It was their fourth morning. Lucky would be coming for them the next day.
“I started my period,” she said. “And do you know what else? Helen did, too.”
“Helen? Already?”
“She’s eleven. That’s not unusual.”
“Weird that you would both—”
“I know.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s mortified. I think she’s also proud, in a way, but you know how she hates to go to the bathroom outdoors, and now she’s got this to deal with. Tomorrow night we sleep in a motel.” It was an order.
Henry lit the Coleman while Jill mixed the pancake dough, then he roused the children. It was their last full day, and immediately after breakfast they set out on an ambitious hike. Henry replaced his cane with a walking staff he had carved from a birch branch, which gave him the look of an Old Testament prophet. It was still early enough that the birds were chittering madly. The ponderosas smelled sharply of resin after the storm. Henry walked haltingly, but the route they had chosen, along Meadow Creek, gently sloped downward as it rolled north toward its terminus in the Selway River. They hiked in the valley between the peaks of the Bitterroot range and the Clearwater Mountains. When Henry had to rest, he and Jill sat on the bank as the kids picked huckleberries and waded in the creek. There was nowhere else in the world but here in this moment.
The creek stirred and widened as the slope became more acute. Henry picked his way down using his staff to brace himself on the steep parts. They began to hear the falls ahead, a dim but constant roar, like highway traffic, growing in intensity until finally they came to where the waters merged and gushed ferociously through the ancient channel sawn through the black granite hills. The river raced through the debris of rockslides and downed trees, through eddying pools and long stretches of whitewater, frantic, like a great mob fleeing some untold disaster.
The family made their way down a rough path to a point where they could see the falls clearly, and then Teddy spotted the salmon leaping, waving their tails in the air for propulsion. The fish were huge, some as large as three or four feet long, but they seemed overmatched by the torrent.
“They’re already beginning to spawn,” Henry said.
“What does that mean?” asked Teddy.
“They lay their eggs in the fall, but first they return to where they were born. They come all the way from the Pacific Ocean, swimming a thousand miles upstream. Then they have their babies, and then they die. This is their final journey.”
“Wow!” Helen cried, as one of the mighty fish leaped high into the air and seemed to hang there, defying gravity, before falling back into the torrent.
“You may be the last generation to see this,” Henry said. “The dams along the river and the warming oceans have taken a toll on the salmon population. It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it, when you see how heroic they are.” As Henry spoke, an osprey shot through the canyon walls and scooped up a salmon that had just made it into the upper river. The squirming fish appeared larger than the bird, but the osprey’s powerful wings lifted them over the canyon walls and into the forest.
The children were quiet on the hike back to camp. Helen was a little teary. That night they ate the last hot dogs, and when the children crawled into their sleeping bags, Henry and Jill sat for an hour sipping bourbon and watching the stars populate the universe. Perhaps if Henry had been more clearheaded he would have hoisted the food chest back into the tree, but there was so little left it seemed pointless.
He never slept soundly in the tent, so the rustling awakened him instantly. There was no question that it was a bear. It was throwing the food chest around, trying to break it open, grunting with frustration and what sounded to Henry like rage.
“Dad!” Teddy whispered urgently.
“Shhh!”
They were all awake now. The bear was close enough that they could hear every footstep. They heard it claw the tree, then bat the food chest around some more. There was nothing in there now but cereal and powdered milk. Henry just hoped that the bear would be able to break into it, despite the secure latch, and then it happened—the sound of the rigid plastic being torn apart by mighty claws, a sound of shocking violence. The panting and grunting were answered by a grunt on