Never Say Die (10 page)

There were breaks here and there in the walls of the shallow canyon. Not very far ahead, a slot between the cliffs would make it easy for me to get down to the water. Directly across, fifty-foot high cliffs rose from the river, but those cliffs ended in fewer than a hundred yards. The riverbank was grassy there, easy to climb out on.

What about the river—was it swimmable? Its deep, dark green water was more roily than I would have liked, stirred up from falling through the rapid, but the Firth wasn't very wide here, less than a hundred feet across. The day was warm and sunny. If I swam arm over arm, I wouldn't be in the water very long.

This is crazy, I told myself. Not really, I answered back, not if you swim it fast enough. It's the amount of time you're in the water that makes it deadly. It's not that far across, and the river is running as low as it's going to get. The day is hot and sunny.

Fish or cut bait
, I told myself. After studying the water one more time, I tightened the cinches of my life jacket and dove in.

E
xpecting the shock of the freezing water and the numbness that followed within seconds, I wasn't as frightened this time. Crossing the seam between the slower water and the fast, I swam hard to maintain a forty-five-degree angle to the current.

It turned into more of a battle than I thought I was in for. A boil of water got hold of me and I lost my angle. I found myself headed directly downstream.

Now I was frightened. No turning back, I told myself. I got my bearings, got my angle back again, and swam harder than before, across the major current and across the seam into the slower water along the eastern shore.

I could still work my fingers when I got out at the foot of the grassy slope. I'd only been in the water a couple of minutes and I wasn't hypothermic, not that I wasn't feeling the chill. My heart was hammering as I climbed that grassy slope, sucking wind as I came over the top.

No more than fifty feet away, my brother was about to pass by. I barely had the breath left to call his name. “Ryan,” I panted.

His head jerked in my direction. At first my brother was startled, like he was seeing a ghost. The emotions flooding his face, in his eyes, defy description. Disbelief and joy were battling it out, and joy was winning.

Then he broke up, really lost it. Broke down and cried. The grief he'd been feeling, I guess, was finding its way out.

We met in a bear hug, bumping our bulky life jackets, me dripping wet. He looked haggard as could be. I'm sure I didn't look so good myself—sunburned, bug-bitten, half-starved.

Ryan's sunburn was worse than mine, but his lips were okay and he didn't have very many bites. “Why are you all wet, little brother?”

“I was on the other side of the river—just swam across. Man, it's good to see you! I was worried out of my skull!”

“Same here! What a mix-up! I swam to your side much sooner than I expected I'd be able to, and you swam to my side. All this time I've been looking for you on this side. I was afraid you'd been mauled by a bear, killed by a bear!”

I was so pumped up with adrenaline and so relieved, I felt giddy. “Did you see a bear?” I asked with a straight face, like Jonah would do.

“See a bear … there's a stretch back there that's lousy with bears—huge grizzlies!”

“Lousy with bears? You sure?”

“You didn't see them?”

I broke out in a smile. “Just kidding. I saw lots of bears, and the dead caribou they were gorging on.”

“Why'd you cross over?”

“It wasn't on purpose. I made the mistake of surprising a grizzly on a carcass, real close-up. When he charged, it wasn't a bluff. The river was my only chance to get away.”

“Good grief. And I told you there's never been a mauling on the Firth River. You would've been the first.”

“For sure. How 'bout you, Ryan? Did you get charged?”

“Twice, from about a hundred feet. Both times the grizzly pulled up right in front of me. Stood up, roared at me, then hustled back to the carcass it had staked out.”

“Was it scary, big brother?”

“Scary? On the one-to-ten pucker scale, it was a nineteen. Even if I had my pepper spray, it would've been a nineteen. But you don't sound like you were scared.”

“I wasn't scared. Terrified, was more like it. I counted eleven bears. How about you?”

“Fourteen! Thank God we're both alive and intact!”

I couldn't resist. “If you'd had my rifle, would you have used it?”

“No, but the whole time I was wishing I had let you bring it—for your own protection.”

“That's okay. I wouldn't have fired it anyway.”

“Really?”

“It would have been on the raft.”

“Hmmm, you're right about that.”

Ryan had me tell the rest of my story, then he told me more of his. Shortly after swimming to “my side” of the river, he heard the awful sound of bears in combat. When he worked his way close enough to get a look, he saw a mother grizzly battling to protect her cubs from a big male. The boar had already driven her off a carcass, and now he was after her cubs. She gave more than she got, and was able to escape with both cubs.

After seeing those first four bears, Ryan took a detour away from the river. He was afraid to stick close to the river, where he might run into more grizzlies on more drowned caribou. When he returned to the river a couple of hours downstream, he searched half a day without even finding a footprint. “By then,” Ryan said, “I'd gotten to thinking you were back upstream in that lousy-with-bears stretch, and had gotten mauled or killed or worse.”

“Worse?” I asked with a grin.

“Eaten, maybe?”

“I guess that would be worse. Then what did you do?”

“Went back upriver and searched that whole section. That's when I discovered that dozens and dozens of bull caribou had drowned.”

“Let me get this straight … every time you spotted a grizzly, you had to get close enough to see what it was eating on—that it wasn't me?”

“Soon as I saw the carcass had antlers, I was out of there.”

“Still, that was crazy to keep looking.”

“Hey, you're my brother.”

I didn't know what to say about that, but I took it in, and it went deep. Would I have done the same?

“The pictures I could have taken, Nick! I could run this river a hundred times—or walk it—and never see the like.”

I told Ryan that the mother grizzly with first-year cubs I had seen on a carcass was probably the same one he'd seen in battle with that big male later on. How much later, we would never know. On our separate sides of the river, both of us had slowed down for a couple of days trying to figure out where the other was. Then both of us, around the same time, decided to give it up and head for the coast.

Ryan said, “Have you found anything to eat since that char?”

“Not a thing.”

“The way you caught it … was that something you learned from your grandfather?”

“No, from an episode of
Man vs. Wild
.”

He thought that was really funny. Seeing him laugh, I did too. Laughter was such a relief. Ryan said he wasn't sure I had heard him when he was shouting across the river just after the accident. He was trying to say how sorry he was about what happened. “I can't explain it,” he said. “You heard Red Wiley, and I heard the same thing back at the park office: June fifteenth has always been the starting date for rafting on the Firth River. The winter ice is always gone by then. Maybe it had to do with extreme weather brought about by climate change. More snow than usual in that location, then a cooler spring?”

He noticed I was studying him closely.

“Don't get me wrong, Nick—that's no excuse. A boatman should never assume what's around the bend, even if he knows the river like the back of his hand. In the Grand Canyon, a debris flow down a side canyon can create a major rapid overnight. In forested country, trees might be blocking the river. This was driver error—all my fault. I could have got to shore in time if I hadn't turned my back to the river for the sake of a few photos of a swimming grizzly. Stupid, stupid, stupid—I won't call it an accident.”

He's honest, I thought. That counts for a lot.

“I could've got us both killed.”

“Close call, for sure.”

“If only one of us had lived, and it was me, I would've never forgiven myself. I hope you'll forgive me.”

“Done, Brother.”

He reached out and clapped my shoulder. “Thanks—that's huge.”

“L
et's go find our groceries,” my brother said, and we headed downriver in search of the raft. Even if we didn't find it, I wasn't alone anymore, and not nearly as scared.

The walking would have been easy here, on the flats between the river and the foot of the mountains, if I wasn't so weak. Hunger was gnawing at my insides, and I was starting to go light-headed.

I was watching for animals. With trees so scarce this close to the ocean, they had no place to hide.
Open up your eyes
, I told myself. You're a hunter, bred to the bone, and you're in the middle of that “hunter's paradise” of Jonah's. Find the caribou first, then worry how you're going to get one.

The only animals I managed to spot were Dall sheep, so high up and so far away, they looked like tiny white dots.

Another day done. With the midnight sun low in the valley ahead, Ryan said, “Let's rest for a while.” I got down on the tundra, and it was lights-out within seconds. Four hours later I woke to Ryan chewing on a stem of cotton grass. I thought about asking if that did anything for his hunger, but I already knew the answer. Instead I asked if he'd gotten any sleep. He shook his head. I notched Day 7 on my knife sheath. We started out again.

Around nine in the morning I noticed a golden eagle flying a big circle above our side of the river. A short while later I spied a caribou with a calf on the flats about a quarter of a mile ahead of us.

As we got a little closer I noticed that the calf wasn't eating any grass, just nursing. Most calves are born right around June 1. This calf should be grazing by now, and it looked small, much too small, for June 21. This one was still wearing its reddish-brown birth coat. It might only be one week old.

This calf must have been born here in the Firth River country. The calf's mother was a straggler who hadn't been able to keep up with the other cows as they migrated north to the calving grounds on the coastal plain. Jonah always said that without “safety in numbers” going for them, stragglers don't stand much of a chance.

All these things were going through my mind as I watched the caribou and her calf and the golden eagle. That eagle was circling a little lower. It wouldn't be long before the eagle made its move.

I was preparing to make mine. I told Ryan to hang back, that I was going to pick up the pace and try to get closer to the caribou. He looked quizzical but said, “Go for it.”

I hurried forward, then slowed down as the eagle swung around. It flew another circle and I had time to get closer yet, to the cover of a lone spruce tree, without the caribou getting on to me. I kept my eye on the eagle.

The eagle descended into its strafing run. Like Red Wiley coming in for a landing, the great bird had its flaps down.

That golden eagle raked the back of the calf before the mother ever saw it coming. In the moment the calf cried out, I was tempted to start my own run but held off.

The calf was still on its feet, blood streaming from the open wounds along its back. The eagle beat its wings, gaining altitude for another pass.

At a week old, the calf was too big for the eagle to lift. The eagle was about to circle around and make another strike that would bring the calf down. I figured I should keep still. If I ran from cover now, it would be a mistake. Despite the loss of blood, the calf would probably outrun me.

The great bird wheeled around and dropped into its second strafing run. The desperate mother didn't know what was wrong with her bawling calf. By the time she spotted the approaching eagle, it was too late. Those slicing talons raked the calf's back again. I broke into a run as the eagle landed a short distance from the two caribou.

The bird ran and hopped toward the calf. The mother caribou came between them. She had dropped her antlers after calving, but her hooves were lethal weapons. As I closed in, I drew my hunting knife.

The mother caribou saw me for the first time, and she was in a quandary. She was successfully facing off the eagle, but now she had me to deal with. She bolted. Her calf, blood streaming down its sides, ran after her.

The eagle hissed at me. I threw up my arms, screamed and yelled, and the bird ran off, beating its wings until it was airborne. I chased the calf, wishing it didn't have this much strength left. Before long I ran it down. I ended its terror with my knife across its throat.