Ice Out

Where the Columbia river was once a voluminous artery through a dry scabbed body, it now pooled as broken pockets of deep and shallow lakes in chains, sequestered in the old and new channels. Three global cooling cycles had passed since the days of the hydroelectric dams, and the great Ice Ages of the Second  and Third Millennium had fractured the drain of the northwest. The lakes were the remnants of a once powerful hydraulic force.

Torok and Keef scurried over the basalt and through the sage, racing the Sun God as He slid over the purple hills. They were lugging fishing poles, sleeping bags, a few supplies and a tent  and were still a half a mile from their campsite along the shores of Lake 147. The evening air was early April crisp after a day of sunny mid 50s. Keef, who was Torok’s mentally retarded nephew, a tardakin, but not a really bad tardakin like some, like the ones who rock all day and dig at their eyeballs with sticks and grunt but can’t speak, was panting from the run. Torok was hardly breathing.

The ice out was coming. Any day now, and Torok wouldn’t miss it for the world and  wanted Keef to be there too. To see the ice break and the water open like the sky. Additionally, Keef was very strong and robust and could help Torok lug fish out. Lake 147 was known to hold Klickitat Salmon, a landlocked salmon evolved to thrive in these lakes and related to the ancient Chinook that once ran the Columbia river to the sea before returning to spawn and die. Klickitats grew to immense sizes in the deepest and coldest of these lakes. 150 pounders were not unknown. They were a mysterious fish that swam in the deepest shadows and were difficult to catch, one could spend days on a lake full of them and never get so much as a bite.

Except during the ice out, the one day the ice finally breaks each spring and opens the cap to the sun and the Klickitats blast to the surface, freed from their winter prison, to feed savagely on insect hatches and surface fish - Cutthroat Trout, Perch, Smallmouth Bass, Sunfish and even the large snakelike Northern Pike. This was the time to fish for Klickitats, advantaging their frenzied attacks in the newly opened water.

The two men were almost to the campsite along a rock strewn sandy beach. Keef was winded so Torok took his pack to give him some ease.  The two hiked the last hundred yards through a winding draw peppered with broken pillow basalt and rimmed with Juniper and Sage. The lake was still frozen but the deep blue fractures radiating from the center and the rotten edges indicated it would break soon.

“It lake NOW” Keef shouted.

“Yes, it’s the lake for sure” Torok said as he shifted the packs down to the sand.

“It COLD” Keef said with a huge grin.

“Keef, let me put the poles over here” Torok said while gesturing for the fishing poles. Keef handed the rods to Torok who set them against a twisted old juniper tree. Keef plopped down in the sand with a huge shit eating grin on his face. It was hard for Torok not to deeply love Keef and not just because he was a tardakin and permanently child-like. No, he reminded Torok of his late brother Marik. Marik was Keef’s dad, a normal, but with much of the same irrepressible and unsullied joy for life that shined in Keef’s bright blue eyes.

Torok mused how Marik would have been flinging huge chunks of basalt and granite onto the rotting ice to hasten the ice out. Oh but he would be crashing rocks by now.

After setting up camp, they hiked up a short trail to a basalt shelf overlooking the lake and ate some pemmican and crackers. Below, one could see more of the patterning of the thawing ice, spokes of deep blue showing through the very thin capped fault lines where the stresses of ice and heat worked together to weaken and crack the cap. The edges along the shore were already ice-free but only a few feet, small fish had probably already swam to those warmed areas looking for food, but the Klickitats wouldn’t rise to only that. They needed a big ice break over the deepest part of the lake.

The lake was very narrow, from shore with baitcasting rigs the two could easily cast their surface lures into the center. Fishing from a bank was the preferred technique for these giant salmon, unless one had a very sturdy wooden boat. An inflatable raft, the more common boat among Torok and Keef’s folk, were too easily upended by the violence of a hooked Klickitat. On shore one could more effectively brace and move about while wrestling one in.

147 was a well kept secret in the east slope Cascade villages where Keef and Torok hailed from and not a preferred destination, requiring a 100 mile ride across the old nuclear drift zones and a traverse north of the penitentiary villages, where the ancestors of the ancient prisons had set up lawless communities. Once across this forsaken country, there was a 5 mile hike through rattlesnake infested canyons and draws and overgrown Juniper and Sage groves to find the lakeshores.  But 147 had the perfect layout for an ice out adventure, narrow with a broad stable shoreline and a deep trench full of sleeping Klickitat giants waiting for the sun to return. 

Torok slept deeply that night, as he often did when camping away from the villages. Keef woke him up once whining he heard something outside the tent. “It loud, it WOLFY” he said the next morning when Torok asked him what woke him up. There weren’t any wolves anymore and coyotes were too quiet. Torok had no idea what Keef had heard, most likely Keef was just hearing things, benign night sounds made scary by the dark, too many frightening stories told by villagers about being caught out after dark, story tellers enjoying the wide eyed look of fear on Keef’s face. Keef was not a usual camper.

The lake was still iced but the morning sun looked promising. They ate some biscuits Torok baked over the campfire and drank coffee from small tin cups. Keef wanted sugar for his coffee but Torok had not had sugar for months. Nobody in the villages had any sugar those days. The main trade routes to the west Cascade villages were still snowed in.

They explored the banks of lake 147, scrambling over sagebrush and small button shaped cacti, hiking the south bank from the campsite. Torok found myself working up a quick sweat in the mid morning heat and noticed Keef was breathing pretty hard after climbing over some large basalt boulders dislodged from the gorge walls and blocking access to the shore. From the top of the largest boulder, Torok could see the dark blue spoke lines of thinned ice. He picked up a fist sized chunk of basalt and threw it onto the ice. It skipped and skittered across the cap.

“Me throw one TOO.” Keef insisted.

“Go find some good rocks over there” Torok said while pointing out a rock pile along the gorge wall. Keef hustled over and grabbed some potato sized ones and climbed back up the boulder with Torok. Most tardakins were fairly uncoordinated physically and Keef, while gross motor strong, was no exception. His throws were wild but he managed to pop one through a thin sheaf of ice. His success was enough to encourage him to make repetitive trips to the rock pile for more. While Keef entertained himself trying to fracture ice with thrown rocks, Torok explored more banks around the lake.

Torok worked himself all the way to the south bank, where the lake attenuated under a deeply carved gorge wall with only a foot or so of a bank of brown fractured basalt mixed with decomposed granite. The walls were splattered with lichen like a fingerpainting made by an excited baby god. He crouched under the solid basalt and stared into the open water rim along the bank. Torok saw a sunfish darting back and forth into the water and under the ice. He felt warm, the sun was out and strong, maybe 50 degrees already. Hopefully the ice would break today.

Torok tossed a flat rock over the ice to watch it skid and loosened his jacket in the warming sun and remembered her. His jacket was fleece lined and soft, made by his woman, the last winter she stayed with him in the village. She had grown homesick for her clan and the west slope villages that was for sure, but mostly she’d grown weary of sharing a sod-roofed home with Keef. He was sweet in many ways but demanding and difficult in others, on the east slopes the tardakins were treated like holy ones, nothing like the west. She left two summers before.

The ice glistened in the sunlight. A part of Torok didn’t want it to melt and shatter and cleave to reveal the dark pool beneath. A part of Torok just wished it alone to wonder how deep were the Klickitat and did they sleep even now or did they stir even a little.

“Come here, TOROK, come HERE” Keef shouted, waking Torok from his daydream. “Hang on, Keef” he replied. Torok looked over to the boulder Keef had been on throwing rocks and couldn’t see him. “Keef! Where are you?” Torok yelled. “Come here, TOROK!” Keef yelled back.

There was something in Keef’s voice, fear or surprise, that caused Torok to run quickly  along the rough shore. He slipped a couple of times on the loose rocks, once stepping into the frigid lake water, soaking his foot through his boot. Torok reached the boulder and clambered up and froze. Keef had somehow gotten onto the rotten and cracking ice. He was standing wide-legged on the sheet and it was fractured around him. His pant legs were wet up to his knees, he had  walked out into the narrow band of open lake and stepped  onto the ice.

“Torok, me get my yellow ROCK” Keef said.

“Keef, don’t move, be STILL” Torok said.

Torok wondered how he would get Keef off the ice. Keef was out about 25 yards from shore. Holding his bright yellow translucent chunk of jasper in his hand for Torok to see as though he would understand why it was so important to retrieve that particular yellow rock.

There was nothing on the shore here, no long logs or driftwood or anything to float out to him, not that Torok was sure Keef could get to a floating log and hang on anyway. If Torok walked out to him the ice would surely fracture and finish what Keef had started, already it was cracked and looking to fail soon. Torok glanced at the sky, the sun was bright yellow and molten, pushing 60.

Torok knew he had some rope at the campsite but not nearly enough. Nothing that floated. He could try to knot the sleeping bags to the tent lines and to the 12 feet or so of rope but it still wouldn’t reach.. He thought of trying to use the fishing rod, the line was pretty strong, strong enough for 100 lb Klickitats, and  he could easily cast that far but Keef was a big man, around 300 lbs, and couldn’t swim, he‘d sink like a rock. Keef would need to hook the floater lure into his shirt and Torok would reel it in and hope it didn’t tear out of the shirt. It was a long shot but Torok couldn’t think of anything else.

“Keef, don’t move, I’m going to camp and I’ll be right back, I’m going to get you back here” Torok yelled.

“Torok, me COLD” Keef said.

“Just wait, just wait” Torok said as he jumped off the boulder.

Torok ran to camp and  grabbed both rods and tore into the box with the floater lures. He grabbed the biggest one - about 8 inches long, bright green with yellow and black spots and articulated in the middle with two large treble barbed hooks on each section. He started to tie it on but changed his mind figuring he’d better run back to Keef first.

High above the lake, a condor soared on invisible thermals, gliding east in a cloudless sky. Sections of the ice on the lake were so reflective of the high sun as to cause actual pain to stare at for more than a few seconds. Deep in the cold shadows, Klickitats stirred from the sounds and vibrations of ice cracking along stress lines.

He heard the ice breaking as he ran along the shore back to Keef.  His heart was pounding now, mostly from anxiety and adrenaline. Keef was crying as he shivered on the ice. “Keef, just be still for a few minutes longer” Torok yelled as he tied the large lure onto the fishing line. After cinching the knot, he pulled on it to test it. Good, it was strong. He picked up the loosely coiled 12 foot length of rope and threw it out onto the ice in case Keef made it that far he could hang onto the rope for additional connection.

Torok checked the reel to make sure it was set and fired a cast out to Keef. He overpowered the cast and it shot past Keef skittering over the ice. Keef started to turn to go get the lure, at least 15 feet away from him, when Torok yelled at him to stay in place. Torok reeled the line back in and sidearm whipped a low arcing cast that landed at Keef’s feet.

“OK, Keef, now listen carefully, you need to slowly bend down and pick up the lure, OK?” Torok said.

Keef nodded and squatted and grabbed the lure.

“Watch the hooks!” Torok shouted but Keef was holding the lure at the point of articulation and being very careful not to hook his fingers. Keef had fished with barbed hooks before.

“Now what I want you to do is hook the lure into the front of your shirt but be very careful, don’t hook your skin” Torok said.

“Me hook ME?” Keef asked incredulously.

“Hook your SHIRT” Torok said.

Keef stared at the lure and at his shirt, he pulled the front of his shirt out and held the lure over it.

“Keef, hook both the hooks into your shirt, that’s good how you’re holding it out, go ahead and hook it into the shirt now.” Torok said.

“Like THIS?” Keef asked while jabbing the hooks into his shirt. He was successful with the head set of hooks but couldn’t get the tail set in. “Keep trying” Torok encouraged. After another seven tries he hooked the other set of hooks.

“You caught a KEEF!” Keef said and laughed.

Torok forced himself to smile. “Yes, I’ve got me a big Keef fish!” he said. “Now, Keef I want you to walk to me, very slowly and if the ice breaks and you go in to let me reel you in, don’t be scared ok?”

“It COLD.” Keef said while staring at the ice in front of him. “I know, it’s very cold but I can reel you in if the ice breaks, just don’t be too scared” Torok said as he gestured  for Keef to come to him.

Keef began walking back to shore. Torok kept the line nearly tight as Keef walked. The first few steps were uneventful, but after about six feet of walking the ice cracked. Keef stopped. “No, keep walking to me Keef” Torok said. The sun was nearly straight overhead, the temperature was in the low 60s. Keef started walking again, each step deliberate and careful, each step cracking the ice. Torok wanted to tell Keef to run like hell, make a mad sprint for the shore before the ice gave. But he figured slow and careful was best. Step, step, step. Crack. Crack.

The ice broke as Keef was still 30 feet from shore. It broke all around him and for a few seconds he stood on a circular piece about 3 feet in diameter, he teetered for a second his arms shooting out to desperately and instinctively try to balance. But there wasn’t anything to balance on and he pitched forward into the frigid lake.

Torok exhaled violently and reeled as hard as he could. Keef dropped straight down in the dark cold water, around fifty feet deep even so close to shore. The lake dropped off sharply off a shelf extending only six or seven feet from the shore. The middle was hundreds of feet deep. Where Keef was it was fifty feet down to a sharp incline.

The pole bent nearly double from the weight of Keef and his rapid descent into the lake. Torok fought the pole pulling him towards the lake, spreading his legs wide and bending back as far as he could while reeling. He could barely turn the reel. The line pulled out from the reel with the drag cranked all the way up. Torok swore and lunged away from the lake trying to use his not unsubstantial strength and any leverage he could bring to drag Keef to shore. But the weight of Keef kept pulling him back from his efforts and forcing him down the bank to the lake. He had his right hand at the top of the thick bottom section of the pole and his left on the handle and he twisted himself and crouched further down to lower his center of gravity and fight the pull. At times it felt like Keef’s weight and gravity would tear the pole from his hands. He turned his back to the lake and holding the rod over his shoulder tried to tug Keef by leaning forward and using his thighs to drive the rod.

Torok felt desperation well up into him, desperation as he knew Keef could no longer hold his breath, if he even got a good breath in before he sank, if the shock of the cold didn’t stop his heart, he would have run out of air by now. Torok felt panic as the sheer force of Keef’s sinking body was sapping his strength and he could barely hang onto the rod as it bent over and pulled away as though held by the fist of a lake god who demanded it.

Gathering his strength for one more lunge to stop the descent and force momentum in his favor, he dug his boots into the loose shale and basalt and inhaled a huge breath readying to explode forward with one last great effort. The line snapped before he could even move, he flew forward with the release of the tension and weight and fell face first into the rocky shore. He rolled over and came to his feet and dove for the loose line but it was already gone to the lake.

He stood at the shoreline and stared. Keef was drowned and on the bottom by now. Inside all his adrenaline had shot out with the snapped line and he just felt heavy and sad and an immense loss welling up. Not Keef. He couldn’t believe it. Why did he leave Keef alone, why - but he stopped that line of thinking. He knew deep down it would come later to eat at him. But now he wasn’t ready for that.

A mountain elder had once told him that drowning was the best death - quiet and peaceful - but a fisherman from a west village who had drowned but been resuscitated said drowning was horrible and experienced a fear like no other as the water filled  his lungs. Torok didn’t want to imagine that for Keef and hoped Keef’s heart had stopped in the cold instant he went in. Even if he’d retrieved Keef the odds weren’t good he could have revived him. But.

The lake ice that shattered under Keef continued to break in sections and along the fault lines. The sounds of ice cracking ripped through the canyon like gunfire. Torok was  oblivious as the lake broke in front of him, the dark blue-gray water spreading.

Exhausted, Torok sat on the shore, his head bowed between his legs, his arms draped over his knees. He breathed raggedly and shut his eyes.

Deep below the open surface, the landlocked salmon-giants awoke. In the same instant, with their bellies burning from hunger and their eyes black with loss, hundreds swam to the surface in a great silver rush.

Comments

[mik]

Fantastic! The ice is melting and your wonderful descriptions and characters are pouring forth. Reads like a great chapter I...Hoping for more.

[glynis]

wow. i agree with mik. riveting stuff, bob. this one needs to continue.