Zoey woke with a start. One more day until her birthday. Wait. A womans voice in the other tent, and it wasnt her mom. What was Carolyn doing here?
“Harold saw him. A big one. Had his head inside a fish tote. He shooed him away by banging on a gas can, but he might still be around. Usually, they stay up the rivers and dont bother us. Its bad if they get the habit of nosing around camps. Weve had to shoot them before. Maybe with no fishing today that grizzlyll head off somewhere else.”
“Well be on bear alert. Thanks for coming by.” Zoey could hear Patrick say.
“Okay. Well see you tomorrow then.” Carolyns voice faded.
Zoey dressed quickly and slipped from the tent without waking Eliot. She watched Carolyn walk away down the beach, then noticed Patrick at the tent door.
“You got a day off.”
“What happened?” Zoey entered the big tent. She could see her mom still in her sleeping bag.
“No fish.”
“No fish? How can that be? And what did she say about a bear?”
“Sometimes the wind can churn things up so bad the fish dont come near shore. Sometimes theres a break in the run or the fish move around. Nobody really knows. Its okay for a day or so, but you know how everyone here depends on those fish.”
“But there were millions of em yesterday.” Zoey rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“Whats going on?” Eliot came in. His hair stuck straight up in the back where he had slept on it.
“Nothing to do today. No fish,” Patrick said without looking at them. “I guess you two have a day off, but you better hope theyre back tomorrow, or well leave Bristol Bay just as poor as we came.”
Zoey patted the log stool next to her. “Come on Eliot, sit down and relax.” She could see the danger if the run didnt start again soon, but she was ready for a break from the grinding work of fishing.
“Eliot, theres a grizzly bear around too.”
Eliot jumped up and down. “Yeah! We have a bear! Yeah!”
“Shhhh! Eliot. Your mom is sleeping.” Patrick brought his finger to his lips.
“Eliot, are you crazy?” said Zoey in a loud whisper.
“No, I just want to see one.”
“That bear is a serious matter. Dont you two go anywhere by yourselves as long as its around. Not even to the latrine. And stick together even in camp. Do you hear?” Patrick looked like he meant it. He stepped over to where his rifle leaned against the food shelf and checked it. “Good, loaded and the safetys on.” Then he put the gun down again.
Loud barks from Lhasa erupted from somewhere not too far away. They all fumbled to find boots and jackets and rushed outside. The barking came from somewhere near the old fishing boat. They ran, towards it. Patrick quickly passed Zoey and Eliot with his hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. “You kids get back in the tent. She might be onto our bear. I dont want you here. Go in and tell your mom whats happened. Im going to see if I can follow Lhasa and get her back before anything worse happens.”
“But Lhasa might not come for you. She knows me.” Zoey was frantic now. She didnt want anything to happen to her dog.
“Do as youre told.” Patrick ran ahead and disappeared over the hummock.
Zoey was furious.
“Come on Eliot, lets go.”
“Zoey, Patrick said it might be dangerous.”
But Zoey was already running toward the hummock. Eliot followed but he couldnt move as fast as Zoey and quickly fell behind. Zoey passed the boat and trotted onto the tundra beyond. She stopped short, stunned by the vastness of it. She had never come this far before. The great plain of Southwest Alaska swept before her for miles until it melted into the horizon. Flat with patches of scrubby shrubs sprinkled in. The sky above was Zoeys favorite shade of paint, “cornflower blue.”
She could see Patricks back in the distance, but not Lhasa. And the barking had stopped. Eliot caught up with her. Together they walked toward Patrick, cautious now because of the silence.
When they got closer they saw that Patrick had kneeled down and was holding Lhasas collar while the dog stared intently at something. Beyond them was a small pond.
Wow! On the far side of the pond two small bear cubs pawed each other playfully. Zoey couldnt believe how cute they were.
Zoeys eyes grew. A big rock next to the cubs stood up and stretched itself into a huge golden brown bear. Zoeys heart pounded. The mother bear rocked on her hind legs waving her nose in the air. She stared and sniffed in their direction.
Zoey held her breath. Everything began to play like a movie in slow motion. The sow huffed, came down on her front paws and lumbered straight toward them.
It was as though Zoey were in the middle of a dream. Puffy clouds in a soft blue sky and this huge animal, glossy fur rippling in the sun, hulking and graceful at the same time, closer, closer.
Zoey and Eliot sat transfixed, unable to move, breathe, or blink.
An explosion reverberated across the tundra. Then two more. So loud they hurt Zoeys ears.
Zoey grabbed Eliot and shoved him flat into the ground, then lay next to him. What happened? It had to be Patrick. He must have killed the bear? It had babies! Did he shoot the babies, too?
Zoey lifted her head enough to peek out. She caught a glimpse of the mother bear as it ran the other way, her cubs close behind. They disappeared in the brush.
“Come on you two!” Patricks voice was low and growly. “Back to the tent. Now! Zoey, make sure this dog stays with us.”
“You almost got yourself and Eliot killed. You HAVE to listen to me when I tell you things out here!”
Zoey took a deep breath, stood and threw her arms around Patrick. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for not killing the bear. I thought you shot the babies, too.” Zoey squeezed him hard before letting go. “Im sorry we followed you. It was dumb, but I was so worried about Lhasa.”
Patrick shook his head. “We need to hurry. Sometimes they will circle around and come after you. Well finish this conversation back at the tent.”
Eliot burst into the tent. Followed closely by Zoey, Lhasa and Patrick.
“What happened? I heard gun shots, and you were all gone. I dont know how I slept so long. Why didnt you wake me?”
“Slow down. One thing at a time.” Patrick hugged Alice and smiled. “Im glad to see you are up and around.”
Zoey and Eliot hugged their mom too, and little by little the entire story spilled out.
“And I thought Patrick killed the mama bear and even the babies. I was so mad, but I couldnt do anything.”
“That was a close one,” Patrick said. He was looking more relaxed as he fired up the Coleman and filled the coffee pot.
“She could just as easily have kept coming after us. I could have shot her, but then I would have had to shoot the cubs, too. They would starve on their own. Plus its no simple thing to kill a bear that size. The skull is so tough a bullet can bounce right off. Shoot anyplace but the heart, and all you do is make a very angry bear.”
He took a long sip of coffee. “Lets hope thats the last we see of them. Sows with cubs dont usually come around people. That might have been the one that was into Harolds fish totes earlier, but she wont put her cubs in danger like that again soon.”
That was a pretty long speech for Patrick. Zoey realized he was just as excited as they were about the bear encounter.
Zoeys mom shivered. “And to think how close you two came to being that bears breakfast. Zoey, do you understand you have to listen to Patrick out here. He knows this area. You gotta listen.”
Zoeys eyes shifted down. The worst thing was that she had put Eliot in danger. She hadnt trusted Patrick to save Lhasa, but in the end, he had saved all of them, even the bears.
“Come on, I bet you are all starving. How about some pancakes?” Zoeys mom bustled about gathering the ingredients.
A couple of hours later, after a longer-than-usual breakfast and a quick clean-up, Patrick took his rifle and walked Zoey, Eliot and Lhasa over to the old boat. Finally, they had some time to fix it up, and Patrick had volunteered to be bear guard. As they approached, they heard the sound of hammering. When they rounded the hummock, Thomas looked up. “I think thats about the last hole. Think shell float?” He smiled and put down the hammer.
“Probably not,” Patrick laughed. “But its a nice thought, Thomas.” I think you guys will be fine in the boat, but stick together and keep making plenty of noise. Im going to go a little way out on the tundra and see if I see anything.”
“We met the bear,” Zoey explained to Thomas. “Or some bear, anyway. This one had cubs. Two cubs!” She and Eliot told Thomas the whole story, in between lots of, “You should have seen her. She was beautiful!” And “Im so glad Patrick didnt kill her.”
Thomas agreed they were lucky Patrick was there. Imagine if he hadnt been.
Eliot finally changed the subject. “Are we going to launch the boat?” He asked.
Thomas laughed, “I wouldnt go that far.” He stepped back to examine his work. “But I think itll keep most of the rain out.”
“When we get it all fixed up, we can bring everyone up here and surprise them!” Zoey brushed the bangs out of her eyes and bent to wrestle a stick from Lhasa. She threw it toward Eliot, but he had turned back toward the hummock to play in the sand. Lhasa caught a scent, ignored the stick, and nosed her way up into the tundra.
“Lhasa, stay around here!” Zoey put her hands on her hips and glared at the dog. “Weve had enough adventure in the tundra for a while. You go watch Eliot.” Lhasa, circled around and stayed nearby. “Good girl.”
Zoey walked over to Thomas.
“Are you coming to my birthday party?”
“Were bringing the ice cream.”
“Ice cream! Is there a grocery store around here that I missed?”
“We have a freezer hooked up to our generator. Mostly its for fish but Harold is crazy about ice cream. We have frozen pizzas too!”
“Harold would give up his ice cream for my birthday?”
“Well, hes not around, and he has plenty; he wont mind. Hes pretty impressed with the way youve been helping us.”
“Where is he, anyway? Have you heard from him?”
“No, but its not the first time hes disappeared in the middle of the season. Hell be back. Soon, I hope.”
“Are you worried about him?”
“Harold is Harold. My dad gave up trying to reform him a long time ago.”
Zoey shrugged her shoulders. “Hey, guess what? My mom said shes baking a cake in the Coleman stove! Ill believe it when I see it. I never thought that would seem like such a big deal. You really notice what you dont have out here. Which is mostly everything.”
Zoey smiled as she plowed grooves in the sand with a mussel shell. “It seems like weve been here in the Bay for a long time. Sometimes I can hardly remember Anchorage.”
“What do you miss most?” asked Thomas.
“I miss my friend Bethany. She has about a million freckles. We tried to count them once and gave up. Shes my only friend in Anchorage. And I miss my bed. I didnt have my own room at home, but at least I didnt have to sleep right next to Eliot.”
“I dont have any real friends in Naknek right now,” Thomas said. “I kind of stopped hanging out after my dad died.”
Zoeys sand grooves deepened into canals. “What happened to him?”
“Accident.”
“Something with fishing?” asked Zoey.
“Yeah.” Thomas looked away and quickly said, “Hey, lets clean up the rest of the inside.”
Zoey let go of her questions and followed Thomas up the slanting deck and inside the cabin. He began to sweep the floor with an old broom he must have brought with him.
The sweeping brought an idea to Zoey that completely surprised her. She had always thought of Thomas outdoors, fishing, playing on the beach, or driving the boat. Now, with his broom, he looked like he might be cleaning up an apartment in any normal kind of city. Without thinking, she put herself in the scene. Yes, they had friends coming over for dinner. She would put the food in the oven and then arrange flowers for the table.
She giggled, but another thought stopped her. What would Thomas be like as a boyfriend? Zoey had never had a real boyfriend. And not that she wanted Thomas to be that, but as he swept she imagined them in a little house somewhere with, what? Jobs, friends, a car, a life. Where? In Naknek? Who would have thought? Just a few weeks ago Naknek didnt even exist for Zoey. Neither did the idea of a boyfriend!
There was no more room for Zoey in the cabin, so she carefully edged around the side deck toward the bow until she could sit with her back against the cabin wall and her feet up against the curved wooden plank that ran around the edge of the deck. After Thomas was finished she would decorate. She looked out at Eliot, the beach grass, and the empty water beyond and tried to imagine what might have happened to Thomas dad.
She wondered if Thomas got that feeling in his stomach. Like you were almost going to be sick, but you never were, but the feeling wouldnt go away. An empty feeling, but heavy, too. A big weight inside you. As if you had swallowed a lead line. She stopped. How strange that she knew what a lead line was.
Zoey realized she hadnt had that stomach feeling in a while. She had been so busy. Now something about her birthday brought it back. Her dad.
She heard raven clucks. Midnight was standing on the ground, and Eliot knelt just a few feet away with a piece of cracker extended in his hand. The raven cocked its head one way, then the other. It hopped two steps closer to Eliot.
When did Eliot learn to be that still? He was frozen like a statue. The raven hopped closer, so close Eliot could almost touch him.
Eliot whispered between lips that didnt move, “Get Thomas. Hes gonna do it.”
Zoey carefully lowered herself down from the deck and walked slowly, trying not to make a sound in the sand. Thomas emerged from the boat, unaware that anything unusual was happening. He set the broom down.
“Pretty clean anyway.”
In one quick motion, the raven swiped the cracker, bounced twice, and flew away.
Eliot jumped and shouted, “Im Raven Boy, King of the Wild Birds!”
“Pretty impressive! I never got him to do that,” said Thomas grinning.
“Me either,” said Zoey. She pulled herself back up onto the deck.
Midnight circled back and landed on the bow. He watched Zoey, cocking his head and making strange clicking sounds.
Zoey bent over the side and whispered down, “Eliot, give me a cracker.”
Eliot sighed. “Zoey, he wont come to you.”
“Just let me try.”
Thomas shook his head. Eliot passed a piece of cracker up to Zoey. She extended her hand just like Eliot had. Im going to stay here as long as it takes. Midnight looked at her and bounced a little closer.
Lhasa came running toward them, and the bird flew away.
“Lhasa!”
A cloud swallowed the sun. From where she sat on the bow, Zoey watched the Bay darken. On the horizon weird lines of dark gray formed.
“We better get going, Eliot. Come on. “
Zoey zipped her jacket. Then to Thomas she said, “Dont forget my birthday.”
Next time she came out to the boat, she would bring her paints.