For What He Could Become Page 19

  The plane should be back in about a week. I could be in the village by then and save a couple hundred dollars. Ninety miles divided by seven days is just a little over twelve miles a day—I’m not in great shape, but I can do that easy.

  Or I could stay and wait for the plane. Could the plane still land on the gravel bar? Might I miss the one plane that is actually going to look for me in this area? It is so changed since the flash flood.

  I wished I had a drink. It would calm me down and let me ease into this decision. He looked in the direction he would have to travel to get back to Arctic Village, and the decision was made.

  He would walk back. There was no gold here, there was a chance the pilot couldn’t even recognize the place after the flash flood, and he could save a couple hundred bucks if he got back in time to stop the plane from flying out. A gentle peace settled over him. He smiled and looked out over the devastated valley.

  “Well…that wasn’t so hard.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  By noon of the first day Bill could still see the dome. He didn’t know how far he’d have to travel to be out of sight of it, but it served as a reverse beacon for him.

  There was just food and water in his pack. The barrel he had left on top of the dome, so there would be some trace there of Bill Williams A.F. (after the flood). He sat down on a small hummock to eat. A cramp started in his left foot, knotting hard at the instep. While he was stripping off the boot and sock, the cramp moved into his toes, curling them down so much he jumped up and hobbled around barefoot.

  “Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!”

  He sat down, crossed his left foot over his thigh, and massaged the white, useless thing until it loosened and he could move the toes without further cramping. This terrain was full of hummocks with water draining through the shallow bottoms, running across a small rocky base. His boots were soaked. He hadn’t determined what to do at river crossings. Whether to leave his boots on, wade across and then walk them dry or wade barefoot and risk an injury to his feet. He would decide when he reached a river; until then he felt sure he could walk the boots dry before nightfall.

  Looking ahead at the country he had to travel through it was difficult to pick a path—nothing seemed to have a trail or direct purpose to it. Caribou trails were abundant but caribou wandered, and trying to pick a dominant trail was like choosing the shortest straw in a bale of hay. He would follow one caribou trail, then switch to another when it veered in the wrong direction.

  He was moving in the general direction of the village, somewhere northwest of where he stood. It was not difficult walking but it took concentration, because the hummocks required him to angle his foot between them just right or his hips and back twisted. By mid-afternoon he found a stand of trees and sat down to assess his situation. Except for the small group of trees he was sitting under, the land as far as he could see was nothing but hummocks. He drank water and ate, and looked for a spot in the distance where he might camp.

  He was headed for a small island of trees and tall grasses that seemed to be a good site but found a pond between the trail and the trees. To get around it would require a half-mile of walking through hummocks; it was less than sixty yards to wade across. He pulled off his boots and socks and stepped into the pond. The ooze on the bottom squeezed up through his toes and soon he was up to his knees. By the time he made it across, he was soaked through.

  In the trees there was a level spot for camp and enough dead alder wood around the edge of the pond for a brisk fire. Off to the northwest he could see more trees, but other than that, nothing but rolling hills, tundra, and a thousand small ponds with grassy edges.

  He wasn’t hungry, but he ate. Daily his appetite had decreased until he was beginning to wonder if he was taking in enough food to keep up his strength. Funny how hungry he’d usually been in Anchorage, doing nothing, and yet how little he was eating on this walk. The food all tasted the same, didn’t matter whether he ate the salmon or caribou. The berries were greasy and tasteless but he swallowed them, feeling honorbound to eat Verda’s prepared berries and vowing to explain to her when he got back that they needed something to make them enjoyable. Sugar, maybe. Or honey.

  He sat on the ground and massaged his feet. The big toe and ball of his right foot were numb. He was working on them when he heard the first howl. He took the wolves to be about a quarter-mile away and on the hill he had crossed before coming to the pond.

  The cubs would be about four months old now, hunting with the adults. He could pick out the pup’s vocalizing and the deeper voice of the alpha male. When he looked up a pair of eyes shone from the darkness—steady for a few seconds then gone. He sat very still, his ears straining—no sound except the crackling of the fire. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  A series of short yelps off to his left and then they were gone.

  A safe distance from the fire he drove two sticks in the ground and put his socks on them to dry. Fatigue began to touch every joint in his body. Finally he laid down, the occasional wolf howl keeping sleep from him for some time.

  At the first hint of light, he tried to sit up. He couldn’t. Back, legs, shoulders so stiff he could barely move. He rolled over on his stomach and put his rear end in the air until he was on his elbows and knees, resting in that position until his body accepted the idea. Then he rolled into a sitting position and pulled first one knee and then the other up to his chest several times, finally loosening the joints to the point that he was able to stand. He ate standing up and when he’d finished bent over and tried to touch his toes.

  “God, I’m stiff.”

  And why shouldn’t I be? The most exercise I’ve had in years was walking to the Salvation Army Post.

  The prospect of crossing the pond didn’t look so good in the early morning. It’s one thing to get wet just before you camp and build a fire and quite another to do it first thing in the day, knowing you’re going to walk for twelve hours. He decided to walk around the pond, struck camp, and took his first steps as the sunrise painted the top of the hills pink and blushed the sky a deeper pink beneath small cottony clouds.

  He looked back at the campsite. A fire ring was the only sign that he had been there. He was crazy to have thought he could find Herb’s trail out here in this wilderness. He’d been too long in the city and had totally forgotten how much country there was and how insignificant a man was in it. In seven days he might leave six two-foot fire rings in an area of ninety square miles. Crazy.

  Walking around the pond kept him dry but added distance. For some reason, the caribou trails converged going over a low pass and the hummocks were so beaten down by the huge herds that the morning walk was much more enjoyable.

  By noon the trail ran into a narrow lake. He could see the trail on the opposite bank and saw caribou coming out of the water with their rolling gait, shaking the water from their coats, their heads close to the ground to grab a bite as they went. He could swim the lake or walk around it. If he swam he’d need to build a fire on the other side and he wasn’t at all sure he could swim it with his pack. He decided to walk around.

  The elevation increased on the other side of the lake and the surface changed from hummocks to hard mineral soil with outcroppings of mosses and lichen, the caribou food supply. Like a giant spider web across the tundra, trails went everywhere from the top of the hill, but it was easy for him to see the direction he needed to go. He thought he could see the Philip Smith Mountains across the Chandalar River from the village, but they looked eighty to ninety miles away.

  He didn’t stop for lunch but pushed to make up for the time lost walking around the water and munched as he walked. The trail was easy, there were no bugs to bother him, and all of his joints worked well. The air was clean and energized him.

  By God it was good to be out here feeling like this. He threw his shoulders back and walked erect, head up, his eyes focused far ahead. A deep sense of being alive and enjoying the day surfaced. This was not the same Bill W
illiams who’d stepped off the plane in the village.

  By the time the light was fading, so was his energy. He stumbled over rocks and roots that protruded from the soft peat. He forced some water down, which helped for a couple of miles, but he knew his body had quit for the day. He should have been looking for a campsite before this.

  The fact was, he’d been enjoying the day and the walk so much that his thoughts weren’t on ending it but on the sheer pleasure he was getting from being alive and in the wilderness. This was where he was supposed to be, not in Anchorage. Not in a city but on the land. And gold or no gold, he was going to start a new life.

  He camped with no fire, ate sparse food and laid his pack on the other side of the small rise. There were no sticks to hold the visqueen up, so he covered himself with it, hoping the insects would be baffled.

  Without moving, Bill considered the possibilities that had awakened him. There was no wind. He couldn’t hear any sound. Yet something had startled him awake. There was some moonlight, and he rolled over on his stomach and peered into the gray night. A large dark form moved. By focusing his eyes to the side of it Bill could see it, head down, nose to the ground, not moving from that spot.

  He reached his arm across the ground searching for small rocks. The bear lifted his head.

  “Git! GIT!” He threw a rock at it. The bear hesitated.

  “Go on—GIT!” This time he grabbed the visqueen and rattled it. The bear jumped up, cleared the ground, spun around in the air, and plunged across the valley. It chose to escape along the ridge, and Bill could see it running with the moonlight shining off its fur. He came out from under the visqueen and watched until he couldn’t see the bear any longer.

  “That damn bear—he knows who’s boss.” He was still chuckling to himself when he went back to bed. He closed his eyes, but as tired as he was, he couldn’t find sleep again. Before dawn he arose. He was stiffer than he could ever remember being in his life. He lay on his back and pulled his knees up to his chin. Pain shot through his hips, knees, and ankles. He pulled his legs tight against his chest, rolled over on his stomach and arched his rear end up, then proceeded to his knees and elbows. He could picture himself getting out of a bed this way and chuckled.

  He didn’t chuckle when he tried to stand. It took him five minutes to get to his feet and start for his pack. It wasn’t over the rise where he had left it. He looked out over the tundra where bits and pieces were scattered everywhere. Nothing edible was left and the dirty clothing was shredded.

  That bear—he got even with me.

  He wished he had a fire for coffee, but that would have to wait until he got back to the village. At the end of a mile, his legs were moving at the pace he had set the previous day; at the end of two miles there was no more pain.

  When he came to the river he scouted up and down the bank looking to see if the bottom was visible. It was clear but to deep and fast to judge the depth. From the alders growing along the bank he cut a seven feet stick as thick as his wrist. Then he took off his boots and socks, put the boots back on and laced them up. Jamming the stick into the bottom upstream from him, he stepped into the shallows along the bank, The current tugging at his legs. Balancing on one foot and the pole he lifted the other foot and maneuvered it around on the bottom, found a crevice between two rocks and jammed his boot tight against the bigger one. The water rose over his knees and the next placement of the pole was deeper.

  He looked over his shoulder—he wasn’t halfway across yet. He lifted a foot. When he brought it down he was in water up to his waist. The back foot slipped, and he jammed his stick into the bottom creating a three-point stance. Cold water seeped through his clothing and around his back. His chest muscles constricted. He tried to breathe but couldn’t draw a full breath. He tightened his grip on the stick and inched one foot ahead, sliding it over several rocks until he found good footing. The water was no deeper. He anchored both feet on the bottom, lifted the stick, and jammed it upstream. It didn’t go in as far. Two more steps took him into shallow water.

  He poured the water out of his boots, opened the laces, pulled the tongues out, and propped the boots up facing the sun. It’s brightness forced his eyes closed. They felt like they had sand in them. They itched, and he rubbed them with the back of his hand. Tears ran down his cheeks. He hadn’t thought about sunglasses for years, he just got by without them. In fact, he had gotten by without a lot of things, had thought he didn’t want them, didn’t need them. Things other people had as a matter of course. A house, a car. A family, maybe. A job.

  In a patch of trees that provided firewood and tent sticks, he built a large fire. It was a white man’s fire, cooking on one side, freezing on the other, but tonight it was a great comfort and helped make up for no food and last night’s cold camp. A cool breeze rolled down the valley sweeping the mosquitoes away. It was a good camp, and Bill slept straight through until dawn, when the breeze stopped, the mosquitoes started and he had to force himself through the early stages of stiffness.

  The walk began easily enough, crossed the valley and moved through rolling hills with five and ten mile vistas. He saw no other living creature. At noon he stopped to watch five ravens swoop on an updraft, tuck their wings and dive straight for another bird, who avoided the collision at the last minute by rolling over, extending its feet, and letting out a raucous caw.

  Suddenly it was over and they flew off together disappearing over the rise. He felt a pang of loneliness. Their noise and antics had been friendly, non-threatening, and he had found himself smiling at them several times. They were part of a family, a group—apart but not alone.

  Now he kept an eye out for fresh water sources and drank as often as he could find it. Filling his belly with water dulled the hunger pangs.

  Afternoon was the toughest. The second time he stopped to rest a cramp started in his calves. He struggled to stand up; the muscle seized, and he used both hands to massage it. The muscle was hard as stone. Each stroke of his hands felt like he was pushing on a bad bruise. He managed to hobble around in a circle while his hands squeezed up and down the muscle, feeling it harden, relax, and harden again. He could not control it and there was no cry that would suffice for the pain the leg gave him. If he had a knife or saw in his hand he would cut it off. Tears came to his eyes. Shortly after wishing the leg would drop off, the muscle relaxed like a dead fish, soft and pulpy in his hands. The pain left as quickly as it had come.

  On the fifth day it occurred to him that he could drop right where he was and it wouldn’t make a difference. Nobody would care. He could stop, sit down, and never get up. He imagined how Carl and Ilene and Verda would feel when they found his remains. The thought occupied him until the light faded and he found a campsite on a mound that had a small growth of blackberries glistening in the failing sunlight. He knew the effects of eating nothing but fresh blueberries and creek water but his choices were limited. At least his stomach was full. It was now the mosquitoes turn.

  In the morning he drank some water and started toward the village. It was lighter without the pack but every joint from his feet up to his neck had been jolted, knifed, slammed, and he had fallen like a sack of flower three times. He felt like he was ninety years old. He forced the muscles to give in to his first step, then the second, and finally developed a gait that was slow and steady. At first he could think of nothing but the pain. He tried to think about something else. Verda. He would think about Verda.

  It’s been thirty years since I’ve known her. She was fifteen when I left. Now she’s forty-five—a widow. The money’s gone. We’re just running on old times’ sake. Well…list her good points and see how it works out. One: she’s slim. Two: she’s tough. Three: she has a place to live, some dogs, a house. Four: she might not even want me, who knows?

  He stumbled, then jerked up his head. He couldn’t remember the last landmark he’d memorized to guide him and stopped to look back. None of it looked familiar.

  He put the sun behind him and
picked his path. He couldn’t recall where he was with Verda’s good points. Finally he let it go. His mind went blank again, and nothing could divert him from the monotony of lifting his feet and putting them down. There was a gentle rise ahead of him, and he made a mental note to stop on it and rest. He could even lie down.

  No. Too hard to get up. I need to find some food.

  At the top of the rise he stopped, both legs wobbly with no feeling below the ankles. Putting his right arm out for balance, he touched the ground with his hand and let his body collapse. He remained in that position for a minute, trying to isolate the muscles that had to move to get into a seated position. His breathing was slow and labored. Between breaths he straightened out on the ground and lay on it like a dead man.

  “Is this the end of it?” He thought he said it out loud, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe he had only thought it.

  You have to find something to eat. Get some water. You’re not at the end of anything. Get up!

  He rolled over on his left side and propped himself on his elbows.

  Eat before you’re hungry, drink before you’re thirsty, rest before you’re tired.

  It wasn’t this hard in the war. How could we have walked that far with what we had? Well, he was nineteen then. He and Wayne had lived on D bars for several days, he could do it now on blueberries and creek water.

  He felt he was near to the village and that he could either push on or camp and finish up tomorrow. For the last several miles he hadn’t been able to trod a decent path, his upper body seemingly detached from his lower half, leaving him to wander like a drunk over a web of caribou trails.

  When he collapsed it was still daylight and he slept where he dropped. He awoke in the same position he had fallen, virtually paralyzed. For several minutes he worked to get the numbness out of each limb. He rolled to his left side and got on his hands and knees. He was unsure what else he could do and clung to that position, weaving a little. One arm supported him while he worked himself into a sitting position.