Edge of Nowhere

by John Smelcer

  The plane flew low between the mainland and the islands, pilot and passenger looking out the side windows for anything that might catch their attention. Several times the pilot veered toward something on a beach or floating in the water, but it always proved to be a log or a rusting fuel drum or a rock. When Jack saw something moving along the edge of an island’s woods, it turned out to be a black bear scouring the beach.

  One of Jack’s friends—Bard Young, who had sometimes fished with Jack’s father when he was younger—was also aloft in his own plane, a small Cessna, flying about a mile or two ahead of them, close to the mainland. A report had gone out over the air to all boat captains in Prince William Sound to be on the lookout for the sixteen-year-old boy and his dog. Dozens of boat captains responded to say they would help. That kind of response is not unusual in Alaska, a place where nearly all emergencies are matters of life and death, where time is always in control of survival, and where, someday, it may be you that needs help.

  What goes around comes around.

  Jack Evanoff had paid his dues. Three years earlier he had helped to rescue a deer hunter who had been mauled by a bear. And only the previous fall he had rescued the crew of a sinking boat that had struck a submerged rock, another hazard in the Sound.

  He knew the score.

  ‘Over there,’ said Jack excitedly, pointing to something on a beach.

  Lee steered toward the beach, pushed in gently on the steering yolk, bringing the plane down closer for a better look.

  ‘It’s just a beached whale,’ he said, when they were close enough to see.

  Jack looked out the window. He knew that whales washed ashore are a common sight in the Sound and a giant meal for the world above the waves. Sometimes pods of beluga whales, uniformly white and up to fifteen feet long, swim into shallow bays following schools of herring or salmon. Occasionally, they don’t leave before low tide and become stranded on the mud flats, gasping until the incoming tide frees them. In his life, Jack had seen many whales lying helplessly on the tidal flats, their whiteness a stark contrast against the muck. Beluga populations are down in the Sound. No one knows why for certain. But over-fishing may be responsible, at least in part.

  Sometimes Jack felt a little guilty about that.

  ‘Does Seth know how to swim?’ asked Lee.

  ‘Yeah, you bet. He’s been able to swim since he was five or six.’

  Lee looked at Jack and smiled.

  ‘Well, maybe he made it to one of these islands.’

  But Jack remembered the sea that night, the storm, the driving rain, the slapping waves, the deep, rolling swells. Knowing that his son could swim across a languid pond didn’t comfort him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said weakly, ‘maybe so.’

  Neither spoke after that for almost an hour. The small plane buzzed over several fishing boats, tilting its wings from side to side as it passed overhead, a familiar gesture like waving a hand.

  Boats up and down the Sound radioed in that they hadn’t seen anything, giving their locations to aid in the search.

  Eventually, the aircraft had to turn back. Wing tanks hold only so much fuel. Lee had to turn around when the fuel gauge reached the halfway mark.

  ‘Sorry, Jack. We gotta head back to town,’ he said, knowing the news would be hard for the father. It would be hard for any father.

  Jack Evanoff leaned over, looked at the gauge himself, saw the position of the needle. He understood. If they flew any further, they risked adding themselves to the search.

  Lee tried to raise his spirits.

  ‘I’ll fly on the outside of the islands on the way back, on the seaward side. Maybe we’ll see something. What do ya’ think?’

  Jack nodded and then turned and looked out the window, his eyes following the bends of the shoreline. He didn’t think Seth would be on the seaward side of the islands since their course toward home that night had not taken them that way. He was sure his son would be on the inside, but it was worth a look, especially since they hadn’t seen him on the way out.

  They didn’t find him.

  A little later, the plane flew its approach into town, dropped flaps and reduced speed almost to a stall, and after a moment the oversized tires touched down on the runway, the craft bouncing once. Lee used the foot pedals to steer the aircraft over to the runway apron and shut down the engine.

  ‘We’ll find him tomorrow,’ he said, forcing a comfortless smile as he opened his door.

  As the two stepped out from the cramped plane, Jack noticed a man standing in the open doorway of a blue metal building. It was Rod Clark, the manager of the town’s airport, more airstrip than airport. He seemed to be waving to catch Jack’s attention. The man motioned again and began walking toward them.

  ‘Jack!’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Lee, staying behind to tie down the struts in the event of strong winds. The anchors were made from bald tires with cement poured in the middle, heavy enough to keep the craft secure.

  Jack walked quickly to the man who had called him.

  ‘Yeah, Rod.’

  The man had a stern look on his face.

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’

  Jack’s stomach swooped like a seagull about to land on the sea in a hard wind. His heart and lungs felt as though they were being squeezed in an invisible hand. He could barely breathe.

  ‘A boat found Seth’s hat.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Jack. ‘How do you know it’s his?’

  The man averted his gaze, unable to look the distraught father in the eyes, unable to deal with the furrowed expression on his face. Instead, he looked at his hands while he spoke.

  ‘One of the boats found a blue baseball cap with your boat’s name on it, the Erin Elizabeth. That was your wife’s name, wasn’t it?’

  The man said nothing after that, letting the words drown in the father’s memory of his son.

  Jack’s eyes welled up, his jaw quivered, an eye twitched. He had to look away—the way all men look away—to keep from collapsing to his knees, his heart unable to take the loss of his wife and his son in such a short time.

  Seven – Maquungwin

  ‘I cannot come in,’ said the young man. ‘I am much too big.’

  To his amazement, the white squirrel spoke to him. ‘Lean your bow against the Great House and you will be able to come inside.’ The hunter did as he was instructed and to his surprise he became small enough to walk into the empty hall. He saw that the white squirrel was actually a beautiful girl who was wearing a white fur coat. She said to follow her up to the top of the Great Tree.

  After their slippery meal of mussels, Seth decided to explore the island, which was considerably larger than the last. There was even a small mountain in the middle, not nearly as tall as the ones across the water on the mainland, but a mountain nonetheless. As boy and dog pushed their way through dense brush, Tucker flushed a covey of grouse, as well as a deer from its resting place. Seth knew that deer often swim from island to island in search of food.

  As the two castaways walked along the shoreline, they came across berry plants—rosehips, low-bush and high-bush blueberries, raspberries and salmon berries—which were still in flower, too early for berries but a forecast of abundance later in the summer and early fall. They even saw bear tracks in the soft soil.

  Seth hadn’t worried about bears back on the tiny speck of an island, which was too small and barren to conceal a surprise, but here he would have to be wary. Bears roam throughout the islands of the Sound, mostly black bears on those larger islands with salmon spawning streams. In many ways, he knew a black bear is more dangerous than its larger cousin, the brown bear, which can weigh well over a thousand pounds and stand over ten feet tall, with claws as long as kitchen knives. Black bears are smaller but dangerously unpredictable.

  Seth picked up a piece of grey
driftwood, about five feet long and nearly as thick as his wrist. A feeble defense, to be sure, he thought, but somehow carrying the staff gave him a little more confidence.

  When it was late, Seth and Tucker returned to the shallow stream to make camp. He decided it was the best location. The beach was wide and clear of brush and trees, and it would be easier for a boat or an airplane to see them. Besides, he already knew there was food during low tide, and the stream would provide drinking water, maybe even salmon.

  And something else occurred to him. This was the inward side of the island, facing the mainland. He recalled that his father’s course toward home that night took the inside passage, not the seaward side. Seth considered that his father would most likely concentrate his search there.

  Seth rummaged along the shoreline, collecting driftwood to build the frame of a lean-to. He would build it on the grassy area far above the high-tide line, which was clearly marked by a swath of jumbled debris washed ashore during high tide by wind-driven waves. He even found bits of rope, lost, most likely, from fishing boats. He used the various lengths to lash the driftwood poles together. The rickety structure fell over several times, frustrating Seth, until he figured out the basic engineering, how to brace one side against the other, making it sturdy.

  When he was satisfied that the structure was strong enough, grabbing both uprights and rattling the framework, Seth broke low-lying limbs from evergreen trees and piled them atop the lean-to—a spruce-scented barrier to keep out whatever weather it could: rain, wind, or sun. He gathered extra boughs to make a comfortable bed for himself and Tucker.

  That night, Seth and Tucker awoke to a commotion. They could hear splashing in the nearby stream.

  Bears.

  Peering out from the lean-to, Seth saw a black bear and her two cubs wading in the water trying to catch salmon, which were racing upstream on the incoming tide.

  Tucker growled and whined, while Seth held him back by his collar and covered his muzzle to quiet him.

  ‘Easy, boy,’ he whispered, hoping the bears wouldn’t notice them in their little defenseless shelter.

  Seth knew that a mother bear can be very dangerous, protective of her offspring. Many maulings in Alaska are caused from sudden encounters when a hiker or fisherman inadvertently comes between a sow and her cubs. Her motherly nature to protect her cubs is as strong as her instinct to sleep away the long, dark winters.

  While the bears were busy trying to catch fish, the boy and his dog quietly slipped from the lean-to and stole away into the nearby woods, spending the rest of the night wide awake, nervously watching the bears from a safe distance.

  Downwind.

  • • • • •

  The next morning, after the bears had gone off to sleep away the warm day, Seth dismantled his shelter and moved it further away from the creek. He had relearned an important lesson: It’s never a good idea to pitch camp along a spawning stream in Alaska in the summer. It’s like pouring kerosene on a fire to put it out. Seth remembered something his father once told him when they were deer hunting.

  ‘Everyone makes mistakes, but some mistakes don’t come with a second chance.’

  After reassembling the makeshift home, Seth was hungry. He walked over to the creek, which had a good many salmon in it. At first he tried to catch them like the bears, chasing them vainly. That approach didn’t work. He stood studying the water, noting the shallow sand and gravel bottom and how the banks narrowed in places.

  An idea lodged in his brain.

  Seth used stones to build a dam across the creek, upstream, not to hold back water from pouring to the sea, but to block the progress of salmon swimming upstream. Then he built another one a little further downstream, leaving an opening just wide enough for the salmon to swim through, a sort of corral for fish. He placed a few extra stones on the bank near the opening. Then he walked along the shore to the mouth, careful not to startle the fish He stepped into the creek and began walking upstream, splashing loudly as he waded along, scaring the salmon upriver. Some fish turned and darted past him back into the sea, but most escaped ahead of the boy, swimming through the stone gate. All Seth had to do was set the final stones in place, effectively trapping them in the weir.

  With no place to go, they could more easily be caught, though as slimy as they are, they were still difficult to grab.

  Tucker tried to catch his own.

  One fish, caught in some ripples, slapped the dog in the face with its tail.

  Tucker got a shocked surprise, and Seth got a laugh, his first since their ordeal began. Eventually Seth caught a salmon, scooping it up in his arms, holding the fish against his chest while it wiggled and flapped. He quickly tossed it far up onto the bank and then clubbed it dead with his walking staff.

  Tucker licked the still fish.

  ‘Hold on, boy,’ said Seth, kneeling, gently pushing away the dog, and pulling his pocketknife from his pocket.

  ‘Let me cut it up first.’

  Like any fisherman, Seth knew how to fillet a salmon. He had helped his father do this many times. He carefully made a slit just behind the gills and then worked the thin blade along the back, slowly peeling the deep red meat from the spine bones. He did this to both sides. When he was done, he rinsed the two halves in the creek, washing sand and slime from them. Tucker chewed on the carcass, eating much of it, while Seth gathered wood to make a fire. When he had a pile of dry wood and tinder, Seth vigorously rubbed two sticks together, trying to create a spark, the way he had seen in movies. He knew that a fire could also be used to make a smoke signal to attract the attention of rescuers. After a long time, without even the faint hint of wood smoke, Seth tried another method. He collected various rocks from the beach and struck them against each other. He had seen that in the movies as well.

  That didn’t work either.

  The unimpressed tinder lay in a small heap, no warmer than the sun’s rays falling on it. Tired and hungry, Seth decided to eat the salmon raw. If his mother could eat sushi made with raw tuna and salmon and octopus and other fish, then he could eat his hard-won catch uncooked. It wasn’t as bad as he thought, though it was mushy, not at all firm and flaky the way it was when his father grilled it, drizzling honey or barbecue sauce over the fillets. He took small bites, cautiously waiting between bites for a verdict from his stomach—in or out. It seemed the judgment was favorable.

  The fish stayed down.

  As always, Seth shared his food with Tucker.

  While they ate, the several uncaught salmon splashed in their pen, searching for a way out.

  When they had finished eating their lunch, Seth noticed that the tide was going out, exposing the dark sea bottom. He had seen movies in which people spelled out S. O. S. in large letters with whatever was at hand. He hastily gathered light colored rocks and spelled out the universal signal, thinking a plane flying overhead would be able to see it. He waited nearby on the beach for the rest of the day, hoping that they would soon be rescued. While waiting, he and Tucker took a nap, tired as they were from staying awake all night watching the bears. Little by little, hour by hour, the tide turned, poured inland, and drowned the stone-spelled letters.

  Only the fish and scuttling crabs would read it.

  Eventually, the sun slid down its dipping angle, and dusk arrived. The sow and her cubs came out from the forest and found the rest of the trapped salmon—an all too easy meal.

  Seth watched from a distance as they ransacked his little fishery, wondering if they would eat all the fish. He hadn’t considered the bears returning. He should have opened the weir, not because he could have saved the salmon, like canned goods in a pantry, but because now the bear would return to this spot along the stream as if it were her own.

  No matter, he thought, more salmon arrived on every tide, and the stream is long enough for me and the bears.

  For the rest of the night, he la
y beside his dog inside the shelter, sleeping fitfully, listening to the sound of the earth and the sea and the sky, clutching his iPod as if his life depended on it. For the first time, Seth realized that he didn’t miss his loud music or his noisy video games. He hadn’t even thought about television.

  The sound of nature was all around him, tranquil and beautiful and alive. It spoke to him—a voice he’d never before heard.

  Sometimes the most important things find us when we’re not even looking.

  Eight – Inglulen

  When they arrived in a room at the top of the Great Tree, an old man dressed like a chief spoke to him.

  ‘I have been waiting for you to come. Why have you killed all of my people?’ he asked, his voice filled with a great and heavy sadness. ‘All of my children and grandchildren are gone except for my favorite granddaughter who led you to the Great House. Why have you done this?’

  Seth awoke alone in the morning. Tucker was gone from his side. The boy crawled out from his shelter and whistled, turning each time so the shrill sound would carry in all directions.

  ‘Tucker!’ he yelled. ‘T-u-c-k-e-r!’

  At first Seth thought the dog might have gone to do his business in the bushes. But after calling for him for several minutes, he began to worry. There was no telling how long his companion had been gone, perhaps many hours. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt him by his side. He walked along the water’s edge, looking far up and down the beach, stopping occasionally to shout the dog’s name.

  After walking a long distance, Seth began to wonder if the mother bear had got his dog. Perhaps the sow had attacked him for coming too close to her cubs. Perhaps they were eating him even now, hidden in thick alders, the sound concealed by the din of the burbling creek. The image made the hair on the back of Seth’s neck bristle. Goose pimples formed on his arms. And although he was only sixteen, Seth understood that life is that which dies; life is only the exclusion of death.