by John Hunt
“Huh!” Bess replied, unimpressed.
The gravel track got more rutted as we drove and we were soon down to walking pace. An hour later, we cleared a rise to see a lake in front of us, half a mile wide, a couple of miles long, a mountain rising, sheer, from one side. We arrived at a gate with a faded sign over it, “Potter’s Place.” It was the end of the road. Bob got out his wire cutters and sheared through the rusty padlock chain and we drove along a dirt path to a lodge by the lake. It was built of logs, with a steep wood-tiled roof. It looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for years – some tiles were missing and moss had taken over. There were bear boards over the windows – planks of wood with dozens of nails jutting outwards. Weeds were growing everywhere. A birch seedling had taken root in the chimney. There was a derelict looking pickup, a rusty water tank with holes in it. An upturned boat, with a few bits of covering canvas still on it, some planks missing. A jetty running out into the lake, mostly collapsed.
Mom’s disappointment sounded in her voice.
“It’s hopeless. It’s a wreck. We can’t live in that. We’ll have to drive back.”
“No, please,” Bess complained. “We’ve been going all day. I’m hungry, and I have to get my head down. You can fix it up tomorrow.”
“Just a bit of tidying up needed, Mary,” Bob replied. “It’s peachy. Good joints, nice mortice work, storm windows. Great position, in a bay on the lake, high enough above the water, spruce on both sides as shelter for when the wind blows through the valley. It’s even got a beach. Whoever built this knew what he was doing. Let’s get a fire going inside, smoke out the bugs. And we need to get the first meals in. This lake should have some char and grayling in it. Jim, come with me, and we’ll see if we can get some supper. And see those chewed stumps down there by the water? Looks like there might even be beaver here. Perfect.”
The evening sun glittered off the water, rippling in a slight breeze, and the lake reflected the mountains and trees all around. As I stood there, taking in the peace, drawing it deep, a blue jay flew off from a rock on the shoreline. The mountains were covered in glaciers, blindingly blue and white. Alder, rowan, birch and the occasional pine swayed gently. After Anchorage, it was unearthly quiet, apart from some ravens cawing in the distance. To me, it felt like we’d come home.
THIRTEEN
Writing this down now, struggling to hold the goose pen with my arthritic fingers, the memories of those days wash over me. They were difficult, but I grew up then. Before, it was as if I knew nothing. It was as if I hadn’t been born yet. I thought of myself in terms of how other people saw me, trying to be what they wanted me to be. I would change my voice, my accent, to fit in with whoever I was talking to. Later, there was always the burden of responsibility, the weight of expectation, of carrying people’s hopes and fears, of knowing they depended on me to be more single-minded than they were, to take the tough decisions necessary to survive. But in that summer, something changed. I found my “self.” I began to feel at home in my own skin. With fewer people around, it was less confusing, fewer pitfalls to negotiate. There was no random noise, no background roar of traffic. Sounds had meaning. There was a reason for everything. At the back of my mind, I thought I’d have to account sometime for killing Mr. Trinker. But – it surprised me – I didn’t feel any regrets about it. It was necessary, it was done. I just hoped that I’d never have to see Joss again.
It released something in me. I don’t really know how to describe it. When I overheard Mom call me aspergic, I didn’t know what it meant. Now, I understand it as having an emotional bit missing. I’d seen people like cars in the street outside: hard, dangerous, to be treated with caution, avoided where possible. But now it looked like they were just flesh and blood, like me. Jelly for a brain, as often wrong as right, and could be pricked like a balloon, snuffed out like a candle. For many years to come, killing people didn’t bother me. It was only much later, as the body count piled up, as my own family grew, with children having their children, that I came to understand the bitter-sweet nature of the bonds that tie. It was then that I started remembering, and the faces returned at night: reproachful, angry – the many I’d sent on to the next world, the many that I’d let down. They haunt me.
We soon stopped talking about Anchorage. We had no contact with the outside world, which seemed increasingly distant – as if it had disappeared; as if we’d crossed through a games portal to another world. And it was as if we were never going back.
We got to know the neighbors well – Matthew Harding and daughters Jessie and Sue – they all turned up the next morning. His wife, Alice, had died a few years before from cancer and it was plain from the look on his face when he told us that he was still hurting. Matthew was an accountant with a computer firm in Seattle. He’d always had a hankering to visit Alaska and see the wildlife, try a spot of fishing and hunting, but hadn’t caught a fish yet. They hadn’t seen any wildlife. They didn’t know what around them might be edible.
“I thought I could figure out what to do by googling it, on the phone,” he said. “But I’m a bit lost without it. I suppose it was a silly thing to do, coming here, but the three of us haven’t really had a proper holiday since Alice died, and I thought it would do us good to be together.”
Jessie had never wanted to come on the holiday, so she and Bess had that in common to start with. They were soon as thick as thieves. Even Bess’ temper seemed to improve as she became friendly with Jessie; though she missed her own room, and everything that went with it.
Sue recovered from her temperature and her apple-cheeks were regularly creased with smiles and laughter. Although she remembered enough to miss her mom, she had few memories of her as part of the family unit, being only six when she died, and soon became part of our family, rarely leaving Mom and Louise’s side. They began by coming over to visit every day (it was a couple of hours walk there and back). Bess stayed a couple of nights with them, but they soon fell into a pattern of staying with us. Matthew couldn’t look after himself and the girls, couldn’t get the food, but was very willing to help. It made the lodge cramped, the main room was twenty by thirty, but the nights were still warm, and Bob and me were happy to sleep on the verandah.
We all worked hard, from when we rose, to when we fell back into bed: even Bess. We caught some fish in the lake to keep us going.
“We’ll have to filter the water from the creek, Jim,” Bob said, “but we’ll need charcoal for that. For the moment, rig up a tarpaulin on four posts to catch the rainwater, put a hole in the middle, tie a T-shirt across the top, a container underneath.”
Matthew cleaned the moss off the roof, replaced tiles, boarded up broken panes.
Bob and Dad scavenged planks and bricks to rebuild the toilet in the outhouse. It smelled horrible and there were always flies, but shoveling ash over it helped, and we got used to it, even to using sphagnum moss to wipe ourselves; it was clear that the toilet paper would soon run out.
Mom organized the inside. Raccoons had been in, burrowing their way in under the walls, there wasn’t much left of the stuffing in the chairs, and they’d clawed the ceiling posts. Red squirrels had nested in the roof.
“Well, as we’re staying, let’s make the most of it,” Mom said. “Bess, could you help me scrub it all down before we put the stores away. Louise, if you could clean out the stove. Sue, if you’d like to help, could you use that chair to dust the ceiling. And Jessie, those windows need a good wash. Donald,” she raised her voice to call to Dad outside. “I could do with some shelves up here, please.”
“This is so strange,” Mom said one evening. “I don’t think I’ve ever spent any time before with no radio, TV, Internet, papers, phone, no other people, no strangers – I’m not counting you as that, Matthew.”
“Me neither,” said Dad. “Not sure if I like it, or if I’m scared by it. I seem at a loose end here, haven’t got my work, no students, and it’s not a holiday because we’re in someone else’s place, it doesn’t fe
el right.”
“I can’t help remembering all the deadlines whooshing by,” said Matthew. “Should’ve got the management accounts out this week.”
“I know what you mean,” replied Louise. “Right now, I guess I should be teaching Grade 10. I feel guilty. Even when I know they wouldn’t be there.”
“Do you miss the school?” Mom asked.
Louise smiled. “Yes, I do. I don’t know if it does much good, but I’ve always thought that encouraging learning, thinking, it’s just something that’s worthwhile doing, even if you never seem to be making any progress.”
“I’ve been out on my own for a few weeks at a stretch,” Bob said. “It’s fine, if you can live with your own company. Anyway, we’re one hell of a lot better off out here than we were in Anchorage. It feels safe here.”
Bess stared at him. “That’s crazy,” she said. “Why would anyone just want to live with their own company or their own family? Why don’t grown-ups have friends?”
“It’s not that we don’t have friends, Bess,” Mom replied. “It’s just that, well…family becomes more important as you get older.”
“That’s so dull. I’m not going to get old. And I don’t really mind having family, most of the time, but it’s friends that matter.”
“Bess, I’m glad you’ve got so many friends,” replied Dad. “But friends have to come from families, don’t they? So families come first.”
“I’m with Bess,” Jessie said. “How do you grow up anyway when your parents keep telling you what to do?”
“Most societies have a ritual for it,” chipped in Louise. “My grandmother used to talk to me about the old times. On her mother’s side, she was Athabascan. She was sent into the wilderness for a month when she was twelve, before her initiation. I guess she’d have felt comfortable in this place.”
Sooner than I would’ve believed, it was all looking cozy. The window in the main room looked out over the deck, framing the lake, the mountains and glaciers on one side, trees on the other. There was an occasional splash or plop as a fish took an insect on the surface. I watched a bald eagle circling above, slowly drifting out of sight.
FOURTEEN
A couple of days later, and Bess was in one of her bad moods.
“Dad, when are we going home? It’s just too weird, staying out here. There’s nobody around. I haven’t seen anyone for days now.”
“Bess is right,” said Matthew. “We should really be trying to get back to Seattle. They must have restored power.”
Dad shook his head. “If I thought that for a moment, Matthew, we’d be out of here like a shot. But look up at the sky. It’s normally littered with planes. I haven’t seen one since we got here. And there are no contrails, though we’re right under the flight path to Anchorage from the south.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Matthew looked worried. “So you reckon the power’s still all out everywhere?”
“Got any better thoughts? Seems like it to me. And if it’s still out, I don’t know as much as Bob does, but we have a roof over our heads, food and water, and I guess we’re safer here than trying to get back.”
I could see Matthew struggling to come to terms with the idea. “I guess you’re right. I mean, a place the size of Anchorage, they’d need to be flying in loads of supplies.”
“We’ve been living from hand to mouth for the last few days, but can we catch enough fish to keep us going?” Dad asked. “And if we can, how do we keep it without a freezer? What do you think, Bob?”
“Should be no problem with the fishing,” replied Bob. “And if you look outside, what do you see?”
Mom was standing by the window. “There’s the lake,” she said. “There are pine trees, glaciers, rocks…”
“And what are glaciers made of?”
“Point taken,” replied Dad. “We’ve got ice.”
“Everybody used ice until electricity arrived,” said Louise. “People would build caves or pits to keep the food in, pack the fish around with ice to keep the temperature low.”
We dug a cave outside the lodge, and the next day Dad and Matthew trekked the three miles up to the glacier to hack out chunks of ice as large as they could carry.
“We should start catching salmon,” Bob said, picking up a bag of nets and poles. “They’re not going to stick around here forever.”
Bob took Bess, Jessie, Sue and me hiking to the other end of the lake which fed the Portage River.
“Look,” said Bob, pointing out over the water, “sure enough, there’s a beavers’ house.”
“Can we catch them?” I asked.
“Sure thing, they’re good fatty meat. But easier to get in the winter, when the ice covers the lake, and they’ve got the most meat on them. We’ll leave them for the moment. They can be our reserve supply, if we need it.”
We got to the river, and walked down it looking for salmon. There was a slight trail over the rocks. The scene was just like those pictures you see in glossy magazines advertising fisherman’s clothes. The sun was blazing hot.
“Wow, this place is so big and empty,” Bess said as she struggled to balance the poles on her shoulder. “Why aren’t there roads? I can’t see a house anywhere. Will we catch a fish? Have you ever caught one, Jess?”
“It’ll be my first time, if I do,” she replied. “Always up for something different, though. Anyway, it’s cool here.” She looked at Bob. “What are our chances, Bob?”
“Should get something. It’s not the Kenai River, that’s where you get the big ones. Most of them around Anchorage are no good for salmon any more, they’ve been restocked with hatchery trout to keep the tourists happy. Tiddly things. But we’re a long way from that here, so this probably hasn’t been fished out. It should be OK.”
We stood on flat rocks, the river gurgling around them, so clear it was transparent.
“Look, I can see them, real fish!” Sue screeched. “There they are.”
The salmon, moving in fleets, shuffled the gravel with their tails to make their spawning craters; those who had spawned were dying or already dead and decomposing, drifting back with the current.
Jessie swept her dip net through the water and caught two of them. They were obviously heavier than she expected, wriggling frantically in the net; she overbalanced, and fell in, coming up gasping and spluttering.
“Christ, it’s freezing,” she gasped, water streaming off her.
She held out her hand to me, I couldn’t really refuse. I pulled her up. It was the second time we’d touched, and this time I managed to hold her gaze.
“Comes straight from the glacier. You’ll soon dry off,” Bob said, chuckling.
My breath caught as she pulled off her shirt, and rinsed it out. She was lightly tanned all over, even her perfectly rounded breasts. I could feel my face going a deep red.
“I’m going in as well,” Bess shouted, stripping down to her undies and jumping in. “Ouch, ouch, Jesus, Jesus,” she screamed, “that’s cold.”
Bob rummaged in his rucksack and handed me a hacksaw. “You can stop gawking, Jim.” He winked at me. “Cut a couple of strong poles from that stand of alder over there while Jessie and Bess dry off. These salmon are sockeyes, good eating, we’ll string them up on the poles for carrying.”
“Ugh, they’re so slippery and slimy,” Sue said, as she lifted them out of the net, still thrashing around.
“Just break their necks, like this,” Bob said, doing just that, “or crack them on the head with a stone. You’ll soon get the hang of it.”
We got back a couple of hours later, and Bob wasted no time showing us how to gut them.
“When we get more, we’ll start preserving them. Then, Mary, they’ll need soaking for a couple of days, in a brine solution of water and herbs. Jim, you can make up racks to dry them on. After a couple more days, when they’ve got a film on them, we’ll smoke ’em.”
A few days later we had a hundred good salmon. We dug a fire pit, erecting a roof over it, with plenty o
f headroom, to keep the rain off. We smoked the fish over green alder and oak fires for a couple of days, then wrapped them up in paper and plastic sheeting, packed them into the ice cave, and rolled boulders across the entrance to keep out the wildlife.
The only real problem we had were the mosquitoes. We all suffered, but Sue got the worst of them, and would run in screaming, “Help, help, they’re eating me alive!”
“This is nothing,” Bob said. “Far worse further north. But we can get a smudge going at the front door, that’ll help.”
“I’m sure we’ve got a couple of head nets,” Dad said. “I’ll dig them out.”
Mom was reading a manual, she looked up. “Pesky things. We’re going to run out of D.E.E.T. There are lots of plants we could use instead though: lemon grass, rosemary, geranium, wormwood – there are pictures of them here. Let’s all go and collect as many as we can find, then we crush them into a pot, stir oil in, and use it as lotion. Says here that the Indians chew alder leaves as well and rub it on bites.”
The next few days were cool and breezy, which kept the mosquitos down, and we decided to explore the area. On the Portage River, in the far distance, we could occasionally see the smoke from the fires of a couple of other lodges further downriver, on a different track. One day we spent the morning working our way down to them. Two old guys lived in one and we exchanged pleasantries when we met, but didn’t really get to know them. They had no news and weren’t communicative, it didn’t seem like they wanted more company.
“Bloody queers, best leave them to it,” Bob said as we moved on.
Another, a further couple of miles on, seemed to have a single guy living in it; Bob waved, but he didn’t wave back.
“Guys living out here alone are usually plumb crazy,” Bob said, “best leave him be.”
All the time we hiked around we rarely saw anyone – occasionally a hunter or fisherman in the far distance, but the country seemed pretty empty. We were alone. I liked it that way. I wanted to put Anchorage, and everything it represented, way behind me. No more Joss Trinker or his family. The only cloud on the horizon was the idea of having to go back. I brought myself back to the present and smiled. Happiness – I never quite knew what that was, but figured it must be like living in heaven. And this, for me, was it.
