Read Online Surviving Bear Island by Paul Greci - Free Book Online

help.
    But alone will only make me yelp.
    Like a dog I need more than a treat.
    Salmon for the Sentinels can’t be beat.
    If I don’t find any, then fingers I’ll eat.
    Spawning salmon don’t bite, but I do.
    When I catch one I’ll chew and chew.
    I pulled out one of my knives, put my hunger aside, ignored my aching hip, sore mouth and blistered feet, and worked the bark off one end of the branch just enough so the lure fit into the barked-out area with hook attached to it hanging off the end of the branch.
    Then I took a small piece of rope, wrapped it around the lure and branch three times, and tied it. I grabbed the hook, and pulled. The lure slid partway out of the rope’s grip.
    â€œNot good enough.”
    I sang my new song a few more times. It still sounded pretty bad, but at least it was something. Something I’d created.
    I piled more wood on the fire, and kept working on the gaff. Planning ahead. For a time when there would be fish.
    That’s what grownups do, I thought. They plan ahead.
    Their plans didn’t always work out, but at least they were prepared to try. I focused on the fire and remembered my favorite of Mom’s lyrics, and once they were there, they just kept running through my head like background music:
    Every fire’s a ceremony
    Every story’s a testimony
    If you pay attention, you will know what the river knows.
    Her words sounded way better than mine, but she’d had more practice than me.
    I don’t know how long I worked at it. I didn’t have a watch and it was just plain dark beyond the firelight, but I had finally made something that I thought would work.
    With the lure secured by rope in the barked-out area, I’d threaded fishing line through the eyehole at the end of the lure opposite the hook. I’d wrapped the line around the branch and ran it up to the top of the pole.Then I’d tied it in a notch I’d made with my knife.
    I hoped the fishing line would keep the lure from sliding up and down, and the rope would keep it from swinging back and forth.
    Just within the boundary of the firelight, I sunk the hook into the trunk of an alder tree, and pulled. The line gave a little, but held. It was gonna work. It had to work.
    All I needed now were some fish.

CHAPTER 10
    FISH. Thousands of fish, I hoped.
    I’d walked in the mist all day and had crossed some small streams, but now I was perched on a rocky outcrop above a big creek at the back of Hidden Bay. The creek poured out of some craggy mountains spotted with snow. Islands of yellow-green seaweed separated several stream channels flowing into the cove.
    My empty stomach burned with anticipation. I knew I’d starve if I ate only berries.
    Fish, fish, fish. I needed fish.
    The rush of flowing water filled my ears. Gaff in one hand, I scrambled down from the headland and walked the shore towards the creek,.
    In the disappearing daylight, I checked the first of several channels and found nothing. Not even dead salmon. My dad said there were over nine hundred salmon streams in Prince William Sound. This just had to be one of them.
    I crossed two more shallow channels with no sign of fish, and trudged upstream on a gravel bar, my blistered feet burning with every step.
    Gulls squawked as they lifted off the ground and flew away from me.
    I approached the main channel and stopped. Dorsal fins, small triangles poking out of the moving water, swaying back and forth, pointed upstream. I took a step forward and they all moved across the channel and downstream.
    Fish all piled on top of one another.
    The school was as big as a full-sized pickup truck. Like Dad said: You really could walk across their backs and stay dry if they didn’t move.
    I pictured the empty creek yesterday and gripped my gaff harder. I needed to understand this. I couldn’t just stumble around in the forest and eat berries until I was too weak to walk. There was so much I didn’t know. And