Free Wild Man Island by Will Hobbs Page B

hadn’t eaten. Why not?
    When the dog had eaten his fill he led me back into the forest and down to another salmon stream. It was teeming with sockeyes but the Newfoundland didn’t pay them any mind. He splashed through the stream and started up the slope on the other side. I tried to get him to stay with me while I made another jabbing stick, but he was leaving whether I came along or not.
    Freezing cold, I followed. Cursing under my breath, I started up the beginning of a steep slope that was a patchwork of giant trees, knobby gray outcrops, and sheer cliffs. Where in the world was he going?
    Behind a massive spruce that had fallen against the cliff, the Newfoundland trotted up a steep ledge. He looked back for a second; I tried to call him back buthe kept going. I had to scratch my way up on all fours. I followed along narrowing ledges that zigzagged upward a hundred feet or more above the valley floor.
    All at once there was nowhere to go. We were standing above thin air. It was fifty or more feet straight down to the beginnings of a steep talus slope.
    I was at my wit’s end—frustrated, freezing, exasperated. For no apparent reason, the dog was all excited, as if he’d reached his destination.
    Immediately ahead of us along the cliff, the rain was dripping from the outer edge of big overhang and a long, shallow cave underneath it. It wasn’t a true cave; it was more of a big rock shelter. An alcove was what we would call it in the Southwest. It was in nearly inaccessible alcoves like this that the ancient Indians had built their cliff dwellings in the red cliffs back home.
    The dog was acting like he had to get into the alcove. I was losing all patience. We were separated from the floor of the alcove by seven or eight feet of thin air. Even with dry footing I couldn’t make a leap like that, not from a standing start, and neither could he.
    Now he was standing up against the trunk of a cedar that grew out of the ledge and leaned high over the gap. Barking and wagging his tail, the Newfie was acting like there was something up the tree. I hoisted myself up on the rocks for a look.
    What I found was a small coil of rope on the shoulder of the first branch. The rope was tied to a jagged outcrop above. Soon I was back down on the ledge with the free end. It was braided from inner cedar bark, andobviously sturdy. Meant for swinging across to the alcove, to a food cache if I had at least one lucky bone in my body.
    The dog was going crazy, and I was nearly as excited. “Okay, okay,” I said. “I’m hungrier than you are.” I swung across and landed easily on the floor of the alcove.
    A few steps toward the interior of the alcove, and I could see that it was a good forty feet deep and twice that long. Another step, and my eyes took in more surprises than my brain could begin to process: a stone cooking hearth, a beautiful long table of polished cedar planks, a huge chair made from hide stretched over a bone frame, maybe whalebone.
    I went straight to the hearth. I put my hand to the ashes in the fire pit. No hope of reviving them: they were as cold as I was. A large bowl carved from stone, with a big cedar spoon inside, had been left beside the fire pit. On all sides, there were prehistoric implements: mortar and pestle, a stone slab and grinding stone, baskets of many sizes, wooden storage boxes, a stone ax leaning against a neat stack of firewood. Close at hand was an ample supply of tinder including a bin full of old-man’s beard.
    â€œAnybody home?” I called. The only reply was my echo. Next to the kitchen, neatly arranged on handcrafted shelves, were dozens and dozens of Harvard Classics and National Geographic s.
    The guard hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The alcove was full of hiding places. What if the wild man was here, right now, watching me?
    Back at the ledge, the dog was barking. How was I supposed to get him across?
    Everywhere my eyes fell, I found