Hatchet br-1

by Gary Paulsen

  Which home? The father home or the mother home. He stopped the thinking. It didn't matter. Either on to his dad or back to his mother. Either way he would probably be home by late night or early morning, home where he could sit down and eat a large, cheesy, juicy burger with tomatoes and double fries with ketchup and a thick chocolate shake.

  And there came hunger.

  Brian rubbed his stomach. The hunger had been there but something else — fear, pain — had held it down. Now, with the thought of the burger, the emptiness roared at him. He could not believe the hunger, had never felt it this way. The lake water had filled his stomach but left it hungry, and now it demanded food, screamed for food.

  And there was, he thought, absolutely nothing to eat.

  Nothing.

  What did they do in the movies when they got stranded like this? Oh, yes, the hero usually found some kind of plant that he knew was good to eat and that took care of it. Just ate the plant until he was full or used some kind of cute trap to catch an animal and cook it over a slick little fire and pretty soon he had a full eight-course meal.

  The trouble, Brian thought, looking around, was that all he could see was grass and brush. There was nothing obvious to eat and aside from about a million birds and the beaver he hadn't seen animals to trap and cook, and even if he got one somehow he didn't have any matches so he couldn't have a fire…

  Nothing.

  It kept coming back to that. He had nothing.

  Well, almost nothing. As a matter of fact, he thought, I don't know what I've got or haven't got. Maybe I should try and figure out just how I stand. It will give me something to do — keep me from thinking of food. Until they come to find me.

  Brian had once had an English teacher, a guy named Perpich, who was always talking about being positive, thinking positive, staying on top of things. That's how Perpich had put it — stay positive and stay on top of things. Brian thought of him now — wondered how to stay positive and stay on top of this. All Perpich would say is that I have to get motivated. He was always telling kids to get motivated.

  Brian changed position so he was sitting on his knees. He reached into his pockets and took out everything he had and laid it on the grass in front of him.

  It was pitiful enough. A quarter, three dimes, a nickel, and two pennies. A fingernail clipper. A billfold with a twenty dollar bill—"In case you get stranded at the airport in some small town and have to buy food," his mother had said — and some odd pieces of paper.

  And on his belt, somehow still there, the hatchet his mother had given him. He had forgotten it and now reached around and took it out and put it in the grass. There was a touch of rust already forming on the cutting edge of the blade and he rubbed it off with his thumb.

  That was it.

  He frowned. No, wait — if he was going to play the game, might as well play it right. Perpich would tell him to quit messing around. Get motivated. Look at all of it, Robeson.

  He had on a pair of good tennis shoes, now almost dry. And socks. And jeans and underwear and a thin leather belt and a T-shirt with a windbreaker so torn it hung on him in tatters.

  And a watch. He had a digital watch still on his wrist but it was broken from the crash — the little screen blank — and he took it off and almost threw it away but stopped the hand motion and lay the watch on the grass with the rest of it.

  There. That was it.

  No, wait. One other thing. Those were all the things he had, but he also had himself. Perpich used to drum that into them—"You are your most valuable asset. Don't forget that. You are the best thing you have."

  Brian looked around again. I wish you were here, Perpich. I'm hungry and I'd trade everything I have for a hamburger.

  "I'm hungry." He said it aloud. In normal tones at first, then louder and louder until he was yelling it. "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry!"

  When he stopped there was sudden silence, not just from him but the clicks and blurps and bird sounds of the forest as well. The noise of his voice had startled everything and it was quiet. He looked around, listened with his mouth open, and realized that in all his life he had never heard silence before. Complete silence.. There had always been some sound, some kind of sound.

  It lasted only a few seconds, but it was so intense that it seemed to become part of him. Nothing.

  There was no sound. Then the bird started again, and some kind of buzzing insect, and then a chattering and a cawing, and soon there was the same background of sound.

  Which left him still hungry.

  Of course, he thought, putting the coins and the rest back in his pocket and the hatchet in his belt — of course if they come tonight or even if they take as long as tomorrow the hunger is no big thing, People have gone for many days without food as long as they've got water. Even if they don't come until late tomorrow I'll be all right. Lose a little weight, maybe, but the first hamburger and a malt and fries will bring it right back.

  A mental picture of a hamburger, the way they showed it in the television commercials, thundered into his thoughts. Rich colors, the meat juicy and hot…

  He pushed the picture away. So even if they didn't find him until tomorrow, he thought, he would be all right. He had plenty of water, although he wasn't sure if it was good and clean or not.

  He sat again by the tree, his back against it. There was a thing bothering him. He wasn't quite sure what it was but it kept chewing at the edge of his thoughts. Something about the plane and the pilot that would change things…

  Ahh, there it was — the moment when the pilot had his heart attack his right foot had jerked down on the rudder pedal and the plane had slewed sideways. What did that mean? Why did that keep coming into his thinking that way, nudging and pushing?

  It means, a voice in his thoughts said, that they might not be coming for you tonight or even tomorrow. When the pilot pushed the rudder pedal the plane had jerked to the side and assumed a new course. Brian could not remember how much it had pulled around, but it wouldn't have had to be much because after that, with the pilot dead, Brian had flown for hour after hour on the new course.

  Well away from the flight plan the pilot had filed. Many hours, at maybe 160 miles an hour. Even if it was only a little off course, with that speed and time Brian might now be sitting several hundred miles off to the side of the recorded flight plan.

  And they would probably search most heavily at first along the flight plan course. They might go out to the side a little, but he could easily be three, four hundred miles to the side. He could not know, could not think of how far he might have flown wrong because he didn't know the original course and didn't know how much they had pulled sideways.

  Quite a bit — that's how he remembered it. Quite a jerk to the side. It pulled his head over sharply when the plane had swung around.

  They might not find him for two or three days.

  He felt his heartbeat increase as the fear started. The thought was there but he fought it down for a time, pushed it away, then it exploded out.

  They might not find him for a long time.

  And the next thought was there as well, that they might never find him, but that was panic and he fought it down and tried to stay positive. They searched hard when a plane went down, they used many men and planes and they would go to the side, they would know he was off from the flight path, he had talked to the man on the radio, they would somehow know…

  It would be all right.

  They would find him. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Soon. Soon.

  They would find him soon.

  Gradually, like sloshing oil his thoughts settled back and the panic was gone. Say they didn't come for two days — no, say they didn't come for three days, even push that to four days — he could live with that. He would have to live with that. He didn't want to think of them taking longer. But say four days. He had to do something. He couldn't just sit at the bottom of this tree and stare down at the lake for four days.

  And nights. He was in
deep woods and didn't have any matches, couldn't make a fire. There were large things in the woods. There were wolves, he thought, and bears — other things. In the dark he would be in the open here, just sitting at the bottom of a tree.

  He looked around suddenly, felt the hair on the back of his neck go up. Things might be looking at him right now, waiting for him — waiting for dark so they could move in and take him.

  He fingered the hatchet at his belt. It was the only weapon he had, but it was something.

  He had to have some kind of shelter. No, make that more: He had to have some kind of shelter and he had to have something to eat.

  He pulled himself to his feet and jerked the back of his shirt down before the mosquitoes could get at it. He had to do something to help himself.

  I have to get motivated, he thought, remembering Perpich. Right now I'm all I've got. I have to do something.

  6

  TWOYEARS before he and Terry had been fooling around down near the park, where the city seemed to end for a time and the trees grew thick and came down to the small river that went through the park. It was thick there and seemed kind of wild, and they had been joking and making things up and they pretended that they were lost in the woods and talked in the afternoon about what they would do. Of course they figured they'd have all sorts of goodies like a gun and a knife and fishing gear and matches so they could hunt and fish and have a fire.

  I wish you were here, Terry, he thought. With a gun and a knife and some matches…

  In the park that time they had decided the best shelter was a lean-to and Brian set out now to make one up. Maybe cover it with grass or leaves or sticks, he thought, and he started to go down to the lake again, where there were some willows he could cut down for braces. But it struck him that he ought to find a good place for the lean-to and so he decided to look around first. He wanted to stay near the lake because he thought the plane, even deep in the water, might show up to somebody flying over and he didn't want to diminish any chance he might have of being found.

  His eyes fell upon the stone ridge to his left and he thought at first he should build his shelter against the stone. But before that he decided to check out the far side of the ridge and that was where he got lucky.

  Using the sun and the fact that it rose in the east and set in the west, he decided that the far side was the northern side of the ridge. At one time in the far past it had been scooped by something, probably a glacier, and this scooping had left a kind of sideways bowl, back in under a ledge. It wasn't very deep, not a cave, but it was smooth and made a perfect roof and he could almost stand in under the ledge. He had to hold his head slightly tipped forward at the front to keep it from hitting die top. Some of the rock that had been scooped out had also been pulverized by the glacial action, turned into sand, and now made a small sand beach that went down to the edge of the water in front and to the right of the overhang.

  It was his first good luck.

  No, he thought. He had good luck in the landing. But this was good luck as well, luck he needed.

  All he had to do was wall off part of the bowl and leave an opening as a doorway and he would have a perfect shelter — much stronger than a lean-to and dry because the overhang made a watertight roof.

  He crawled back in, under die ledge, and sat. The sand was cool here in the shade, and die coolness felt wonderful to his face, which was already starting to blister and get especially painful on his forehead, with the blisters on top of the swelling.

  He was also still weak. Just die walk around the back of the ridge and the slight climb over the top had left his legs rubbery. It felt good to sit for a bit under die shade of the overhang in the cool sand.

  And now, he thought, if I just had something to eat.

  Anything.

  When he had rested a bit he went back down to the lake and drank a couple of swallows of water. He wasn't all that thirsty but he thought the water might help to take the edge off his hunger. It didn't.

  Somehow the cold lake water actually made it worse, sharpened it.

  He thought of dragging in wood to make a wall on part of the overhang, and picked up one piece to pull up, but his arms were too weak and he knew then that it wasn't just the crash and injury to his body and head, it was also that he was weak from hunger.

  He would have to find something to eat. Before he did anything else he would have to have something to eat.

  But what?

  Brian leaned against the rock and stared out at the lake. What, in all of this, was there to eat? He was so used to having food just be there, just always being there. When he was hungry he went to the icebox, or to die store, or sat down at a meal his mother cooked.

  Oh, he thought, remembering a meal now — oh. It was the last Thanksgiving, last year, die last Thanksgiving they had as a family before his mother demanded the divorce and his father moved out in the following January. Brian already knew the Secret but did not know it would cause them to break up and thought it might work out, the Secret that his father still did not know but that he would try to tell him. When he saw him.

  The meal had been turkey and they cooked it in the back yard in the barbecue over charcoal with the lid down tight. His father had put hickory chips on the charcoal and the smell of the cooking turkey and the hickory smoke had filled the yard. When his father took the lid off, smiling, the smell that had come out was unbelievable, and when they sat to eat the meat was wet with juice and rich and had the taste of the smoke in it…

  He had to stop this. His mouth was full of saliva and his stomach was twisting and growling.

  What was there to eat?

  What had he read or seen that told him about food in die wilderness? Hadn't there been something? A show, yes, a show on television about air force pilots and some kind of course they took. A survival course. All right, he had die show coming into his thoughts now. The pilots had to live in the desert. They put them in die desert down in Arizona or someplace and they had to live for a week. They had to find food and water for a week.

  For water they had made a sheet of plastic into a dew-gathering device and for food they ate lizards.

  That was it. Of course Brian had lots of water and there weren't too many lizards in die Canadian woods, that he knew. One of the pilots had used a watch crystal as a magnifying glass to focus the sun and start a fire so they didn't have to eat the lizards raw. But Brian had a digital watch, without a crystal, broken at that. So die show didn't help him much.

  Wait, there was one thing. One of the pilots, a woman, had found some kind of beans on a bush and she had used them with her lizard meat to make a little stew in a tin can she had found. Bean lizard stew. There weren't any beans here, but there must be berries. There had to be berry bushes around. Sure, the woods were full of berry bushes. That's what everybody always said. Well, he'd actually never heard anybody say it. But he felt that it should be true.

  There must be berry bushes.

  He stood and moved out into the sand and looked up at the sun. It was still high. He didn't know what time it must be. At home it would be one or two if the sun were that high. At home at one or two his mother would be putting away the lunch dishes and getting ready for her exercise class. No, that would have been yesterday. Today she would be going to see him. Today was Thursday and she always went to see him on Thursdays. Wednesday was the exercise class and Thursdays she went to see him. Hot little jets of hate worked into his thoughts, pushed once, moved back. If his mother hadn't begun to see him and forced the divorce, Brian wouldn't be here now.

  He shook his head. Had to stop that kind of thinking. The sun was still high and that meant that he had some time before darkness to find berries. He didn't want to be away from his — he almost thought of it as home — shelter when it came to be dark.

  He didn't want to be anywhere in the woods when it came to be dark. And he didn't want to get lost — which was a real problem. AU he knew in the world was the lake in front of him and the hill at his
back and the ridge — if he lost sight of them there was a really good chance that he would get turned around and not find his way back.

  So he had to look for berry bushes, but keep the lake or the rock ridge in sight at all times.

  He looked up the lake shore, to the north. For a good distance, perhaps two hundred yards, it was fairly clear. There were tall pines, the kind with no limbs until very close to the top, with a gentle breeze sighing in them, but not too much low brush. Two hundred yards up there seemed to be a belt of thick, lower brush starting — about ten or twelve feet high — and that formed a wall he could not see through. It seemed to go on around the lake, thick and lustily green, but he could not be sure.

  If there were berries they would be in that brush, he felt, and as long as he stayed close to the lake, so he could keep the water on his right and know it was there, he wouldn't get lost. When he was done or found berries, he thought, he would just turn around so the water was on his left and walk back until he came to the ridge and his shelter.

  Simple. Keep it simple. I am Brian Robeson. I have been in a plane crash. I am going to find some food. I am going to find berries.

  He walked slowly — still a bit pained in his joints and weak from hunger — up along the side of the lake. The trees were full of birds singing ahead of him in the sun. Some he knew, some he didn't. He saw a robin, and some kind of sparrows, and a flock of reddish orange birds with thick beaks. Twenty or thirty of them were sitting in one of the pines. They made much noise and flew away ahead of him when he walked under the tree. He watched them fly, their color a bright slash in solid green, and in this way he found the berries. The birds landed in some taller willow type of undergrowth with wide leaves and started jumping and making noise. At first he was too far away to see what they were doing, but their color drew him and he moved toward them, keeping the lake in sight on his right, and when he got closer he saw they were eating berries.

  He could not believe it was that easy. It was as if the birds had taken him right to the berries. The slender branches went up about twenty feet and were heavy, drooping with clusters of bright red berries. They were half as big as grapes but hung in bunches much like grapes and when Brian saw them, glistening red in the sunlight, he almost yelled.