by Tara Neilson
“I need to go out and shoot. That might drive them off.” He looked like it was the last thing on earth he wanted to do.
“No. I don’t want you going out there,” Mom said instantly. “Somebody has to do it.”
“Well, I’m not shooting anything,” she retorted. In her fear of handling guns she’d likely hurt herself or one of us kids or one of the dogs, or put a hole in the house, break a window—it wouldn’t be good, whatever came of it.
“I’m the one that needs to do it,” Jamie insisted.
She forgot about her gun phobia as she realized why he was so insistent. He felt that he needed to face his fears to be able to overcome them. She nodded.
He inched up to the door with the .44 in his hand as us kids watched him with our breaths held. What if there was a wolf right there at the door, waiting for him to open it so it could lunge inside and get us?
He paused a moment to let go of his walking stick and put his free hand on the door knob, breathing deeply. Then he yanked the door open, stepped outside, and pulled the trigger multiple times—the concussive blasts hammering at us and making the dogs flinch and whimper—before jumping back inside and slamming the door shut. His eyes were wide and he was breathing hard, but he’d done it.
The wolves scattered at the shock of the gunshots.
But they came back. They always came back.
When Dad came home and we told him about what had happened, he didn’t say much. That night he got to experience the wolf siege for himself when they came down off the ridge to circle the house and howl again. As we dragged the dogs inside, he shone the flashlight into the darkness and we saw a sea of glowing eyes ringing the floathouse.
• • •
Jamie already knew how to shoot, but Dad decided that with the wolf threat hanging over us, it was time to teach me and Megan how to shoot as well. He set up a target on the beach and drilled us with safety and sighting tips. (He’d made sharpshooter status in the Army.)
I held the hard stock of the gun tight to my shoulder, lined up the open sights on the target, and fought to hold the weight of the rifle level. I blocked out Dad’s critical eyes, breathed in the smell of gun oil slowly, let it out, and pulled the trigger. I hit the target, though not the hand-drawn bull’s-eye.
Megan was up next and, probably too aware of Dad’s focused attention on what she was doing, didn’t hold the stock tightly enough to her shoulder. When she pulled the trigger, the rifle’s kick knocked her straight down to the beach onto her butt. She didn’t cry. If anything, it made her mad and a little more focused. She got right back up, shot again, hitting the target, closer to the bull’s-eye than I’d gotten.
The boys were too small to learn, and Mom, for the most part, refused to have anything to do with shooting guns. She would, if she felt she had to, hang the .44 in its belt off her shoulder, though she had zero intention of ever shooting it. This became an issue the time a group of hunters unexpectedly showed up. They were strangers to us and, of course, were all carrying guns.
She met them with the gun on her shoulder as Dad had told her she had to in such a situation, and they chatted for a while in a friendly way, putting her off her guard.
Then the man who did most of the talking said casually, “Nice-looking revolver. What is it, a .44 magnum?”
“I have no idea. My husband makes me wear it,” Mom confessed. “Can I have a look at it?”
“Sure.” She handed him the gun.
He took it, looked it over, and then stared straight at her. “Ma’am,” he said, “don’t ever do that again. Your husband meant for you to have that gun to protect you and your kids.” He handed it back to her.
Mom sheepishly put it back on her shoulder and laughed later when she told us kids about it.
• • •
The wolves continued to lurk. Whenever we heard them howling at night, we pulled the dogs inside. But they got bolder and were no longer frightened off by gunshots.
They took to appearing in broad daylight. One time when Mom was walking on the beach, she looked up and saw a wolf standing on the rocks in front of her. She froze, watching him, waiting to see what he would do. As she watched, he disappeared. Dissolved, as if he’d never existed, as if he were a mirage. She must have blinked and, in that nanosecond, he vanished.
Another day while we were outside playing with the dogs, we saw the wolves materialize silently at the top of the small hill at one end of the floathouse, the hill we sledded down in winter.
Rather than howling, the wolves made soft, whining noises and to our disbelief we saw one of the female dogs, Tina (named for Tina Turner), instead of being frightened, trot up the hill toward them.
“Come back!” We ran after her, shouting her name. The other dogs milled around us, confused and panicked. The wolves continued to lure Tina, right in front of us. We finally managed to grab her and raced back to the house, shoving the dogs inside.
When we counted them up, to our horror one was missing. Little Mac, Chris’s dog, was gone. The wolves, like master magicians, had stolen him while our focus had been on the dog they’d tried to lure up the hill. We never saw Little Mac again, but he wasn’t the last to be taken.
On one of the days when Dad was home, he had to go up in the woods to work on the dam and waterline. He took the 30.06 with him, but he didn’t glimpse a single wolf. The dogs followed him, as they always did.
When he returned home, he found out that one of the dogs that had followed him was missing.
It was Megan’s beloved, spoiled pet, Sonya.
The wolves had stolen right up behind him and snatched Sonya away without any trouble or alerting Dad to their presence. Sonya hadn’t made a sound of protest. It shocked all of us, but it desolated Megan. She was inconsolable and cried for months.
Dad was driven to extreme measures. He put all the names of the dogs in his hat and drew one out. We held our breaths, praying it wouldn’t be our dog’s name that was drawn.
After drawing out the name, he took Junior, Robin’s friendly little reddish-gold dog, and tied him to the back of the school. The ridge that the wolves came down was right behind it.
Dad hid out of sight with the 30.06 and waited. Soon enough, Junior got tired of the unaccustomed rope anchoring him in place. He twisted and fought it, whining and barking, making all kinds of unhappy, distressed noises.
We waited inside the floathouse with the other dogs, listening to poor Junior trying to get our attention, knowing he was wolf bait. Robin was sure that his dog was about to be eaten.
We were all traumatized as we waited for the gunshots that would free us from the terrorism of the wolves, listening to poor Junior yipping and crying while the unseen killers lurked. It probably didn’t do Dad’s Vietnam PTSD much good either, waiting for an unseen, lethal enemy with a gun in his hands.
But the wolves were too smart and didn’t fall for the trap. Dad had to return to Thorne Bay without resolving the threat of the wolves.
• • •
One night Mom woke me and Megan. She had the gun on her shoulder.
“It’s the wolves,” she whispered.
Jamie, with the badly sprained ankle, and the boys were still asleep. The lantern that worked as a nightlight to ward off Megan’s night terrors created a dim glow that wasn’t strong enough to turn the windows above the bed black. There was a full moon outside, shining more light into the house than the lantern could.
“You have to run across to the wanigan and put the girl dogs inside. I’ll keep watch with the gun.”
Dad had built a large cage on the front deck of the wanigan to put the female dogs in when they were in heat, but no one thought it would withstand a wolf attack.
As Megan and I crawled out of the warmth of our bedding, we heard the wolves howling on the ridge. Our hearts beat faster and faster, waking us up completely as Mom hurried us to the front door.
It was bitterly cold outside, but we didn’t stop to grab coats or put boots on. We raced o
ut onto the cold boards of the floathouse’s deck and then across the frost-covered rocks of the beach.
The whole world was limned with icy moonlight. The forest looming around us was leached of color, in shades of gray, with the blackest shadows beneath the trees. We felt the unseen eyes of forest creatures and ran faster. Mom stood in the open door with the gun. We wondered if she’d be able to use it if the wolves came after us.
The rocks were so piercingly cold that they burned our feet as we ran. The line of seaweed left by the tide crunched when we stepped on it, scraping our soles, sending a musky scent into the still, cold night. The huge empty bay was still, reflecting the moonlit sky.
I felt Megan’s terror. Knowing her fear of the night, let alone with wolves added into it, I almost wished she wasn’t there beside me. After all, though I did have a sense of urgency and fear, I was more impressed—even awed—by the experience.
All around us the vast lonesome wilderness of forest and sea was lit by the colorless light of the moon. The wolves howled closer and closer as they came down from the mountains. If it weren’t for the dogs being in danger and Megan so scared, I might have enjoyed the sheer, pulse-pounding adventure of it, even the icy rocks under my bare feet.
We finally reached the wanigan and clambered up over the slick, wet logs into the shadows under its porch roof. The girl dogs were caught between pleasure at our appearance and fear as the wolves’ hunting chorus echoed through the forest. They wriggled and quivered, whining, jumping up on the cage wall.
Megan opened it while I gripped the cold, rusty spike that served as a door handle and used my weight to slide the wanigan’s heavy wooden door in its groove. As soon as it was open we shoved the dogs inside, trying to ignore their pitiable attempts to encourage us to pet them and comfort them and stay with them.
Mom still waited at the floathouse door, the lamplight yellow behind her. Above her the aluminum roof reflected so much moonlight that it glowed eerily. Smoke from the chimney was almost transparent as it drifted silently. We were supposed to run back as soon as the dogs were safe inside the wanigan.
We gave a few hasty pets, slid the big door shut, and ran for safety. The wolves’ howls grew louder the closer we got to the floathouse, speeding our frozen feet over the gravel, up the wooden ramp, along the deck, and into the warmth of the floathouse. We gained at least one victory over the wolves that night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“They don’t call me James Neilson for nothing.”
—Jamie
WE LIVED in a pocket universe during those years when it was Mom and us kids, with Dad visiting from that other, almost mystical world on the outside, where movies and Hostess snacks proliferated.
I was eleven years old when we heard our parents talking about neighbors moving in. Robin and Chris were young enough not to remember what it was like to have people other than our family around us, so the concept of “neighbor” was entirely alien to them. Megan and I had only ever needed each other for companionship so we saw nothing of value in the idea and didn’t know how to process the news.
Jamie, as usual, had it all figured out. He knew exactly what to make of it.
INVASION.
He immediately set about dealing with the issue by building a huge pile of arrows and a bow for each of us. When he was satisfied with the results of his labors, he began to instruct us in the ways of war.
This was no longer play warfare. This wasn’t wooden sword fighting without real intent to commit harm and “crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women,” to quote one of Jamie’s favorite movies, Conan the Barbarian. It was serious, and it was covert. Mom, Jamie told us, was under no circumstances to know of our battle plans for the Invaders.
As Jamie drilled us, he evoked the memory of listening to War of the Worlds. This was the Martian invasion all over again, fought this time on a remote Alaskan shore in front of our floathouse home. They would be coming by sea, by motor-powered boat. We’d hear them in time to take cover with our weapons.
That was the important thing. We had to be able to react immediately and with deadly force. “Show no mercy,” he commanded. “Lethal force is the only thing that will protect our way of life. Strangers will never colonize our land. We will execute our duties with extreme prejudice. With our last breath we will spit at them,” he decreed, borrowing indiscriminately from various favorite movies.
We practiced and practiced, following in a crouched run wherever Jamie led, shooting arrows with our bows until we were sore—especially Robin and Chris, who were so small you’d think they’d be exempted from active service. But no. In Jamie’s guerilla army there were no exemptions.
We were the mercenaries in Wild Geese, the Rebel Force in Star Wars, and the winged warriors in Flash Gordon. Jamie was our merciless leader.
Zero hour arrived. Mom, sublimely unaware of this fact, ambled down the beach to greet the boat, named Jaws, which was towing a skiff piled high with furniture, boxes, and other invasion paraphernalia.
It was a quiet day, overcast, with a light drizzle obscuring the tops of the silent, forested mountains. The bay was mirror flat, reflecting the gray sky, and it was damp behind the cedar log that all five of us hunched behind. We eyed each other, hearts beating fast, ready for Jamie’s signal that would trigger our scorched-earth strategy.
I remember the scent of cedar and salty seaweed, and the sand fleas hopping out of the wet beach gravel we’d dug ourselves into. The boat idled its way into the middle of our inlet as Mom approached the line of pilings that stairstepped down into the still water, mirroring themselves so that they seemed to climb back out of the bay.
The anchor dropped with a splash and running rattle that tightened our nerves. We heard enemy voices carrying across the water as a couple people shortened the towline and climbed into the skiff, one of them maneuvering around the pile of enemy trappings to get to the outboard at the stern.
Jamie, building weapons in the ruins, his favorite pastime.
When the outboard engine roared to life, I looked at Jamie. His steely blue eyes were intent as he peered over the hairy bark on the log at the approaching hostiles.
“Now?” I asked. My legs had started to cramp and the boys were shifting awkwardly.
He shook his head, holding his hand up, palm out, without taking his eyes off the advance of the heavily loaded, low-riding skiff as it puttered toward shore. It was probably the most awkward and lame invasion of any shore in the history of Manifest Destiny.
When Jamie was satisfied that he’d accurately judged the distance, he dropped his hand with judgmental force. “Now!”
We sprang into form, pulling the fishing line back on our homemade hemlock bows, expertly nocking the cedar shake arrows with their sea gull feathers and sharpened stone heads.
“Fire!”
Arrows lanced the leaden sky, reaching the apex of their arcs, hanging there for a glorious moment, before gravity drew them down to destroy the invasion force. Before they struck we had already whipped our next arrows into place and fired again at Jamie’s ruthless command.
Eric Johnson, the commercial fisherman who was so identified with his boat that he was known locally—like a Viking created by Steven Spielberg—as “Eric of the Jaws,” had embraced Alaska’s allowance of the personal use of marijuana to the full limits of the law, and then some. As he steered the skiff full of a friend’s belongings to their new home, he looked up through a haze of marijuana smoke into a hail of arrows.
“Far out, man,” he said to Mom who stood frozen in mortification on the shore. “Whoa. Are there Indians around here? Far. Out.”
The arrows rained into the water. In the case of the boys, some of them never got beyond the beach. Megan and I managed to at least dent the bay with our projectiles. Only Jamie’s arrows came anywhere near their target.
“No,” Mom said to Eric, “those are just my kids.”
She looked over at the log irately,
but we were no longer there.
We’d retreated into the woods to lick our psychological wounds.
• • •
I think all of us, except Jamie, were graciously willing to concede defeat and accept the neighbors. Jamie put a good face on it, especially since one of the neighbor boys, named Chris, turned out to be exactly his age. However, we should have all known that he’d get his revenge in subtle ways. Revenge, he had always let it be known, was a dish best served cold.
The neighbors were Dave and Sheila and Sheila’s kids: Chris (since we called our Chris by the name of Mitmer at this time, it wasn’t confusing), Dawn, Gabriel (Gabe), and Iolare (Lare). The two younger boys were my age and Megan’s. Poor Dawn, at sixteen, was on her own. She was missing the tip of one thumb which she’d lopped off while chopping kindling. (I think of her probably more than any other person because I think of her whenever I cut kindling, a common, almost daily chore.) She was quiet and preferred to hole up by herself. She seemed sad to me, divorced from her family and the present.
The neighbors had moved into the only still-standing building on the cannery side, the one-room cabin (plus loft) situated across the creek from the ruins where Muriel and Maurice, and then Rand and Linda, had lived.
Dave, Sheila, and her kids were there for one summer, and Dad didn’t see that much of them, not just because he was there only on weekends, but that summer he and Mom and Rory and Marion went on a weekend hiking and camping trip up to a lake on a nearby mountain.
While they were hiking, Megan and I stayed with our grandparents in Meyers Chuck with our little cousins LeAnn and JoDean (who everyone called GiGi).
This left Jamie and the boys at the cannery with the new neighbors. Dave decided not to feed them the groceries Mom had left with them. Hardcore hippies, Dave and Sheila had declared that they were dedicated vegetarians, subsisting mostly on figs and goat cheese.
Jamie wasn’t about to forego his rightful meat. He took matters into his own hands by killing salmon in the creek, despite Dave’s meat ban, and cooking it on the beach to feed himself and his brothers. Dave confronted him and said he was going to apply corporal punishment for disobeying him.
