The Trap (10 page)

After following the frozen river for about fifteen miles, Johnny turned off the well-used main trail, which ran all up and down the great river, connecting many villages, and headed up into the hills. He had been on this trail many times. His grandfather often brought him along to teach him the ways of the hunter and the trapper. Sometimes they came up here in the fall to pick berries and hunt game birds. It was in these hills, almost five years earlier, while picking blueberries and hunting grouse and rabbits in the fall, that Johnny had lost his beloved dog.

*   *   *

Johnny and his dog, inseparable since the latter was a pup, had been hunting in the hills one afternoon. Earlier, his grandmother had made the boy a hot breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and fried Spam, which had been sweetened with a bit of honey drizzled over it as it hissed and sizzled in the cast-iron pan. When she wasn't looking, Johnny had given pieces of pancake to his best friend even though he had just finished his own breakfast of dried dog food mixed with warm water and a few pieces of moose fat trimmed from last night's supper.

After Johnny was done eating and had placed the clean-licked dish in the sink, he put on his shirt and hat and took up his single-shot shotgun, an old 16 gauge his grandfather had given him. He took six shells from a cartridge box on the windowsill and dropped them into one of his shirt pockets. He only needed six. He almost never shot more than two or three birds, but he needed the extra shells because he sometimes missed them on the wing. Though a good shot for his age, the boy had not yet mastered the quick, arcing swing of body and barrel.

Johnny drove a four-wheeler, pulling a small trailer for his dog. The dog sat on a bed of old carpets, watching the village pass as they headed for the trail-head of his grandfather's winter trapline.

The salmon season was past; men were putting up riverboats for the long, dark winter; and sled dogs barked from the roofs of their tiny straw-filled houses. They knew that the putting away of boats meant that winter was coming, and soon the great land would be buried under snow. They would be hitched to sleds and allowed to run and run and run. Sled dogs love to run. They dream of it. All summer they lie beneath the sun, panting and shedding and staring at the sled put away on blocks for the season—tall grass and wildflowers growing up through its runners.

The trail wound its way up into the hills, around small weed-edged ponds, and across a shallow stream. The stream was lined with spruce trees that grew smaller up toward the timberline and with willow bushes and berries. The smell of leaves beginning to decay filled the crisp air. It was perfect country for grouse and moose and bears. After Johnny had parked the four-wheeler, he and his dog walked quietly into the hills, listening to the forest, looking for birds or rabbits, each thinking of what his senses told him or thinking of nothing at all.

Johnny's grandmother was always happy when he brought home a rabbit, but his grandfather was happiest when the boy brought home a porcupine. It was his favorite game meat. The old man would build a fire outside, and when it was hot enough, he would toss the porcupine on the flames, turning it over with a long pole until all the sharp quills burned away, but not enough to cook the flesh. Then he would roll it from the fire and quarter it as he would any other small game. It was an old Indian trick and he knew many others.

Although most of the dogs in the village were malamutes—gaunt, powerful runners—the dog weaving in and out of the forest before the boy was a black Lab, a natural bird dog, named Tikaani. It was the Indian word for
wolf.
The word for
dog
wasn't smooth-sounding and beautiful like the word for
wolf.
Everyone called the dog Tik for short.

All of the other boys, and even many of the elders, made fun of his dog.

“What kind of dog is that?” they'd ask, smiling as they walked around Tik, his tail up and proud.

“Look at him. He's no runner. No good for nothing, just petting. Waste of salmon on him,” they'd say.

But Johnny didn't care. He loved the black dog, alone among a village of sleek sled dogs, who were always barking or howling and straining against their ropes or chains.

On the way up to the tree line, Johnny shot a grouse at the edge of a shallow gravel-bottomed creek. The bird had been searching for small stones when the boy and the dog emerged noiselessly from the forest. Tik stood motionless, although his tail twitched in anticipation as Johnny raised the barrel, centered the silver bead sight on the bird, and fired. Within seconds, the dog had jumped across the stream and had the flapping bird cradled in his mouth as he proudly trotted back to the boy, who kneeled and smiled and softly patted the dog's thigh. When the dog dropped the bird at his feet, Johnny rubbed his head and ears, his square head cupped in Johnny's brown hands, and then he reached into a pocket and gave the dog a piece of dried salmon. People called it Indian candy.

Under a bright fall sky Tik followed along with Johnny as he picked blueberries for them to eat. Occasionally, the dog carefully plucked a berry of its own. It was early September and berries at the edge of the timberline were ripe and sweet. Some were as big around as a thumbnail and yet still firm, not soft the way they turn after a freeze. The sun was high, and there was a slight breeze sliding down off the glaciers in the far mountains. It had not rained in a week and few mosquitoes bothered the twelve-year-old and his dog.

The bright hills were orange and yellow and gold and green, and the sky was deep blue with only a hint of thin white clouds strewn in the distance. It was a perfect fall day.

An old army rucksack with the grouse inside sat beneath a tree, while the shotgun leaned against the trunk.

Over the next hour, longer perhaps, they wandered from patch to patch, sometimes simply lying and resting, the sun warm on their skin. Once a rabbit burst from behind a small bush, but the shotgun was too far away.

The two must have fallen asleep, for the boy was awakened by the sound of growling and barking. Startled, Johnny sat up and saw Tikaani growling at a grizzly bear, baring his teeth, the hair on the back of his neck raised like a porcupine. The bear, too, had been eating berries in the hills above the tree line and had stumbled upon the two sleeping friends.

The bear was large, perhaps five or six hundred pounds, his blond head almost two feet across, his dark black eyes set far apart on a flat face. His ears were back, a sure sign of trouble, and he was flashing his yellow teeth, popping his gums, grunting, and shaking his head from side to side.

The young Indian was afraid. He could feel his heart beginning to race, and he had to remind himself to breathe. Slowly, he turned his head toward the direction of the tree where his shotgun rested, but he and Tik had wandered too far away from it. Now the gun was out of sight, forty or fifty yards downhill where they had begun their early afternoon feast.

There's a myth that a bear can outrun a man uphill, but that a man is faster running downhill. They say it is because the bear's short front legs trip it up. Some books actually advise that you run downhill in such an event. But no matter where you run, up or down or slantwise, you would lose every time. In the hundred-yard dash, a bear can outrun even a horse and take down a moose or caribou or elk. Running is always a last resort, and only when there is some form of safety within a very short distance.

Some books recommend that you jump into a lake or river or stream—suggesting that bears won't follow, that they somehow detest water. Bad advice again. You'll simply end up a wet supper like salmon. Bears are fantastic swimmers.

Some advise that you curl up in a ball and play dead. Do it too soon and you will surely be eaten. Do it only after a foul-breathed bear has knocked you to the ground and begun to claw and bite and rip your scalp away from your head. But if the hungry bear is bent on eating you, fight back with all of your desperate strength, for if you don't, you will surely be killed, partially eaten, and buried for a later meal. Knowing just when to do these things is like playing poker—you have to know when to hold pat and when to call a bluff.

Johnny Least-Weasel knew all these things. He had spent his young life learning the unwritten rules of this untamed land from his uncle and grandfather, and he knew what danger he was in.

He stood up slowly, his eyes on the bear at all times, and he spoke to it, letting it know he wasn't a moose or caribou calf.

The bear saw Johnny as if for the first time. Now it felt outnumbered. Two against one. He charged at the black barking dog between itself and the boy. Outweighing Tikaani many times over, the bear smashed into him like a furry locomotive, rolling him like a ball tossed into the brush. But the dog jumped to his steady paws and lunged at the bear, barking and snapping, his long tail held high like a flag.

While they battled, their terrible racket echoing in the fall-colored hills, Johnny screamed at the bear, shouting at it, sometimes in English, sometimes in his Indian language. But the bear did not hear or care. It raked its mighty paw at the dog, its dark brown claws almost five inches long. With the grizzly preoccupied, Johnny ran to his shotgun, opened its breech to check that it was loaded, and then ran back to his dog.

The bear was straddled over the Lab, trying to bite his head and neck. But Tikaani was still alive, kicking with his back legs into the belly of the great bear and trying to wriggle free. Johnny took aim and fired one shot just above the bear's massive head. The sharp report echoed in the valley, and the bear bolted toward the tree line.

The boy nervously slid another shell into the breech and walked over to where his dog lay whining and licking his wounds.

Tikaani was breathing fast in short breaths, almost panting. A large section of flesh and muscle was exposed where the bear had torn a length of skin from the dog's back. Small leaves, pine needles, and dirt stuck to the wound. One of his eyes and most of an ear were missing and the side of his head that had taken the mauling was wet and sticky. The end of his long nose was split down the middle and bleeding due to the rake of a huge paw. It was hard to see the red blood against his short, black hair, but it pooled brightly on yellow and orange leaves rotting on the forest floor.

Johnny dropped the shotgun, knelt, put his arms around his dog's head, and began to cry. He held him that way for a long time, and when he let go, Tikaani licked his face.

Still crying, he ran his hand along the length of the dog's body, feeling for what he could not easily see. He found several deep punctures between ribs and scratches that bled when he touched them.

Johnny knew that he had to get help for his dog, but it was many miles back to the small village. Besides, the dog weighed about eighty pounds, maybe more, far too heavy for the boy to carry. But if he left to go for help, surely the bear would return for Tikaani.

So he stayed with his friend throughout the long night. He gathered a great pile of dry branches and built a fire close enough to the dog to warm him. As darkness fell and stars and constellations came out, he cleaned the grouse and roasted it on a stout green stick over the flames. Johnny offered his dog bits of the meal, but in such pain as he suffered, Tikaani would not eat. Johnny ate the grouse, and when he was done, he collected pitch from a nearby spruce tree, which he chewed until it was warm and soft, then rubbed it into the many wounds and cuts. It was old Indian medicine his grandmother had taught him.

As the night grew cold, Johnny laid the empty rucksack, like a canvas blanket, over the dog. Occasionally, through the blackness beyond the edge of the campfire's glow, came the sound of snapping branches, as if something was moving through the night, circling, kept at bay by the fire.

The boy passed the long night with his shotgun on his lap, tending to the fire and caressing his dog. But somewhere before light's first breaking, he fell asleep with one arm wrapped across his friend.

Johnny was awakened by the voice of his grandfather, calling his name and shaking the cold from his bones. But his dog never woke again.

On a crisp fall morning, Johnny Least-Weasel, then but a twelve-year-old boy, buried his best friend just above the timberline and marked the shallow, knife-hewn grave with a pile of stones.

The stone pile lay somewhere ahead on the trail, like a milepost.

*   *   *

Although it had not snowed in the village for some time, it had recently snowed in the hills as it almost always does when low winter clouds become tangled in the mountains.

Johnny drove his yellow machine up the trail, snow sometimes billowing over the engine cowling, and it bothered him that there were no tracks of any kind on the virgin snow. It meant that his grandfather had not come down, that he was still up there somewhere, alone. Although the snow was fairly deep, the machine pressed on, riding lightly on its wide tracks and skis.

The sun was about as high as it would get at this time of the year. There would be only a few good hours of useful light before dusk.

Rounding a bend, two white rabbits quickly hopped across the trail and vanished in a thick tangle of spindly spruce. They wouldn't usually come out from their burrows when it was so cold, but the noise of the machine winding its way through the stunted forest startled them.

Johnny's cheeks were cold and his nose was running. He stopped, took off his gloves, and stood on the idling machine's runner while he cleared his nose, pressing his index finger against each nostril and blowing hard onto the snow. He checked that his gear was securely strapped, then sat and rubbed his cheeks until they felt warm again. After sliding his hands back into the sealskin gloves, he gunned the throttle, and the machine resumed its uphill trek into the white hills.

Less than a mile farther on, he came to a fork in the trail. He knew this place well, where his grandfather's trapline took two different routes, one winding far back into a remote valley, the other equally far into another. A small log cabin, some twenty miles distant, marked the end of each trail. Each cabin was only twelve feet by twelve feet, with one window in the front by a heavy door. Inside each cabin was a bunk bed, one small table with two mismatched chairs, an oil lamp, and a woodstove made from an old fifty-five-gallon fuel drum with a hole cut in the back for the insertion of stovepipe. There were no pictures, but one cabin had an old faded calendar that had been tacked to the wall in 1963. It had a sketched picture of a new Chevrolet parked before a new brick house, with a beautiful woman wearing a red dress and a shiny black belt standing beside the car.