Chapter 3

(Day two — near Fairbanks, Alaska)

In Nenana, Grif filed his Pilot Report, verbally filling in Tara on the two flights. Tara was considering a trip to Ambler on her days off, to visit a couple that she worked with on the pipeline for a few days. She asked Grif if he wanted to go, but he was planning to take a couple days to try some salmon fishing over on one of the tributaries to the Susitna River.

Grif called Rudy to ask if there were any other spur of the moment trips before that Saturday when they were to pick up a family from Germany in Denali Park, and return them to Anchorage. Rudy could do that with the Beaver. Since nothing was pending before then, Grif put the call on the speaker phone, and mentioned the Animal Rights people, and that he had seen that morning after dropping the three fishermen off. Then he told of the three grizzlies on the trail about a half-hour behind them.

Rudy said, "We've had about triple the usual number of bear attacks around here as we usually do this summer. There just aren't that many berries and they are hungry."

Tara mumbled something about how it would serve the head of a big anti hunting group like Animals First right to come out on the short end of a bear attack. Grif injected, that it was still a horrible way to die, and regardless of the parents, the Wilson kids seemed decent. He told Tara about their official Animals First gear and food. That was a subsidiary of the organization that no one knew where the profits went other than to boost the campaigns of very ultra Left Wing Liberal Environmentalist candidates. Tara got a good chuckle out of what Rudy and Grif had called the "Giant Mosquito Call".

"What did you have in mind to do?" Rudy asked of Grif.

Grif told him the Silver Salmon run was starting to peak on the Deshka River, and he wanted to have a crack at some, and possibly some Rainbow Trout on the upper reaches. Rudy wanted someone to check the trail the next morning. Tara said that she would on the way to Ambler.

Rudy said, "Sounds like a winner to me."

Grif went to town to pick up some food for his trip. What made him stop by the Fred Myers and then go buy another box of .300 Winchester Magnum ammo, and another two boxes of twelve gauge slugs, and two boxes of 0 buckshot, he may never know. The clerk at the sporting goods counter remarked, "Armed for bear huh?" Grif told him that one never knows when you will need it.

Grif stayed in a room at a boarding house in town. After dinner, Grif dropped Tara at the airfield and they wished each other good luck. Tara had suggested he take her Black Labrador Retriever, "Barney" with him for company. Grif thought that would be good, as he had hunted ducks with the dog the previous fall. Barney and Grif liked each other, because Grif could call ducks better than Rudy or Tara could and the dog minded very well. His share of the cargo was ten pounds of dry dog food for the weekend.

Grif went in and filed his flight plan, then made sure all of his gear was secure in case they hit turbulence. After clearing with the Air Traffic Controller, Grif began to taxi out to his fishing weekend. Grif was not expected back until the following Monday at the latest.

While he preferred the company of another person when fishing or hunting, Grif knew that area well enough, and was comfortable enough to go it alone. Barney would be great company if he didn't start passing gas in the plane. He would refuel in Talkeetna on the return trip, but for now he was ready to get busy with some serious relaxation. On the way out Grif wondered just how far their clients had made it the first day. Tara would intersect the trail several miles ahead of where they estimated the party to be, if they followed the itinerary. Then she would head back towards the starting point until she found them.

(The Trail between Walker Lake and the cache tower)

Meanwhile, Ricky had "taken command" of the party by virtue of his being the "Senior Surviving Male". It is doubtful he had any remorse over his father's terrible death, only gloating that he was one of the richest, most politically powerful "men" in the country at that point! His mother reminded him that she was first heir of the Animals First fortune.

Ricky walked over to her and backhanded her across the face, and said, "The trip is still young, and if any of you make it out alive it will be by MY wishes. I hope you all understand that!"

Sheila spoke up and said, "If we don't put some more distance between us and the bears, it will be at THEIR discretion, not yours."

Ricky went back to Sheila, and glared. "OK, Aunt Sheila," he said, "You get the rear of the column. Let's move out. Who has the damn map?" Sheila was quiet, as were the others.

Tommy spoke up, and said, "I think it's back with Uncle Dick's stuff in his pack."

"No, it's not," he shot back. "I looked." Then he grabbed Tommy's arm and twisted it behind his back.

"Here," Sheila said, throwing it at him.

Ricky picked it up, and then said, "Yeah, I can find my way out with this. I'll talk with you about this when we stop tonight!"

Kathy and Carol helped their injured mother limp along, as Sheila and her three kids hung behind them. Ricky forged ahead, then yelled for them to pick up the pace. Being in the rear, Sheila could attempt to mark their trail, by pulling off lengths of toilet paper and dropping them every half mile or so. The next time they stopped to rest, while Ricky schemed over the map, she unzipped a lower compartment in her backpack, and pulled the tissue out just enough to start it rolling within a plastic bag. In order to do so, she had to make sure nothing lay against it. To get it out without drawing anyone's suspicion, she made as though she had to "go to the little girls' bush" and took the whole roll with her. Upon returning, she repacked it as to be in a dispenser of sorts.

What Ricky did not know, was she laid some in the shape of an arrow, pointing the direction they were walking. Further down the trail, she dropped another long piece and another further on. When the sun reached its highest point, Ricky stopped and asked, "Who has the water?" His sister Kathy handed him her canteen, which he drained. "Where is the cooking stove and the food?" he demanded to know.

"Daddy had the stove in his gear," Carol said, "I think Uncle Barry had the food. There was some in Mom's pack but she can't carry it. We split what we could. It's mostly crackers and oatmeal."

"That's garbage," Ricky exclaimed! Then he went to Bonnie and grabbed her face and said, "If you have any more candy bars, you better give them up now!"

Bonnie cried, "You are hurting me Ricky. Stop please?"

Then Donna said, "She doesn't have any more, they took it away from her last night. I have the rest of it." Then she took off her pack and pulled two Ziploc bags of chocolate bars out and handed them to Ricky.

"That's more like it," he gloated. "How about you Aunt Sheila? Where's yours?"

Sheila glared at him and said, "I didn't know there was any more. They bought it when I was in the restroom in Bettles. I almost bought some but the Native in the Trading Post told me that they would really attract bears, so I didn't."

Then he turned to the girls and asked, "Who gave the bags to you?"

Donna told him, "The clerk did, and we hid them in our coats before mom came back out."

Ricky stood up, holding the candy and the other food, and announced, "Now hear this! I am in charge. I control all of the food and if any of you want to eat, you are going to do exactly as I say!"

Sheila recalled the second cache tower they were supposed to reach on the third day. They could hold out till then. Along the trail were a few berries, not many, but a few, and they could sustain themselves on those to stave off Ricky, who had made himself dictator.

Carol looked at Ricky, and said, "You don't mean that for your sisters too, do you? Surely you will feed Mom. She needs her strength to recover."

"Oh, I'll take care of Dear old Mom," he sneered, "She will follow my orders just like the rest of you."

Sheila discreetly held a berry in her hand and showed it to Bonnie, then Donna, and motioned with her eyes to the bushes along the trail. Then she quickly popped it in her mouth to see if it was edible. It was a bit sour, but it wasn't making her sick.

Ricky gave his mother a cracker, and a piece of Hershey bar, and she glared at him momentarily. If they survived this, the kid would be written from the will entirely. Meanwhile she would do what was necessary to see that she did survive.

"Let's go," Ricky commanded, and they again gained their feet and started hiking south. A few more miles down the trail, they encountered a Bull Moose that ambled off into the woods. It was beginning to get overcast, and the sun no longer helped them to navigate.

They came to a point where three trails crossed. Ricky called them to a halt while he looked the map over. He thought, "One of these will take us out to the main river, and then to the pickup point. When that happens, I expect to either be the sole survivor of this trip, or have the sworn silence and loyalty of anyone who leaves with me! Until that time they will do as I say, and I do mean everything I say!"

Rather than stay on the marked trail, he chose one that forked off to the west. He was going to prolong his sadistic pleasure and their torture as long as he could. At this rate, it would be weeks before they found them! That is if they ever found them. The fewer heirs to make it back, the richer he would become.

Ricky snickered, "They don't know what lost is until I get done with them!"

He went back and got his mother, and helped her along the new trail. It looked like he had taken to relieving Kathy and Carol at first, but Ricky never did anything out of kindness. They finally stopped to rest only because he was tired.

Sheila found a rock that weighed about two pounds and set it aside, next to the trail. Sheila called Ricky over to make him stop and fix some lunch, as they hadn't eaten since breakfast several hours before. When he refused, Sheila said that they should at least have one of the granola bars in her pack.

Ricky came over, grabbed her pack from her and leaned forward to rifle through it. Then it went black, as Sheila smashed the rock against his head. It was a drastic measure, but the kid had gone mad.

"I am sorry Tracy, but that had to be done," she explained to her sister.

"Is he dead," Kathy asked?

"Sheila answered, "No, but we may be if he wakes up before I find some rope."

Tommy spoke up; "I have some!"

Then he pulled a twenty-five foot hank of 1/8-inch cotton clothesline rope out of his pack. We need to tie him up so he can't hurt us now. Sheila rolled Ricky over on his stomach and got both hands behind his back. Then she made a slipknot just to get it quickly around both of his hands. She started weaving it around to make it more secure, when Ricky roared out his anger as he came to.

"Help me hold him down kids," she called out! Donna and Tommy grabbed his legs and sat on them. Sheila took her pocket utility knife and cut the rope off then began to bind his feet. Instead, she made a two-foot length where he could walk with them but not run away.

Then Sheila rolled him over on his back, and said, "See this knife punk? It says I can cut your throat and leave you here for the scavengers. Don't think I am not tempted."

Ricky looked at his sisters and his mother, and then commanded them, "You get over here and help me get loose, or so help me I'll make you regret it!"

Carol started towards him, but her mother held her hand, and shook her head "no." They were only a few hundred yards up the new trail, but Sheila and Tracy couldn't decide which of the trails was the continuation of the original one.

She told them to wait there, and from the intersection walked back a few hundred feet, up each, looking for her last toilet paper marker. About fifty feet up the second one, she found her marker, but walked beyond it as to not alert Ricky to what she had done. Sheila walked back down to the group, and said, "Our tracks are on that one, so I think this is the one we need to be on."

Sheila again suggested that they make a litter for Tracy. Tracy declined, since she seemed to be able to walk on her own more, and suggested they travel as far as they could before making camp. They had another several hours of daylight left, and were going to make the best of it. Donna and Tommy re-strung the straps of Ricky's backpack through his arms.

Ricky glared at her, and said menacingly, "I will get out of this, and all of you Wilsons are going to be so dead!"

"In that case, I should just kill you now, and say it was self-defense," Sheila replied.

"You better go ahead and do it now while you have the chance, because when I get loose, you're one dead bitch," he sneered, "and your kids too!"