The Last of the Lumbermen Read online

  Her voice is instantly terse and decisive. “Yes,” she says. “I’ll have him head down the trail.”

  “Okay,” I answer. “Tell him I’ll pick up the trail from my end. I’m leaving in about two seconds.”

  We hang up, and I phone Esther to explain what’s happened. She’s as quick on the uptake as Claire. “I’ll meet you at the bridge,” she says before I’m halfway through my explanation.

  “Bring my snowshoes, will you?”

  “I’ll bring all your gear.”

  THE DARKNESS IS OMINOUS beneath the bridge when I pull into the lot where I think James has been parking the Ski-Doo — when he’s been parking it. On the way I follow the route he’d be most likely to use if he brought the Ski-Doo across the bridge, but it’s only a precaution. I’m pretty certain he isn’t a complete idiot. With the thaw most of the streets in town are bare, and the bridge itself is dry and completely clear of snow.

  By the time Esther’s pickup skids to a halt beside the Lincoln, I’ve located both the empty parking shed where he should have been storing the Ski-Doo and the trail he uses. This isn’t hard, despite the time of day. Once out of the car and in the open, the darkness isn’t complete. We’re just on the far side of a full moon, and the overcast of the last few days has lifted even though the temperature is well above freezing. James, I detect, has been up the trail in the last few hours but not back down.

  The pickup hasn’t come to a complete stop before Bozo leaps out of the back and is by my side. She doesn’t give me her usual slobbery greeting, and there’s none of the usual elated fumbling around. She’s alert and composed, ready to work. I’ll be glad of her company and her tracking skills. I just hope I don’t need the skills.

  Esther has brought everything else: snowshoe gear, a light pack, an eighteen-inch Maglite flashlight, and a boy’s axe. I pass on the wool pants — too warm — but pull off my leather jacket for the wool shirt, which is lighter and breathes. She sets my snowshoes while I remove my galoshes and lace up the leathertops, and she straps on one snowshoe more quickly than I can put on the other.

  “I put your cell phone in the pack,” she says, handing it to me with the flashlight and the boy’s axe. “Go.”

  Go we do, but the going isn’t easy, even for Bozo. The thaw is in its fifth day, and the snow is wet and heavy. With each step it slips up into the snowshoe thongs, slowing me. Worse, off the trail it’s rotten and treacherous, forcing me to stay carefully atop the narrow track of the snowmobile so I won’t topple into some barely disguised snag-filled hole.

  If I slip from the trail it’s a piss-off, a delay, at most a minor injury. But James is on a machine that weighs nearly half a ton. I can suppress what lies beneath that thought, but I can’t elude it. By the time Bozo and I are over the first rise, I’m showing myself technicolour movies of James lying trapped under the toppled Ski-Doo, chilled, wet, and injured. I hope to hell he was wearing a helmet.

  I have to push myself to get any pace, and that makes my tender chest muscles complain bitterly. Screw them, I think. Screw everything. My legs begin to pump in synch with my heartbeat, the familiar rhythm of the trail fueled by adrenaline.

  A kilometre in, the trail converges with a back road I recognize as leading to an abandoned machinery dump. The dump, if it’s the one I’m thinking of, is an old gravel quarry cut into a steep hillside, and filled to bursting with obsolete logging equipment no one has been willing to take the trouble — and expense — of recycling legally. The dump also has a certain notoriety around town. A couple of years ago some clowns with M-16s thought it would be funny if they shot up the dump, and one of them caught a ricochet above the ear and had to be flown to Vancouver to have it dug out. My theory at the time was that the ricochet had hit him in a non-vital part of his body. And since he survived, and is back in town minus his M-16 and a few parts of his brain but still drinking beer and driving his pickup, I guess I was right.

  On this day I’m glad for the road, and never mind what it leads to. Someone ploughed it a couple of snowfalls back, and the Ski-Doo’s trail follows the shallow grooves made by some fairly recent visitor to the dump. For several hundred metres, the going is swifter. Just before I reach the dump the Ski-Doo trail diverges again, wandering uphill along the dump’s steep edge. I stop to catch my breath before heading uphill, remove the flashlight from the pack, and play the beam along the edge and across the dump’s expanse. There are signs of recent activity in the dump, and they aren’t very pretty. The snow is dotted with shiny, dark green lumps — garbage bags. Someone, or something, has been at them, because the snow around a number of them is littered with debris. But when I play the Maglite’s powerful beam along the upper rim of the slope, there are no signs of the Ski-Doo having gone over the edge. That’s a small relief.

  Bozo, meanwhile, is perfectly still, sniffing the air. When I motion her forward she hesitates, then begins to paw her way slowly up the slope — not like her.

  We’re about halfway up the rise when I spot the Ski-Doo close to the crest and apparently abandoned. I push myself harder, playing the beam across the base of the trees near the top of the hill for signs of James.

  We’re no more than fifty metres from the snowmobile when Bozo stops in her tracks and backs into me, growling. I spot James at the same instant. He’s huddled in the branches of a scrawny pine tree, about midway up, with his back to me.

  A jumble of recognitions hammer me. First, James is okay, or at least alive and hale enough to have made it into a tree. Second, he’s likely been treed by a moose or, worse, a bear. Third, a moose ought to be visible from where we’re standing, so it must be a bear. Fourth, this is the end of February, and even with a thaw, a bear ought to be at den. Fifth, this bear is a dumpsite bear, probably denning inside the wrecked logging equipment stashed in the dumpsite.

  If a bear has James treed, Bozo and I are already too close. I get just a split-second to consider that and no time at all to study the options before I hear a throaty cough. A good-sized black bear clears the top of the hill on a dead run. It’s headed straight for us, and that reduces my options to just one: run for it. There’s a spruce tree three or four metres away, about the same size as the tree James is in, and it has a solid-looking branch about three metres above the top of the snow that I might be able to make. I drop the axe and flashlight, punch hard with my left snowshoe at the edge of the snowmobile trail, take a long, lighter step with my right leg, and launch myself at the branch. But the rotten crust collapses the moment I step off the trail, the fingers of my left hand graze the branch, and I land in the snow.

  I brace myself for the impact without looking up, but it doesn’t come. Instead, there’s a thud and a snarl, and a mass of black fur plunges into the snowbank not more than a metre away from me. It’s the bear, and it’s Bozo.

  If I’m lucky, she’s bought me enough time for a second attempt at the tree. I struggle to get erect and recognize my luck — at least I landed horizontal, not head-first. While Bozo and the bear disentangle themselves for round two, I throw myself at the tree trunk, get lucky, and clamp my arms and legs around it. The snowshoes are still attached to my feet, but they don’t matter. I couldn’t do this normally, but nothing about this situation is going to reward normality. I snatch at the low branch with my left hand, throw my body upward, and as my right hand catches the limb I pole vault myself upwards, out of the bear’s reach.

  It’s a damned good thing, too. A third try wasn’t in the cards. Bozo is no match for the bear once the surprise is gone. As I’m twisting my body so I can see what’s happening to her, I see the bear land a blow that sends her spinning over the edge of the slope.

  No longer distracted, the bear turns its attention back to its original quarry: me. It might have been able to drag me from my still-precarious perch were it not for yet another a bit of luck. As it crosses the snowmobile track, it loses its balance and crashes head-first into the
unpacked snow, halting momentarily. This gives me just enough time to claw my way farther into the branches. I don’t have the time to kick off the snowshoes. They’re awkward, but I’m not performing these gymnastics for the points, I’m just trying to get my ass out of harm’s way. The real leverage is coming from my thighs and arms — and from the adrenaline that got me into the tree in the first place. My cracked sternum doesn’t count.

  It’s a bigger bear than I first thought, almost certainly a male, although it’s hard to tell for sure in the poor light. What I can see is that it is drooling foam from both corners of its jaws. I don’t need Klieg lights to hear what language it’s speaking. This is a very pissed-off animal we’re dealing with.

  The bear’s size is a help: the bigger the bear, the less likely it is to climb a tree. This one’s rage makes it try, but the weight of it simply pulls down the branch I used to lever myself and snaps it off. Every instinct I have, meanwhile, is telling me to climb higher, but I’m aware that if I do it could be fatal. If I climb too high, my weight will become the issue.

  That it’s winter helps me, too. If this little party were taking place in the summer, the bear might have already toppled the tree and be chewing on my butt. But in these conditions my tree’s roots are encased in ice, and the snow pack is firmly cradling more than a metre of its trunk. Still, if I get too high the bear will be able to snap the trunk and bring me down.

  Now that I’m clear of his range, the bear settles at the base of the spruce and begins, noisily but without much enthusiasm, to tear out the tree’s roots. I’m safe from that, but it’s small consolation. James is up one tree, me up another, Bozo lying somewhere below the crest of the slope injured — or worse, injured and trying to figure out a way to take another run at the bear. Or, goddamn the fucking bear, dead. I unstrap one snowshoe, pull it off, and, leaning down, bounce it off the bear’s broad skull.

  More stupidity. The bear whirls about and cuffs the snowshoe into the darkness. The second shoe I pull up into the branches beside me. If the motherfucker does manage to climb into the tree, it’ll be my only weapon.

  “James,” I holler across the darkness. “You okay?”

  I hear Bozo bark, and then a quavery voice from the tree at the top of the hill answers. “I’m okay so far. Who is it?”

  “It’s Andy. Don’t come out of that tree.”

  “You think I’m nuts?”

  That tells me his mouth is okay, at least. “Just stay there,” I tell him. “Your father is coming from the other direction. Try to keep an eye out for him. If you see him coming, warn him.”

  “Okay. Now what?”

  I don’t have an answer, nor anything that remotely resembles a plan. This is a bear that shouldn’t be where it is, or when. Whatever kind of den it had built down in that boneyard of abandoned machinery must have collapsed under the weight of the melting snow, and that’s what woke it up. But a normal bear would simply redig the den and go back to sleep. So, this bear is seriously screwed up to begin with. Hard to say what it’ll do next.

  The bear seems to have some ideas about that. It leaves off trying to push my tree over and goes to the flashlight, which I dropped — still on — in the middle of the snowmobile trail. I see the bear, in silhouette, paw at the light. His head dips, there is an audible crunch, and the flashlight goes out.

  For a very brief moment, silence reigns. I can’t see the bear through the branches, and I can’t see the tree James is in until I snap off several small twigs and let them fall. Even then, it’s my ears that tell me where the bear is and what he’s up to. The sonofabitch has gone back to the tree James is in, and he’s having another go at pushing that one down. About the only good thing about the situation is that Bozo hasn’t reappeared. And depending on how badly she’s hurt, even that may not be for the good.

  “Andy,” I hear James’s voice calling. “He’s coming up after me!”

  Shit. “Try crawling up higher.”

  “I can’t,” James yells. “I’m stuck.”

  The next sound is confusing. It’s a distinct thud, followed by a bloodcurdling yowl that, if I didn’t understand the range of sounds a bear can make, I’d have thought was human. I hear James’s voice yell “Dad,” then my name, and I’m out of the tree and scrambling in the snow for the axe, which I was lucky enough to drop next to the trail.

  The racket from the hilltop is eerie, but I’m dead certain about what’s happening: my father arrived as the bear was climbing into the tree after James, and he did what he had to — he attacked it with whatever he was carrying. Judging from the yowl, he’s done some damage.

  I won’t ever know how long it takes me to cross the fifty metres between my tree and the one James is in. Faster than I’m capable of — and not fast enough. But I know that the bear is mauling my father, and maybe James as well.

  Ten metres away, I can see I’m partly right: the bear is straddling my father, tearing at his arms and elbows, snapping at his face. Without breaking stride I turn the axe backward and aim a crossing blow at the bear’s shoulder with the blunt edge. I’m hoping to distract it, and if I’m lucky break its shoulder blade. I can’t use the sharp end or swing downward at it because my father is underneath, and the bear can move faster than either of us.

  Once again, I get lucky. The axe head slams hard into the bear’s right shoulder, and as it turns to confront me I twist the axe head over my left shoulder, turning the cutting blade and using my own momentum to position my body. I plant my left leg and propel the axe downward from the left side with every ounce of my strength at the arc of the bear’s neck where the vertebrae are most vulnerable.

  My aim is close, but not perfect. I feel a sickening thud as the axe head bites into and through the flesh of the bear’s shoulder, and then the axe is gone and the bear with it, spinning sideways, and I see the spade my father used for his attack, a long-handled one, the handle still held across his chest as a defence, but before I can do or say or think anything else I’m knocked flying, it’s the bear and he’s on me, grunting and salivating so close to my face I can feel the hot, foul breath on my cheeks, and something else, drool or blood across my throat, spilling on my chest, and then another solid thud I feel in my own body, and the bear shrieks and is gone again, rolling sideways through the snow, and I’m gazing at my father’s blood-drenched face.

  I scramble to my feet, looking for the axe so I can fend off the next attack, but it’s over. The bear is writhing and coughing in the snow, the spade lodged squarely in its spine at mid-back. One of my cheeks is stinging, but I’m not sure if the blood on my wool shirt is mine or the bear’s. Somehow, that seems the least concern. There are slashes on both sides of my father’s face, and a deeper gash on his neck that runs down inside his shredded wool shirt. Judging from the blood that was spurting onto me when the bear had me, not all the blood he’s dripping is his own. But that’s what I hope, not what I know.

  TWENTY-NINE

  RON BATHGATE LEANS BACK against the tree, and with his back propped against it slides to the ground. “You okay?” I ask, stupidly. The momentary eye contact told me he isn’t.

  He turns to watch James as he climbs down from the tree. “I think so,” he answers when James is down, as if what we’ve just been through is nothing more serious than having walked across an icy street. “What about you?”

  I play the game. “Some scratches, that’s all. I think the bear had a better shot at you.”

  He nods, then lifts his left arm as James approaches. The boy is wild eyed, but apparently unhurt.

  “Is there a first aid kit on that Ski-Doo?” I ask him. “And a flashlight? The bear got mine.”

  “In my pack,” Ron interjects, waving his arm in the direction he came from. He motions to James, who is now kneeling beside him, his own terror replaced by anxiety about his father. “Get it for me, will you, son? Just up the trail there.”

 
“I’ve got a cell phone in my pack,” I say. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  My father shakes his head. “Don’t need an ambulance. I’m fine.” I note that he’s not using his right arm for anything.

  I squat in the snow before him and grasp his upheld forearm. The jacket sleeve is torn and bloody, but that’s all. When I reach for his right arm, he flinches. The sleeves are shredded, and the contusions there are deep enough that I can see exposed bone just below his right elbow.

  “Let’s cut the crap,” I say to him under my breath. “You’re not okay.” I look up at James, who is now standing stock still, watching us. “James,” I say, “Move your tail. You get the flashlight and first aid kit, I’ll get the phone. My dog’s down there somewhere, too. The bear took a round out of her when she tried to keep it away from me. I’d better have a look to see how badly she’s hurt. Can you do first aid?”

  “I can do some,” he answers, and scurries up the trail to find the pack without explaining how much he can do.

  I wade off through the snow, skirting the dying bear. When I reach the edge of the bank I call Bozo. She barks back a wan reply. She’s alive, at least. I struggle back to the trail, following it to the spot where my first encounter with the bear took place. There I find my pack, and the snowshoes. I put them back on.

  Bozo is fifteen feet down the embankment, lying on her side in the snow. I call her name, and in the faint light I can see her tail wagging. There’s a break in the bank’s edge below me where she can climb back up, if she’s capable of moving at all. If she isn’t, I’m in big trouble.

  “Bozo,” I call, making my voice authoritative even though I don’t feel it. “Get your butt up here, you cowardly bugger.”

  She whimpers, but gets to her feet and follows me to the opening in the bank. “Come,” I say. She does, but doesn’t make it on the first try. The trail of blood spots are visible against the snow behind her even in this light, and she’s favouring her right rear leg. Gamely, she tries again, and this time I’m ready. I drop down on my stomach, grab her by the collar, and wrench her toward me. It’s enough, and a second later she’s lying on top of me, licking my face. “Good dog,” I tell her. “Not a coward at all.”