Vision Quest

The three men never stirred.  Not much of a challenge killing someone asleep, and out in the open.  The embers of their fire made it easy to see what I was doing.

 

Becoming a cold blooded killer was not what Eastwood had in mind for me, years ago, when he taught me about patience and focus.  How to stalk and move around silently.  How to hunt, with or without weapons.  How to find water, start a fire, build a shelter.  How to survive with nothing but your brains.

 

Eastwood was my uncle.  He raised me.  That wasn’t his real name.  It was a nickname he picked up when he was an Army Ranger.  My parents died in an automobile accident in 1971, when I was seven.  I remember the first thing he said when he met me at the airport.  “Hello, Evan.  You are going to have to grow up tough.  You might as well start calling me Eastwood now.”

 

He was right about growing up tough.  I’d spent the early years of my life in sunny, modern San Diego.  Eastwood lived outside of Wales, Alaska.  A tiny community, mostly Inuit.  Wales is the westernmost city in the continental United States.  It is desolate, poor, and bitterly cold in the winter. 

 

In 1971, the Cold War is red hot.  There are Naval and Air Force outposts in Wales.  Thirty miles away, across the Bering Strait, is Big Diomede Island.  The easternmost tip of the Soviet Union.  Soviet soldiers are stationed there, keeping an eye on the Americans.

 

When I first met Eastwood, I thought my uncle was crazy.  Why would anyone choose such a barren place, when they could live anywhere?  Later on, it made more sense.  Eastwood did crazy things because he was crazy.  Just like I am.  It is genetic.

 

I never intentionally killed women or children, unless they were trying to kill me.  But I cannot be forgiven for what happened at Darkhan-Uul.

 

We didn’t live in Wales proper.  Eastwood said it is too low.  Most of the buildings are on Kingkinkgin Road.  Just 25 feet above sea level.  If an earthquake causes a tsunami, much of Wales will be overrun by the frigid water of the Bering Sea.  One of the things Eastwood taught me was, always find somewhere safe to sleep.  He referred to his wisdom as Eastwood’s Rules Of Survival.  That was rule number 3.

 

We slept in a small house he built with his own hands, a few miles from the coast.  Six miles from Wales over a winding dirt road known as the Winter Trail.  Up the slopes where no one else lives.  Strictly four-wheel drive territory.  At 1400 feet of elevation, we can see Border Station 1 on Big Diomede Island, through the telescope in the living room. 

 

Most of the electricity came from a diesel generator.  The solar panels on the roof didn’t do much in the winter.  A wood stove kept us warm.  There were few trees around Wales.  Every summer, Eastwood and I would travel south in his pickup truck to haul loads of firewood back to Razorback Mountain.  There was no running water.  We drank and cleaned with melted ice.

 

I went to school in a house.  The teacher lived downstairs, the second floor was the school.   Classes were small and children from multiple grades were combined into one room.  Mrs. Nagel made sure I knew how to read and write.  How to do math.  Every child needs to learn those things.  It was what Eastwood taught me that allowed me to survive after I made the mistake.

 

I remember every person I’ve ever murdered.  I see their faces in my dreams.

 

Eastwood had learned his craft well as a Ranger.  He could hit any target with a rifle.  When we hunted, he never needed more than one bullet to take down his prey.  Regarding combat skills, he was as proficient with knives or his bare hands as he was with guns and rifles.  He could survive in any environment, hot or cold, wet or dry, with nothing but his wits. 

 

Of all of the necessary skills, according to Eastwood, the most important for a special operations soldier is stealth.  The quiet soldier gets to pull the trigger first was Eastwood’s number one rule of survival. 

 

When I wasn’t in school, or doing homework or chores, I was hanging out with Eastwood.  We drilled and practiced for hours.  Some of the things he taught me are probably not in any official training manual.

 

I learned how to take a rifle apart and put it back together.  That was easy.  It got harder when I had to do it with no light, in the dark and cold of the Arctic winter. 

 

I learned how to keep a weapon clean while slogging through the summertime mush.  How to safely handle a loaded weapon.  How to aim and shoot.  I learned how to use ordinary household items as weapons. 

 

Eastwood was careful, but I got used to cuts and bruises from his demonstrations.  Once I didn’t move fast enough and got knocked out by the telephone handset.  The dumbbell-sized ones back when phones had rotary dials and cords.  Eastwood could fling the handset across the living room with precision, and pull it back into his hand with the cord, like it was a yo-yo.    

 

To teach me stealth, he would sit in a chair, facing the corner of the living room.  He put on headphones and turned up the volume.  It would be impossible for him to see where I went or hear my footsteps.  I had 20 seconds to go anywhere in the house, then wait for him to pause the music and take off the headphones.  Next, I would take a step, in any direction, as quietly as I could.  No matter how carefully I stepped, Eastwood could hear it.  He could tell exactly where I was, and the direction I had stepped.

 

He said he could hear echoes off of the walls from where my foot touched the floor.  I did not believe him at first.  After years of sitting in the chair myself, I learned how to hear the echoes.  Eventually I was able to walk softly enough that Eastwood could not hear me.

 

We took long hikes through the Alaskan wilderness.  Each time, we would carry fewer items, and rely more on what we could find around us. 

 

Eastwood insisted that I make good grades in school.  He wanted me to go to college.  He also wanted me to be able to take care of myself, no matter where I was.

 

Eastwood’s education went beyond outdoor skills.  Even though they were a week old by the time they made it to his post office box in Wales, he read the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times every day.  I read every article he read.  I knew there would be current events questions on our hikes.

 

He was fluent in five languages.  As we hiked, shot rifles, or did laundry, we conversed in French, Spanish, German, and Russian.  He got tricky.  He would ask a question in Spanish, and expect me to answer in German.  When that stopped being a challenge, he would wait until I was crossing a stream, waist deep in freezing water, to ask the question.  Or, hanging on to the edge of a cliff by my fingers.

 

I knew I was breaking all of Eastwood’s Rules Of Survival when I made the mistake.  I didn’t care.

 

I never minded the cuts, the bruises, or any the hardships he put me through.  As far as I was concerned, Eastwood was the coolest human being that had ever walked the face of the earth.  I would go to Hell and come back if he said that is what I should do next. 

 

Nothing hurt more than the punishment he gave me in my Samozashchita Bez Oruzhiya training.   That means “self-defense without weapons.”  The English acronym for the brutal fighting technique is Sambo.  Eastwood insisted I pronounce it the way they do in its native country.  We spoke only Russian during the Самбо lessons.

 

Despite the drivel that comes out of Hollywood, the only simple way to kill someone with your bare hands is by choking them.  Eastwood taught me 14 different choke techniques.  Eventually I would verify that each one could be used effectively.

 

I was walking on clouds, that day in the spring of my 16^th year, when Eastwood told me I was ready for my vision quest.

 

A vision quest is a rite of passage for a young male entering adulthood.  The practice by Native American cultures typically involved days of fasting and traditional ceremonies intended to invoke a vision in the young man.  The vision would inspire him to find his purpose in life.

 

Eastwood wasn’t a big fan of fasting or ceremonies.  He told me, “Evan, it’s entirely up to you what task you choose for your vision quest.  It should be something you are not sure you can accomplish.  Take your time.  Remember the seventh rule of survival:  It is more important to do something right the first time, than to do it in a hurry.”

 

I said, “Eastwood, I already know what I want to do for my quest.  I’ve been thinking about it for years.  Since the first time I looked through your telescope.  I want to take my umiak to Big Diomede Island.  I will sneak in at night.  I will take pictures of Border Station 1.  And I will leave the soldiers a gift.  A box of chocolates, a Beatles cassette, things like that.”

 

He had a surprised look on his face.  He said, “You realize you will be trespassing in a foreign country we are, for all practical purposes, at war with.  If you get caught, you may get shot, or imprisoned for life.”

 

I said, “Unless you did a crappy job of teaching me, I won’t get caught.  I’m only a year younger than you were when you volunteered for the Army.  You got basic training and people were shooting at you in Korea a few weeks later.  The biggest difference between you and me, is that I have you for a teacher.”

 

That was one of the few times I heard Eastwood laugh.  He said, “Alright, sonny boy, you better get busy and finish building the umiak.”

 

An umiak is a canoe-like boat the Inuit use for transportation and hunting.  Strips of wood make up a frame, which is covered with animal skins, sewn together and waterproofed.  I had been building mine for a year.  The frame was complete.  Eastwood and I had been saving the skins from the animals we killed.  It would take many tedious hours of work to cut and sew the skins together, stretch them over the frame, and apply the waterproofing.

 

The next day started at 4am.  I was awakened by the sound of two garbage can lids being banged together.  Eastwood had decided to help me work on the umiak.  By the time the sun came up, we had sorted through the stacks of animal hides and picked the ones we would use.

 

The frame of a traditional umiak is made by lashing driftwood or whale bones together.  Walrus or seal skins are sewn together and stretched across the frame.  Seal oil rubbed into the seams makes the craft watertight.

 

Eastwood’s fifth rule of survival is “You have to start with a good plan.  You need to know when to change it.”  When I made the mistake, I didn’t have a plan.  I was acting on emotions.

 

We decided on deer skin for the shell of the boat.  It would have been easier if we had used hides from larger animals.  But we had enough deer for the entire boat.  We began the tedious process of cutting and sewing the skins into a sheet long and wide enough to fit around the frame.

 

We dug up and defrosted the bags of animal fat, from the past season’s hunting.  You do not need a refrigerator in Alaska to keep things frozen.  We cut the fat into small chunks and heated it in a cast iron skillet over a low flame.  When the liquid oozed out of the fat, we strained it through cheesecloth.  That is how you make tallow.  After it cooled, we rubbed the tallow into the umiak’s skin, and made sure we worked it completely into the seams.  That would make the craft watertight.

 

It took practice to master paddling and steering the umiak.  Eastwood followed behind me in our fishing boat.  There is no margin for error in the freezing water off of the northern Alaska coast.  I only turned the boat over once.  Eastwood got me out of the Bering Sea in less than 60 seconds.  But my body began to go numb the instant I hit the frigid water.  The cold felt like getting stabbed with a knife.  I knew that if I overturned on my vision quest, I would be dead in minutes.

 

Finally, Eastwood was satisfied I was ready to prove myself in open water.  My first test would be a trip to Fairway Rock.  A tiny, uninhabited island 19 miles off of the coast.  It took seven hours to get there.  The water was calm and I managed to wedge the umiak between two rocks.  I secured the boat with rope.  I spent another two hours climbing to the top.  I couldn’t see him, but I knew Eastwood was watching through the telescope, as I waved my arms from the highest point on Fairway Rock.

 

By the time I got back, I was spent.  Eastwood practically carried me to the truck.  He reminded me that the trip to Big Diomede Island would be much longer than what I had done today.  I still had more to prove before I would be ready for my vision quest.

 

I began jogging the 6 miles from Eastwood’s house, down Razorback Mountain, to Wales.  And 6 more miles back home, up the hill.  When the snow fell, I made the trek on skis.  I lifted weights in Eastwood’s living room an hour each day.  I was determined to have the endurance and the strength for the 60 miles of paddling my quest would require.

 

The next spring, I made a second journey to Fairway Rock.  In fact, two trips.  Without stopping, I went from Wales to Fairway Rock, returned to Wales, then back to Fairway Rock.  On the second lap, I waved to Eastwood from the same spot on top of the tiny island as I had before. 

 

Just like before, Eastwood had to help me to the truck when I got back.  But I had travelled 80 miles, farther than a trip to Big Diomede Island and back.  This time, he said, “You are ready for Border Station 1.”

Reviews

[Solar]

''Despite the drivel that comes out of Hollywood, the only simple way to kill someone with your bare hands is by choking them. Eastwood taught me 14 different choke techniques. Eventually I would verify that each one could be used effectively.''

There is an engaging knowingness to this story - its allusions to way movies and movie stars glamourise harsh realities of the killing game. There is voice-over effect in the italicised texts, juxtaposing the fateful event with the rites of passage survivalist training. A bit lengthy in detail but the details are necessary to the plot and setting. Looking forward to the next chapter!

[Serge Wlodarski]

I'll confess I have never done 95% of the things Evan is doing. I have spent a fair amount of time hiking in the forest, beyond that, there is my imagination and Google. Thanks.