Bristol Bay Summer Page 11

  “That was a close one,” Patrick said. He looked more relaxed as he fired up the stove and filled the coffeepot. Then he went to the tent door and carefully surveyed the beach and the grass beyond.

  “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 it’s no simple thing to kill a grizzly 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. “Let’s hope that’s the last we see of them. Sows with cubs don’t usually come around people. That might have been the one that was into Harold’s fish totes earlier, but she won’t put her cubs in danger like that again soon.”

  That was a long speech for Patrick. Zoey realized he was just as wound up as they were.

  Zoey’s mom shivered. “And to think how close you two came to being that bear’s breakfast. Zoey, do you understand now that you have to listen to Patrick out here? He knows this area. You have to listen.”

  Zoey’s eyes shifted down. The worst thing was that she had put Eliot in danger. She hadn’t trusted Patrick to save Lhasa, but in the end, he had saved all of them, even the bears.

  Zoey stared at the tent floor. “I’m sorry, Mom, Patrick. I know. I got carried away.”

  “Forgiven,” Patrick answered quietly. “Come on now, I bet you’re all starving. How about some pancakes?” Zoey’s mom went to the shelves and began gathering ingredients.

  A couple of hours later, after a longer-than-usual breakfast and a quick cleanup, Patrick took his rifle and walked Zoey, Eliot, and Lhasa 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 pounding, and when they rounded the hill, Thomas looked up at them, hammer in hand.

  “Hey, what’s up?” asked Zoey.

  “What’s it look like? Just patching up some of the biggest holes with this old plywood. Think she’ll float?” He grinned and put down the hammer.

  “Probably not,” Patrick laughed. “But it’s a nice thought. You guys should be fine in the boat, but stick together and make plenty of noise. Bang that hammer around. I’m going to go a little way out on the tundra and see if I see anything.”

  “We met the bear,” Zoey explained. “It had cubs!” She and Eliot told Thomas the whole story, interrupting each other the whole time: “You should have seen her.” “She was beautiful! I’m so glad Patrick didn’t kill them.”

  Eliot finally changed the subject. “Are we really going to launch the boat?” he asked.

  Thomas laughed, “I wouldn’t go that far.” He stepped back to examine his work. “But this should keep out some of the rain.”

  “When we get it all fixed up, we can bring everyone here and surprise them,” said Eliot as he disappeared back into the boat cabin.

  Thomas found a sunny spot, sat down in the sand, and leaned back against the side of the boat. Zoey sat cross-legged nearby.

  “Are you coming to my birthday party?” Zoey asked Thomas.

  “We’re 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 it’s for fish, but Harold always stocks up on ice cream. We have frozen pizzas, too.”

  “Harold would give up his ice cream for my birthday?”

  “He has plenty, and he’s pretty impressed with the way you’ve been helping us.”

  Zoey remembered some good news. “Hey, guess what? My mom said she’s baking a cake on the Coleman stove! I never thought that would seem like such a big deal. You really notice what you don’t have out here. Which is mostly everything.”

  Zoey picked up a small stone and started to plow little grooves into the sand next to her. “Even though it’s only been three weeks, it seems like we’ve been here a lot longer. 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. And I miss my bed. I didn’t have my own room at home, but at least I didn’t have to sleep right next to Eliot.”

  “I don’t have any real friends in Naknek right now,” Thomas said. “I mostly stopped hanging out after my dad died.”

  Zoey’s sand grooves deepened into canals. “What happened to him?”

  “Accident.”

  “Something with fishing?” asked Zoey.

  “Yeah.” Thomas looked away and quickly said, “Hey, let’s clean up the rest of the inside. I brought an old broom.”

  Zoey let go of her questions and followed Thomas up the slanting deck and into the cabin. They shooed Eliot back outside and Thomas began to sweep the floor.

  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 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 he be like as a boyfriend? Zoey had never had a real boyfriend. And not that she wanted Thomas to be that. Still, she couldn’t help wondering. Who would they hang out with? And where? In Naknek? Just a few weeks ago Naknek didn’t even exist for Zoey. Neither did the idea of a boyfriend!

  There wasn’t room for Zoey in the cabin while Thomas worked, so she sat on the side deck with her back against the cabin wall and her feet up against the curved wooden plank that ran around the edge of the deck. When Thomas was finished, she would go in and decorate. She watched Eliot playing nearby, and tried to imagine what might have happened to Thomas’s dad and how Thomas must feel about it.

  Zoey wondered if Thomas got that twisting in his stomach. Like you were almost going to be sick, but you never were, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. An empty feeling, but heavy, too. Like a big weight inside you, as if you had swallowed a lead line.

  How weird to know what a lead line is.

  Zoey realized she hadn’t 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, his hand outstretched with a piece of cracker. 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. Eliot could have touched it.

  Eliot whispered between lips that didn’t move, “Get Thomas. He’s gonna do it.”

  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, “Raven Boy, Ruler of the Birds!”

  “Whoa! I never got him to do that,” said Thomas grinning.

  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 won’t 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. Midnight looked at her and bounced a little closer.

  I’m going to stay here as long as it takes.

  Lhasa came running toward them, and the raven 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 g
et going, Eliot. Come on.”

  Zoey zipped her jacket. Then to Thomas she said, “Don’t forget my birthday tomorrow.”

  Next time she came out to the boat, she would bring her paints.

  21

  Dancing with Mosquitoes

  In the morning, Zoey yawned then sat straight up. She was thirteen, a teenager! She peeked through the netting on the tent. Brilliant light washed the wet gravel. The sky was deep blue, and the cold wind that had been with them every day so far was gone. Yes! Clothes flew out of her duffel as she dug for her white summer shorts. A bright pink shirt, fuchsia actually, completed her birthday outfit.

  “Zoey, hurry up,” hollered Eliot.

  “Hey, Birthday Girl, I wouldn’t go far from the tent in those shorts,” her mom said at breakfast.

  “It’s the first day since we’ve been here with real sunshine.”

  “Trust me. Long pants. And here, Mom’s Deluxe Bug Dope. Sure to keep all those pesky insects away. It even has lavender oil in it.”

  Zoey rolled her eyes and stuffed the homemade insect repellent in her pocket.

  On her way up the beach toward the fish camp, she shook her head. How old do you have to be before your mom stops dressing you? She would have to put on the fishing gear when she got to Carolyn’s anyway. Lavender oil. Whatever … Eliot clumped along beside her, and Lhasa raced ahead then circled back to walk with them. Before they reached the camp, even the wispy morning breeze died away.

  It was then that Zoey understood what her mom had been trying to tell her. With no wind to keep them grounded, every mosquito, fly, and no-see-um in Alaska seemed eager to get acquainted with Zoey, and not in a nice way. The no-see-ums were the meanest. They might be tiny, but boy, you knew they were there! Zoey lathered up with the oily bug dope but it didn’t help much. Wherever they bit, Zoey itched like crazy afterward. The bugs didn’t bother Eliot at all. Apparently Raven Boys were immune.

  Zoey was surprised to see Harold walk up the beach toward them.

  “Hey you two, fishing’s still slow. Fish and Game stopped the opening. Tell Patrick we don’t need him again. Good news is I hear it’s someone’s birthday today.” He smiled a little. “You guys go have fun. See you tonight.”

  Zoey waved her hand around her head at the invisible cloud of insects. “Okay, Harold, but when will the fishing start back up?”

  “It better start real soon, but that’s up to Fish and Game now.”

  “Okay, thanks. Come on Eliot, let’s get out of here.” Zoey could see Harold was worried. Patrick would be, too. But it was her birthday. Her first teenage birthday. Her dad would never have let her work on her birthday. He would have planned something fun.

  They ran for the tent. Lhasa trotted in front. Zoey couldn’t wait to put her long pants and sweatshirt on, and she wanted to get her paints. She had an idea for the inside of the fishing boat.

  A few minutes later, she and Eliot were both armored against their pesky new friends. Zoey tucked the paint set into her backpack and shoved the bug dope into her back pocket. Then she and Eliot each grabbed one side of the bucket of shells Zoey had collected and started up the beach toward the boat. Eliot’s pack held crackers, a water bottle, and his Legos. Fully equipped for a day of freedom.

  At the boat, Zoey climbed up the stern and into the cabin while Eliot went back to his digging project in the nearby hillside.

  “It’s going to be the best fort ever,” he said as he dragged a loose piece of driftwood along behind him.

  The cabin smelled like wet wood, but it was fairly clean from Thomas’s sweeping. Zoey placed seashells wherever she could fit them on ledges around the walls. Then she organized other shells into circular designs in the corners of the floor. Lhasa lay on the deck outside the cabin door. Finally Zoey got out her paints.

  She sandwiched the brush between her third and ring fingers and clamped her thumb on the back side, the same way she held pencils and pens. Mrs. Jones, her second grade teacher, had tried to get Zoey to write like everyone else, but her own way had always worked better.

  Zoey maneuvered the brush across the rough walls in fine even strokes. Her hair was down today, just like in the teen magazines, more grown-up looking. But it kept getting in her eyes. She sighed, took out a rubber band and tied the strands back in a ponytail. She tightened her lips with concentration as she filled in the spaces and tossed her head sideways periodically for a better look.

  Eliot came inside.

  “The no-see-ums found me,” he said.

  “Do you want some bug dope?”

  After he was lathered up, he poured his Legos onto the floor then stopped.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Eliot’s eyebrows rose. He got up, grabbed a few crackers, and slipped out the door.

  Zoey turned back to the cabin wall. Already an ocean of color! Prussian blue, ultramarine, viridian green, and cadmium yellow. Zoey painted in a salmon with alizarin crimson. The fish leaped alongside a butterfly that hung close to a blue-green stream.

  She set her brush down and wiped her face with a corner of her sweatshirt. The sky needed some clouds. She outlined places for them, then sketched in a sun that would eventually poke through. A mosquito found a hole in her jeans.

  “Ouch!” She pulled her oversized wool socks higher.

  The rest of the world fell away. The painting became a stage and the brush danced: touching down and leaping again. Zoey was no longer in a wrecked hull on mosquito-infested tundra. She was a crimson salmon, her tail thrashing the icy water. She was the sun-streaked butterfly tossed in a rush of air from nearby fins. She was a blade of dewy beach grass, bending with the breeze and springing back toward the sky.

  Captain had said you have to look inside the piece of wood. See what’s in there that wants to get out. Zoey had known he was right, but could not have said why back there in Naknek. Now she understood. It was just like painting. You didn’t make the painting. You found the painting. Or the painting found you. She knew that, because, even though she had been drawing and painting for a long time, she could never say exactly what would come out next.

  Zoey was five when she won her first art competition. It was for the environmental group Greenpeace. She had used crayons to draw a picture of a breaching whale under a rainbow sky. Since then she had won several more awards and a scholarship to the summer fine arts camp. Each time she felt a little braver about her painting. She could sense there was something inside her that didn’t need teachers or parents or even friends. It just needed a chance to come out.

  She looked around the cabin. The inside of the boat was beginning to have its own personality. Even though the painting was far from finished, Zoey felt satisfied. She breathed in the salty beach air, the mustiness of the old boat, and the familiar smell of paint.

  There was a crunch in the sand outside. Thomas peered in the doorway. “Hey. Happy Birthday.”

  “Thanks! I’m excited about the party. What do you think about the fishing being stopped?” she asked.

  “If it doesn’t pick up again by tonight or tomorrow, it will be hard for people to catch up.”

  “It’s been pretty good so far, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but it costs a lot of money to get all the gear ready for the season. And to get the tenders, the cannery workers, and the pilots like Patrick here. If the season gets cut short, everything we made so far will just go to pay expenses. We won’t have anything to live on in the winter except the salmon we’ve already stored.”

  “So even when people are ready and willing to fish real hard, sometimes they just can’t? What a place this is.”

  “Yeah. Quite a place.” Thomas had stopped looking at Zoey and was staring at the walls of the cabin.

  “What’s with the pictures? They’re really cool! Did you do all this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Amazing! So these are your paints.”

  “Yup. I won these, but Mom’s been getting them for me since I was little.”

  �
�And the butterfly?”

  “I thought about painting a no-see-um with a stake through its heart, but decided to go with butterflies.”

  “But I mean, it looks like it might not make it. Torn wing and all that water around it.”

  “It’s in a tight spot. I’m not sure yet.”

  “Maybe this will cheer it up.” Thomas pulled a boom box out of his pack.

  Zoey clapped. She went to the cabin door and hollered, “Eliot, come in and see what Thomas brought.”

  As Zoey stepped on deck, Thomas snapped in a tape, and music pulsed through the sticky air. Zoey recognized it right away: “The Tide Is High” by Blondie.

  Lhasa scrambled up the deck, poised for adventure.

  Eliot appeared from behind the boat. He waved his arms in the air, dancing a kind of two-step on the sand to the rhythm of the music. He tripped over Lhasa and nearly fell.

  “Come on, you guys,” he shouted.

  Thomas set the boom box on the side of the boat, and he and Zoey leaped down and followed Eliot with Lhasa right behind them.

  “Raven Boy loves rock and roll!” Eliot did a ballet leap while flailing at a mosquito. He landed on both feet, but his body was still moving, and he somersaulted in the sand.

  When he stood up unharmed, Thomas laughed and Zoey applauded.

  Thomas led them to the side of the boat. “See, it’s almost done.”

  Zoey followed his finger to the name carved into the side of the boat, “Sockeye II.” Underneath the letters was a jumping salmon. Thomas had managed to make the curving fish look like it was just about to shake free of the boat’s side.

  Thomas trimmed a sliver from the salmon’s tail and put his knife in the sheath on his belt.

  “Wow, I didn’t even see it before.” Zoey traced the outline with her finger. “That first time we were here, we saw that you had started to carve, but we didn’t know what it was then.”

  “Sorry I didn’t stick around longer that day. I didn’t know you then.”

  “You’re a really good carver,” said Eliot as he examined the planks more closely. Then, unable to be still with the music blaring, he spun around in a way that looked like real dance steps. Zoey joined in and Lhasa barked. Thomas grinned, took out his knife again, and continued carving.