Bitter Fish Read online

  Chapter 9: Return to the Wilderness

  According to my topo map, if I follow this ridge line I should be able to get right above that guys cave that he is living in. So far I have been able to drive my truck three miles down the old logging road that runs this ridge. The road is rough, with several trees fallen across the path that I have to gingerly crawl my truck over. Sometimes I can’t get my truck over the tree so I weave around through the forest following ATV’s that have been here before. More than once I have been thankful that I have a small foreign four wheel drive that will fit where most full size trucks never would.

  But I think I have finally come to a dead end. A big old oak is across the road and there is no visible way around it. I have a winch on the front but could never move this monster. A brief scouting mission shows that all the ATV’s have turned around at this point. A few other trees are also down where it would have been possible to fit a ATV through. One of these trees was obviously cut down with an axe. I know I could winch it out of the way, but I think I know who cut it down and why, so decide to leave it and do the remaining two miles on foot.

  Checking my day pack I make sure I have the basics for any hike I would go on.

  In my water proof/shatter resistant box:

  2 Lighters

  2 Fire sticks

  10 fishing hooks

  20 feet of fishing lead line

  Cell Phone

  In my Pack:

  Compass

  Whistle

  GPS

  Hunting knife

  Camping hatchet

  Multi-purpose tool

  Wind up flashlight

  2 liters of water

  Water purifier

  Emergency Blanket

  Emergency poncho

  String

  Bottle of whiskey

  Energy Bar

  Topo map

  Spare socks

  Some might question my choice of survival gear, especially the whiskey. I consider that my first aid kit, worst comes to worst and I think I am sure I am going to die, I can always drink the whiskey and slit my wrists. Albeit, not much of a first aid kit but have heard enough horror stories about people dying of hypothermia, or eating poisonous mushrooms, that I have opted for my own way out. The string is for setting up snares. Everything else is pretty much self explanatory. The energy bar is for baiting snares and fishing hooks. Spare socks make good mittens. The cell phone is useless out here but text messages work even though the voice system is down. I read about how and why that was once, something to do with the way the phone sends packets of information.

  Locking up the truck I hope no one notices that the back sliding window won’t latch. But I don’t think anyone will be along here till deer season and that is still a few weeks away. Before I left my house I drew out pretty detailed instructions on where I was going, that I was looking for a guy who lived in a cave, the general area of where he lived. I then sent emails to Erik and Robert saying that if they did not hear from me by Monday to go to my house and get the coordinates of where I had gone and start looking for a body. This is not the first time I have done this too them, and obviously I have always managed to get out of the woods.

  Two miles of easy hiking and my topo map tells me I need to start the decent. Going down is always easy, I am not looking forward to coming back up. The hill is steep and the descent, while not treacherous, does have me grabbing at saplings to use as occasional breaks . I hit the creek bed a bit north of where I think I should be so that I will only have to hike south. Heading down the river I wish I had hit south and hiked north because that is how I first found this cave and everything looks different going the opposite direction.

  I finally see the cave opening, no sign of life. If I hadn’t seen the guy there before I never would guess that it was lived in. Now I was doubting what I had seen. Nearing the cave entrance I shout ‘HELLO’ and continue shouting every few steps. Finally right outside the cave entrance I hear an answering ‘HELLO’ coming from the bluff behind me.

  I shout a few more ‘Hello’s’ as he draws nearer, helping guide him in with the sound of my voice. When I finally see him moving through the woods I stop my yelling and stand idly with my hands at my sides.

  “You’re that caver that was down here a few weeks ago” he says as he comes to a stop about 20 feet from me.

  “Guilty” I reply. “Not every day you run across a guy living in a cave in the wilderness of the Ozarks, just wanted to hear your story, figure out how you made the break from society.”

  “Am I that rare in these parts? Back where I come from it happens quite a bit. People are always sneaking off into the wild areas.”

  “Where ya from?”

  “Grew up near a place called Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Some folk call that area the bad lands.” He replied and walked a few steps closer. I noted a large knife on his belt, wish I had mine on my belt as well but from the looks of him he could skewer me quick if he wanted to. I put him at my age and about my height, but he was a little wiry guy, not an inch of fat on him. He had dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, sort of looked like the son of the earth himself. I am sure I was physically stronger than him, but he looked like he could handle himself. Not that I felt threatened but seeing that big knife made me aware of just how remote I was.

  “I gotta hear your story, how did you get here, why are living in this cave… Everything!” I am curious how he managed to make the break from society.

  “Grew up on the Oglala Sioux Reservation up by Pine Ridge. Had a scholarship to a local college, so went to school up there, got a degree in nothing in particular, got bored. One of the things I really studied there, not so much in class but in the library, was original people’s technology. How they survived, made tools, lived. So after graduation I went down to the white river’s edge one day with a chain saw and cut down a big old cotton wood, dropped it right next to the river. Got the big branches off of it, spent a day hollowing it out into a dug out. That night I said my goodbyes, grabbed my gear and took off.”

  “So how did you end up in this cave?”

  “Well, I took the White river to the Missouri, figured I would run the Missouri all the way down to the Mississippi. I failed to realize how slow the Missouri river is with all the damns on it. Bout killed myself paddling to the first one. I sold that dugout canoe for two hundred bucks to some fool who wanted an honest to goodness Sioux canoe. I don’t know that it was very authentic, like I said got general ideas on how to do this stuff from the library. Hopped a train and headed south with all the gear I could carry.” He paused to take a seat on a downed log. “ I sort of bounced around from train to train till I got caught by a yard boss just north of here; up outside of a town called Hermann. So I figured I would walk south, had heard these Ozark hills were something worth seeing, and it was starting to get cold. Nothing better than a cave to ride the winter out. I walked and hitchhiked down to this area and just headed into the most remote part I could find.”

  “So you are just staying for the winter? How are you planning on getting out of here come spring?”

  “I am hoping to ride out on a horse next spring, sell it for a few bucks and buy myself a real canoe. Figure a good horse is worth about a thousand dollars. A canoe and some gear is two hundred, leaves me enough coin to last a year or so. I live pretty cheap.”

  “Ride out how? And go where?”

  “Lots of wild horses down here, I just got to break one. Man has been doing it since time began. I have been getting to know the herd, watching them, getting them used to me. Next spring I’ll grab one and tame it. Ride it back north to civilization, find a public library and put the horse on the internet for sale. Then back on the river and down to Memphis. I have heard a guy can make decent money playing a guitar on Beale Street .”

  “So you play guitar that good?”

  His answer was to crawl into his cave and when
he emerged from it he carried a beat up six string. He strummed a few notes to check the tune and launched into a blues song I had never heard before. Something about the crickets singing a love song to the moon, praying the sun does not return, it was hard to tell because he played with such intensity that I got caught up in the song itself.

  “That’s amazing” I said when he had finished.

  “You think? I don’t know, I am self taught. I guess enough people have told me I am good that I figure I will find out for sure in Memphis. Listened to a lot of Hill Country Blues when I was a kid, my grandma was big fan of it, sort of just trying to imitate some of what I heard.” He strummed a few other notes. “I like to play, figure I can make enough coin down there to pay for whiskey and a bed, maybe even a new set of clothes from the salvation army.”

  “Whiskey eh? I got some whiskey if you are needing a drink. I always carry a bottle, just for emergencies though.”

  After a few more pulls on the bottle he introduced himself as John MiniWaka Richardson, MiniWaka meaning Water Man in his ancestors language. Most folks just called him Walker. We sat outside his cave for a few hours telling jokes and BS’ing about life. Later as I checked my compass before hiking out I had to ask “There’s a rumor going around that there is some wild man living in these woods, tearing down Ozark Trail signs, filling up a game camera with pictures of his unit. That wouldn’t happen to be you would it?”

  “That Ozark Trail is a bad idea. All it does is give ATV’s an easier way to come out here and tear up the land. Now I am not admitting to doing that, but I can understand why a person would.”

  “Well, the Sheriff was told about it, as well as the National Forest Service. The sierra club or whoever was out hanging signs was all sorts of pissed off. But I have met others who have done the same. Just thought I should warn you that if you get questioned about it play dumb”

  I took my best guess at how much daylight I had left and started up the bluff. That wild man sure can drink the whiskey, I left with an open invitation to come back anytime; he said he enjoyed having some company now and then.