Authors: Nick Cole
A
T FIRS
T LIGHT
he checked the river. In a pool off the main channel he spotted three trout lying in the current, close to the bottom. He watched them for a long while, listening to the constant, steady crash of the river downstream.
The backs of the trout remind him of broken green glass bottles he’d once seen in a building where he and Sergeant Presley had slept for the night. “Wine bottles” Sergeant Presley muttered simply, as an epitaph over the heap of green glass. The Boy remembered holding a piece up, examining it in the wavering light of their fire. “Careful,” Sergeant Presley had warned him. “Don’t cut yourself, Boy.”
He found a long piece of driftwood waiting on the rocks by the river, left by the springtime flooding of that year. He returned to camp with the driftwood and after inspecting Horse’s wound, which looked bad and worse now in the bright light of morning, he dug out wet grass from underneath the snowfall and laid it near Horse’s head. Horse seemed not to notice.
He laid more wood on the fire, its wetness making white smoke erupt into the cold air.
The Boy sat down next to the smoking fire with the driftwood stick lying away from his body. Taking one end of the wood, he cut long peels of bark away from himself and soon the white flesh of the wood underneath lay exposed. He fed the soft peels of wood into the fire as he continued to bring the stick to a point. In the end, it became a sharp spear.
He returned to the pool and waited. There was no sign of the broken-wine-bottle-colored trout. He sat on his haunches watching the gentle current drift along the bottom of the rock-covered pool.
Later, one of the fish entered the pool. The Boy waited, watching it move first one way and then another. He got little flashes of white from off its belly as it turned. Finding the current, the emerald-colored trout settled into it. After a moment, when the Boy knew it would be sleeping, he raised up, leaning over the pool, the spear drawn back over his good shoulder, the point just above the surface of the water.
He waited.
He felt a breath enter his lungs and as he let the air go, when there was little left in him, he plunged the spear through the surface, catching the trout in the back, just behind its head. It bent to the left, sending up a splash of water with its wide tail, and the Boy hauled it from the pool, amazed at his prize. Its rainbow-colored flanks fell away from its wine-bottle back, the white belly pure and meaty. It was a creature of beauty.
When the catch was gutted and spitted over the smoking fire, the Boy made more herb paste and applied it to Horse’s wound, wiping away the oozing pus as best he could.
He’d tried to lead Horse to the water before doing this, but the animal wouldn’t even bother to raise his head, much less stand.
“Okay, rest then,” said the Boy and heard the croak in his voice against the deafening fall of water over rock.
When the fish was cooked, he walked while eating, back to the drawing of Sergeant Presley on the cliff wall. He’d worked on it late into the night, immune to the cold. When he’d returned to the fire, he’d felt frozen. The heat stung his skin as it warmed him. He’d thought the drawing had been complete, but now looking at it in the late-morning light he could see where features would need to be added—filled in and shaded.
In the afternoon he tried to improve the shelter, but other than laying green pine branches across the top, there was little that could be done.
You’ve got to find better shelter, Boy! If this lodge was here from before the war then chances are there are others like it.
The Boy had seen many buildings from Before built in clusters; the towns they had passed through and the cities he had wanted to visit. Clusters.
In the afternoon he walked upriver with his tomahawk and knife. His withered left side felt stiff, but he concentrated on its movements, controlling it, willing his leg to step over fallen logs instead of dragging as it would’ve liked to if he’d ridden Horse for days at a time.
He heard a loud twig snap underneath his feet.
Too loud, Boy! No go.
Everything Sergeant Presley had taught him had been graded. When the time had come for the Boy to perform a task, the standard for pass or fail was always “good to go” or “no go”. He’d hated when Sergeant Presley wrenched his mouth to the side and said, “No go.”
Upstream the river began to curve to the north, winding through a series of rapids. Off to the left he could see the steep, conical mountain Escondido had warned him of, where at the top a bear made its den.
It was winter now. Bears should be asleep.
There were no other lodges, or if there had been, what remained of them could not be found.
It was hard to imagine the world as a place where people could either live in cities or in the forest. What was so special about cities?
You always wanted to go there, Boy.
I did. I wanted to know what was in them.
And . . .
What would I have been like if I had lived in one?
Standing at the bend in the river, feeling his withered leg and arm stiffen in the late-afternoon cold as the sun fell behind tall peaks to the west, he thought of people he once knew and could not remember.
They had always lived in the cold plains. His first memory was of running. Of a woman screaming. Of seeing the sky, blue and cold in one moment, and the ground, yellow stubble, race by in the next.
Sergeant Presley had rarely mentioned “your people.”
Not like in tents, not like your people.
All gone over to animals, not like your people.
They don’t ride horses, like your people do.
T
HAT NIGHT THE
temperature dropped and the snow came down in hard clumps without end. He lay next to Horse, who moved little and whose breathing was shallow. At one point, the Boy was so cold he thought he should surely die.
When he awoke in the morning everything was covered in snow.
T
HE BEST TIME
to do something about a thing is to do it now, Boy!
We won’t last out here another night.
When Horse opened his eyes they fluttered.
You won’t make it out here like this, will you, Horse?
He laid his hand on Horse’s belly, feeling the heat both comforting and sickening at once.
He knew what he had to do. He had known it in the freezing night when the snow had stopped falling and the wind rushed through the pines, seeming to make things even colder than when the snow had fallen. Even the sound of the icy water falling along the rapids seemed to make the world colder.
The Boy had known in the night what he must do.
He’d waited for Sergeant Presley to tell him not to do it.
You would say, he thought aloud, pretending to be Sergeant Presley’s voice. You would say it was fool’s business. That’s what you would say.
He waited, listening to the rush of the water in the river.
He looked upriver, his eyes falling on the small, steep, conical mountain.
You would say that.
Ain’t nothin’ but a thang, Boy. Mind over matter. You don’t mind, it don’t matter.
You would say that also.
You got to kill that bear, Boy. No two ways about it.
T
HAT MORNING HE
collected three long poles of fresh wood that wouldn’t snap. Working with his knife he sharpened the ends into stakes, hardening them in the fire until the tips were black.
By noon he’d fed Horse, who ate little of the fire-dried grass the Boy had placed before him. He sat by the fire putting a fresh edge on the steel tomahawk Sergeant Presley had given him. Its bright finish was a thing made in the past, never to be seen again. Often, when they had encountered strangers, he’d seen their eyes fall to it, wanting it for their own.
Laying aside the sharpened tomahawk, he gave the knife an edge. They’d made these knives at the Cotter family forge. Sergeant Presley’s knife lay wrapped within a bundle the Boy had carried away from the grave on the side of the road surrounded by the wild corn that had seemed to grow everywhere; a bundle the Boy had no desire to open.
You might need it for this one, Boy.
But the Boy couldn’t see what an extra knife might do for him. He knew if his plan was a “no go” and he found himself down to his own knife, there wouldn’t be much hope left in an extra knife.
That’s right Boy, work smarter, not harder. Knife work is hard work.
Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that.
The last thing the Boy would need for his plan would be what was left of the precious parachute cord. There was less than thirty feet of it now. As a child, the Boy had always been fascinated by the large coil; amazed at it, as he always was of the things from Before. There had been so much of the parachute cord, it had once seemed endless, always coiled about Sergeant Presley’s shoulder to hip as they walked. One time Sergeant Presley had even made a knotted section of it for him to play with, muttering, “Merry Christmas,” as he’d handed it to the Boy on that long-ago winter day. Years passed, and traps and snares and other bits that could no longer be salvaged had reduced the large coil to less than thirty feet.
The Boy withdrew the last of it from his pack.
I don’t want to use even this, but if I have to I will.
He thought of the bear.
He’d seen bears killed. The Cotter family hunted them for sport and meat. He’d followed one hunting party and watched them run down a small, fast black bear that was more interested in getting away than fighting. In the end, it had played dead until they’d put a bolt under its left shoulder blade.
They had seen big bears in the Rockies. Most of them had kept their distance, or charged, only to veer off. Horse was good for scaring things away. Once Horse went up on his hind legs, most animals knew he wasn’t interested in running.
He looked at Horse.
Are you dying too? Like Sergeant Presley?
He patted the big brown belly; Horse stirred only slightly.
“I’m going to clear out a place for us to hole up in through the rest of winter.” Then, “I’ll be back.”
He went down to the river and speared another of the broken-wine-bottle trout. Gutting and filleting the trout, he laid its body out on planks of charred wood over the embers of the fire.
After eating the fish he collected his gear, shouldering the three heavy poles and placing the thin coil of rope over his head to hang down from his neck.
Everything was moving too fast.
He could feel the tomahawk hanging from his belt, the knife in its sheath at his back.
What am I missing?
Mind over matter, Boy.
You don’t mind, it don’t matter.
H
E CLIMBED THE
conical hill, hauling himself up its snow-covered granite ledges. He avoided any pines that grew out of the rock, knowing them to be untrustworthy because of the shallow soil they grew in.
He found the cave just underneath the top of the hill. It would be a useless exercise if the cave was too low for Horse to squeeze into. What would be the use of dislodging the bear only to find his shelter too small? But the cave was like a wide frown on a mouth. It was tall enough at its highest point for Horse. Getting him up here would be another story—collecting wood also.
It’s not ideal, but it’s all I have.
You’re assuming victory, Boy. First you got to kill that bear. But it’s good you’re thinkin’ about tomorrow all the same.
A wide, flat ledge lay before the opening and below that, a sheer drop to the river below. He set the poles down, laying them gently in a crevice running through the cold gray granite. The poles came together, echoing, and the Boy waited, unsure what he would do if the Bear were suddenly to appear.
I’ll attack him.
That would be bad, Boy.
But what else was there to do? If he chases me I won’t get away. If I attack, maybe he’ll run.
In the moment that followed, the Boy could hear only the distant sound of the river below.
On a thick tree, stunted and growing out of the rock, he could see the deep indentations of the bear’s claw marks.
What do you know about your enemy, Boy?
It’s a bear.
A sow.
Cubs two years back, which means they’ve left.
I don’t know if it’s a grizzly or one of the browns, which are the worst. Too bad it’s not one of the black ones.
And you would ask me about the battlefield. That’s what you would ask me next, Sergeant Presley.
Where you gonna fight, Boy?
He looked at the flat ledge. It wasn’t more than twenty feet wide and as much across.
I could make a trap, but I don’t know where. I’d have to get her down the hill and chasing me.
Deadfalls are the best, Boy.
To do that, I’ll have to get her down the side of the mountain and into the forest. Even then, the ground is frozen. It would take me a day or two to make a pit. One more night like the last and we won’t make it.
So it’s the ledge then, Boy.
I go in hard with a spear. If she’s asleep I put one into her. I back up, grab another and put it in. By the time I get to the third . . .
You’ll be at the edge of the cliff. That drop’ll do the job, Boy.
She’ll have to have a reason to go over.
If you’ve put three spears into her, Boy, you’ll be the reason. All she can think of at that point is wanting you dead and then going back to sleep.
Here’s what you do, you anchor the parachute cord and tie it about your waist, Boy. Wait until the last second and she’ll follow you over.
Numbly he took the coil of rope off his neck. His heart was beating quickly.
He told himself to calm down. To stop.
Just do this. Don’t think too much about it.
He crept toward the frowning entrance of the cave. There was a short drop inside. On the floor below, he could see a shapeless mass in the dark. The cave smelled of animals. He listened. He heard nothing. He waited, watching the shapeless mass. His vision narrowed as he stared hard, willing the details to be revealed.
He blinked and looked away as his vision began to close to a pinpoint. His heart was pounding in his ears.
Stop.
He crawled back out onto the ledge.
The drop was a good two hundred feet into the rapids.
I’m not really going to do this, am I?
Mind over matter, Boy.
He played the rope out, tying it about his waist.
They don’t make this stuff anymore. Airborne Ranger gear, Boy. Best ever.
You’d said that, every time you brought it out, Sergeant. Every time we made a trap or a snare, you said that.
I was proud of what had once been. Proud that someone had made parachute cord. I had no right to be, Boy. But I was proud all the same.
The Boy searched the underside of the ledge.
A few feet below the edge and off to the side, a rugged little pine jutted out from the rock wall.
It’s all I have.
To the west, large clouds, gray and full, rolled across the high peaks.
More snow tonight.
It will be very cold.
He climbed down the cliff face.
He loved to climb.
For a boy that had been born crippled and could not run as others did, climbing was an activity where the playing field leveled.
He had always climbed.
The Boy clung to the side of the rock wall. He spent more rope than he would have liked securing it to the pine. But he had to.
When he’d climbed back onto the ledge his muscles were shaking.
I need water and I’ve forgotten to bring the bag.
What else am I forgetting?
He felt fear rise again as he cupped a handful of snow and put it in his mouth.
In just a moment I’ll have to do this.
Stop.
Mind over matter, Boy.
I don’t mind. It won’t matter.
That’s right, Boy. That’s good.
A strong wind came off the mountain peaks above and whipped long hair into his green eyes.
He brushed it away.
What else am I forgetting?
When he picked up the first pole it felt too light.
It felt hollow like he could break it across his knee.
He laid it down just in front of the cliff’s edge, pointing toward the frowning mouth of the cave.
The second pole felt heavier. He placed it at the entrance.
When he went back for the third, it felt lighter than the second and he switched it out. I’ll want the heaviest one first, he thought.
Crouching low and entering the cave, he felt the rope pull taut at his waist.
It won’t reach. I won’t be able to get close enough to make the most of the spear.
He undid the rope about his waist and changed to a slipknot.
This is how it works, he told himself.
Change of plans,
he’d heard Sergeant Presley say.
Change of plans.
He laid the loop of rope at the base of the second pole.
When you fall back to this position, you slip the rope around your right wrist, Boy.
What about the left?
I can’t trust that side.
What else am I forgetting?
Stop, he told his heart.
Stop.
He crept into the cave, the tip of the spear dead center on the sleeping mass.
There was a moment.
A moment to think and to have thought too much.
He felt it coming. He’d known it before at other times and knew it was best to stay ahead of such moments.
He drove the spear hard into the mass.
An instant later it was wrenched out of his hands as the bear turned over. He heard a dry snap of wood echo off the roof of the cave as he retreated back toward the entrance.
For a moment, the Boy took his eyes off the bear as he slipped the loop about his wrist and grabbed the spear, making sure to keep the trailing end of the parachute cord away from the end of the pole.
In that moment he could hear the roar of the bear. It filled the cave, and beneath the roar he could hear her claws clicking against the stone floor as she scrambled up toward him.
When he looked up, following the blackened tip of the spear, he found the grizzly’s head, squat, flat, almost low beneath the main bulk of her body. She roared again, gnashing a full row of yellowed fangs.
He jabbed the spear into her face and felt the weapon go wide, glancing off bone.
He backed up a few steps and planted the butt of the long pole in the ground.
The grizzly, brown, shaggy, angry, lurched out onto the ledge. It rose up on its hind legs and the Boy saw that it might, if it came forward just a bit, impale itself on the pole if it attacked him directly. He adjusted the pole right underneath the heart of the raging bear.
The bear made a wide swipe with its paw smashing the pole three quarters of the way to the top.
In the same instant that the pole was wrenched from the Boy’s grip, and as if the moment had caused an intensity of awareness, he felt the slipknot, its mouth still wide, float from off his wrist.
Stick to the plan, Boy! You can’t change it now.
He’d heard that before.
His back foot, his good leg, planted at the edge of the cliff, the Boy raised the final pole.
The bear on hind legs wallowed forward.
The Boy checked to make sure the parachute cord was really gone.
It was.
The moment that hung between the Boy and the bear was brief and startlingly clear. To have questioned what must be done next would have been lethal to either.
The Boy loped forward and rammed the pole straight up and into the chest of the bear.
There is no other way but this, he thought in that moment of running.
No other way but this.
He felt the furry chest of the bear meet his grip on the pole.
He pushed hard and felt the arms of the bear on his shoulders. He felt a hot breathy roar turn to a whisper above the top of his head.
His arms were shaking.
His eyes were closed.
He was still alive.
He backed away from the belly of the bear, letting go of the pole as the bear fell off to one side.
He was covered in a thick, cold sweat.
There was no other way.