Читать книгу Wild Trek - Jim Kjelgaard - Страница 6

Three days later, a roughly estimated fifty miles from the Gander, Link came to a north-flowing river that foamed whitely between high cut banks. He stood beside it, the pack-laden Chiri poising expectantly with him, and watched a big bull moose with velvet-covered bumps of antlers walk along the other side. Link re-checked the compass course he had set for himself.

If he had calculated correctly, and travelled in the right direction, the Caribous would lie somewhere in the dense wilderness still ahead of him. Now, however, he had to swerve and cross this river. Link studied it with the eye of an experienced river man.

It was very swift; evidently it pitched down a steep decline here. Angry white water snarled against both banks, and the center was an unbroken current. The river could not be crossed at this point. Nor was there any indication, any gentle riffles or quiet pools, that it became quieter downstream. Link marked a white birch that leaned over the opposite bank. It was a peculiarly shaped tree, slanting over the water; its lower branches had been carried away by chunks of ice that had bumped against them. Link fixed in his mind the general contours of the terrain around the tree, and remembered that fresh moose tracks should pass just to the left of it. When he was certain that he would know the tree when he came to it, and could pick up his compass course there, he started upstream.

A fluttering excitement grew within him. This river, which joined the Gander far to the north, was called the Goose, but other than that it was almost unknown. At various times Link had talked with Indians and trappers who knew part of it, but the country beyond was almost untrod by human feet. Certainly the only trails would be game paths. The best he could do was keep on the course he had set and get through in any way he could.

The river had to have a fording place, and an hour after he swerved Link's ears told him that he was approaching it. He heard a murmur, like a far-off wind, and twenty minutes later came to a falls that pitched over a thirty-foot rock ledge. Link looked at the wide sheet of falling water. Spray rose from the foot and drifted like miniature clouds out over the spruces.

Extending a hundred feet downstream from the foot of the falls was a comparatively quiet pool, where the force of the falling water had hollowed a bed in the river's bottom. Link looked critically at the pool. It was deep and about forty yards wide. Where the pool ended was snarling white water, through which no craft could live or be guided once it was in that foaming spray. But Link thought the pool could be crossed if he stayed out of the white water.

Across the river a timber wolf began to moan. Another joined it, then two more. Chiri pricked up his ears and looked toward the sound, knowing that the wolves had a den across the river and that two of those moaning were cubs of the year before. They would stay with their parents until fall, then seek dens of their own. The dog glanced indifferently away; he was not afraid of wolves.

Link stripped Chiri's pack off and hung it in a tree. Work made the big dog hungry, and if he was given the opportunity, he might eat some or all of the food in his pack. Free, Chiri walked unhesitatingly down to the river and plunged into the ice-cold water. He swam halfway across, then turned to come smoothly back. Link watched carefully, for this was one means of gauging the current's strength. Chiri hadn't been troubled by swift water.

Link took an axe from his pack and set to work felling a dead pine. Chiri wandered into the forest. He was willing to work whenever Link wished him to, but he understood that stripping his pack, or freeing him from harness, was granting him freedom. Nervous and energetic, he always wanted to know what lay about him.

Link mopped his brow and stood back. The tree upon which he worked had been long dead, but was by no means rotten. Its trunk was tough and solid throughout. Link took a whetstone from his pocket and honed a fresh edge on the axe. He tested the blade on his arm, and when it was sharp enough to shave hairs off he resumed chopping. The dead tree fell amid a shower of splintering branches and cracking twigs. Link cut the larger branches off, then fashioned a wooden wedge and sank his axe lengthwise into the trunk. Making a slit, he forced the wedge in and pounded it home with the flat of his axe. The trunk started to split. Link hammered more wedges in until the trunk lay in two clean halves. He chopped them into even lengths and carried them down to the pool.

On the other side of the river, the denned timber wolves moaned warningly. Chiri emerged from the forest and moved down beside Link.

Removing his trail boots and socks, Link entered the water and shivered as its icy sting crept up his legs. He floated two of the split logs and bound them tightly with his rope. He added another, and another, until he had a sizeable raft. Then he crossed the rope and bound the other end. Holding the rope's end in his hand, he tied it to a rock on the bank while the raft floated free.

He stood back to inspect his work, muttering because he had forgotten to bring a handful of spikes. They were much better than rope as well as faster, and when the wilderness traveller wished to leave his raft he had only to pull the spikes out until he came to the next river. However, rope would have to do. Link tested the raft, which sank only slightly under his weight. He stepped ashore, cut a long pushing pole, and laid it on the bank.

It was too late to cross the river tonight and he might as well camp here. Link spread his sleeping bag. He gathered twigs for kindling and larger pieces of wood to keep a night fire. He dug a coil of fishing line out of his pack, strung it to a cut pole, baited the hook with a chunk of moose meat, and cast into the pool. Almost before it hit the water, something seized the bait. Link struck hard, and a broad grin overspread his face. This was new and good country, almost untouched. Whatever had hit his bait was bigger, and fought harder, than any fish he could remember. It was a stiff fight to play it in even with a stout willow pole. Link whistled when he saw the trout. It was a bull trout, or Dolly Varden, but there were few fish like it on the Gander. Link reached down to pass his fingers through its gills, and flung the fish up on the bank. It was more than big enough to provide supper and breakfast for himself and Chiri. Link built a cooking fire, cooked the fish, and ate. But Chiri had wandered away and was still coursing out in the brush.

Furtive rustlings told of other animals that moved about in the brush. Link lay back, pillowing his head in cupped hands, completely satisfied. The night overflowed with sound and hints of sound, and he interpreted everything as he heard it. Trappers, he decided, were fools as well as gamblers. He had spent a fruitless winter on the Gander when, if he had moved only fifty miles to the northwest, he would have been in the midst of plenty. That was something to remember. The game did not disappear, it merely moved. If only a man would look for it, instead of waiting for fortune to come to him, he could not go unrewarded.

There was a moving shadow outside the circle of light cast by the fire. Chiri came in to lay his head on Link's knee. Having already fed on game which he himself had pulled down, the big dog scorned the fish Link offered him and curled up to sleep. A chill stole into the night. Link sought his sleeping bag, and for a while lay staring at the millions of bright stars that glowed overhead. The next time he looked the stars had paled and it was early morning.

Link rose, re-kindled his fire, and heated some of the fish he had cooked the night before. When Chiri came expectantly up, Link fed him a tiny bit. Ordinarily working dogs should eat only at the end of each working day; to feed them sooner meant that they were apt to become listless on the trail. Besides, Chiri would never go with too little food. If he did not get as much as he thought Link should give him, he would always catch his own.

Link inspected his raft which, after floating all night, still rode high and dry in the water. Carefully he looked at the packs. With a long hank of fish line, he tied a piece of dry pine to everything that might sink if it went into the water. Floating to the top, the wood would act as a marker buoy and enable him to recover whatever might accidentally be swept overboard. Anything that floated would never be recovered in the swift current. Link mounted his raft.

"Chiri!" he called.

The big dog came down and put an experimental paw on the raft. Then, as Link grabbed at him, he leaped back. Chiri was not afraid of water which he tackled under his own power. But having never ridden on a man-made craft of any description, he hadn't the slightest intention of trying one now.

"Come here, you old fool!" Link said angrily.

Chiri retreated up the bank, wagging his tail and looking quizzically at Link. Link muttered under his breath, glowering at the dog. Catching up the pushing pole, he cast the rope off and started across the pool; let the fool swim if he wouldn't ride! As soon as he started, Chiri jumped in and started to swim. He paddled around and around the raft, obviously enjoying himself.

Link re-set his pole, keeping the raft straight in the swift water and leaving a purling wake behind as he set a course for the opposite bank. He had judged the current with his eyes, had watched Chiri swim into it, and had decided that he could cross safely. Link relaxed. Though swift, the water was not fierce. Link set his pole again, deeply, then flung himself down to avoid being yanked from the raft. Behind him, thrust deeply into mud, the pole remained imbedded in the pool. The raft started toward the foaming snarl downstream.

Hurriedly Link began to unlace his boots, preparatory to leaping in and towing the raft. The makeshift craft, caught in a stronger current, swung downstream faster. Chiri circled closer, curious as to what his master was doing. Desperately Link flung himself full length, extended his stretched arm as far as it would go, and grasped Chiri's soaked tail. The startled dog struck powerfully for the opposite stream bank; the raft floated smoothly behind him.

As soon as it grounded in the shallows Link leaped off. Keeping hold of the end of rope, he towed the raft in to the bank and secured it. Chiri shook himself and wagged up to Link, who grinned as he scratched the big dog's ears.

"Thanks," he said. "You were just in time."

Link carried the packs ashore and took the raft apart. Two by two he dragged the logs far enough up on the bank so that no flood water could sweep them away. Probably he would want to return by this route. Finding the logs waiting for him would save the necessity of cutting more. Then, packing Chiri, Link shouldered his own pack and walked downstream to the tree he had marked yesterday.

Day after day, fighting his way through or around sucking and treacherous muskeg, cutting a path where impassable alder thickets opposed him, wading the rivers he could wade and rafting across those he could not, he travelled along the compass course he had set for himself. From the first he had carefully rationed the supplies brought from the Gander and taken much of his living from the country he moved through, and here it was easier to do that. The Gander had been a land of starvation, but there was a lavish abundance west of the Goose. Deer snorted at him, then stole quietly into their secret thickets. Moose pounded through the brush. Squirrels chattered in every tree. Black bears prodded for grubs or dug for ground squirrels. All the rivers were filled with fish. He could almost have his choice of wild food, and even though he worked hard every day, Chiri grew fat. At the same time Link trod cautiously and always with his rifle ready.

This was grizzly country and, like all who know them, Link had a great respect for the ponderous bears. Grizzlies might decide to do anything on the spur of the moment, and they were always clever as well as hard to stop. At least twice a day, and once three times in a single hour, Link halted and stopped Chiri while a grizzly lolling in the path he wished to follow made up its mind to get out of the way.

As he travelled, so gradually that the change was almost imperceptible, the character of the country underwent an almost complete transformation. Instead of sluggish flat-country water, the streams and rivers were swift, thus all mountain-fed. There was little muskeg and the trees were larger, though fewer. The forest had more pine and fir with not as much spruce.

One afternoon Link broke over the top of a forested knoll into the edge of a clearing. At the far side, a medium-sized grizzly was busy digging. Link stopped to watch, interested in the bear's actions. The grizzly scraped with both front paws, sending a spray of brown dirt between his rear legs. His head and front quarters disappeared as he enlarged the hole.

Suddenly and without any warning whatever he flung out of the excavation and at top speed hurtled across the clearing straight at Link. His head was raised, mouth open; his hackles bristled. Chiri darted into the clearing where he would have more room to dodge and whirl if a fight came. Link raised his rifle and sighted.

He squeezed the trigger. As though it had been flicked by an invisible lance, the hair on the bear's chest parted and fell back into place. Link shot again, trying hard to keep cool and aim well. He ejected the empty shell and shot a third time. The grizzly stumbled, and stopped. For a moment he stood still. A final roar escaped him as he tried to renew his charge. He could not. The grizzly staggered, walked in a crazy little half circle, and went down.

Regretfully Link walked up to the fallen beast. The grizzly had offered him no alternative. If Link had not killed him, certainly he would have done his best to kill Link. Probably, Link decided, the grizzly had seen him the moment he broke over the knoll, but had continued to dig in an effort to deceive him into thinking himself unseen. When Link came no nearer, the bear launched his charge anyway.

Link looked sharply, attracted by an unusual hump under the grizzly's fur. He knelt, and reached down to feel the hard end of a bit of wood. Link cut the fur away, and examined with mounting astonishment the broken end of what had evidently been an arrow. Probing carefully with his knife, Link removed the six inches of shaft that was imbedded in the bear's flank, and his astonishment increased.

The arrow's shaft had been crudely fashioned from a yellow-birch wand, but the point was a roughly hammered, empty jacket for a 30-06 cartridge! Link turned it over and over in his hand, while all the terrible implications of this wild drama unfolded themselves. Three years ago, when Hi Macklin's brother had left Masland with the avowed intention of seeing whatever lay in the Caribous, he had packed a 30-06. He must have lost that rifle, or spent all the cartridges he carried, to have been desperate enough to tackle a grizzly with a crudely made arrow. Link shuddered. Tom Macklin's bones probably lay somewhere in the shadow cast by the forbidding Caribous.

Miles to the northwest, so far away that it somehow seemed unreal, a patch of white thrust into the sky. It might have been a white cloud, except that the sky was cloudless. Link stared in fascination; it was a cloud-covered peak of the almost mythical Caribous. He looked away and back again, as though the peak actually were something born in his imagination and would disappear any second. It was still there, still supporting the weight of snow that it held toward the sky. A cold shiver rippled up his spine. Hi Macklin's brother must have had the same view!

That night Link made his camp on the site of a sloping ridge, near a spring that bubbled out. To conserve his supplies, he set rabbit snares. He might have brought some of the grizzly, but bear meat, and especially grizzly, was apt to be stringy and tasteless stuff. He would eat it only when nothing better offered.

Link gathered firewood, for this high country was much colder, and then made the rounds of his rabbit snares. He took three big snowshoe hares out of five snares and gathered the other two unsprung. Chiri went away to do his own hunting, but was back in less than an hour. Obviously there was plenty of game.

With early dawn Link went on. At high noon he mounted a sparsely forested ridge and looked again at the snow peaks in the distance. They were clearer now, with their rugged outlines much more sharply defined. A belt of forest strapped their lower reaches, and encircled them more than halfway to the top. Beyond, as nearly as Link could see, were bare meadows and beyond the meadows glaciers which clung precariously to the cliffs or filled the gullies. Patches of windswept rock thrust gaunt heads out of the snow. Twin spires rose over what seemed to be a pass, and Link marked it carefully. He would set his course straight toward the spires.

Chiri pricked up his ears and looked down the slope. Link followed his gaze. There was a small creek tumbling down a valley, into an open meadow. As Link watched, two lumbering grizzlies emerged from the forest and prodded about the meadow. Finally, unhurriedly, they ambled up the creek's winding course. Link walked down the slope, and almost stumbled into three bull moose that were resting on the sheltered side of a knoll. The bulls loped awkwardly away, their sleek muscles rippling as they moved, but a herd of buck deer that passed to the windward side merely stopped to stare.

Link pondered, trying to account for the actions of these animals. Bull moose wouldn't always run even back on the Gander, but deer invariably fled. This country was far wilder than the Gander and less hunted; less timidity was to be expected in the animals. Then the wind changed. Hoisting white tails over their backs, the deer bobbed gracefully away. Link pursed his lips thoughtfully.

Deer lacked unusually keen vision, but he had been near enough so that this herd could tell him for what he was. Almost all animals depended upon a combination of sight, hearing, and scent, to advise them of danger. Why should bull moose flee at once, while smaller deer stood curiously until they got his scent? Another cold chill trembled down Link's spine as he found the answer.

This was almost virgin country! So few men had ever trod here that the deer had not even recognized him as a danger. It had been Chiri they had run from! They had caught the dog's odor, and that was enough like wolf scent to frighten them. But this wilderness was so deep and so isolated that animals had never seen and therefore were unafraid of man!

They had simply never been hunted, and game trails pounded throughout the centuries by herds of game were beaten deep into the earth. The country was crossed and re-crossed by hundreds of paths which, had they been found near a civilized community, would have been excellent bridle paths. Link followed one that led in the direction he wanted to travel, moving swiftly along on this unexpectedly easy route. He was almost completely out of the muskeg now, and there were few thickets.

But the country was heavily wooded. Link camped in forests so dense that, even when the sun was highest, light never reached the needle-littered ground. His fire cast a circle of light against the mighty tree trunks surrounding him. Once there was a startled 'whoof' as a grizzly coming down the slope smelled smoke and fled. Link hastily threw another armful of wood on his fire.

He slept only sporadically. Awakening at intervals, he saw Chiri sitting tensely in the outer circle of light. Link had always held the theory that a keen-nosed wild creature used its nose both to identify other creatures and to determine their intentions. He had seen feeding caribou stand placidly while well-fed wolves literally sniffed at their heels, while the same herd would flee in panic as soon as a hunting wolf came within scenting distance. Link did not understand how they knew whether the wolf was hunting, but they did. Now Link deduced from Chiri's actions that, though nothing dared come in to the fire, there were many things in the black forest whose curiosity had been aroused by these strange intruders in their domain.

With dawn, keeping Chiri close beside him, Link went on. The forest was so dense that he could see almost nothing. He must depend on Chiri to warn him of possible danger. However, though the big dog bristled a couple of times, nothing appeared.

Then the trees began to thin out and to grow smaller. They were climbing steadily, and the wind that blew from the snow banks and glaciers had an icy bite. Link buttoned his jacket a little more tightly and went on. Finally he broke out of the trees and was above timber line. Link stopped in his tracks.

A ram with a curling spread of horns stood less than forty feet away, watching him intently. Beyond were more sheep, dozens of smaller rams, ewes, and a few early born lambs. None except the big ram paid the slightest attention to him, and Link stared in disbelief. Mountain sheep were wild things, wary and keen-sighted. The most expert hunters considered themselves fortunate when they were able to stalk one successfully. It was incredible that an entire herd would let a man walk almost into their midst. There could be only one answer. If these sheep had ever seen any men, certainly they had not seen enough of them to be aware of any special danger.

Link shot a small ram. The animal dropped heavily, and a ewe standing near stared curiously at it. Link shook a wondering head. Even the blast of a rifle made no impression on these sheep. Hunting them was slaughter rather than sport, but he needed meat. And he had better cook it right here.

Above lay the snow fields, and there was no telling how long it would take to cross them. Certainly he would find no firewood in the snow; no trees grew so far up. Link dressed the small ram, built a fire, and spitted the sheep's quarters over it. Fat dribbled down; the fire sputtered and flared wherever it struck. Link turned the spitted quarters of the ram slowly, so that they would cook on all sides. He would have to camp here tonight; so much meat would take a long while to cook.

With morning he divided the roast mutton between his pack and Chiri's and made his way upward. Looking up from a long distance away, the peaks had not seemed unusually high. Now, looking down, he saw that he had climbed a tremendous distance. Foothills stretched away to the east, and beyond them were the spruces and muskeg through which he had fought his way. But the twin spires still towered a long way over him. What lay beyond them?

They came to a solid rock cliff that swept far above them and effectively blocked the path. Scrambling, sometimes on his hands and knees, Link fought his way up the gravelled slope to the left. He met another rock wall, and worked his way along a ledge until the ledge ended and he stared down into dizzying space. There was nothing to do except go back and try another route.

Link returned the way he had come, and camped that night at the foot of the wall where he had swerved. This was absolutely barren country, with only gnarled shrubs and sparse grass growing between snow banks. There was no possibility of keeping a fire. Link glanced wistfully toward the forest he had left. But going back down and returning would consume valuable time, and he wanted an early start. Besides, though he probably would spend a cold night here, it should not be a dangerous one. It was not likely that any animals would climb this far. They would stay down where they did their hunting.

Link unpacked and fed Chiri, ate some mutton, and crawled into the sleeping bag. Light snow was falling. Warm in his sleeping bag, Link dozed. He did not know what time he was awakened by Chiri's furious snarl.

He sat up, reaching for his rifle. The snow had stopped, and in the dim light scattered by the stars he saw Chiri a few feet away. The big dog faced into the darkness, snarling continuously. A pebble rattled down the opposite slope, then its noise was suddenly muffled as it stopped abruptly in the snow. Link tried to see what had dislodged the pebble, but could not. Crawling out of his sleeping bag, he stood there with the rifle ready. From far up the side of the cliff, another pebble rattled down. Link remained out in the open; he had guessed wrong when he decided that nothing would come here.

Chiri's snarls bubbled away to nothingness.

When daylight finally came, Link saw the track of a grizzly in the snow, less than twenty feet from where he had slept. He shivered. Had the grizzly decided to attack he could not have stopped it. But it had gone on, obviously intending to cross into the Caribous. In so doing it had shown him a path.

Link followed the grizzly's track up the slope, then onto a ledge on the face of the cliff. Chiri, with nothing except space to receive him should he make a misstep, trotted unconcernedly ahead.

In the middle of the day they came out on top of the mountain, between the stone spires. Deep snow lay here; the tracks of the grizzly were plain in it, and had broken a path. Link followed as swiftly as he could, hoping to get into timber, or at least to firewood, before night.

But luck was against him. First a few black clouds scudded across the sky, then a high wind screamed across the mountain. Snow whirled down, then flew so thickly that Link could scarcely see the dog at his side.

He was aware that Chiri turned and faced away from him, looking toward a tangled pile of rocks. When Link stopped he advanced toward them. Link followed. He saw the black mouth of a cave gaping in the snow-whitened rocks, and walked cautiously to it. The mountain storm was so furious that he could not go on, and the cave would at least offer shelter. Link picked up a small rock and tossed it within the black opening. Nothing happened. He entered the cave and struck a match.

Its flickering light revealed a grinning human skull.