Chapter 14. The Rebellion
Three weeks had elapsed since they began their journey on foot into the wilderness. They swung close to but not through Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, and were now heading into Northern British Columbia, striking out for Northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories: for The Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River. They had climbed to high altitude, over 8,000 feet, and it was a chilly evening as they conversed round their campfire. June was still in the future and frost would cover the ground round their campsite by morning.
Nightfall found Amanda cuddled up and cozy in her blankets. She was sharing a tent with her parents and brother. Amanda woke twice during the night. The first time the squawking of an eagle or a hawk startled her out of her sleep. The second time it was the intense and ominous silence outside the tent which shook her awake. She tried to fall back to sleep but was unable to. But dawn was upon them and the sky began to lighten in the east. Amanda left her warm blankets and rekindled the campfire. Soon enough she had plenty of hot coffee a-brewing. Amanda liked the heat of the flames on her face and on her cold hands and fingers on mornings such as these; and a cup of hot coffee was always welcome on a cold morning in the wilderness.
Maria joined Amanda - she couldn't sleep either - and they spoke in whispers, conversing about the trials and hazards of living in the wilderness. One morning not too long ago, loud bursts of machine gun fire exploded in their ears. Haakon was firing the M-16. A huge grizzly bear, 200 feet away from their camp, watched as the bullets sprayed the dust at his enormous paws. He turned and strolled nonchalantly away, not being fond of the warning shots Haakon was giving him. Seeing his prospects of having an easy meal suddenly dashed must have been a terrible disappointment. Amanda had some admiration for Haakon in his actions. She was glad he didn't kill the bear when he really didn't have to. Maria and Amanda had to admit the fear of being devoured by grizzlies wasn't a huge issue with them once they stopped being stingy with the ammo and started periodically firing rounds to warn the brutes to stay away. Amanda knew the arguments for laying low were too reasonable for her to ignore. She wasn't quite sure why Maria was willing to lose herself in the wilderness. Amanda wished the cops lacked some persistence in hunting her down, but she was too infamous, and Al was too famous to not be recognized: they had to hide. Maria and Amanda liked the idea of hiding out - only let it be in London or Paris, Zagreb or Budapest. They weren't the only ones who were disenchanted with the prospect of spending many months roughing it in the Canadian wilderness. Pamela wanted a house or at least a cute little cottage. Amanda wanted to have that at the minimum. Rebellion was always a-brewing whenever Sergio and Haakon did much talking about hiking hundreds of miles to a river, then drifting for hundreds of miles down that river, then hiking hundreds more miles over a mountain range to reach another river, then building a raft and drifting hundreds of miles down that river…
But the wilderness had gotten into Sergio's and Haakon's blood, and when a passion gets into someone's blood who knows what mischief must ensue?
Maria and Amanda were whispering these sentiments as they drank their coffee and as they fried up bacon and omelets for themselves and the other fugitives who were now piling out of the tents.
`Vagabonds living the life of Lot and Abraham, without the livestock, but living and sleeping beneath the same stars in the night sky, and with the same sorts of enemies, that is what we have become,' Sergio was saying as he drank his coffee and ate his bacon. He was then tracing with his hand the line of their journey for that day. They would continue upwards, climbing higher and higher until they crossed a pass over 10,000 feet high. Then, if their maps could be trusted, it would be an easy descent practically to sea level before they would follow yet another rushing mountain river to its headwaters, and ascend to another pass over yet another range of mountains.
`We're wise to take this course,' said Haakon. `Every day that we stay hidden, more people forget the name and the face of Amanda Molina. Al's muscles have toughed up to the point where he can almost walk as far as the rest of us. We made those 40 miles the other day, even if most of that was downhill, and even if Al had to be carried some of the way.'
`It can't work,' said Amanda leading the rebellion. `We can't walk to the Arctic. If we stay close to the Pacific we won't freeze. Your way leads to a trap once the weather turns cold in the autumn. Pop can hike to the nearest highway and catch a bus back to Prince George. He can buy a pick-up truck there. He can buy a chain saw, a gasoline powered generator, a table saw, hammers, nails, paint, windows etc. We could find a lonely stand of hardwood trees, spend a day transforming these into lumber, load up the truck, and then drive to quaint place by an inlet of the Pacific. The supplies can be unloaded, the truck can make several trips to pick up all the free timber, and in two weeks two cozy cottages can be built. These can be hidden beneath a forest of towering pines, with only a short walk to a spring for fresh water, and with only a short walk to the Pacific.'
No one said anything for a moment but Amanda could tell from Maria's and her mom's faces that they thought she had prevailed.
`The authorities,' began Haakon, `are on the watch for squatters and fugitives. They have very sophisticated equipment which tells them where squatters or fugitives are located. If we remain stationary they will locate us and they will send cops round to investigate us. They might not catch us in a month or two or three, but we'll have to worry constantly about being caught. The way Sergio and I have it planned involves very little risk of capture. We're safe this way. There is a little hardship, there are some grueling hikes, but there is no anxiety, no worrying, no fretting. We just have to rough it for a little longer. We'll buy some property soon enough, but for now we have to lose ourselves in the wilderness.'
Maria and Pamela could see his point and didn't argue. Still, neither could see themselves spending the winter in Canada. Maria especially wanted the tropics and emerald oceans. Hawaii would be a fine place to land in. There she could feel again the surge of the Kona - the warm southwest wind that blew over the Islands. Maria didn't mind the golden wheat-fields inflamed under the Canadian sunsets, but these were fleeting phenomena, and she wanted the warmer and more consistent splendors found only in the tropics. She liked to hear the chorus of the breakers lull her to sleep at night. And where else could she inhale the fragrance of cocoanut palms? Maria had once fallen in love with South America. The divine perfume of the tropics, the incense of pimento and no end of spices that she used to inhale in the markets of Columbia, and all those glorious miles of bougainvillea and jonquil which filled the city she once called her home, were exactly what she wanted now. She wondered how she could ever survive a long and bitter Canadian winter.
Part 4. Convulsing the Universe