Thunder In Her Body

by C. B. Stanton

  “Wanna take the shot?” Kenny asked Blaze, as he loaded the dart rifle with the tranquilizer drug in it.

  Blaze hesitated. Lynette looked first at Kenny then back to Blaze.

  “Unless he’s gotten rusty, he used to be able to shoot the eye out of a mosquito in flight,” Kenny teased.

  Blaze aimed carefully. The shot. Lynette caught video of the impact as it hit mama bear, blowing back some of her fur. The blow startled her and she began running. Then she started to stagger. After a minute or so, she fell to the ground on her stomach. Walking as quietly as possible, the three approached the stunned bear. Kenny waived Blaze and Lynette back. He went first to test the bear’s reactions and make sure she was sedated. Then he and Blaze went immediately to work. He put drops in her eyes to keep them moist. Lynette tried to hold the camera steady, aiming its lens first at the whole picture, then at their hands.

  “She won’t be out for long so we have to work fast,” Kenny admonished as he loaded another tranquilizer dart to shoot one of the twin baby bears.

  Lynette caught the hurried action as the two men measured the big bear from nose to tail. Handled and measured her 5 inch claws. Poked around on her body to determine how nourished she was. Drew blood, saliva and milk and injected an antibiotic so she wouldn’t get sick from the darting. Kenny re-checked her collar which was still holding well and asked Lynette to zoom in on the inside of her upper lip to show the serial number tattooed there. Then he shot the dart into the closest of the twin bears. Blaze watched mama bear for signs of stirring. When the cub keeled over, the men rushed to it, weighed it in a sling with a small, portable scale, drew blood, checked for external parasites and carried it down to where the mother was beginning to stir. They gently laid the baby near the mother, as the other frightened twin bleated and cried pitifully. Lynette rubbed her hand through the rough fur of the mother bear, peppered with pieces of brush and weeds. She dug deep for the full sensation, aware that she would never have this opportunity again. “You’re a good mama,” she whispered to the semi-conscious bear. She bent down and stroked the sleeping cub. Its fur felt like a fake fur couch-throw she owned, soft and thick. Quickly the three gathered up all their equipment and headed back to where the helicopter had dropped them off, calling ahead for the pick up. They watched until the mama bear stood, acknowledged her groggy cub and called to the other nervous little one. In time all three bears meandered off to where they needed to go.

  Lynette was too excited to be scared on the return flight. She was flooded with adrenaline, and though she’d said very little throughout the entire trip, she kept saying over and over again - “Oh my Lord, Oh my Lord, I can’t believe this.”

  Back in Homer at the B&B they passed on dinner and headed for a hot shower and rest. They laid in bed eating the complimentary peanut butter crackers and drinking ice water. Lynette confided to Blaze the night before they journeyed over to Katmai, that she wanted each day of the rest of their lives to have at least one new experience in it. She never wanted the unknown to stop them from enjoying life. She never wanted their lives to grow stale and routine.

  “Whatever happens to us in the future, I want us to be there together,” she said as she threw an arm across his chest, a big leg across his and pulled the covers up on them.

  Lynette had included the next part of their vacation in her plan, but after the Kodiak trip, everything else was anti-climactic. Fear of flying was now vanquished.

  There are no roads leading into Katmai National Park. Access is gained by boat or little Cessna-type planes. Passengers are restricted to 50 pounds of luggage apiece on these bush hoppers, so most of their luggage had to stay in the hotel in Homer. The first plane of the trip landed at a place called King Salmon, the only lodge accommodations in the area outside the park. From there Blaze and Lynette boarded another tiny flying machine, with one other couple, and flew the 20 minutes to Brooks Lodge. Talk about remote! There were the owners of the lodge, six other guests, Blaze, Lynette and the new couple - and big brown bears. Lots of big brown bears – grizzlies. And that’s it. The bears occasionally wandered up near the lodge and everyone was warned to make lots of noise when walking outside of the buildings and always to stay in pairs. They were admonished not to have food in their rooms, or in the tiny cabins surrounding the main building. Food was to be consumed only in the main part of the lodge for their protection. Though the bears had plenty of salmon to eat, they were not adverse to sampling cinnamon rolls and ham sandwiches.

  The honeymooners opted to stay in one of the cozy cabins rather than the lodge proper, for privacy sake, even though the cabins were furnished with bunk beds. Though they loved chatting with strangers, and they thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the lodge lobby warming themselves around the circular fire pit, making friends and sharing stories, they loved being alone together more. Besides, they had a history now, of sharing a twin-size bed, and if one got uncomfortable, he or she could just climb the ladder to the top bunk. Life is so simple if you don’t try to complicate it Blaze once told her! Blaze, ever playful with his bride, kept complaining that he needed more room, so Lynette, the ever dutiful wife, climbed up the ladder to the top bunk – with Blaze watching from the bottom bunk, what the short night gown did not cover. Then he’d whine that he was chilly and lonely, so she would climb back down, again with Blaze lying on his back, looking up at the awkward way her legs splayed outward as she stepped down on each rung. The second time he did it, and she went up and down again, she insisted that they continue that pattern, on just a grander scale!

  The walk down from the Lodge to the Brooks River was less than a half mile, and people often encountered bears on the way to the viewing area. Blaze noticed the movement in the trees long before Lynette, and he kept watch as they passed the movement. In the Apache culture, bears are held in great respect and observed with reverence. It is an animal that the Apache do not molest. Blaze explained that when an Apache encounters a bear in the wild, he or she addresses the bear as my grandfather or my uncle and tells the bear to go on off into the wild where it will be safe and can live out its life in peace, following the instructions of nature.

  With the other guests, they watched twenty-six grizzly bears snatching salmon up from the river, and at the Falls, they actually saw salmon jumping out of the water into the waiting mouths of seasoned and skilled older bears. If you saw it on National Geographic, most likely this is where it was filmed. Younger, less experienced bears tried to snag a darting salmon several times, before they achieved success. But, suffice it to say, no bear goes hungry at Brooks River and the Falls.

  Salmon begin their life-ending run back up the rivers of Alaska, striving to get back to where they were born so they can lay and fertilize their eggs. This insures another generation of millions of their offspring. The bears instinctively know when the salmon runs begin and they come to the waters of Katmai between late June and September to feed at this best of nature’s feasts. This was prime bear fishing season. In Ketchikan, a few years before, Lynette’s guide said that in the smaller streams and rivers, the salmon are so tightly packed fighting their way upstream, that a man can walk across the stream on their backs. So, they watched in awe as these beautiful, huge brown bears gorged themselves, packing on the pounds which would take them through the imposed fast of winter.

  They kept trying to find other adjectives to describe their honeymoon, as they wrote post cards or talked via cell phone to people back home, but the word magical kept surfacing.

  Dutch Harbor was their last planned stop before heading back home. The aggressive itinerary was about to end. If she was lucky, Lynette was counting on recognizing one or more crew members from the crab fleet that frequently off-loaded their catch there. Would she ask for an autograph if she did? Probably!

  “There are approximately eighty volcanoes in the Aleutian chain, many of which are still active,” the pilot of the Aire Alaska prop jet explained. “We’ll fly near or over a couple of them so you can see the smok
e plumes coming out,” he added. Blaze peered out of the window intently, as if looking for something particular. The pilot who flew this route several times a month was fully familiar with the history of the region. He knew about Adak Station. She’d watched a National Geographic program on World War II and America’s vulnerability to a Japanese attack in that part of the world. Somewhere up there were two islands, one belonging to Russia and the other to the United States, separated only by so little as two or three miles, where the Americans, with binoculars, watched the Russians, with binoculars, and visa versa during the Cold War. The official port of Dutch Harbor lay out in the Aleutian chain in the sleepy little village of Unalaska with a population of about 4000 people. Upon arrival they checked into a very modest bed and breakfast which sat upon a hill. From there they could see most of the town and the lovely white Holy Ascension Russian Orthodox Church, with its red roofs and onion-dome pinnacles. For the two days they were there, they ate meals of seafood, especially salmon, and visited the bars where they could hear the first hand stories of the brave seamen who went out into the treacherous and icy Bering Sea. They heard about men who spent endless hours pulling in 800 pound crab pots to earn a yearly check. They visited the memorial built to acknowledge the lost mariners; the men who went out to the sea and never returned. For one of several reasons, Lynette got the feeling that Blaze had been there before, but she didn’t ask. It was not until they waited in the small airport hanger to leave that he said, “It’s changed a lot. It looks a lot better.”

  On the flight back to Anchorage they watched whales glide into Cook Inlet. They flew low enough to see stellar sea lions jockeying for positions on rocky outcroppings, and those silly little black, white and orange puffin birds balancing on the edge of cliffs.

  For most of their trip, the weather gods had been kind to them. If it rained in the morning, the sun broke through the clouds by noon or slightly thereafter. And, when it did rain, even though it was the height of the summer season, it was a bearable, chilly rain. Unlike Austin or the desert parts of New Mexico during July and August, with 100 degree plus temperatures, the late summer temperatures in Alaska ranged from the mid-50s to the mid-70s. There was no day hotter than 78 degrees. What a blessing to be able to vacation in this weather. Lynette just didn’t do hot summers. The mild climate in Crystal Bend was one of the several reasons Lynette had chosen the area around Sierra Asombroso to buy a vacation home. Now, because God was good, and showed favor on her and Blaze, her permanent home would be in the cool of the mountains with songs of the swaying Ponderosa Pine trees whispering a benediction in her ears.

  Twenty nine days had passed since they left New Mexico. It went so fast, but they had hundreds of pictures to take back and a lifetime of memories. Wherever she could, Lynette had the most current photos developed and put on CD discs so the sights would not get lost if anything happened to their digital cameras. Blaze had taken pictures of her with every mountain range he could find, as her backdrop. They often asked strangers to take their picture together with something specific in the background, and strangers were delighted to accommodate. They acted like newlyweds! And it was their intention never to loose that enthusiasm. Back they flew to Anchorage, watched a bore tide come in at Turnagain Arm, stayed overnight, then with all of their luggage collected, it was time to go home. What a trip this had been.

  The Universe blessed them with one more gift as the Alaska Airlines flight lifted into the sky from Anchorage, heading south. Within minutes out of Anchorage, the clouds parted and below them laid, out as far as the eye could see, dozens of glaciers inching their way to some terminal destination. They could see the Portage Glacier, now receding back to the mountain; the Malaspina Glacier, forty miles wide and God knows how long. Flowing in all directions were dozens of rivers of ice, many laid down hundreds of years before the Lower-48 was established as a country, but not before the first Native-Americans walked across that land bridge. Wherever Blaze was, there were his people. The people who were here first.

  CHAPTER 29

  ¤

  Giving Up The Past

  The guest room on Blaze’s side of the house was filled with the dozens of packages he and his bride had shipped home from Alaska. It looked like a Goodwill Store. There were things for the house and gifts for friends and relatives. He’d even shipped some of his Homer catch, via FedEx, packed in dry ice. Aaron stored the flounder in the freezer until they could all be home together and enjoy it.

  Lynette was anxious to see her puppies after a full month’s absence. She asked Blaze what he thought about naming them Yukon and Alaska. Yukon would be the name for the shepherd, and Alaska for the brown and white one. He thought it was a great idea; a reminder every day of the world’s best honeymoon.

  Blaze was anxious to get a good look at the progress on the house. Two weeks before Thanksgiving was the hoped-for occupancy date. There was time though; this was only the latter part of August.

  Aaron and Clare threw a small barbecue get-together for them, the Friday night after their return, which provided a captive audience and prime opportunity to show photos and talk on and on about Alaska. Aaron didn’t know Lynette could get so many words out in one breath! They talked about going back again soon, and encouraged Clare and Aaron to consider that as a destination for their honeymoon. Blaze was as impressed with Alaska as Lynette had been, and kept thanking her for taking him. His visits there while in the Navy were under much different, and classified circumstances. Back then there was no time for sightseeing or fun.

  Over the next month, Lynette flew back and forth to Austin, clearing out twelve years of accumulated “stuff” as she prepared to put her neat little house on the market. She decided not to lease it out. Tenants can sometimes be a problem, and she wanted to keep her life as uncomplicated as it had become. She talked to Janette about keeping it, but she too, agreed it would be more of a problem than it was worth.

  “Sell it mom,” Janette counseled, “pay off all your bills, and if you want to, put some of that money into the condo. That way it’ll be paid off sooner, and you’ll own it free and clear.” Now Lynette knew her daughter well. She was a mirror of her mother when it came to business and practicality. They had a wonderful and fun relationship. Janette’s sense of humor was even more developed that her mother’s, and whenever the two were together, there was lots of laughter. Once, when discussing death and what arrangements Lynette had made for when the time came, she couldn’t decide whether she wanted a normal funeral or if she wanted to be cremated. While in a quandary, Janette told her not to worry. She was going to take a post-hole digger, dig a six foot deep hole in the back yard, and just stand her dead body up in the hole, and she’d plant a tree on top of her. That was actually very creative and when they stopped laughing, they both agreed that death should not be feared; it is inevitable. No one gets out of this life alive, so why treat it so somberly. Janette told that story many times and most people found it terribly irreverent and absolutely funny. Knowing Janette, the thought of the condo being paid off, meant that down the road, it would be hers – free and clear! She was thinking ahead.

  Blaze went with her and spent almost a week helping her with the heavy lifting. He mowed and trimmed the yard and hauled the decrepit old lawn mower, which she hadn’t used in five years, off to Goodwill, for refurbishing and resale. Even he couldn’t believe the number of boxes she had stored in the garage. One of her five closets was stacked to the ceiling with boxes of labeled and dated genealogy research materials. She refused to destroy or trash any of those valuable documents and convinced Blaze that, if they could dedicate a large enough closet in their new home, her priceless materials could be kept out of sight in there. She swore that one day she planned to catalog her materials on the computer, but life had been too busy so far to do it. She was a pack-rat, she knew it.

  Blaze just laughed at what she wanted to keep and what she could convince herself to let go. There were high school year books, her graded papers from u
ndergraduate school (most with “A’s” on them), every term paper she ever wrote, and all the research materials for her Master’s Thesis. She’d kept her children’s report cards, girl scout sashes, craft projects and an old Selectric typing machine. An entire corner of the garage was dedicated to her “lady tools”- jig saws, circular saw, two Black and Decker drills, assorted hammers, screw driver sets, tool boxes, cans of nails, tree trimmers, hundreds of feet of orange extension cords, weed whackers, and two Dremel tool sets. During all of her single years, she’d had to be pretty self-sufficient, and she was well-equipped to handle most basic repairs around her home. She even had a set of crow bars, which were an absolute necessity when she ripped up the worn and broken boards on her own deck, and replaced them with treated cedar decking.

  They drove her bright red Chevy Cobalt back to New Mexico loaded with boxes of her Native pottery and art work. These she would not trust to the movers. She had lovingly cared for her special pieces, acquired over a twenty-five year span. Some of her pottery she bought directly from the artist. She remembered the face of the man at the Acoma Pueblo, who made one of her most special pieces. His work was so intricate. The lines were so perfect. He had painted this piece of white pottery with the hairs of a horse. She sat on her living room floor and stroked another piece, telling Blaze the story of the trip to the Four Corners area with Clare. Each piece she wrapped and put into the box, had a story with it. Blaze quickly realized that she was not just packing away pots, she was saving important memories in her life. Lovingly she interpreted the designs and stories on some of the vases. Listening patiently, he admired her for her love and appreciation of the handwork of indigenous people.