across. The dangerous trap had been attached by a truck-winch cable to a tree, not unlike the great spruce tree above the old man. The cable had a working strength of several thousand pounds. When Albert and his father and uncle returned a few days later, the bear was gone but the earth around the tree looked as if a bulldozer had plowed it, and the bark on the tree trunk was ripped away all around the treeâs base. When they were close, they saw that the bear had actually broken the steel cable. There was blood all around and pieces of light brown, almost blond fur. They never found the grizzly.
If the great bear could escape, then so could a man.
Albert Least-Weasel took out his pocketknife. It was an Old Timer, just as he was. He had carried this gift from his father for perhaps forty years. It was thin and had only one blade, which he sharpened and oiled frequently. He pulled open the knife and tried to cut out the bolt. He knew it would be slow and that he had to be careful not to press so hard that he broke the blade, which flexed when he pushed it against the frozen tree.
It didnât take long to remove the bark, but the trunk itself was frozen hard and resistant like steel. After he had cut maybe an inch into the wood, it was clear that he would cut no more. No matter how hard he pushed or what the angle he set the blade, he could remove no more wood from around the bolt. Frustrated, he pressed the knife a little harder, saw it bend more than it had before, and saw it snap in two. The tip of the blade fell to the base of the tree and lay shining on the frozen ground.
The old man leaned against the tree, his head against the trunk and one arm still holding the knife in the hand that hung limply at his side. He was beginning to lose hope.
When he turned around, he could see the handle of his ax sticking out from the sled, its long shadow reaching halfway across the distance in between. The old man thought about how he could use the sharp-edged ax to free himself. With it, he could hack the hard-set bolt free of the tree. But there was another use. Many years ago, his friend Martin Frank was riding a snowmobile in the far backcountry, checking his trapline. His rifle began to slip off the machine, and he grabbed for it. Somehow he caught his hand in the moving rubber tread, which yanked him from the machine, wedging his hand between the tread and the frame and the wheels. Although he struggled desperately, he couldnât free it. He was far from the village, and it was already twenty below zero. It was his own trapline, and he knew that no one would be traveling on itâno one would be coming to help. After waiting for much of a day, Martin rolled up his jacket and shirtsleeve to expose his arm, numbing the area around his wrist with snow, and then, when he thought his wrist ready, he reached for the ax strapped on the back of the snowmobile. With one clean stroke he chopped off his hand and then drove an hour to the nearest cabin for help.
The old man looked at the ax handle. If only he had that, he would have been free yesterday, and today he would be home with his wife inside his warm cabin with the smell of hot coffee and bacon drifting from the stove. He would be wearing his favorite, worn moccasins and shuffling around the small house while his wife knitted or sewed something for the grandchildren. He would be home, and his grandson would come over to help him cut up the two heavy moose quarters and haul more firewood into the house.
But such thoughts did nothing to remove the chain, so the old man brushed them away from his mind.
He did not know how long he would be trapped, but he knew that someone would come for him soonâif not today, then the next day, or the next. He had to survive only until they came upriver from the village and up into these hills.
Least-Weasel was still hungry. The piece of jerky had not been enough. Besides, it was the only thing he had eaten in about eighteen