Surviving Bear Island (26 page)

I made the long hike to the point, up and down over spiky headlands. I wanted to leave some kind of marker, something that would show someone coming from the mainland that something wasn't right. But I didn't want to part with my life vests or emergency blankets. I thought about tying my dad's raincoat to a tree, but it was blue, which isn't the brightest color to attract attention.

I would've camped on the point if I could, but it was too exposed.

So I brought two yellow five-gallon buckets with me. At the point I filled them with rocks and set them up high. They didn't point exactly to where I was, but it was the best I could do.

On the hike back my stomach cramped up. Maybe my body couldn't take the mussels in large quantities like it did the salmon. I wasn't keeling over and vomiting blood, but cramps and diarrhea kept hammering me.

There were lots of mussels, but if I couldn't keep them inside my body, then it didn't matter.

Still, I hoped small amounts of them would be enough, just enough for me to hang on if I didn't find something else to eat. And maybe my stomach would get used to them.

Two days later, snow continued to blow without sticking as darkness fell. The tide was high, covering the mussel beds, and I was collecting firewood. I never felt like I had enough wood.

I knew a big storm could blow in and confine me to my shelter for several days, so I wanted a cushion of wood, but the more I collected the farther I had to go to get it. And the more energy I put into collecting wood, the more food I needed to fuel my body. And I could only eat so many mussels at a time before stomach problems set in.

But I knew I needed more food. My clothing hung limp on my body. Sometimes I'd feel a little energy surge after eating some mussels, but not for very long.

What choice did I have? Not having enough wood meant the same as not having enough food.

A week passed and still no one came. The high tides had come and erased the fire-darkened patch of rocks where I'd found the bandana. Sixty-five scratches on my spear. And the snow had stuck. The Sentinels kept a lot of it off the spit, but when I went in search of firewood I was plowing through six inches of wet snow.

I kept eating the mussels, and they still gave me stomach problems. And having diarrhea in the snow was no joke, especially trudging down to the shore in the dark with my insides twisting and screaming.

I found a few shriveled berries, but they did little to combat my deep hunger. I looked for animals, hoped for another porcupine, but didn't see any. Just a few bird tracks in the snow. Still, I pushed myself forward, my mind telling my body to keep going. If I could just hang on until I found
something to eat or until someone came. Just keep living, I told myself, even if only barely, because you never know when you'll get a break, when you'll get lucky. But if you're dead, there's no way to get lucky.

I was gathering firewood on a slope and slipped. I tried to regain my balance, but I must've tripped on a rock or a root beneath the snow because all of a sudden I was in the air going sideways and then I landed on my ankle. Pain burned into my foot and partway up my shin. And my whole lower leg and foot kept on burning and buzzing like it was going numb, except it hurt at the same time.

I limped back to camp with a little wood. My ankle swelled up and pressed into my rubber boot, and pain shot through my lower leg when I put weight on it.

I tried to rest it for a day, but if I wasn't moving around I needed more wood to stay warm, and if I needed more wood to stay warm I needed to get more wood, which was hard to do with an ankle you couldn't put weight on.

I dragged my leg through the snow and got what wood I could. My wood supply dwindled. I ate more mussels, but knew they weren't enough.

I tried to will that feeling back—that feeling that everything would be okay—but the harder I tried the farther away it went.

I scratched my eightieth line onto my spear, and lay back down. It was morning, time to gather some mussels, but I just lay there. I closed my eyes and felt the air going in and out of my lungs in shallow breaths. I tried to breathe deeper but couldn't.

I felt warm even though RF and LF had burned down to coals and weren't putting off much heat. Wood, I thought. I needed to put some wood on them. I'd managed to keep a fire going ever since I'd been here and didn't want to have to face using the flint again.

“In a minute. In a minute. In a minute,” I whispered.

A ringing sound invaded my ears. It just kept coming and going. Fading in and out. Like someone was humming a tune. Like the way my mom used to hum while she drew. And then I saw her, at the kitchen table, humming and drawing. And throwing a smile my way.

I drifted off with the humming, with my mom, and that feeling came back—that everything would be okay, no matter what happened.

A scraping noise forced its way in to my awareness, blotting my mom out. I opened my eyes and saw the metal roofing and remembered where I was. I put my hands over my face. They smelled fishy, like mussels. Then I remembered that I needed to drag my leg down to the shore to get some mussels.

I closed my eyes again, and felt warm.

Warm all over.

And saw my mom, and my dad. They were smiling at each other, holding hands, standing under a big tree, one of the Sentinels. I walked toward them, and they held their arms out.

I heard gulls squawking. Something I hadn't heard in days. Really since Silver Camp. I lifted my chin and rolled onto my side. A cold rush of air nudged me, and I coughed. RF and LF, I couldn't let them go all the way out. But I just lay there. Closed my eyes and there they were—Mom and Dad. We were at home on the deck, eating hand-cranked, homemade ice cream.

But the gull squawks slammed my ears again. Like they were right outside my shelter. They were coming for me, for my eyes. I sucked in a few short breaths.

No, I thought. No. I'm not ready to die. Not ready to lose my eyes.

But they kept squawking.

I stretched my arms over my head and opened my eyes. I'd show them. Show them that I was alive. That I could fight them, and win. Kill one and eat it. I dragged myself forward with my elbows, grabbed my spear, and stuck my head out of the shelter. Through the blowing snow I saw no gulls but kept hearing their taunts over and over.

I squinted, and my heart jumped into my throat.

Two green blurs were marching toward me.

I opened my eyes wide.

Two people, real people, clad in green raingear were moving toward me, walking just above the highest strand line, shouting
hellooo
over and over.

I tried to talk, formed the word
help
in my brain, but all that came out of my mouth was a muffled grunt.

One of them lifted a hand and waved.

I raised my spear, then let it fall.

My eyes closed and I saw Mom and Dad again. Just their faces—smiling against a sky of puffy white clouds. Their faces kept getting smaller and smaller until they disappeared and my mind was a wall of clouds.

But the crunching sound of boots on snow and gravel filled my ears along with more shouts of
helloooo
. I forced my eyes open again, and felt them grow hot with tears.

I didn't know where I was going, or who I'd be living with, but I was getting off this island.

I was going to live.

THE END

PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND
is a real place on the Alaskan Coastline. Over the past twenty-four years I have paddled a sea kayak many hundreds of miles in the Sound, exploring the remote, jagged coastline and camping on uninhabited islands alone and with friends. The first time I went sea kayaking was in 1991 and it turned into a nine week, five-hundred-mile adventure. I was hooked!

I have written many journals about my experiences in Prince William Sound. On one solo kayaking trip, I cooked salmon the way Tom cooks them. I have watched bears fish for salmon, have taken a fall on a mountain similar to the one Tom takes, and have paddled through big seas and breaking waves.

Fortunately, I was never stranded, but a couple of times when I was in rough waters, I felt I was a few paddle strokes from disaster.

While Bear Island is a fictional island, the places Tom discovers on his journey on Bear Island are based on and inspired by places I have a spent time exploring while on wilderness sea kayak trips in Prince William Sound.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to all my friends who've spent time with me on wilderness trips over the past thirty years. All of those experiences have played into the creation of this story. Thanks to my early readers Lisa Muscavage, Natalie Bahm, Robert Guthrie, Eva Saulitis, Lou Brown, Carol Lynch Williams, Terry Lynn Johnson and Carl Greci. A big thank you to my agent, Amy Tipton, who not only found a home for my story but also was instrumental in the final rewrites before putting it on submission. Thanks to Eileen Robinson and all the great people at Move Books who worked hard to make this the best book it could be. And finally, a thank you to my wife, Dana, for believing in me as writer, letting me use some of her song lyrics in the story, and for reading countless drafts and offering her expertise as a writer.