Pathways (9780307822208) (5 page)

Bryn began to look forward to Eli’s visits, his shy smiles and warm glances. So when he came over a week after their hike and invited her to go with him to meet Ben White, she agreed. Together they paddled up to Ben’s cabin. His home was a bit more expansive than the other two Summit cabins, with a wraparound porch and wide windows on three sides. There were tidy wooden and stone steps that came down the hillside to the beach. Ben emerged as they neared and gave them a small wave, moving slowly, stiffly, to the stairs, to come and meet them.

“You all right, Ben?” Eli asked.

“Ah, fine. Just that darned arthritis acting up.” He came closer
and smiled tentatively at Bryn. “Must be Pete Bailey’s girl. Spittin’ image.”

“I am.” She reached out her hand. “Bryn. Bryn Bailey.”

“Ben White,” he said with a friendly nod. He was a short man, perhaps four inches shorter than Bryn, but compact and strong. About seventy years old. He was dressed in an old plaid shirt that had probably seen a decade of wear and jeans that had holes at the knees. But they were clean.

It was his eyes, kind and sagelike, that drew Bryn’s gaze. “Come on up and share a cup of tea with me,” he invited.

“That would be great, Ben,” Eli said. He and Bryn moved forward, and Eli’s hand moved to the small of her back, a polite gesture of pure masculinity. Women didn’t go around touching each other there. She found herself wishing he wouldn’t let it drop away. It was warm and comforting somehow. Oddly intimate.

“Have any bear cubs?” Eli asked Ben as they entered the house. The walls were plastered, making it lighter and brighter than the Baileys’ cabin, and the floors were of wide, clear pine planks. She and her father had been debating the possibility of flooring their own cabin.

“Don’t have any bears now. Those I went to see were dead before we could reach them. The guys down at Fish and Game tell me they’re hoping to bring a couple by next week. Guess I’ll be back to nursing a new set along.”

“How many have you ‘fathered’?” Bryn asked.

“Couple of twins. Several lone cubs.” He set the pot on the stove, lit a match, and cranked the dial. A propane tank must be nearby, she surmised. He turned and reached for a few mugs from hooks and several boxes of tea, then set them on the table before her and Eli. “It’s a
crazy thing to do, but I enjoy it. Without me, those little critters would die. And there’s a place on God’s green earth for every one of them.”

Bryn bristled at his mention of God. She remembered her dad’s warning about Ben White, and she wondered if she would get the religious fanatic spiel now.

“Had a couple of problems with one young male,” he continued. “He’s wandered on over to Talkeetna and is liking the garbage smorgasbord rather than hunting. I have to figure out a way to get them used to hunting younger, so it’s not such a shock. My females have done well, but this male—”

“How do you know he’s yours?”

“Part of my deal with Fish and Game. I radio-collar them all. University tracks them for me. My job is to raise them up as a bear mother would. Wrestle with them. Take them out on walks. Show them how to dig for a spring covered with foliage or grub under a log, that sort of thing.”

“How’d you get into it in the first place?” Bryn asked.

“Father was a vet and always fostering wounded or abandoned wildlife in New Hampshire. An owl with a wounded wing. A falcon. Ferrets. Anything you can name. We had a couple of bears when I was growing up. People brought him animals from all over the Lower 48. It became the family business.” The teapot whistled, and he turned to take it from the stove and pour each a steaming mug. “Enough about me. How do you find Summit this year, Bryn? I wasn’t around the last two times you visited. But I well remember the year you two were ten or eleven. Inseparable, you were.”

She could feel the heat of Eli’s embarrassment, but she concentrated on Ben. “It’s pretty here. But a little … far away from everything for my taste.”

Ben sat down and looked at her from over the rim of his mug. “Takes awhile. You’ll see it eventually—what brings your father here.”

“Besides a break from my mother?” It was out before she realized what she was saying, but there was something about Ben that invited confidences. His open kindness, lack of judgment.

He smiled and nodded, seeming to sense that now was not the right time for eye contact. “Alaska calls a body home. Your father’s got it in his blood. I’d wager you’ll soon have it in yours as well. Once it’s in there, there isn’t a way to get it out. No way to remedy the ache when you’re away other than to visit. Or move here permanent.”

Bryn smiled in confusion. “You make it sound like a disease.”

“Some might call it that, yes.”

He was puzzling, this wizened old man. She wondered what it was about Ben that her father had disliked, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure it out. He was a genuine, sweet gentleman. Maybe Peter was afraid Ben would see into his soul as he was seeing into Bryn’s. Afraid that he’d open up to the old guy when he wasn’t ready to open up to anyone. Her thoughts floated until Ben brought another cup of tea.

They talked of Eli’s blossoming business plans and his parents, about Bryn’s studies, her mother in Newport, her grampa in Boston—it hit her then that Ben reminded her of her beloved grandfather. How she missed Grampa Bruce’s smiling eyes and the way he would trace his old finger down her jaw tenderly when he was telling her something he wanted her to remember forever …

When their mugs were empty, Eli and Bryn said good-bye, promising to come back the following week to meet his “babies.”

Eli followed Bryn down to the canoe, allowed her to get to the
front, and then pushed off of a large rock without ever getting his boots wet. As they paddled away, he asked quietly, “What did you think?”

“About?”

“About Ben.”

“I think he’s a very nice old man. I don’t know why my father doesn’t like him.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I might.”

“Want to go fishing?” Eli changed subjects. “I can teach you an old Tlingit tribe method and catch you a passel of trout for dinner.”

“Yes. I’d like that,” she said. “But let’s stop and get my dad’s fly-fishing rod too. I want to try my hand at it.”

“You got it.”

E
li was showing Bryn how to stand on the logjam and use Ben’s dip nets to try to catch trout the way the natives caught chinook salmon on the Pacific rivers. Ben had handcrafted the nets years before; they weren’t as effective as fly rods with the trout, but they were twice as much fun.

As Bryn stood spread-eagle over the rushing river, on top of logs that waved a little under her weight, she grinned. It was risky, this. With one misstep, she’d be in the frigid water and heading toward the lake through the small rapids. She couldn’t remember the last time she had the tingle of anticipation running down her back, the relentless smile on her face from pure excitement. A dark form slithered toward her, and she dropped the long net. Too late. She studied the silver water a little farther upstream, hoping to give herself a better chance at dunking the net in time.

Across the water, Eli whooped with glee. “Got one! He’s nineteen inches long if he’s an inch!” he shouted. “Get to it, ya Californian. If you don’t catch at least one, you don’t get to eat tonight.”

“I’m working on it,” she tossed back, her eyes still on the water.
There!
She plunged her net downward so hard and so deep the hand carved pole nearly slipped from her grasp. She gave out a little yelp, and Eli immediately responded in concern.

“Bryn?”

“I’m okay. Just missed a fish and almost lost the net.”

“Don’t do that. Ben’ll kill us.”

She glanced over at him and then did a double take. He was so cute, with his old airman’s cap on backward. His hazel eyes studied her, and she deliberately looked back to the river. “Catch a fish, Bryn, or you won’t eat. Don’t lose the net or Ben’ll kill us,” she mimicked. “I can’t win,” she pretended to whine.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” he said. She could barely hear him over the water’s rush.

Five minutes later, after several more failed attempts, she came up with her own prize trout. She hooted with glee, smiling over at Eli, and he grinned back at her. He was scrambling over the old silvered logs to get to her and help her with the fish when a shot rang out, from high up, in the direction of the glen over the ridge behind them.

Eli froze, then frowned. He studied the green peaks, and his head shook back and forth slightly.

“What was that?” Bryn said lowly.

He kept shaking his head for a moment. “That came from the area where the Dall’s sheep have been grazing.”

“Hunters?”

“Poachers, this time of year.”

Bryn frowned.

“I’m going to go check it out. Stay here, Bryn. Or go back to the cabin.”

“No way. I’m coming with you.”

His head whipped around. “Not a good idea. I’m going to sneak up on them. If it is poachers, I want to get a good description so I can report them.”

“Two witnesses are better than one.”

Those hazel eyes studied hers. Fear, concern, and admiration all ran across his face. He paused a moment longer, then gave her a nod of assent. “We’ll have to move quickly. Ready?”

She licked her lips. What had she gotten herself into? But as Eli gripped her hand in his and they made their way across the logs to the other side and began bushwhacking up the side of the mountain, across several streams, and through the forest, she smiled in satisfaction and anticipation. It was an adventure. Wasn’t that why her dad wanted her here? To see Alaska in its natural beauty? Learn to love the land as he did? What better way to do that than to do some surveillance on a couple of lousy poachers?

A thousand feet up they paused and took deep drinks from the canteens at their waists. Another shot rang out, and automatically they ducked. Looking about, they saw no one.

“Over that next ridge,” he said, gesturing toward a ragged, rocky hump another five hundred feet away, almost straight up. “We should be able to see them from there.” They began moving again, slowing down over the loose shale and moraine left from the receding glaciers that had once dominated this valley. “Find your foothold and a handhold before you move,” Eli told her sternly.

She swallowed a defensive retort, but she knew Eli was right. They were one handhold away from a long, prickly slide down the face of the mountain. The adventure was quickly becoming less fun. But she was determined now. Nothing was going to make her turn back.

In fifteen minutes they reached the ridge and scrambled on their stomachs to look over into the next shallow valley where the sheep loved to lounge about. From the Baileys’ cabin they could often see their white forms frolicking in play or standing like statues as they grazed. Now the sheep were definitely on the move, making their
way across impossibly narrow ledges, leaping five feet at a time, higher and higher, away from danger. Below them they could see two men hacking up an old ram, obviously intent on taking the head home as a trophy.

Bryn shivered. She didn’t know if it was from the wind, omnipresent at this elevation, or from fear. “Do you know them?” she whispered.

“No,” he said softly. She studied Eli out of the corner of her eye. His face was red and his jaw tensed. He was obviously enraged at the poachers, this invasion of his valley. There was something primal and all masculine in his demeanor that made Bryn’s scalp tingle in anticipation. “You can’t go out there,” she said. “They’re armed, Eli.”

“Let’s at least get a good description for the authorities; they look to me to be about in their midforties. Dark hair on both. By their duds, I’d guess they were Alaskans, not Outsiders. If one’s an outfitter, he could lose everything.”

Bryn nodded. What did she know? She had her own Eddie Bauer shirt and pants on today, purchased just before she came. “If they’re from here, why poach? Why not wait until hunting season?”

“Maybe one’s a hunter who wants a jump on the season and is willing to pay the right price. Or if they’re both just poaching, they’ll probably sell the head. The Chinese will pay a good price for the horns. They’ll grind them up and sell the powder as an aphrodisiac. And they use the eyes as a supposed remedy for cancer. Or maybe they’ll sell the whole thing, mounted, to a lodge somewhere. There’re lots of ways to make money.”

“Eli.” She was staring straight ahead. One of the hunters had glanced their way, then abruptly stopped, as if he had spotted them.

Eli looked his way too. “Time to go, Bryn. Remember their
faces.” Together they scrambled backward and rushed down the rocks below them. The sharp shale bit into Bryn’s hands, and she winced as she was cut. If it hadn’t been for her tough jeans, her legs would’ve been a mess too. They were nearing the bottom when a low voice yelled, “Hey! Stop!”

“Run, Bryn,” Eli said. “We have to get to the trees. We’ll hide there.”

A shot rang out, and the rocks split five feet to Bryn’s left. She froze, hands up.

“Keep moving,” Eli demanded, taking her hand and yanking her forward. “That was just a warning. We won’t get another.”

She could hear the men running behind them, grunting and swearing. Slipping and sliding over the loose rocks as they had. The ground leveled out a bit, and Bryn welcomed the cool shade of the forest. They ducked low branches and dodged trees, sometimes side by side, holding hands, other times with Eli in front, breaking trail for her. He turned a sharp corner and rushed down a steep hillside. Behind her, Bryn could hear the men talking quietly. Eli disappeared in the foliage, and Bryn’s heart leapt up to her throat.

She glanced around frantically. “Eli? Eli!” she called in a stage whisper. A strong hand grabbed her forearm and yanked her roughly to the ground. He covered her mouth with his other hand, preventing her from screaming, and pulled her deeper beneath the underbrush next to a decomposing log. “We can’t outrun them,” he whispered. “Hopefully, they’ll think we went down this steep bank and give up on us.”

They panted for air, trying to be quiet, hoping to gain control before their pursuers caught them. Five feet to their right, they heard branches breaking and the heavy breathing of the pursuing men.
They’re right on top of us
. Bryn pulled herself in a little more, as if she could shrink to the size of the log and disappear, and squeezed her eyes shut. Her ears pounded with her pulse, as if they could hear every last sound in the forest.