Chapter 17 Summary
Brian gets right to work restoring order after the twin disasters of the moose and the tornado. He must first rebuild his fire, and with his increased skill level, he gets one going in less than an hour. Gathering wood is more difficult because the injuries to his ribs and shoulder force him to move slowly. He manages to collect enough wood to keep the fire going for a day and a night, then he turns his attention to rebuilding his shelter.
Luck is with Brian, and he finds a large piece of his original wall nearby and still intact. He drags it back into place and secures it crudely, planning to improve upon it later. Exhausted now, Brian goes to bed at nightfall; tomorrow he will look for food and reinforce his shelter to “bring things back to sanity.”
As he is falling asleep, Brian remembers the tail of the plane sticking up in the lake. It occurs to him that the survival pack had been stored in that area, and he wonders if he might be able to find and retrieve it. The pack is filled with all kinds of wonderful things that would be useful to him, and Brian knows that if he can only get his hands on it, he will be “rich.”
Although he is anxious to get started on his quest for the survival pack the next morning, Brian knows it is important for him to take some nourishment first. He remakes his spear then catches three small fish, cooks them, and eats. They do not fill him up, but they give him strength, and he is able to begin his project on the plane.
Thinking things through carefully, Brian conjectures that he will need to make a raft and “push-paddle” it to the plane so he will have a “working base.” Serviceable logs are easy to come by, but Brian is stymied when he tries to figure out how to hold them together. Finally, Brian discovers that if he uses logs with limbs sticking out of them, he can weave the limbs together, creating a crude contraption that will serve as a raft.
By late afternoon, Brian sets out to move the raft out to the plane, but he discovers that propelling it is “about like trying to push an aircraft carrier.” At the rate he is going, he will most likely reach the plane at dark, so he turns back and resolves to try again first thing the next morning.
Back at his camp, Brian collects more wood to keep the fire going and cooks three more small fish for dinner. He watches with appreciation as the sun sets, and the unbelievable beauty of it makes him acutely aware of his loneliness. There is a chill in the air, announcing the coming of fall; Brian banks the fire to keep away the cold and falls asleep.
Brian rises early the next day so he can recommence his efforts to get into the plane. After more than two hours of arduous kicking and pushing his unwieldy invention, he finally arrives at the protruding tail and secures the raft to one of the hinges on the elevator with a rope made of pieces of his windbreaker. Spent from his exertions, he rests on the raft, lying on his back and letting the sun warm him. When he has regained a bit of his strength, he examines the part of the plane that is protruding from the lake but can see no way to get in.
Brian considers trying to swim below the aircraft and going in through one of the openings that is beneath the water, but he is afraid of being trapped. Frustrated, he is about to give up the whole endeavor, but he keeps thinking about all the things that must be in the survival pack. If he can only find a way to get to it and pull out even just a candy bar, it will be worth all the trouble.
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