An Island Between Two Shores
An Island Between Two Shores
by Graham Wilson
Copyright © 2012 Graham Wilson
Edited by, Ann Chandonnet, Rebecca Grossman and Amelia Gilliland.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Wilson, Graham, 1962-
An island between two shores / Graham Wilson.
ISBN 978-0-9780367-6-8
I. Title.
PS8645.I46673I75 2010 C813'.6 C2010-907336-3
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the support of my family and friends. I would like to thank my daughters Emily, Jessica and Coco for their constant inspiration. I would also like to thank Sarah Sage, Deb and Bruce Bergman, Lloyd Ziff, Stephen Kelemen, Carson Schiffkorn, Tony Ciprani, Shanna Williams, Carol Geddes, Rod Leighton, Annie Avery, Mary Ann Lewis, Ross Wilson, Ewa Dembek, Brenda Lee Katerenchuck, Heather Stevely, Mark Abley, Susan Fournier, Sarah Sones, Rob Bergman, Robin and Sandy Burgess, Mary Beattie, David Jordan and Keith Webb.
—G.W.
To my father
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs
and developing our wings on the way down.
—Kurt Vonnegut
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
1
Liana hid behind an ancient blind of grey green shale that was dusted with snow. Henry told her his people had built the blind since caribou had lived in the North. The simple ring of piled rocks had been strategically placed to provide an unobstructed view of the valley while hiding the hunter. It was ingenious, she thought; a simple, effective construction that had been passed down through the ages. She peeled off her leather glove and touched a thin stick that had been laid into the mossy wall. The stick was grey, coarse, and punky. Liana thought about Henry and his ancestors, who had built this blind and hunted in this valley using throwing sticks and spears. They probably even looked like Henry, she thought. Liana smiled, imagining Henry hunting with a spear in clothes made of caribou hides.
Liana thought about her old life in Paris. She remembered the sounds of the horses and carriages on the cobbled streets and the smells of the boulangerie and patisserie. She repeated the promise she made to herself so long ago to return to France when it was safe.
In the distance, snowy mountains shimmered in the mid-morning sun. She was startled by their enormity. The scale of the landscape was always unsettling to her. It was too vast, too expansive. This meadow was somewhere close to the border between Alaska and the Yukon, but she never cared to figure on which side it laid.
It was October, and a few inches of snow covered everything. She could see for many miles in every direction; there were only scattered stands of small pine and spruce. Mostly the meadow was low growing grasses and mosses, rhododendron, and dwarf birch covered by colourless snow.
Flexing her gloved fingers to restore their circulation, Liana crouched behind a boulder and waited for a clear shot of one of the cows. She had been waiting behind this cold chunk of granite for hours. The herd of sixteen caribou were slowly grazing their way up the meadow’s gentle incline toward her hiding place. She wiggled her toes to keep the blood flowing and reassured herself that the herd would soon be within range of her rifle. She could hear the click and pop of their ankles. As hunters had done in this spot forever, she patiently bided her time.
She remembered Henry teaching her to hold and shoot the rifle. Liana was surprised by how poor his eyesight had been and what a good shot she was. But he would tease her that it didn’t matter if a person was a crack shot if he wouldn’t even kill a squirrel. Liana knew he was right and she would be able to fill their cache when the time came. They needed enough meat to last the winter, and going back to town was still out of the question.
Liana felt the anemic warmth of the sun through her heavy wool parka. The sky was pale grey but the morning’s chill was gone. Liana was comfortable crouching and content to examine the distant mountains and the slow approach of the caribou. Even on this overcast day, her dark eyes squinted in the glare of the snow. Liana was only a little more than five feet tall, but her sinewy build was well suited to life in the bush. Her high cheekbones and slender nose gave some people the impression she was Scandinavian. But she was from Paris, her ancestors from Normandy.
The caribou used their front hooves to scrape through the light snow cover and expose shrubs, grasses, and lichen. Caribou moss was their favorite food, but this late in the season they ate almost anything. Soon the caribou were so close that Liana could hear them crunching and grinding their teeth on the tough, dry vegetation they ripped from the frozen ground. They were now so near that Liana feared looking over the blind, as the slightest movement might startle the herd. She was cautious of their hair trigger instinct for sensing danger. She intended to bide her time until they were almost within touching distance. In their surprise, a clear shot would be easier. Two or three caribou hung in the cache would feed them for the winter, since they already had salmon and a small moose dried. Still, Liana knew that caribou meat would be a welcome change, especially in the middle of winter when there wasn’t much else to do than cook, drink tea, and talk.
Henry had taught her to shoot, but controlling her excitement was always a challenge when she was hunting. “Take a deep breath and pull the trigger slowly,” he would tell her. “Don’t squeeze the trigger. Make the first shot the kill shot.” He was very serious when he spoke about hunting, as he hated to waste ammunition or see animals suffer. Whenever he set his marten traps, he would check them at least every day—sometimes more. In cold weather he would have to wear almost everything he had and strap on narrow snowshoes that were almost five feet long just to get to all the traps. Like most of the men of his generation, he made his snowshoes himself using birch saplings and babiche he rendered from a moose. The only tools he used were a hatchet, a knife, and a thin metal awl. Henry’s snowshoes were as fine as any Liana had ever seen. She hoped that one day he would make her a pair so she could accompany him when the snows got deep. But for some reason he had never offered to make her a pair, and she wasn’t so bold to ask.
Henry didn’t like knowing that an animal could be in one of his traps, suffering for a long time. He told Liana that he sometimes found a bloody lynx or marten foot in his traps, indicating the animal had chewed its own foot to set itself free. This was a reality that he couldn’t avoid. Nevertheless, he frequently checked his traps and carried a small club in case they were still alive.
In the dark, when Liana had left the cabin, she told Henry she would fire two shots if she was successful in shooting a caribou. This was their usual message. The echo from the blasts would tell Henry that she was butchering and needed help dragging the meat back to the cabin. Henry would pull a small sled to the plain, and together they would spend the day hauling a hundred pounds of the dark pur
ple meat home. Liana felt it was a ritual of great intimacy. Her hunting was an act of commitment and sharing that allowed her and Henry to live their lives independently, away from the dangers of town. “I can do this,” thought Liana. “I can get my first caribou.” She had been on many hunts but had never killed anything herself.
Liana raised her head slowly from behind the stone blind until she could see that most of the herd had moved within fifty feet of her hiding place. One large cow was within twenty-five feet. The animal was oblivious to her presence as its long muzzle tugged on a dwarf birch. Just as Liana gently slid the safety off her rifle, a distant gunshot rang in the morning still. Instinctively the caribou stopped feeding and raised their heads. The wary animals splayed their legs and looked at one another, tense with fear. “What’s Henry doing?” thought Liana. The caribou exploded in flight and galloped across the meadow, sounding that distinctive click of their tendons as they moved toward a high ridge on the other side of the glade. Like a school of fish, the herd fled the meadow in dizzying unison. A second shot reverberated through the valley.
“Henry!” she shouted.
It occurred to her for the first time that Henry might be in trouble. He would never use his rifle when Liana was hunting caribou nearby. Something was wrong. Her mind raced with disturbing possibilities.
Liana slung her rifle over her shoulder by its braided leather strap and scrambled to gather her canteen, pack, and extra gloves. She took one last look at the caribou as they bounded toward the distant ridge on the far side of the plain. So little time had passed that their breath still hung in the meadow near her boulder blind.
The trail to the cabin was a winding path a couple of miles long. Liana ran along the flats of the meadow easily. Her path from the morning wound between low bushes and rocks. She glided across the plain in a quick sprint that hardly left her breathless. After several minutes of running on the flat trail she reached a treed gully that dropped steeply into the valley and the rocky bench where the cabin stood. A bulk of the gully sloped gently downward, but in a couple of places Liana had to face the trail and lower herself while hanging onto roots and branches so she didn’t fall. The snow didn’t allow much traction for her hobnailed leather boots, but Liana was running this path faster than she ever had before. It was a path she knew well, but because it was steep and snowy, her progress was much slower than it would have been weeks ago before the storms.
About a mile away she could see the yard and the roof of the cabin. She ran across the narrow ridge, following her tracks and the occasional blaze on the trees. Within five minutes she was directly above the cabin. She could see two men standing outside. Instinctively, she hid behind the bushes and slowed her breathing to prevent the sound of her gasps from carrying to the strangers.
The men were standing over something, but Liana couldn’t tell what it was. She craned her neck, searching for Henry in the yard. “Perhaps he’s down at the creek?” she hoped. Suddenly Liana recognized Henry’s grey flannel shirt; it was his favorite. It was draped over the shape heaped in the snow at the men’s feet. Henry was lying motionless on his stomach. The men were talking; one smoked a pipe.
Liana crawled closer, concealing herself behind a boulder. She slipped her rifle off her shoulder. Her stomach convulsed at the thought that Henry had been murdered. She wretched quietly into the snow. Tears ran down her cheeks and her mind raced. Liana watched one man reached under Henry’s armpits and drag his limp body into the cabin. A bright red stain in the fresh snow marked where he had fallen. Liana took this opportunity to move closer to the cabin without the man with the pipe seeing her. Staying crouched, she carefully crept between the small boulders on the ridge. She knew she would be exposed but had to get closer to Henry.
Liana managed to scurry to within a few hundred yards of the homestead. Smoke started to billow out of the cabin’s front door. In an instant she saw small flames race across the floor and the three men exited hastily. A lick of flames enveloped the lace curtains she had sewn by hand. The blaze filled the windows. Liana watched in disbelief as the cabin blazed with an inferno that growled as it consumed. The men stepped backwards, feeling the heat and talking amongst themselves over the roar of the flames.
The man with the pipe seemed to sense something and turned to scan the yard. Immediately he noticed Liana, half-concealed behind a small boulder on the ridge line above. Their eyes met. Liana quickly stood, raised her rifle, and sighted the man. As Henry had taught her, she pulled—rather than squeezed—the trigger, but at the last moment she shifted the barrel to the left and the bullet disappeared into the forest. The man recoiled and instinctively fell to the ground. Liana knew this man. He worked for Cody. She didn’t know his name; she had only seen him standing on the porch of Cody’s saloon. The other man, fearing for his own safety, took cover behind the log food cache. Liana knew she didn’t have a clear shot. Making an instant decision about the safest course of action, she slung her rifle on her shoulder and retreated the way she had come, crouching low all the while.
The men stayed concealed for a few moments and then realized Liana was on the run. The man with the pipe hollered, “You better just give up. We won’t hurt ya!” But Liana didn’t even slow her pace as she scrambled up the gully. She knew they would kill her, too. Cody’s men were ruthless; everyone knew that. The men began to take shots at Liana, but she didn’t slow her scramble across the ridge. The popping thunder of rifle fire filled the sky, but Liana had already reached the base of the gully and temporary safety.
She started her climb up the gully. She peered around the wide trunk of a spruce tree and saw the men running toward the start of the ridge. Soon they would cross the trail. Liana turned into the gully and scurried over roots and small boulders. It was a long, difficult ascent and the slipperiness of the new snow only made it more challenging. However, Liana was made for northern terrain and with little effort she covered the ground, leaping from rock to rock. Never looking back, she followed the path through the boulders and up the steep gully. The terrain gained a thousand vertical feet with relentless gradient. Her breathing was laboured and her mind was cluttered with images of Henry’s death and the burning cabin. She could no longer hear or see the men but she knew they were behind her, following her unmistakable tracks through the snow.
Within fifteen minutes, Liana reached the end of the small ridge and began to climb the path back to the vast meadow where she had waited for the caribou. Her breath was heavy and her brow covered in sweat. She had regained control of her breath by swallowing massive gulps of air. Her footfall was quick, deliberate, and paced. The narrow trail wound its way up the steep hill and soon she would be on the treeless plain.
When Liana crested the gully she could see the men struggling to keep up. They were far below at the base of the steep ascent. Instead of running across the plain, she decided to find a place to snipe at the murderers. She ran across the rim above the gully to gain a good vantage point. Carefully she found a large spruce tree that allowed her a good view of the upper gully. She took another brass bullet from her breast pocket and reloaded her rifle. The men hurried between the boulders in the gully while Liana gradually caught her breath. Her heart raced and her mind felt light from the shock of having just lost everything that mattered to her. She was determined to survive—and have her revenge. Henry’s death would be paid for.
She rested quietly until the men’s deep voices could be heard. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, though it sounded as if they were breathing hard. As they climbed over a particularly steep part of the trail by pulling themselves up using an exposed tree root, Liana once again raised her rifle. She couldn’t look. She squeezed the trigger blindly. The thundering gunshot reverberated in the gully and the men scurried behind boulders. Instinctively, both of her pursuers cowered.
Hearing the men again in frantic conversation, Liana stepped back from the gully so as not to be seen and scanned the vast plain. She shouldered her gear and foll
owed the trail through the meadow. She knew that as soon as the men reached the top of the gully she would be exposed and they would have a clear shot at her. Hopefully they would fear her shots and stay hidden long enough for her to get down the trail. There was nowhere to hide and her telltale tracks through the snow would lead them wherever she went.
Resolve imbued her with strength, and she ran across the frozen meadow on fresh legs. The day had advanced to mid afternoon and the pale sunlight left no shadows on the crisp snow. Liana knew that she would be vulnerable on the plain and ran an aggressive pace through the light snow. Her rifle bounced on her shoulder and her mouth felt gummy with saliva.
She was halfway across the enormous meadow when the two men crested the gully. They had slowed their progress in fear of an ambush from above. In the distance they could see Liana running across the open plain. She was almost a third of the way across the meadow and the two men had just reached the edge of the stretch. She was out of range of their rifles, but they knew they had her trapped. The river on the other side of the plain was impassable. If they could keep her in the open, they could track her to the river, where she would be trapped.
The plain was tabletop flat. During the summers, Larkspur, Jacob’s ladder, and Monkshood were everywhere. Sometimes Henry and Liana would picnic there. They would spread a blanket and eat biscuits smothered with blueberry jam, made with berries she collected each August on the plain. They would kindle a small fire and brew a pot of black coffee. Then they would lie on their backs and watch the clouds cross above them, usually cresting the mountains to the east and tracking to the northwest. For sweet, lazy hours, Henry would tell her Indian stories that had been passed down by his people. These afternoons were the happiest times of Liana’s life.
Liana stopped momentarily at the stone hunting blind and saw the footprints left by the caribou. She scampered on top of the boulder she had hid behind earlier in the day and could see the men following doggedly. Liana looked in the distance but couldn’t see the caribou. She glanced at the alpine ridges that flanked the plain and considered climbing higher but knew the men could easily follow her tracks and close in on her. Then she remembered the canoe Henry had stashed on the pebble beach near the river for the winter. She could follow the blazes on the other side of the river and escape. With renewed vigor, Liana picked up her pace.
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