Chapter 13

The first storm of winter hung poised above the California mountains. It had paused, but now it was ready to descend once again.

A buck yearling deer struggled through the snow, searching out food. He moved downslope, breaking the drifts with his chest as he heaved through them. In the lee of a drift, he munched some frozen whitethorn, then moved on. Suddenly, he was startled and leaped sideways. There, half covered with snow, was a thing. He would have run, but the snow was too deep, so he froze with his eyes glued on this unknown object. A slight wind from his rear carried the unknown’s scent away from him.

The object did not move. The yearling came closer, carried by a curiosity that an older deer would not have indulged. He caught the scent of Man and prepared to run, but the wind drifted snow over the upturned face. The young buck moved closer, finally sniffing cautiously at the face.

* * *

Tim was brought back to consciousness by a soft caress. He opened his eyes and looked directly into the face of the young buck. It was already leaping back, startled by the flickering eyelids, when Tim lunged. His outstretched hand caught a forehoof, but the deer pulled free and plunged away through the drifts.

Tim staggered to his feet and searched about for his weapons. Plunging into the snow, he cast about desperately, finding one spear, then the other, and his atlatl. His bow was gone and his quiver was empty. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, he ran after the deer.

Neither Tim nor the deer could make much headway. Here in the hollow, the snow had drifted deep  Tim staggered over the snow, following the path the young deer had broken. Without his crude showshoes, he would have stood no chance at all. He was not quite running, but he was making the best speed he could. He would keep on until he caught the deer. He would not give up this time.

This deer would be his or he would die. He could not last through another night if he did not eat today. He knew this like he knew his own name. In the snow back there, he had been as near to death as anyone can ever get.

Tim ran on, throwing up snow in his wake. He fixed a spear to his atlatl  The deer was expending a tremendous amount of energy in tearing through the drifts. Tim shuffled alongside his trail, supported by his crude snowshoes. As the trail dropped down into another hollow, Tim caught sight of the deer ahead. He was gaining on it, but too slowly.

Tim and the deer crossed the second hollow and plowed up the other side. The deer plunged into a thicket of manzanita and turned left. Tim wheeled around the thicket, staying on the open snow, leaping along, trying to clear the worst of the drifts.

His ankle hurt with a white hot pain.

The deer turned into a copse of cedar and pulled up to look back. It was invisible against the dark background, but Tim saw the flicker of movement as it went to rest. Instead of turning toward the deer, Tim ran in the direction they had both been going until he was shielded by a fir, then wheeled toward the hidden deer. The deer bolted, but Tim had gained precious yards.

They stumbled upward, cutting diagonally across the rough slope. Here the drifts were lighter and the deer began to gain distance. Then it stumbled as something turned under his feet, and when it leaped to its feet again, Tim cast a spear. more tomorrow

In stalking the deer, Tim had followed Dog Creek to its source, had topped a minor divide, and had descended into a broad shallow depression. Here the firs grew more sparsely, giving him less cover, but allowing him to see the deer better. He snow was deeper here, so Tim had to carry his crutch and stumble along without its help. The activity seemed to do his ankle some good; it hurt, but some of the stiffness was going out of it.

He had given up following tracks; they were so plentiful now that they broke the snow everywhere and he had no way of knowing fresh from old. He was following a pair of antlerless deer, whether does or buck fawns he wasn’t sure. From time to time he would see them feeding, but they seemed to keep the same distance from him. It was as if they had become accustomed to his presence and considered him no threat at that distance. If so, they were right.

He slipped from cover to cover, trying to circle about and come at them from some unexpected angle. The wind stirred occasionally, but the gusts were mercifully short lived. Such cold! Soon he would have to build a fire. Desperate to finish this stalk before settling in for the night, he pushed down toward the pair of deer. They had been out of sight for several minutes, and he hoped that he was equally invisible to them. Moving quietly through a thicket of cedar, he broke into a clearing. The deer were gone. Following their tracks with his eyes, he found them a quarter of a mile away and higher up, looking back at him with more curiosity than fear.

* * *

The carrion he had feasted on was gone, but the festering sore, the blindness in one eye, and the damage to his nose remained. The rage, also, remained, and grew. Black bears are normally harmless, though unpredictable; this one was acting more like a grizzly. He rampaged through the forest, ripping everything that crossed his path, and headed up Dog Creek.

* * *

Now it was the eleventh day since Tim had left his house to go hunting. He woke before dawn in a tiny, crude shelter to find his fire nearly out. He built up the fire and began immediately to make his shelter better. Such cold! He worked on his shelter for several hours, staggering with weakness and stopping for long rests between each task. He was no longer thinking of survival. Survival had become too much to hope for. He was simply determined to never be so cold again.

Death was very near. He did not accept death. He would fight to the end, but he no longer had any real hope.

Finally, he rose from the fire and went out, leaving his useless crutch behind. He needed snowshoes, so he cut some cedar boughs and bound them to his feet with strips of bark. They were crude, but they would keep him from sinking into the snow.

It was a different kind of hunt this time. Tim did not think out his actions. He simply went through the motions, staggering half dazed through the snow and carrying his weapons carelessly at his side.

He topped a slight rise and started down into the hollow beyond. He tripped, rolled, and lay still.

The wind stirred the powered snow, and covered him. more next week

Beneath him the hills fell away into what had to be the valley of the Tate River; beyond, etched against the clouds, were Mt. McCutcheon, Rampart Peak, and Mount Carter. Above and on either side of him towered Saddle Mountain and Davis Peak. He strained his memory; this would be the valley of Rube Creek – no, of Dog Creek. To get out he would have to follow Dog Creek to the Tate, then turn upstream and follow the river to the highway. He estimated the distance at between twenty and thirty miles.

He would never make it in his condition.

Then he realized that if he could see landmarks, a signal fire could also be seen. Looking around, he chose a dead cedar that stood alone. Dragging burning wood from his shelter, he built a fire against its base, cutting boughs and piling them high. Dense black smoke boiled up as the branches caught. Within minutes, the entire tree was blazing like a torch and Tim had to retreat from the heat. But the clouds were rapidly closing in and Tim knew that his fire had been started too late. He watched disheartened as the landmarks were eaten up one by one by the lowering clouds.

Tim continued to stand near the burning cedar. He was bitterly disappointed. If the clouds had held back for even ten minutes, the ranger station at Mt. McCutcheon would have seen his fire and would have sent someone to investigate. Instead, his fate was still in his own hands.

Food and a hide – he had to have both. And now, not later.

As he hunted, he found that he had plenty of deer to chose from. Muleys were out in record numbers scrounging among the drifts for food, and he heard the crash of antlers throughout the morning. Tim wasn’t sure if they were simply making up for lost meals, or because they sensed that this was only a lull in the storm.

He found a small set of tracks in the fresh snow. Keeping to the shadows of the trees, he advanced with arrow nocked, moving carefully from cover to cover. He carried the bow in his left hand with his fingers laced around the arrow while he gripped his crutch-club with his right hand. Tim floundered pitifully with that crutch, but he could not yet abandon it.

After a while he caught sight of his quarry and began to circle around upslope. It was a muley doe, feeding hurriedly but cautiously. He approached from above, keeping behind a stunted fir. She shied away but he remained perfectly still, and eventually she swung back to browse a manzanita below him. She was not aware of his presence or she would have run, but she stayed too far away for him to get a shot. She finished with the manzanita and moved closer. Tim sensed that he would get no better chance, so he drew and released. He saw the arrow arch true, but the deer had seen him move as he drew back his bow and she leaped away. The arrow brushed her flank as she bounded away, marking her with a harmless scratch.

* * *

The black bear was prowling. The slopes were alive with mule deer, but it was early in the season and they were not yet weak enough for him to run them down. Except in mid-winter, a black bear can usually only take fawns and carrion, and an an occasional lame, weak, or sick deer.

The black bear’s battered senses and infected face had combined with his stiffened leg to put him in a constant, killing rage. more tomorrow

Replenishing his fire, he brushed great masses of snow from his clothing and sat huddled miserably. After a time, he became warmer again. The heat trapped within the shelter dried his clothing. Snow had built up on the roof of his shelter and had drifted against the walls, making what seemed to Tim a snug hideaway. The actual temperature in the shelter was only ten degrees above freezing, but Tim had grown used to hardship.

Outside, the snow fell ceaselessly, filling up the spaces between the trees and building long drifts in the meadows.

* * *

The black bear lay beneath a stunted hemlock. His various wounds ached and the festering shot beneath his eye had now robbed it of sight in one eye. He had eaten well of the deer carcass, but he needed more, much more, if he was to survive his winter hibernation.

* * *

Outside, the temperature had dropped to zero. Within the shelter, Tim huddled close to the fire. He slept little during the night, and his skin crawled at the thought of going out into the cold to search for more firewood. Throughout the mountains, this would be a time of withdrawal, when every creature stayed close to his den and dozed the storm away.

If the temperature stayed this low, he could not travel even when the storm broke. He would either freeze quickly, or starve slowly by the fire. It was not a matter of giving up – he would fight to the last – but now he realized that he had used up all his options. If he could kill a deer, he might make some rough clothing from its hide and live on its meat until he could fashion snowshoes and walk out. But how could he kill a deer when the cold had nailed him to his fire?

* * *

The black bear slept, wrapped in layers of fat and fur. The wind howled in the brush around him. From the Olympics in northern Washington to the Tehachapies east of Bakersfield, the western mountains were being buried by the first major storm of what would be an exceptionally harsh winter.

* * *

The storm was like a giant beast, crushing the land beneath it. When Tim stepped out of his shelter into the night, the wind whipsawed him and nearly drove him back inside. He forced himself to go out and burrow through the drifts for wood. Then he collapsed by the fire, almost crying out from the cold.

It would not be enough to get him through the night.

Again and again during the night, Tim had to go out to burrow through the drifts for down wood. Each time it was harder to force himself out, and each time it took longer to warm himself again. He got no sleep, just a few moments of dozing, and the strength the porcupine’s meat had given him drained steadily away.

Chapter 12

Tim was wakened by the sun. For a long time he lay in a stupor, unable to comprehend the meaning of that fact, then he leaped up and staggered out. He had to climb up out of his shelter onto the drift snow to see the world around him. Every tree and bush shone with a diamond light that hurt his eyes, and the sun hung suspended beyond a hole in the clouds.

The clouds had lifted during the night and the snow had stopped falling, but even as he watched the sun was obscured again. He could see for miles now, and for the first time he could make out familiar landmarks. more tomorrow

The next snowfall could easily bring another foot of snow. The sky had not cleared, but the clouds hung higher and all of the animals seemed to be in a desperate last minute frenzy of activity. Douglas squirrels dashed about harvesting the last of the pine cones, and the birds had left. The wind across the snow fields cut deeply.

All day he heard the clatter of bucks in battle. Where yesterday his own deer had seemed to be the only one on the mountain, today he had seen several in the distance and had seen the tracks and rut signs of others.

There was real storm brewing. He could see it in the sky, in the behavior of the animals, and could feel it in the cruel wind. It was as if nature had given her warning and was now drawing her forces together for a real horror.

He was worried about his feet, as well. They hadn’t been dry in two days. And he was worried about his ability to travel. Already he was having a rough time in the snow because of his crutch.

Life had been simpler when he was too hunger dazed to worry. The thought made him smile.

During the afternoon, he spotted a number of muleys feeding in the open. They bolted before he got anywhere near a stalk. The ground was crisscrossed with tracks, but the cripple’s tracks had disappeared.

It was growing dark when he found a trio of cedars set in a rough triangle. Working as quickly as he could, he cut numerous saplings and braced them horizontally among the lower branches.  He swept the ground free of snow, laid down boughs for a bed, and used more for a roof.

He built a fire and dried his feet as best he could. He roasted the last of the porcupine meat. It was frozen, but Tim had had the foresight to spear it with a roasting stick while it was still fresh. All afternoon he had carried it like a meat popsicle.

Night fell as he continued to work, building brush walls and dragging up firewood. The wind increased and the temperature dropped until he could no longer work away from the fire.

It was a rough shelter at best. One wall was open and another was only partially completed, but these faced away from the wind. The fire fought a losing battle with the dropping temperature. No amount of fuel would keep this shelter warm, and Tim sat huddled miserably into the smallest ball his body would form.

* * *

The black bear was hungry and enraged. His wounds had not healed; the pellet below his eye remained swollen and infected.

He paused to strip the inner bark from a pine, but it did little for him. Then he smelled rotting flesh. Such carrion had nearly led him to his death, so he approached the carcass with exceptional caution but there was no trace of man. He still instinctively trusted his nose, even though it was nearly useless.

He fed well on a deer which some hunter had wounded and lost.

* * *

Near midnight, Tim had to make a foray for more wood. The snow had fallen steadily all night, first with wind, and later in an insistent, heavy downpouring. In the darkness beyond the fire, Tim could not see the snow as it whitened his body. He hunted for wood by feel, running his bare arms through the drifts to find down wood. more tomorrow

It was meat. More than meat, this was life itself. For the first time, Tim fully understood the mystery in taking life so that his own life could go on. He understood now why his father had only hunted once a year to put deer meat in the freezer for winter. And he understood why his Miwuk ancestors had had reverence for the animals they killed.

“Porcupine,” he said, “I don’t know the right words. I don’t know what my ancestors would have said. But thank you. Thank you for being here, now, so I can eat and live.”

Chapter 11

Tim had not gone far on his morning hunt, so he returned to his shelter to cook the porcupine. The meat was greasy and strong. He roasted small pieces over a new fire and took his time eating. He drowsed by the fire, then woke to eat again.

Tim’s grandfather had told him tales that he had heard from his own grandfather. Tim’s grandfather’s grandfather had heard the same tales from his grandfather – stories and legends from the old days before the Miwuks had taken up the white man’s ways.

Tim’s grandfather’s grandfather was the son of a white man and a Miwuk woman. From his mother he had inherited a squat, stocky Miwuk body, but he was hairy like his white father. To the Miwuks, who had little body hair, he had looked like a black bear, so they called him Usue’mate.

When Usue’mate was a young man, he saw how his people were losing their old ways. He went into the mountains and fasted for three days, looking for a spirit animal to tell him in what he should do for them. At the end of the third day, when he had all but given up, a great deer had come to him and had spoken one word to him in the Miwuk language. Then the spirit deer had run away into the forest, and Usue’mate had run after him. Usue’mate chased the spirit deer, never stopping to rest or eat. At the end of the fifth day of his quest, he overtook the deer and forced him to speak. What the spirit deer had said was sacred to Usue’mate, and he had never repeated it, but he had changed his name to Uwu’ya in honor of his spirit animal.

Now Tim had gone to the mountains. He had fasted there, although not by choice. And he seemed to have his own spirit deer, which could not die at his hands. He wished he could talk to his grandfather about it. Or better, his grandfather’s grandfather.

The meat strengthened him quickly. He did not dare eat too much of it at once. When he had had all his stomach would tolerate, he bundled the rest and kicked out his fire.

Crisscrossing the area, Tim picked up his deer’s tracks about noon. Long before that he had seen bruised, antler rubbed trees. Twice he had crossed the tracks of another deer, but he had not followed them up. He thought his best chance was still with the cripple. 

He was less willing to admit the other feelings that bound him to it.

Rut was upon the muleys, and Tim had to consider that. He could no longer be sure how they might act. Now they might run, or they might attack.

Tim was thinking clearly again. Hunger had temporarily left him, but he was as cold as he had ever been and the storm showed no sign of breaking. Snow had begun to build up in the hollows. The next snowfall could easily bring another foot of snow. more next week