you’re going to visit use vitamins?’’

‘‘Smallhorns. They are the Smallhorns, Mother, not ‘those people.’ ’’

‘‘Whatever. Surely they use vitamins. You take them.’’

A 25-pound bag brown rice, wrapped in a plastic garbage bag. A roll of 30 plastic garbage sacks to waterproof equipment and packs.

In his reading he’d discovered that most of the cultures in the world seemed to exist on rice and he had started to cook with it at home, though in small amounts. His mother didn’t like it. He found it bland but mixable with other foods and he thought to use it now and then with fish or other meat or wild vegetables.

No flour, no bread, no candy, no ingredients for pizza — Caleb had jokingly suggested that one — no ice cream, no soda. None of the things he had come to miss so much when he was in the woods before. They had all proved to be phony pleasures. He neither wanted them nor needed them in his life any longer.

A small, basic first-aid kit.

He couldn’t do sutures or treat major wounds with this but he had filled a prescription for antibiotics to help with any infection he might get. Also insect repellant.

8 boxes waterproof matches. 3 small propane lighters.

He remembered the difficulty of getting a fire going and while he felt certain he could do it again with just the hatchet and a stone, this was one area where he definitely wanted to go modern. He’d also brought a magnifying glass to look closely at things that might interest him and he could use it to start fires if the sun was out.

CLOTHING, 2 pairs loose hiking pants. A pair of soft hiking shoes. 4 T-shirts. 2 pullover Polar Fleece jackets. A pullover breathable, waterproof anorak with a hood. A fabric military-style belt to carry the knife and hatchet. 3 pairs athletic socks. 3 pairs hiking shorts with several pockets. 3 pairs briefs. 2 billed caps. A sewing kit with assorted needles and 4 spools heavy thread. 1 spool waxed sewing cord with heavy needles. A hand-awl needle combination. 3 small cakes beeswax for thread and bowstrings.

If it came to it he wanted to be able to sew leather, especially for moccasins. Hiking shoes were fine but he had come to like sewn moccasins — they were light and though they wore out rapidly he could feel the ground through them and move more quietly.

A 10-by-10-foot tarp. 200 feet of 눕-inch nylon rope — parachute cord.

And an old 3-pound coffee can he found in the water by the plane when they were getting ready to take off from Ranier.