Way of the Wolf (16 page)

‘That’s not tickling, that’s assault!’

Beck chuckled, though he never took his eyes off the water.

‘. . . and then you flip it out onto the bank. And you make sure it
does
go on the bank. First time I tried it, I just managed to flip the fish further into the middle of the river.’

‘Then it told all its friends not to go anywhere near the hungry human on the bank?’

‘Exactly . . .’

Beck craned forward slowly, not wanting to disturb anything. A fish was nosing at one of the traps. The problem with this method of fishing was you didn’t get to choose what kind of fish you caught. In this case they had struck lucky – it looked like a trout. About fifteen centimetres long, brown and speckled, one big fin on its back and several smaller ones along its stomach.

The trout was cautious, but then it obviously remembered it was hungry and swam in. The funnel shape of the top half of the bottle guided it towards the worm that was trapped between the two halves. It wriggled through the gap and pounced on the worm, gulping it down in a couple of swallows. Now it was between the two halves of the bottle and its tiny fishy brain was confused. It could see light through the transparent sides, but it was in a confined space and it couldn’t quite work out how to get out again.

And then it was too late because Beck whisked the trap out of the water with his hand over the open end. He held it up triumphantly.

‘We have fish!’ He handed it to Tikaani, who took it gingerly. The trout was wriggling enough to splash water out of the trap. ‘Take it to the bank, hold it upright and
don’t
let it go.’

Tikaani had the sense to retreat a safe distance from the river. Even if he did drop the trap, the trout wouldn’t end up back in the water.

Now Beck just had to wait for a fish to swim into the second trap. It took a bit longer but eventually another fish fell for it. He wasn’t sure what kind this one was, but that didn’t matter. It was food.

He sauntered with the second trap back to where Tikaani was waiting. His friend was almost quivering with eagerness.

‘What is it? What kind of fish?’

Beck shrugged. ‘No idea.’

Tikaani looked blankly at him. ‘Supposing it’s poisonous?’ He was actually hopping about, ready to get his fish out and stuff it in his mouth. But his natural caution came first.

‘It won’t be – freshwater fish are edible.’

‘I feel like I could eat this whole!’ Tikaani said. He managed to control himself a little longer. ‘So how long now? You’re going to make a fire, I suppose, and—’

‘A fire?’ Beck asked. ‘What’s that?’

He thrust his hand into the trap and grabbed his fish by the gills. While it was still wriggling in protest, he pulled it out and dropped the trap so he could hold it firmly with the other hand too. Then he bit firmly into it, halfway along the back, severing the spine. Juices spurted into his mouth. Fresh, moist, slippery meat slithered into his mouth.

He could feel the scales rubbing off on his face. He worked his way along the fish’s back, tearing the tender meat off its fragile bones. Finally he lifted his face triumphantly to Tikaani.

His friend was staring at him with an expression of . . . horror? Fascination? Beck wasn’t sure because Tikaani came to a decision with an almost visible effort. He grabbed hold of his own fish and did exactly what Beck had done.

‘Just eat along the back,’ Beck told him. ‘And the sides, but be careful you don’t bite into the guts. You really don’t want to.’

Tikaani grunted indistinctly, his mouth full of raw fish. And that was all either of them said for the next couple of minutes as they finished off their meal.

‘
Mm!
’ Tikaani exclaimed. He dangled the chewed corpse in his hand. ‘Sushi extreme. I had no idea I could be so hungry.’

‘The problem’ – Beck picked the last few scraps off his fish’s backbone; it was a fiddly task, requiring concentration – ‘with fire . . . is’ – finally there was no more meat – ‘it dries the fish out, soaks up all the juices. This way you get the full, natural goodness. Gives you strength, gives you moisture . . .’

‘Keeps you alive,’ Tikaani agreed. He looked hopefully at the traps. ‘Any more?’

Beck laughed. ‘Yeah, easy. ’Cos if there’s one thing fish love more than a nice tasty worm, it’s the guts of their friends.’

‘Gee. I’d hate to be a fish’s enemy . . .’

The boys baited the traps with fish guts and caught two more. They ate them raw again with just as much enjoyment and energy. Then, with their hunger satisfied and a good drink inside them, they carried on along the river.

Beck had thought about whether to cross it, but decided it wasn’t necessary. Unlike the last river, it wasn’t in their way. According to the map, the river was called the Kynak. It continued to fall down from the mountains for a couple of miles, then curved sinuously across flat land. It went in roughly the direction they wanted to go and emerged into the sea very near Anakat. As a guide to navigation, it was pretty well infallible.

And so for the next couple of hours the boys went with it. They scrambled down rocky ledges and walked along gravel banks while the Kynak tumbled along next to them. Sometimes Beck felt as if the river was a third member of their group, its water scampering down rapids and exploring little rocky pools like a small child.

‘Hey, Beck.’ Tikaani stopped suddenly and crouched down. Beneath a bush was a small, groundhugging plant with oval green leaves and red berries. They were perfect little spheres that looked almost like tomatoes, but smaller. ‘Isn’t this . . . ?’

Beck grinned. His friend was turning into quite the explorer. ‘Yup, it’s lingonberries and we can eat ’em. Good work, Tikaani.’

Tikaani was already tucking in. The spirits of both boys lifted yet further. They were back in a land that could feed them.

While Tikaani was searching around for more food, Beck studied the river. The last set of rapids had been a quarter of a mile earlier. Now it had flattened out and flowed smoothly.

He pulled the map out to check. Higher up, the river had come through a cluster of contour lines that meant a sharp change in height. Up there you couldn’t walk along it for more than a hundred metres or so before hitting another set of rapids or a waterfall. But all that seemed to be behind them. As far as he could tell, the river should be level from here on. The ground would rise and fall but the river had cut its own little valley and the riverbank was littered with driftwood.

‘Hey, Tikaani,’ he called. ‘How are your feet?’

Tikaani looked sideways at him. Then he wiggled his feet experimentally, one at a time. ‘They’re a bit sore. Still got five toes each, as far as I can tell. Why?’

‘Oh,’ Beck said innocently, ‘I thought I could help them out a little . . .’

Tikaani just looked at him.

‘We’re going to make a raft,’ Beck decreed. ‘The river’s going the same way we are so why not let it take the strain?’

‘OK . . .’ Maybe Tikaani was getting used to Beck’s schemes. They were never quite what he expected but they seemed to work. ‘How?’

A good question. Beck thought, briefly and wistfully, of the raft he and his friends had built the previous year in Colombia. It had been a proper, industrial-strength, ocean-going raft that they had called the
Bella Señora
. It had been made of balsa and bamboo. They’d had all the resources of a forest and a household to call upon to make something solid and seaworthy. It had saved their lives, survived a shark attack and lasted several days at sea.

This raft wasn’t going to be quite so impressive. But it would float, which was all he could really ask of it.

‘OK.’ He gave Tikaani instructions as to what to look for. ‘We need two big pieces of wood – as straight as possible and at least this thick.’ He held his hands about half a metre apart.

‘It’s going to take a long time cutting off one of those with your knife,’ Tikaani said thoughtfully.

‘We shouldn’t need to.’ Beck looked along the banks at all the driftwood. Rivers carried all kinds of natural junk along with them. The Kynak was swelling with meltwater – but later in the season the water would be much higher. When the water level had dropped the previous winter, anything drifting in the water would have been stranded on the banks. ‘Let’s collect as much of this driftwood as we can.’

It was easier said than done to find wood that matched his specifications. There was driftwood aplenty but it was mostly not thick enough, or long enough, or both. They had to widen the search by pressing into the woods, away from the river.

Beck was awkwardly aware of passing time. They weren’t just doing this for fun, they were doing it to reach Anakat and save Uncle Al. Time spent building a raft now should save time later – but if he decided it was taking too long, they would just have to drop the idea and keep walking.

But they found the wood eventually. The two pieces were both about the right width but different lengths – one over two metres long, the other only about one and a half. They were heavy, and Tikaani and Beck had to carry the pieces between them back to the river bank.

‘These are the main floats for the raft,’ Beck explained. They put the two branches down on the ground, parallel to each other, about a metre apart. They then laid smaller driftwood branches across them at right angles. ‘These others are just for support, and to hold the deck.’

Then Beck delved into the very bottom of his rucksack and triumphantly produced more of the coiled wire he had salvaged from the plane. ‘I just knew this would come in handy!’

He used the wire to lash the bits of wood together into a wooden frame, about a metre and a half long and a metre wide.

‘And the deck?’ Tikaani asked.

‘You’re carrying it. Get the tarp out of your rucksack . . .’

They stretched the tarpaulin out over the frame and used bits of rope to lash it to the wood. Finally they stepped back and admired their work. Beck looked at it critically; Tikaani beamed with pride as if they had just built the
Queen Mary
.

Well, Beck thought, it’s not the
Bella Señora
but it will do.

Tikaani stood back to survey the raft. ‘It needs a name,’ he decided.

‘You choose,’ replied Beck.

‘OK.’ His friend thought. ‘The . . . um . . . the . . . something Alaskan. The
Walrus
? The . . .’

‘Keep thinking,’ Beck told him, and turned back towards the trees. There was one more item they needed and he had seen just the thing earlier on. It was a long branch, thin but sturdy, that he could use as a steering pole. The raft didn’t have a sail or a rudder. The current would carry it in the right direction, but they had to steer it somehow. They would have to pole along the bottom.

‘The
Orca
?’ Tikaani suggested when he got back with the length of wood. ‘The
Polar Bear
?’

‘The
Igloo
?’

‘Ha ha . . .’ Tikaani wasn’t giving up. ‘We could combine our names. The
Bekaani
.’

‘Or the
Tick
,’ Beck said with a grin.