Flight To Pandemonium Read online

  “Sounds great, but how about the other two guys? They in on this?”

  “Yup. Actually, it was their idea. They’re excited. I’m surprised they aren’t here already. Let’s order a late lunch and wait for them. The food here is the best. We’ll meet here in the morning for breakfast at seven. After that it’ll be clean living!”

  Back in his hotel room and at the hour he thought Heather might be home, Mac called, but heard only the recording. He tried her cell phone and she answered with a tremulous voice full of fatigue and stress.

  “You’re still at BioWatch?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’ve been here since four this morning,” she answered. “Are you in Nome?”

  “Got here about noon and had lunch with Abel; we’re leaving in the morning.”

  “Mac, you’ve got to listen to me about leaving town. Things are worse. Now there are confirmed deaths in London, New York, and all over Europe. We’re not getting a handle on acceleration of this disease. There are at least twenty five hundred confirmed deaths in just a week. It’s spreading like wild fire. Everything is out of control. You really should come home while there’s still time.”

  Mac paused, trying to understand exactly what she was saying. “Maybe you should listen to my idea instead. Just where would we go for help in Seattle if things fall apart? The Chamber of Commerce brags that two million people come through SeaTac every year from other countries. Someone is bound to bring that bug to Seattle if not already. You ought to fly up here with me. We’ll be deep in the boonies away from cities. Leave right now and don’t bring anything You can buy all the gear you need in Nome. You could be here day after tomorrow. I’ll wait for you.”

  “Mac, I just can’t leave. They…”

  “Honey, I don’t mean to be insulting…” Mac interrupted, “but if the biology experts can’t find a way to stop that thing, how’s a lawyer going to make any difference? Come up here with me where we can wait it out together.”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you over a cell phone, but they need me for the quarantine. CDC is planning stringent boundaries , so we are facing a huge legal battle… a brawl among the politicos of the world fighting for advantage with the opportunity.

  “They’re setting up sleeping quarters at the University so everyone doesn’t waste time commuting back and forth. Everyone is committed!”

  “Heather, does putting all of you together in tight quarters make any sense? From the sound of that presser, just one visitor could infect every one of you.”

  “For me, that won’t matter.” Calmly she said, “The Department of Health is flying me to DC overnight. Mac, maybe staying where you are does make sense. Hope I’m back by the time you return. I love you! Gotta go! Goodbye.” Heather broke the call. Mac sat back stunned. He wondered if she intended to tell him she was leaving town. That was how things often ended when they argued, and she didn’t want to talk. And if after only a week, CDC was planning worldwide quarantines, this plague thing was out of hand… and too close to home. Could she come back?

  Mac dialed again. She didn’t answer. Mac pondered… Washington, D.C… way worse than Seattle. Fear crept into his mind. Would he ever see her again?

  Abel did not join Mac for breakfast. He stopped by the Grill only long enough to tell Mac that he was returning to the airport to check on his missing tour guests. Abel returned alone two hours later.

  “I waited until the 8:15 flight from Anchorage in case there was some foul-up. I’ve never had two prepaid tour guests fail to show up, so I talked to the ticket agent. One of ‘em got as far as Anchorage and they found his bag checked through to Nome. They had no news on the other guy. Changed his mind, I guess.”

  “So… is the first guy still on his way?”

  “Nope. Bought a ticket back to John Wayne Airport… wherever that is.”

  “Near Los Angeles,” answered Mac… and one of the worst places on the planet to go just now, he thought, but he didn’t say so. “So, where does that leave us?” Mac’s disappointment was transparent.

  Abel said, “I’ll honor your trip, but I’d like to take my oldest grandson along. We need to take the three man canoe and he’ll be real handy helping scrounge for food.”

  “Cool!”

  “One more wrinkle, though… we can’t leave until morning. I’ve got to repack for three people and load the jeep with the long canoe.”

  “No problem, but I don’t have a room at the Nugget for the night.”

  “But I do, so let’s go check you in.”

  The cadaverous clerk was back at the counter chewing his wad. “Ain’t seen yer guests today, neither,” he said, looking at Abel.

  “They’re not coming. But I paid for their rooms myself so I’m substituting Mac for one of them.”

  “Yer boys didn’t check in by six so I booked ‘em. They ain’t available. Warned ya ‘bout that.”

  “Well then, we’ll just have to use this one for a special guest of honor,” replied Abel, slamming a brass key onto the counter and then lifting his hand, smiling broadly.

  “Like hell we will. That’s my room. Where’d you get that?”

  “That’s the owner’s key. So how might I know that, do you think?”

  “Best suite in the house. Goes fer… 250 dollars per night plus tax!”

  Smiling, Abel replied with sarcasm thick in his voice, “I think it’ll be on the house. Shall we call him?”

  “Then on such short notice, I might have yer room ready by say… three or so.”

  “I think it’ll be ready in say… fifteen minutes… or so; what a ya say?”

  The clerk spit his wad forcefully under the counter and glaring at Abel intensely, said, “Ya win this round m’ man, but there’ll be another. Bet on it.”

  All the while, Mac was standing well away from the counter, listening. After that exchange, he hoped he would never again be forced to book a room at the Nugget. Explaining, Abel said, “That creep just screwed me out of four hundred bucks.”

  Abel waited the full fifteen minutes, guided Mac to the room, opened the door with the owner’s key, peered inside and said, “Good. Meet you at the Grill in the morning at seven.”

  Once inside the disheveled room, Mac could see the room wasn’t the best suite in the house, just an ordinary room with only a dormer window. They were both scammed.

  Early morning, Mac dialed Heather’s cell again. Sadly, she didn’t answer. Within the hour he’d be outside of cell phone range for two weeks or more before he could reach her. But he wasn’t about to abandon world-class fishing because Heather had flown off to DC to settle a political brawl.

  Pilgrim Hot Springs was sixty miles north of Nome within sight of the Kigluaik Mountains. The turnoff took them the last six miles through rough jeep country marked by potholes and puddles. Pilgrim Hot Springs was a wilderness fisherman’s paradise where salmon, trout or grayling ran hot every month of summer and fall.

  Abel’s yurt nestled amid a small copse of poplar and pine trees, not far from a 175 degree water fumarole perfect for cooking. Within a modest walk to the river lay cooler gravel-bottom soaking tubs for easing muscles and minds. The yurt was a circular lattice wall twenty feet in diameter covered with sheep-wool felt and a waterproof canvas-caribou skin exterior. Elaborate wood-crafted rafters supported a circular wooden-crown skylight, flooding the interior with light. Around the room a multitude of camping and fishing gear hung from pegs on the six foot lattice wall. A dozen family folding chairs sat on a white gravel floor surrounding a central rock and clay charcoal oven, its iron flue rising to the sky.

  The yurt would serve as base camp for the season. Mac’s guides planned three 3-day excursions in expanding arcs to ply the country by canoe all the way to the Imuruk Basin. Near the Pilgrim River, Mac began his fishing adventure with an invigorating soak at the hot s
prings while his guides finished packing the canoe. They pushed off on the river without carrying food, intending to subsist on their own resources.

  As an authentic trial of self-reliance, Abel insisted that they use only handcrafted tackle. Abel and his grandson, Anuksuk, spent days teaching Mac genuine back country techniques using poles, lures, and hooks made of reeds, fish bone, and feathers. Abel’s only concession to technology was the use of nylon monofilament line. The handcrafted tackle proved every bit as effective as manufactured lures. But whenever Abel wasn’t looking, Mac inserted a barbed metal hook buried within his handcrafted lure. He wasn’t confident of his skill to hand carve a reliable hook.

  Departing from contemporary thinking, Abel was also contemptuous of the catch and release method of angling so popular with progressive fishing guides.

  “You shouldn’t play with the fish,” he insisted. “If no one can use the catch, you should quit fishing and leave ’em for the next guy… simple as that.”

  Anuksuk pointed out flying insects, amphibians, and larval grubs sought by the fish, so they crafted flies or lures to imitate their action. Sometimes they hooked the genuine bait, using whichever method worked best because result was the primary reward of subsistence fishing.

  “Arctic fish have never been hatchery raised or fed anything man-made,” said Abel. “Fish thrive as scavengers and predators… always hungry but always wary.”

  When Abel thought Mac was ready, he set him free to experience his own budding success. He walked for miles fishing countless lakes and puddles of the low river basin. Later, he rated himself a good fisherman, decent berry gleaner, a marginal judge of safe mushrooms, and a terrible hunter. Watching for game but not his feet, he stumbled over the tufted tundra, startling animals and birds alike, unable to get close.

  Nevertheless, he alone caught enough Dolly Varden, Arctic grayling, whitefish, and early Coho salmon to feed them for weeks. Anuksuk and Mac gathered the bountiful berries during the peak of season; they never touched the rice. Mac earned his bragging rights while his new lean buttocks became uncomfortable to sit upon for long.

  Abel broke off the fishing tour when the main body of Coho salmon began its run up the rivers of the Seward Peninsula. Thousands of bright red transformed salmon rushed into the fresh water streams and Abel’s entire family joined the annual fall fishing event. They built dozens of tall drying racks where they draped cleaved fish from the tail.

  The Yupik natives developed an effective net of loops which nestled on the stream bottom and funneled the salmon but allowed other fish to pass above. Anuksuk demonstrated the simple technique of making monofilament loops precisely sized to efficiently snare targeted fish near their gills. Mac went to work stooped over using his long arms to nestle the nets, anchoring them with rocks on the bottom.

  After seven days helping Abel and knowing his marvelous trip would soon end, he borrowed the small kayak and set out on the river overnight to mellow out, marveling at the gorgeous, unspoiled panorama one last time.

  On his return to the yurt, Mac heard tense voices from within. As he stooped to enter, he was shouldered aside by an elderly man, who stumbled out unsteadily. The crooked man appeared gaunt, grizzled, and angry. Wearing native skin clothing decorated with bone, dilapidated feathers and a braided hair chain of yellowing ivory charms, the man stopped and turned toward Mac, puffing for breath. The man reeked of alcohol. He spoke a long sentence in his Inuit tongue while shaking his clenched fist at both Mac and Abel; he glowered fiercely with apparent hatred.

  Mac was certain he had never met the man and was puzzled by the vehement outburst he couldn’t understand, so he ignored him. The old man grabbed Mac’s arm as if to continue the confrontation. Anuksuk intervened by yelling, “Go away, grandfather!” Defeated but defiant, the man stalked off without another word.

  When Mac entered the yurt, stunned silence prevailed while most family eyes followed him around to his seat. Mac realized that somehow he was the cause of an upset. He was relieved when Anuksuk beckoned him back outdoors. On the way out, Mac grabbed a cheroot.

  Outside, Abel had the same idea, for he was packing his pipe. Extending a flaming match, he asked, “Catch any of that?”

  “Not much,” Mac replied, puffing his cigar.

  “Grandfather’s finally gone crazy,” said Anuksuk.

  “I’m sorry, Abel,” Mac said sincerely, “I’ve worn out my welcome.”

  “Not with this family you haven’t.” Abel noisily sucked on his pipe trying to calm himself. “You’ve become one of us like no other guest we’ve ever had.” Anuksuk nodded agreement.

  “Mind telling me that last part?”

  Abel sighed, and Anuksuk answered, “Grandfather said that we were all going to die unless we killed both white men and threw them in the river!”

  Of course, Mac knew that probably meant him, at least, but both…?

  Abel grinned ruefully at Mac’s surprise. “That’s right, you and me!”

  “What the hell?”

  “You wouldn’t understand even if you understood the language. Anuksuk, tell him what your grandfather said, exactly as you remember from the beginning.”

  “Grandfather said…”

  Abel immediately interrupted. “First you should know that grandfather thinks of himself as sort of a shaman, a dreamer of things to come, but usually the cheap booze is talking…”

  “Papa…”

  “Okay, go ahead. I won’t interrupt anymore.”

  “Well, grandfather had been drinking and was upset, but didn’t make any sense. He’s been in a foul mood most of his life, but this was the worst I’ve ever seen.”

  “Grandfather said he dreamed that white men were going to kill the People. Said they were going to make them terribly sick and that the People were going to die. The choking sickness, he said… white men choking the life from the People… like long ago.”

  “Where’d he get all that?” asked Mac. “Has he been listening to someone else?”

  “Naw, he doesn’t listen to anyone but the voices in his head. But there was more to it this time, the worst encounter I’ve ever had with him,” resumed Abel. “From the beginning, he was unhappy when his granddaughter married my grandson… didn’t come to the ceremony and wouldn’t talk to her for years. You see, I’m Russian Cossack and my wife is a Yupik native… but he’s from a local Inuit band of Kaviagmiut. The grandchildren finally broke the ice with him, but he’s always been difficult. He still resents the fact that his granddaughter married into a white-Yupik family. You just happened in while we aired our family problems. I’ll admit though, even I’m shocked by the killing thing.” Abel shrugged sadly.

  Mac nodded his head sympathetically. “So what was that killing thing all about?”

  “During the first world war, a terrible flu swept through every family around here. So many people died that a missionary set up an orphanage nearby to take care of all the desperate children without a family. I’m sure that’s what he was talking about.”

  “A terrible flu, you say.”

  “Yes, just an ordinary flu, but more like a plague,” replied Abel.

  “Abel, this may surprise you, but maybe there’s some truth to what he says.”

  Abel shut off the jeep in front of the Nugget Inn. Mac remained seated for a few moments, thinking. His glorious trip was over… finished forever!

  As Mac grabbed his backpack containing his camera, journal and back country clothes, Abel handed him a heavy skin-wrapped package. “Put that in your checked luggage or they’ll surely take it away. No one in town can deal with this properly and I don’t trust the University. So I’m looking to you to find an expert who will know how to preserve a Cossack artifact. I don’t want to see it waste away…or worse.”

  Abel climbed out of the jeep for a final bear hug. He pulled
a second heavy bundle from behind the seat. “Some smoked salmon to remember us by. Come back and see me again while I can still enjoy the fishing and I’ll tell you a good story behind that gift. My grandson enjoyed your company and so did I. By the way… you’ve officially earned your bragging rights.”

  Despite the invitation, Abel seemed anxious to be on his way and sped off with a wave. Standing on Front Street in the bustle of traffic, Mac realized sadly that he was headed back to the fast lane and the blue suit.

  At the hotel desk, he was disappointed to find the same clerk on duty. “Yer a week late. Damn near gave away yer room.” With that, the clerk slowly tapped into the desk computer with two index fingers, hunt and peck fashion.

  “But I confirmed this morning as we came in,” replied Mac.

  “Means nothin’. Things’re bonkers ’round here and I got real demandin’ folks.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “You kiddin’…where ya been, in a cave?”

  “I’ve been fishing the Pilgrim River with Abel.”

  “That guy!” he snorted while slapping a brass key onto the counter. “Best turn on the tube in yer room ’cause ya wouldn’t believe me if I told ya.”

  “Alright, I’ll do it, but why the crowd this time of year?”

  “Airlines. Cancelled flights, pissed off people, and crazy talk. Bunch ’a nurses from Kotzebue stuck here.” His avaricious eyes brightened as a new scheme crossed his mind. “Wantta share your room?”

  “No, I sure don’t. Besides, I haven’t washed my clothes in weeks.”