The “war” lasted about ten minutes. We shot verbal salvos at him. He returned in kind. We took the lead but the trail deteriorated, nearly disappearing. The struggle settled into a one-sided race with the terrain at our disadvantage. We stumbled over rocks and fallen trees, waded through tangled bush, scrambled up one incline and shimmied down another. All the while, Doug nonchalantly steered the raft, even rowing in circles. We tried to pick up the pace, laughing as we tripped and fell. The raft pulled further ahead and we stopped to catch our breath, shaking fists in mock anger. Doug sneered back in scorn.
We returned to the cabin earlier than the previous night, feasted on moose again, relaxed, rehashed the last few days, and make plans. Doug figured it would take two more days to get everything back to the trucks. We decided he and I should ride the cycles. I offered mine to Ed but he demurred as he had never ridden.
“I don’t care what we do or how”, I said, “but let’s get started early. I don’t want to get caught on that trail after dark again - don’t know why we call it a trail anyway - half of it is stream bed, washouts, and rockslides.”
“That’s something…the way we got separated that first night”, Dan proclaimed.
“The hunt started out as a real downer”, Ed added.
“We tried to bring too much equipment. That was a big mistake”, Doug offered.
“That is for sure”, I said, remembering our lame attempt at packing. “Dan tied so much stuff onto the Honda 90 that it looked more like a peddlers wagon - pots and pans hanging and clanging - better than bells for warning against bears.”
“Yeah”, Dan said. “I didn’t get half mile when the load shifted, and half of it fell off.”
“I followed along picking up stuff for a hundred yards before rounding a bend and finding you with the dumped load”, I said.
“And then it occurred to us that you two should have been along by then“ Dan added, “so Joe went back to check.”
“Our cycle won’t start. We worked on it till nine o’clock without and luck. By then Joe felt that he should try to catch up with you. Ed and I decided to stay a the truck and walk in the next morning”, Doug recapped.
“I never ran into so many holes in my life”, I explained. My low beam was burnt out, so I couldn’t see the trail immediately in front of me. I was forever pulling the cycle out of things - ruts, or getting wedged between rocks - got flipped off a couple of times. I finally wised up, got off, and walked ahead to see the best way. I made three miles in two hours, and then I came across your cycle parked in a big rocky area. You were nowhere to be found, and I didn’t know what to think. I figured you had left the damn thing in frustration, and decided it would be faster to walk, so I left mine too”
“I made it to the cabin about two a.m.”, Dan said. “It was pitch dark and I didn’t have any light - spooky as hell. I lost the trail a dozen times - finally made it there by circling around the edge of the lake through that swamp.”
“I didn’t have a clue as to where the cabin was located, not with it being so dark”, I said. “I lost the trail. It ended suddenly and I couldn’t find where it took up. My flashlight was getting dim, so I decided to pitch my tent there… which was nowhere as far as I could tell. That was about two in the morning. It was cool that night and I didn’t have my sleeping bag, so I did a lot of shivering and kept nipping on a flask of brandy most of the night. The next morning I discovered the cabin was only a quarter-mile from the tent.”
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