Nowhere Wild (17 page)

The recoil from the rifle stung Jake's fingers and jarred his shoulder. He chambered another round as the expended cartridge spun off into the leaves. The deer disappeared behind a cluster of trees.

“Damn it!” Jake raced off in pursuit as fast as his aching legs could carry him.

The layer of disturbed mud on the ground tracked the animal's direction. Jake charged after it, his quiet stalking replaced by a full-out sprint. The hooves of the deer churned up pine needles as it worked itself deeper into the brush. The buck crashed through the forest, knocking more water from branches as it ran.

Jake paused at the spot where the deer had been when he had taken the shot. A thin mist of blood had settled onto the leaves. Jake's hopes soared. Had he missed altogether, the chase might have ended right there.

He turned to call to Izzy, then stopped. Every moment he wasted waiting for her was another moment he might lose track of the deer. The chase was already on. He turned back to the trail of hoofprints. A drop of blood on a branch and blood spatter on the ground gave the first indications that the bullet had more than just scratched the deer. Jake climbed over the trunk of a downed tree that the animal had hurdled without slowing.

The deeper he went into the trees, the harder the ground became. The tracks disappeared. Only the blood trail—a few drops here and a few drops there—allowed him to follow the injured beast's progress. The trees thinned as he climbed a small ridge. He temporarily lost sight of the trail as it crossed a creek. A few minutes of frantic searching picked up a large pool of blood where the deer had paused for a moment. He was back on the trail.

He fought to keep his bearings as he worked his way farther inland. He checked his compass frequently and paid careful attention to possible landmarks: dead trees, unusual rocks, and creek beds. Even so, after a while, it all began to look the same. Without a pencil and paper, getting back to exactly where he'd started would be a crapshoot. The fear of becoming lost this close to home blossomed in the back of his mind. He wished he had brought his backpack. His thoughts drifted back to Izzy. He hoped she would stay put. It would be hard enough to find her as it was.

The blood trail thickened. More than once the buck had stumbled and left smears on the rocky ground. Jake slowed his pace. His legs were not used to running. His energy reserve dwindled. Only the adrenaline—the thrill of the kill—kept him going.

The metallic smell of blood infused the air. To the starving hunter, it was divine. He hopped over another downed tree. A long streak of red ran across a layer of moss partially torn free from the log by a wayward hoof.

The buck lay next to a small bush just ahead of him, panting and wheezing. A thick froth of blood and foam dripped from its mouth and nose. A bullet wound pierced its side halfway down its back, just above the bottom of the ribs. Blood coursed down its hide. It moved as if to stand, but its weakened body could not obey. Jake knew that feeling—had felt it every day since this unending trip had begun. He also knew that his life—Izzy's life—depended on this animal's
sacrifice. He put the gun to his shoulder and dispatched the injured buck with a second shot, this one to its head.

He took a moment to catch his breath and to assess the deer. The buck had done quite well for itself in feeding this year. There were seven points on the antlers, all with little damage done through either fighting or sparring with trees. It was early in the season, and the animal had been strong and healthy. Jake didn't have tobacco to sprinkle, but he did speak the words of thanks to the spirit of the deer as his grandfather had taught him, and asked for its strength to be imparted to Izzy and him.

Jake cleared the chamber on his gun by pulling another round into place. He allowed himself only a moment to celebrate. Bears and wolves could smell blood in the air better than he could. The chase had left a long trail of it leading to this spot.

Jake set the gun against a tree and removed his sweater. He studied the buck for a moment, then removed his T-shirt and pulled his knife from his belt. The damp chill attacked him while he was without his gear, but the last thing he wanted was to smear blood all over his clothes. Blood was impossible to remove in the bush. It would eventually harden to a crust, but it would always smell like blood, fresh or not.

With a series of quick motions, he field dressed the deer. He saved the heart, liver, and kidneys. Those would be their first meal as soon as they had a safe camp and a fire. His mouth watered constantly as he thought of cooking up the meat. He wanted to build a large fire, to warm up, and to feast on his kill, but he could not do it right there and then. Izzy needed food, too. The pile of discarded guts steamed in the cool air, turning the ground into a red morass of leaves, dirt, and blood. He stuffed the edible organs back into the carcass and tied the gut closed with his belt.

The timer in Jake's head ticked at a furious rate. He guessed that a
kill this big, in these woods, with this much blood, meant he could have as little as half an hour before the uninvited guests began to arrive; a half hour to return to his canoe before he would be forced to defend his dinner. And the chase had taken at least that long. He wanted to start the clock from the time the final kill had been made, but as soon as blood had been spilled, the race against the clock had started.

Jake cursed himself for not remembering to bring everything he needed to finish the field-dressing process. If he'd taken his time, he would have remembered to bring the machete to cut off the antlers, and rope to use to tie the forelegs together. Instead, he pulled the laces out of one of his boots and lashed the legs to the antlers. The antlers would do as a drag line. Jake wiped his hands off on the moss, donned his shirt and sweater, then grabbed ahold of the antlers. The gun he looped over his shoulder.

The deer weighed perhaps fifty-five kilos—not huge by the area's standards. He'd seen many bucks closer to eighty. On wet, even ground, the deer slid easily. The trail, however, was littered with downed trees and brush that forced Jake to lift the carcass in order to pass by. The points on the antlers snagged on everything and poked him every time he pulled them free from an obstacle. Lifting the deer was easy at first, but with each downed log the deer grew heavier, until it felt like a ship's anchor, needing a winch to drag. Jake muscled it over each deadfall, straining with every move.

He followed, where he could, the blood trail left behind by the fleeing deer. It would have been faster to take a more direct route and to avoid the existing trail altogether, except he wasn't familiar with this area. The lake lay somewhere to the southeast and the canoe was hidden on a little unremarkable bay along the shore. The closer he could aim for the canoe on the first try, the better.

It took concentration to stay on the trail. The blood track had soaked into the ground and darkened on wood to look just like
another knot. Jake put his head down and pulled the carcass as fast as his wasted body would allow. The jackhammer pounding of his heart blocked out the background noise of the forest. His hands hurt from gripping the antlers. A misplaced step sent him sprawling onto the ground, cracking his knee on the root of a nearby tree. Getting up dug deeper into his faltering reserves.

He smelled the water long before he saw it. Through the thick brush, Jake finally picked up sight of the breaking whitecaps. He left the carcass and hopped into the shallows, ignoring the impact of the cold water. He waded in deeper for a better view of the shore. His pulse quickened when he failed to see the canoe to his right, where he had guessed it would be. Then relief flooded his body as he found the large cedar where the chase had started, a hundred meters to his left.

In the forest, close behind him, a wolf howled. Two others responded. He jumped back onto the shore, grabbed the deer, and dragged it along the forest floor, in the direction of where he had left Izzy and the canoe.

It took less than three minutes to cross back to the beach where they had landed. When he arrived, the beach was deserted and the canoe gone.

Jake spun in a quick circle. Everything was gone. He had left her with the canoe and his gear, and she had taken it all.

Jake checked behind him, panicked. The wolves would be coming soon. He rubbed his bloodstained hands together. He'd be lucky if they only took the deer and didn't kill him, too.

“Izzy!” Jake called out over the water. The wind had abated in the time it took him to track and kill the deer, but the surface was still far too rough for an inexperienced paddler like her to make it on her own.

“Jake!” came a whispered voice from behind a fallen maple. Izzy's head popped up from behind the log.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jake yelled. “We gotta go.” He dropped the antlers and raced forward.

“We can't, Jake. Look!” Izzy pointed southeast, along the shore. Jake's head snapped around. It took only a moment to see what had spooked Izzy.

There on the water, perhaps a kilometer ahead of them, was a large silver canoe, paddled by a single, large man.

Jake hunched down, as if to hide, then glanced backward. Izzy kept her eyes locked on the lone man in the canoe.

“He passed by here maybe ten minutes ago,” Izzy said from behind the log. Every word she whispered still seemed like a bullhorn alert sent out to Rick. The silver canoe twisted momentarily, the bow sent shoreward by the ebb and flow of the wind-driven water. Izzy ducked lower.

“Grab the stuff. We have to go,” Jake whispered back.

“We can't go. Not with Rick out there,” Izzy protested.

“We have to. In a couple of minutes, we're going to have company here. And I'm not hanging around to see how big this party is going to get.”

For the first time, Izzy noticed the dead deer on the ground.

She raised her hand for a high five, which Jake shook off.

“We gotta go. Now.”

Jake vaulted over the log and grabbed the canoe, which was stashed behind it.

“Where are we going? Back into that?”

“Across it,” Jake said. “If we can get across, we'll be safe.”

“If?”

“If
is all I got right now. I'll guarantee you though, that if
we don't get moving now, we are not going to be safe
here
in two minutes.”

Jake tipped the canoe up and over his head and ran for the water, nearly stumbling due to a boot missing its laces. Izzy grabbed the paddles, then made a second trip back for the pack. Jake scrambled back to the deer and dragged it across the gravel to the waiting canoe.

“Tilt the canoe so I can roll this thing in. I can't lift it all at once.”

“Is it going to fit?”

“We'll make it fit.”

Izzy did as ordered. In the distance, Rick paddled farther away, working his way southeast. He hadn't noticed their movements, their efforts drowned out by the crashing waves, pattering rain, and noise of the wind in the branches. Still, Izzy had trouble prying her eyes away from him.
How had he not seen her?

Jake slid the deer into the center of the canoe. The hind quarters practically sat on Jake's stern seat. The antlers were so large that they rose up directly behind Izzy's bow seat. If she leaned back suddenly, they'd puncture her kidneys.

“That's not safe.” Izzy pointed to the rack.

“Just get in. We'll fix it once we're on the water.”

Izzy tossed the pack in on top of the deer and jammed Jake's paddle in next to his seat. Jake shoved the laden canoe deeper into the water. Izzy had to run through the shallows to catch up. The freezing water soaked her loose pants all the way to her hips, threatening to pull them down to her knees with every step. She jumped into the canoe as a wave lifted the bow. Jake joined her a second later.

Izzy turned to adjust the deer's antlers, but stopped.

A wolf launched itself down the bank and into the shallows where Jake had been just seconds before. It stopped as the cold water reached its shoulders. Jake grabbed his paddle, then dropped two quick strokes into the water to widen the distance.

One gray eye and one yellow eye tracked them as they sped away from the beach. The growl came a few seconds later. Izzy nearly dropped her paddle, and a bow-on wave threatened to capsize their overloaded boat. Jake corrected their lean.

“You gotta keep paddling,” he urged. “We're going to ride a lot lower in the water with this thing in here. I can't get us across on my own.”

Izzy adjusted her grip and pulled the paddle through the next whitecap.

Izzy glanced back at the shore. The wolf had retreated from the water. It watched them for another moment, its eyes locked with hers. The wolf growled once more, then turned and dashed back up the bank, into the woods. Izzy shivered as she turned and paddled into the wind.

“You sure we can make it?” she asked, eyeing the onslaught of rollers headed their way.

She knew what Jake's silence meant.

They didn't have a choice.

They reached the opposite shore half an hour before dusk. Izzy collapsed over the bow as Jake drove the canoe into a gap between the roots of willow trees crowding the shore. The fight across the lake had nearly killed them. The waves and the rain had come perilously close to swamping their small craft a dozen times. She had stopped bailing and paddled for all she was worth once the land actually seemed reachable. Her feet sat in ankle-deep water.

Now the wolves were on the other side of the lake, and Rick had not—to the best of their knowledge—seen them.

“I'm so cold,” Jake moaned from behind her. He dragged himself from his seat, tripped over the gunwale, and fell into the water, face first. He coughed and sputtered as he knelt in the surf. Izzy resisted the urge to laugh at him. Jake had spent everything he had left to get them across the water. He looked broken.

“Come on, Jake. We need to get you dry.”

Izzy forced herself out of the boat. Her legs wobbled on the slick rocks. She looped an arm under Jake's chest and lifted him to a standing position.

“I know, Dad. Shelter. Fire. Water. Food. I'll do it,” Jake babbled. Izzy stumbled under his weight.

“Right.”

She sat him down against a nearby log while she searched the
area for a decent campsite. She settled on a small gap under a large white ash tree. It wasn't perfect—it sloped far more than she would have liked—but it was drier, not as rocky as the rest of the area, and hidden from the water. She dug the tent from the pack, set it up, threw the sleeping bag in, and dragged Jake to his feet again.

“Need to butcher the deer.”

“I know how to do it. Just rest. I'll call you if I need you.”

Izzy pushed him into the tent, then pulled his soaking-wet sweater and shirt off him. He did little to help—or to object. His waterlogged pants would have to be wrung out before they would be dry enough to wear again. He began to shiver.

“I can't sleep now.”

“Yes, you can.” She pushed him into the sleeping bag, ignoring his final protests, zipped the bag closed, and left the tent.

Outside, under the thick canopy of branches, the wind barely registered. Izzy ran back to the canoe and slid it clear of the beach. She would hide it as soon as she could empty it out. She stared at the deer that had accompanied her across the water, butchering it with her eyes, imagining where the best cuts were and what they would eat first. She spat a mouthful of saliva onto the ground.

“Shelter. Fire. Water. Food.” She echoed Jake's mantra.

Starting the fire took every skill she had learned in her time in the bush. She peeled bark from a birch tree and plucked pillowy fluff from an old cattail. She grabbed the smallest twigs from a downed tree and removed the wet bark, tossing it aside. She pulled grass stems from a patch of foxtail on the gravel. She piled everything she needed well away from the lake, between two deadfalls that would hide the light of the fire from any passersby. Only when she had gathered everything she needed to start the fire and keep it going did she try to light it. Even then, it took five minutes of diligent effort to get a spark from the flint to catch in the cattail fluff. She cupped the
ember and blew on it gently until the collection burst into a brief, intense flame. She added the oily birch bark, then the grass and the twigs. Soon, flames engulfed the small pile. She added larger pieces of wood in a small pyramid, letting the heat from the first flames dry the bigger pieces out before the weight of water within them could extinguish the fire. She admired her handiwork. Even Rick couldn't criticize those results.

She dug the water pot from the pack, filled it from the lake, and hung it over the fire on a sturdy branch rigged over the two dead logs beside the fire before turning her attention to the deer. Inside, she found the heart and the liver where Jake had stowed them. She cut the organs into thin slices, tossed them into the frying pan, and waited for them to cook. The smell of sautéing meat wafted through the air, intoxicating her.

Jake emerged from the tent, wrapped in only his wet sweater, just as the meat finished cooking.

“Get back in the tent. I'll bring it to you,” Izzy ordered.

“I'm fine.”

“God, you're stubborn. Get back in the damn tent. Now.” Izzy stood, careful not to drop the frying pan. “I'll have food for you in a minute.”

Jake looked like he was going to object again, but turned and crawled back into the tent. In the light from the fire, Izzy caught her first glimpse of his emaciated legs—as thin as matchsticks. She wondered just how they had brought him this far—and how much farther they could go. She looked back at the deer, then scanned the darkened forest around them. With the wolves on the other side of the lake and Rick ahead of them, this seemed as good a place as any to hole up for a few days and recover. They had shelter, fire, water, and food aplenty, now that they had the deer. A week, or even a few days, would allow them to smoke some of the meat, and that would
make the final push to Thompson so much easier. She didn't let her mind go to what would happen when they got there. There were things that needed doing here first.

She slipped into the tent with a large plate of hot food and a cup of tea. Jake lay curled up in the bag, shaking like a leaf, looking almost delirious with exhaustion.

“Here, try some tea.”

She pulled him to a sitting position and set the cup against his lips. His hair fell over his face. She pushed it back, looping it over his ears. He drank slowly. She handed him a thin slice of the venison heart. He stuffed it into his mouth with his fingers, then reached for a second piece.

“One at a time. Chew it well. Let your stomach adjust.”

She pulled the plate back from him and ate a piece of her own. The rich meat slid down her throat like liquid gold. The temptation to gorge was almost too much, but she remembered the lesson learned after Rick got that first deer at the cabin and forced herself—and Jake—into a sensible pace.

They ate in silence until the plate was empty.

“You need to sleep now,” she said.

“What about the deer?” he asked.

“I'll take care of it. I've done it before. Plenty of times.”

“Okay.”

Jake burrowed back into the sleeping bag. Izzy left the tent and stretched in the cool evening air. The rain had finally stopped. The trees still dripped and the wind still blew up above the forest, but in that little hollow, on the side of that lake, they were fed, and they were safe.