PART I
CHAPTER 1
Butch
Giselson’s alarm sounded at 4:30 a.m. AKST, a two-hour time difference
from his Mountain Time in Wyoming. But he was already awake, his
chartered floatplane at ready.
Giselson
had fantasized about this day for months. He’d studied the Orvis
catalogue, selected the perfect gear, and read whatever he could get his
hands on about fishing gold-medal rivers with the fervor of a kid
obsessed with electronic games.
Two
summers ago, he’d traveled to the Rio Grande River in Tierra del Fuego
to fish for large sea-run brown trout at the southern tip of Argentina.
Last summer he traveled to the Kenai River for big Russian rainbow
trout, steelhead, Dolly Varden, and Chinook salmon. Now he was in quest
of trophy native rainbows and oversized steelhead in the rarely-fished
waters of Alaska’s legendary Fossil River. It promised to be the most
challenging of them all. In fact, Giselson wasn’t even sure he could
find the Fossil after poring over maps, satellite GPS pictures, and
topographical charts. The thin blue river line in the Noatak National
Preserve had no river name listed—but through the process of
elimination, he assumed it had to be the Fossil.
Giselson
had ventured into the wilderness many times before, but this time would
be different, he told himself. When fishing the other famous rivers of
the world, Giselson had fishing guides. But after countless calls to
outfitters and guide services in the Noatak Preserve region, he found
nobody willing to take him. Two of the five guides he’d contacted had
never even heard of the Fossil River. Bottom line: there would be no
guide.
Giselson’s
charter pilot would fly east up the Noatak River in a de Havilland
Beaver DHC-2. He knew the plane well—no pontoons this time. He’d be
dropped off between the Maiyu Merak Mountains and the Brooks Mountain
Range, 136 miles upriver. Hopefully, there would be an ATV waiting for
him when he arrived. He’d paid the rental fee the day before his
arrival, and a riverboat was to make the ATV deposit on the south bank
of the Noatak River.
The
Fossil cut through wilderness that was so remote and inaccessible that
tales of fishing the river were passed along as legend by the old-timers
who haunted the solitary fisherman’s bar, The Master Baiter, on the
outskirts of the small town of Noatak, population 510. The tales
mesmerized Giselson. Not one of the fishermen Giselson had met the night
before had actually ever fished the Fossil himself; their stories were
all rumor and hearsay. But to Giselson, they were utterly irresistible.
He’d
stayed up past midnight the night before reviewing old maps and
double-checking his equipment: a five-weight impregnated bamboo fly rod,
which had been a gift from his father on his sixteenth birthday; four-
and five-weight tippets; a wicker creel with that wonderful smell that
brought back memories of a great day fishing; a fly vest including dry
and wet flies of all sizes; silicon dry fly dressing; a snap-free net
attached to the back of his vest; a hunting knife; neoprene waders; a
new Apple iPhone that he guessed might not have a signal deep into the
wilderness; a satellite GPS.
And
a Smith & Wesson SW1911DK his father gave him on his twenty-first
birthday. It held one ten-round clip, which he zipped into the inside
pocket of his vest with another box of shells. “Just in case,” he said,
shrugging, knowing that Noatak Park’s six-and-a-half million acres
contained the largest grizzly population in North America.
It
was first light when Giselson’s small plane touched down on the Noatak.
A flock of mergansers took off from the river at the sound of the
engine roar. The pilot negotiated a two-wheeled landing on a thin strip
of shoreline not more than fifteen feet wide—confirming the agility of
the de Havilland and its Pratt and Whitney engine. Giselson smiled with
pleasure when he saw the ATV not thirty yards from the planned drop.
“Great job,” Giselson chortled appreciatively.
“Great
plane,” the pilot grunted, his raspy voice confirming he could’ve used
another two hours of sleep and two more cups of Joe.
“Great pilot.”
“Up here, you have to be,” the pilot responded with a nod. “But thanks.”
The
fisherman looked at his watch. “I’ll be here at nine o’clock sharp
tonight. Sun doesn’t set until close to midnight so I’ve got extra time
to fish. Not a bad deal for a fly fisherman,” Giselson said.
The pilot exhaled. “You be careful in there. You got a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Good luck,” the pilot intoned.
The
comment bothered Giselson. Something about it sounded a little more
ominous than simply saying good luck in fishing. He decided to let it go
and hopped out of the plane. Then he gathered his equipment and watched
the pilot throttle up the engine into a roar of power. The small plane
lifted off the thin strip of shoreline, circled once, than vanished into
the western horizon.
The
air was cool and the thought of large trout and steelhead gripped
Giselson’s mind. He loaded up the ATV. The engine came alive, and the
GPS he held in his hand marked his exact spot. He took in a long breath
of crisp mountain air and gunned the ATV up and over the south bank
ledge in a high arc. Life was great, he told himself.
He
cut a diagonal path toward the Maiyu Merak Mountain Range. On the map,
there was no indication of any road or path beyond the river, but the
rumors he’d heard mentioned a stretch of the southeast fork of the
Fossil that was hidden somewhere between four mountains south of the
Noatak River.
From
the maps and history of the vast mountain range, he knew there were
nine active glaciers, three active volcanoes of the thirty in Alaska,
and more than 200 lakes within Noatak Park, sprawling 400 majestic miles
across Alaska east to west. He knew that the Noatak River’s origin
began far to the east, high up in the mountains winding through the
range until it spilled into the Chukchi Sea.
He
pressed on in his ATV. It was smooth riding at first, then tougher, and
as he threaded his way between mountain ridges, it became almost
impassable. By 8:20 a.m., Giselson had run up into a rock ravine so
steep that he was forced to stop. He took a deep, frustrating breath of
morning air and surveyed the sprawling mountain peaks up ahead.
One
peak spewed a cloud of billowing smoke, and the fisherman realized he’d
never before been this close to a live volcano. In the distance, he saw
two Dall sheep butting heads.
He
had no choice; he would have to hike toward the river with the hope of
intersecting it. He marked the ATV on his GPS, shouldered his equipment,
and began a slow, arduous climb.
***
Giselson
walked for more than an hour. At first, he moved through the mountain
vegetation with little resistance. But soon the mix of thick alders,
Douglas fir, Ponderosa Pine, and Native Mountain Ash thickened and
slowed his progress. The chokecherry that grew along the new path he was
now blazing became almost impassible.
A machete would have been helpful,
he thought, but carrying one would have been cumbersome. Then, in the
distance, Giselson saw a wall of Fish & Wildlife Agency posters,
each with a different message:
NO TRESPASSING!
DANGER AHEAD!
NO ACCESS!
Giselson
had trespassed many times on private property to reach gold medal
fishing streams, so he wasn’t intimated. But how in the hell did the
park rangers even find this place—and why such a strong warning?
Only
one sign bothered him: a skull and crossbones with the message that, if
he trespassed he was taking his life in his own hands and Noatak
National Park would not be held responsible.
He walked around the sign and pressed forward.
Giselson
maintained his relentless pace for another two hours, stopping only to
read his compass, check his GPS, and scan his map. The promise of
landing trophy native trout and steelhead pulled him through the dense
terrain like a carrot leading a horse. He topped a high ridge and
stopped to take in the view.
He heard something in the distance. It was faint at first, but it soon built to a thunderous roar.
Giselson
walked cautiously toward the sound. He climbed atop the next ridge and
peered down into the valley. What he saw coming around the valley bend
below was a herd of caribou running in a stampede, dust swirling above
them. Something had spooked them.
“Fucking reindeer,” Giselson said in shocked surprise. The only thing missing was Santa Claus and his sleigh.
Giselson
crossed three more ridges and stopped abruptly. In front of him stood a
steep outcrop of rock, a thick ridge maybe 100 feet high that rose
awkwardly from the dense forest.
The
wall of rock and dirt rose up to form a jagged rim at the top of the
incline and, for the first time, Giselson considered turning back. This
outcrop must have been deposited by a glacier thousands of years before,
he thought. He looked down mountain. The view was vast and desolate, as
if an unseen hand had sculpted every gleaming snow-capped mountain in
wondrous perfection. It took his breath away.
He
walked sixty paces to the right but found no access. Too steep. He took
a long swig of water from his canteen, then trudged back to the left.
It was impossible. He’d never be able to scale this ridge.
But
he kept following the wall of rock. He’d come too far to give up
easily. Then he saw it: a crevice between two large boulders. He would
have missed the opening were it not for the small streak of mid-morning
sun that lit up the tiny slice in the rock wall. He went closer for a
look.
Rusted steel bars had been bolted in place to prevent access.
Why would someone do that this far from civilization? He pulled on each one. They were firmly drilled into the rock.
Finally he found one bar, higher than the others, that was loose.
He climbed the ladder of bars and pushed and prodded on the loose bar until it snapped free.
He
crawled into the narrow rock slit and wormed his way through it. Then
he began to shimmy snake-like up through the tight crevice that wended
back and forth across the wall.
An
hour later, sweaty and out of breath, he reached the top of the jagged
ridge, which seemed to stretch out for miles around him. A thick fog
hovered over the forest canopy like white icing on a chocolate cake.
The
trees atop the ridge seemed oddly out of place. They were taller even
than the trees in the forest below, and he couldn’t identify some of
them. They were growing from the arid ridge in an irregular pattern, as
if sewn by a drunken wind. This was truly virgin wilderness.
Something
else struck him as odd. As he moved up and onto the ground of what he
realized was a hanging mountain valley, he noticed the temperature was
growing warmer, not cooler. Instead of sixty degrees Fahrenheit in June,
it had to top seventy. Even stranger, the tree density seemed to
thicken the higher he climbed.
Alaska has some strange country, he thought. He forged on, listening for any distant sound of a river. Nothing yet.
At
one point, it had grown so warm and humid he considered taking off his
fishing vest and stuffing it into his backpack. But the thought of
suiting up and putting together his five-weight Orvis rod sent a surge
of adrenaline into his step and he pressed on without removing his gear.
Pockets
of deep snow, mostly on the north slope of the valley, still remained,
but didn’t seem to cool the temperate air. Up ahead, maybe 300 yards, a
misty fog bank hung on the massive pine-tree canopy. Puffs of steamy
vapor escaped from jagged crevasses in the earth’s crust with an eerie
hiss, thickening the fog.
Another
hundred yards across the plateau, Giselson stopped and cocked his head.
He could hear the whisper of moving water. He picked up his pace. Sweat
was beading on his forehead.
As he pressed on, he began to think about what fly he would use. Dry or wet? Deer-hair Royal Wolf, Rat-faced McDougal, or Bead-head Prince Nymph? Maybe both, with the wet serving as a trailer? His pulse quickened as his mind raced through his options.
The
thick underbrush was finally beginning to thin. Giselson stepped out
into a clearing and caught his breath. Before him was a steep rushing
gorge. He raised his eyes and took in the spray of white water plunging
down between the huge mountain boulders.
In
the distance, far to the east, rose Mount St. Lincoln. He realized that
the small thin, jagged line that broke the face of the peak was another
massive waterfall. Fossil River Falls, the highest natural waterfall in
Alaska. At 814 feet it was triple the height of Colorado’s Telluride
Bridal Falls that fed into its San Juan River, which he had also fished.
Giselson
made his way carefully down the slick rocks. His neoprene boots gripped
the mossy surface without fault. He knelt down and took two cans of
Coors Lite from his fishing vest and placed them carefully into the
river for cooling, but the temperature of the Fossil surprised him. The
water was warm, almost hot from volcanic activity, he thought, just like
the Fire Hole River in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. The rainbows he’d
caught there were warm to the touch. He took his beers out of the river
and set them on a rock slab.
He
stepped within twelve feet of the first pool and stripped out line
while false casting across the bottom part of the pool, knowing that
feeding trout and steelhead would always face upstream. His #18 Royal
Wolf dry fly hit the water with hardly a dimple and floated downstream.
The
man stared at the fly, waiting. Out of the corner of his eye, he
tracked a large shadow moving beneath the surface, a silhouette of wild
perfection. The shadow rose and hesitated for a split second before the
enormous trout sipped the fly into its mouth.
Instinctively,
he lifted his rod tip until he hit resistance. The muscular rainbow
leapt from the water and Giselson watched, eyes wide, as if he were in a
trance. Eight minutes passed, then another ten, before the fish turned
ashore, jumping three more times.
When
Giselson was certain the fish was tired, he kneaded the line through
his fingers, and slowly, carefully brought the fish in, where it flopped
extravagantly on the river rocks. He dropped his reel to the ground,
leaned over, and held the fish with both hands—the girth was that
thick—while he worked his measuring tape from his vest pocket. The trout
measured twenty-nine-and-a-half inches and the flesh was warm. He
guessed its weight at over twelve pounds. Breathless, he stood
mesmerized by the kaleidoscope that radiated across its shimmering
flesh, the rainbow streak on its side the richest he had ever seen.
Giselson
was usually a catch-and-release man. But he longed to taste the native
pink meat, so he quickly gutted the fish and slipped it into the creel
he wore slung across his back, ten inches of fish and tail poking out of
the creel hole.
I’ll go to The Master Baiter tonight when I return and play show-and-tell with the old-timers.
A broad grin spread across his face. He rewarded himself with a cool
beer, leaving the other can on the slab of red rock for when he
returned.
He
moved upstream, hugging the bank, carefully placing his fly along the
far wall of the next pool. The moment the fly hit the water, a steelhead
sipped the fly into its gaping mouth. The sound of the splash broke the
tranquility of the scene like a slap across the face. He grinned with
appreciation.
Now
he was completely lost in the beauty of the sport. He landed the fish,
which he guessed to weigh fifteen pounds, then released it back into the
river.
He
fished the next two pools upriver, catching two more fish of equal
size, both rainbows. The trip into the valley between mountains had been
well worth the risk. He walked around the gorge, having to go inland
somewhat to negotiate the expanded width of the river.
He
felt like the only man to have ever fished here, and he knew this
feeling was what gave the Fossil River its reputation. He felt like he’d
just scaled Everest or landed on the moon.
As Giselson forged the left side of the river, he heard a strange, unfamiliar sound that stopped him short.
It was coming from upriver.
At
first, he thought it sounded like an elk’s bugle, but it was too
high-pitched and sharp. Whatever it was, its call sent a shudder down
his spine.
He
stopped and waited for another call. Nothing came. Slowly now as he
advanced upriver, his eyes combed the thick woods that hugged the banks
on both sides.
The
next pool he came upon was large and enclosed by a high ridge of
boulders that seemed to form an almost perfect circle. He peered down
into the crystal clear water, which was about ten feet deep.
Rocks
littered the bottom. Some were round sandstone, others gray with sharp
edges, still others pink. He could see the shadow of large fish hovering
behind a cluster of stones.
He
stepped down to the very edge of the pool and raised his rod, stripping
out line in a perfect arc, front-to-back, double hauling for distance.
Just
before his fly hit the water, a high-pitched screech startled him. What
was meant to be a smooth silent cast collapsed into a tangle of green
line, and Giselson knew he had spooked the pool.
But he also knew that something was terribly wrong.
His
heart was pounding in his chest now. Beads of sweat rolled down his
brow, stinging his eyes. He stepped out of the water and stood rigid,
eyes scanning the deep woods on both sides of the river. He took two
steps back and heard a rustle in the brush on the opposite bank. His
mind filled with the image of a grizzly bear on the hunt. Bushes moved,
branches snapped. His eyes widened.
He
pulled his Smith & Wesson from his vest, unlocked the safety, and
fired three quick rounds into the dense trees on the opposite riverbank.
The report echoed across the valley. Then there was silence, save for
the soft lulling sound of the Fossil River.
Nothing moved. Giselson turned slowly, 360 degrees. Then he cursed his overactive imagination.
“Don’t
be an asshole.” He tucked the gun back into his vest and looked into
the pool before him. His imagination was playing tricks on him, he
thought. He coached himself to relax. Again, he felt for the gun in his
vest pocket and took in a deep breath of mountain air.
Without warning, a deafening sound swept across the river, but this time it was familiar, and it came from the sky.
He
looked up. A thin vale of fog still hovered over the valley, but he
could now see specks of cerulean blue Alaskan sky peeking through the
clouds. In the distance, he heard the din of jet engines and then the
belly of a silver plane appeared above him. It’s too low, Giselson
thought—but just the sight of it gave him a new sense of security.
That was short-lived.
***
Giselson
shook his head, trying to make sense of the lost-world feeling that
enveloped him. There was something else eerie about this place: the
smell. He tilted his nose upwind and took in another deep breath of
mountain air.
It’s oil. Yes, he decided, the smell was definitely oil, but it was faint and seemed to waft into his sensory system, then vanish. How strange. His GPS read 7,800 feet.
An
eerie screeching that seemed to be coming from all directions at once
shattered his reverie and filled him with unmitigated fear.
Something was stalking him.
And whatever it was had to be more than one. Maybe two or more.
A shape streaked to his left.
Then
he saw movement across the river so fast that he couldn’t register what
it was—yet he knew in an instant it was not a grizzly bear. He pulled
his gun out again, this time aware his hand was shaking. He tried to
steady the motion and, as he did, turned slowly, pointing the weapon. He
fired a shot. The sound reverberated through the mountain valley and
gave him a modicum of confidence.
There
was another ear-piercing screech and movement to his left; to his
right, a rustling behind him. Something upriver seemed to be gliding
right-to-left across the stream. Something large. He thought he saw
wings, but the fog had thickened and left him with a fuzzy image.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelled.
Then
he saw another streak of motion in the distance, and his eyes widened
in disbelief. He saw color: blackish brown with patches of blue, maybe
some red. He thought he saw feathers, but wasn’t sure. Feathers made no
sense.
He’d
seen the size of it this time and it was large: ten to twelve feet
long, six to eight feet tall. Most terrifying was the creatures’ speed
and agility. Somehow, Giselson knew, they were communicating to each
other.
And closing in fast.
The
bushes rustled again and shook with intensity. He was encircled. In one
panicked and desperate motion, Giselson emptied his remaining seven
rounds in all directions. The Rocky Mountain range seemed to explode
with the salvo.
Then it happened.
Before
he could even reach for more ammo in his vest pocket, something
enormous lunged at him and tore at his face, blinding him and spinning
him around. He flailed wildly, arms wind-milling for balance.
The
impact sent him falling backward toward the river. His legs churned to
regain ground. He blinked in disbelief. Everything around him seemed to
be tinted red. Then he realized blood was spurting from his scalp, down
his forehead, and into his eyes.
He
looked down at his chest and saw a gaping vertical wound that ran from
his sternum to his crotch. His hands instinctively moved to cover his
guts. He threw his head back and let out a gurgling scream for help.
That’s when he was attacked and surrounded again.
Before
his lacerated body fell into the Fossil River, Giselson’s eyes went
blank, and his mind had already been paralyzed by a sight that forced
his heart to beat its last pulse in one convulsive shiver of dread.
***
The
strong current pulled his mangled corpse toward the center of the
fast-moving river. His fishing gear fell away and floated downstream,
and the once gin-clear water of the Fossil was now the color of a cheap
rosé wine.
Giselson’s
tattered, bloodied vest caught on a tree branch. His creel, heavy with
the trout he’d gutted earlier, sank to the bottom.
Moments
later, the dead fish slipped from the creel basket and floated toward
the surface. There, caught in the strong swirl of undercurrent, it was
swept down river and around the bend toward the Noatak.
CHAPTER 2
One
hundred and fifty million years ago, the majestic mountains of the
American Northwest were nothing more than sand ridges that rolled along
the bottom of a vast ocean teeming with prehistoric life.
When
the plates of the continent heaved and collided, the earth buckled and
bent, creating a dramatically contoured landmass where once there was
ocean.
Then
came the dinosaurs—vast lumbering herbivore packs and carnivore
colonies that roamed the region to hunt amid dense, giant forests. The
pathway for this colossal land migration of flora and fauna leading from
Siberia to North America was across the Bering Land Bridge that
connected Asia to Alaska, surrounded by the Chukchi Sea.
Gently
rolling lands pocked with ponds and swamps teemed with creatures
feeding on a plethora of small protozoa. Vegetation burst into full
bloom and the dinosaurs thrived. The region was overrun with thousands
of species, including Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Deinonychus,
Triceratops, and the duck-billed Hadrosaurus. Teleost fish began to
appear in tidal pools along with ammonites, belemnites, echinoids, and
the first sponges.
Then,
in the Cenozoic Era, a massive meteorite approached earth at an
unimaginable velocity, imploding with devastating impact in the
northwest corner of Mexico—and sending massive flames, fumes, and dark
clouds encircling the globe. On impact, the crater was 100 miles long
and six miles wide.
The
reverberation must have been excruciating to all living things. The
heat from the explosion was beyond measure. Everything in the
meteorite’s wake was torched within a nanosecond.
Iridium,
found in the shale near the site of implosion, confirmed that the
massive object was from outer space. Iridium was also discovered at
other points around the earth, including the Burgess Shale Quarry in
Alberta, Canada where 60,000 fossils were found, and further north into
Alaska in the mountain banks of the Colville River and on the north
shore of the Beaufort Sea.
On
all seven continents, living creatures lay in piles of slowly rotting
flesh, bone, and waste, together with withering and smoldering
vegetation and forestation. Over time, the decaying mass oozed beneath
the earth’s crust. During the Carboniferous era, it would be buried for
one hundred million years, slowly to percolate into fossil fuel.
***
Approximately
170 million years ago, long before dinosaurs and tar sands existed, the
plates of North America shifted and slid over one another with intense
force. Layers of rock warped and folded like massive sheets of
cauldron-hot steel. The slabs of ancient Protozoic rock lurched from the
west and rolled over the younger, more supple, Mesozoic rock layers
spilling from the east, creating the Lewis Overthrust. Ultimately, it
would become the vast Rocky Mountain Range.
Thousands
of years later, the human race’s demand on the global energy supply of
fossil fuel was slowly destroying the global landscape. The Industrial
Revolution had left an indelible mark. Smokestacks belched carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere and greenhouse gases began taking a toll on
all living things.
To
protect the ozone layer and avoid global warming, environmentalists had
succeeded in blocking expanded production of coal gasification plants.
Operating costs had become prohibitive. The environmentalists of E.L.F.,
The Sierra Club, and Greenpeace also worked to prevent oil exploration
of all public and private lands. When the earthquake hit Japan in 2011,
the tsunami that followed killed thousands.
Similarly,
TEPCO’s six Fukushima nuclear reactor plants sent a tidal wave of fear
around the earth as the nuclear meltdown sent radioactivity into the
water and atmosphere. Across the Pacific, it was found in cow’s milk. As
a result, the United States reevaluated its entire nuclear program.
Over
100 U.S. nuclear power plants provided the nation with more than twenty
percent of the nation’s electric energy. The disaster forced each of
them to reevaluate their safety regulations. Some shut down. None were
allowed to expand.
Solar
and wind energy had proven too inefficient and costly to produce enough
energy to make a short-term difference. But politicians were desperate
to appease the public so they pushed for approval of any energy program
that held any promise.
What
no one knew was that the United States’ strategic oil reserves were
riding on empty—and supplies from all over the world were dwindling with
surprising rapidity.
The nation was on the verge of losing power.
Military-fueled
demands to carry out international missions on land, sea, and air cut
deeply into domestic fuel supplies. Cars, trucks, buses, and commercial
airlines were sacrificed in favor of military mobility fuels to protect
the nation. Gas at the pumps doubled, then tripled in price. Worse, it
was being rationed and lines at gas stations were slowly causing
consumers to panic. As desperate consumers fought to fill up their
tanks, riots broke out.
The
commercial airline industry, unable to get enough jet fuel to keep up
with flight demand, was beginning to unravel, cutting back flight
schedules, raising prices dramatically, and laying off employees.
Without
gas, industries all over the nation began to announce mass layoffs. It
was a crisis of epic proportions. And it had come on fast.
***
The President of the United States, Peter Barton, summoned an ad hoc
cabinet in hopes of diverting the perfect storm. Barton’s Department of
Defense was guzzling fifty-eight percent of every barrel of fossil fuel
to power his military. Barton had named his last-ditch agenda Operation Torch.
As President Barton lifted the weekly energy report off his desk to study it, the phone rang.
“Morning, Mr. President.” It was Secretary of Energy Tyler Conlon.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” the President said. “A lot faster than we expected.”
“Yes,
sir. Time’s running out. We’ll be lucky if we can last another three
months with current inventory. Operation Torch has to succeed. There are
spot outages across the country already,” said Conlon.
Barton took in a deep, labored breath. “I know,” he said. “We only have one option.”
|
