An Island Between Two Shores

by Graham Wilson

  She was too tired to weep for long and slowly caught her breath and stopped shivering. She turned to gaze upstream at the end of the canyon. Its enormous granite walls dropped into the bedrock under the sandy beach that was buried under snow. From this vantage point, the bottom of the canyon resembled an enormous gate. Liana could see the spray from the hole but could not see any white or foam. The canoe halves were nowhere to be seen. The hole had digested Henry’s canoe, and Liana felt an enormous sadness for its loss.

  The island was not much bigger than a baseball diamond. It was narrow on both the upstream and downstream ends and wider in the middle. Even at its broadest width, it was less than five hundred feet across. The expanse was treeless, with a small ridge of sand and gravel in the centre almost like a spine. A driftwood log divided the island neatly from top to bottom. Its five-foot girth sported a halo of torn roots on one end and a jagged break on the other. Roots like a spread hand extended ten feet into the sky and in all directions. Rough bark had peeled off most of the log in large flakes and its trunk was now largely a smooth, silvery grey.

  Liana considered her options. Swimming to shore seemed impossible; she would certainly drown or freeze. Besides, she was not a strong swimmer, and there wasn’t a suitable log or fallen tree to use to float her to shore. But waiting on the island for the ice to span the gap—ice strong enough to support her weight—gave her little chance of survival either. The question that troubled Liana was how long the ice would take to freeze. She had lived in the North long enough to know that travel on frozen rivers could be fast and safe for a single person or even a loaded sled and team. But without food or fire, she knew that her odds of lasting long enough for freeze up were slim.

  Liana studied the great forest that crowded the river and climbed the hills that formed her world. Dark spruce and pine were punctuated with the occasional grove of leafless aspen. The brilliant aspen leaves had already fallen, brightening the forest duff with yellow litter now mostly blanketed by snow. It was the kind of forest that Liana would have found beautiful under different circumstances. The forest now appeared menacing in its breathy silence.

  Like a wedge, the island divided the river into two almost equal portions. The river purled sluggishly around the island, its glassy surface creased with thin pulls from the current. The current ran only a few miles an hour after it exited the canyon, spent from the miles of crashing turbulence. Along both shores was an irregular shelf of thin, clear ice. The ice rimming the shore appeared to have a greater mass than the ice forming on the island. The bitter cold of the river exiled her and she felt lucky to have washed onto the island, but she also knew she was trapped.

  Liana remembered how comfortable she had been crouching in the hunting blind on the alpine plain and how the protection from the wind had been incredible. She walked to the sunny side of the log and examined it carefully. The wood rested on a bed of frozen sand and fine gravel. Liana rested on her haunches and started to shovel with her hands. She kicked her heels into the gravel when her hands became frozen and useless. After about twenty minutes she had dug a five-foot-long trench. Liana piled the excavated snow, sand, and gravel beside the log for later use. Liana then started the process of gathering rocks from the beach. She ripped the stones from the sand and staggered under their weight back to the log. Liana crafted a foundation with the largest stones along the perimeter of the excavation joined the log on both sides in a crude semi-circle. The cracks between the stones were carefully filled with the snow, sand, and gravel. She placed a thin layer of sand on top of this foundation and then piled another row of rocks on top of it to make a continuous wall. A third and fourth and fifth layer of stones and sand and gravel followed the second. Before dusk, Liana had built a lair using the log and wall of rock and filler. She marveled at her handiwork. This snuggery would protect her from the deep chill of night and the brisk winds and boldness of the days. It was her fortress against the cold and snows and she would feel protected behind its walls, nestled against the hundred-year-old log.

  Exhausted, Liana lifted her leg to straddle the pony wall and stoop under the log. Once inside, she curled up in the shelter of the great log. It felt cool and damp and her wet clothes clung to her sallow frame. She braced for what she imagined would prove the longest night of her life.

  Liana glanced at the darkening night sky through the entrance. A weak breeze rustled the bare trees and evergreens on the hillside. It took her back to the day she had met Henry for the first time. He was working for her father, clearing his claim at the top of Desmond Creek. Her father had brought Henry home for dinner, and he barely spoke during the entire meal.

  When Henry had told Liana that it wasn’t safe for her in town, she did not question him. She had few friends or acquaintances in Dawson City and knew that Henry was an honest man. She knew that many would never have approved of a young European girl living alone with a Native man, but Henry was so like a grandparent, Liana didn’t find their arrangement awkward. After several days of hiking they arrived at Henry’s little cabin. It hadn’t been visited in years and her first impression of the two-bedroom shack was shock at its incredible stench. Henry had skinned animals inside the cabin and the smell of their rotting hides permeated the log walls long after the pelts had been sold. Henry knew skinning inside would offend but it was just the way things were. His arthritic hands would never have been able to handle the cold and he would risk damaging the furs with his scraper when he cleaned them. Henry was a practical man and his cabin resonated with these choices.

  Henry was what many called “Old Indian,” which meant he primarily lived traditionally. He ate simple foods, mostly meat and fish he caught or traded; he carried a pouch of herbs that he used to treat various infections and illnesses. He went to town infrequently and preferred to live on the land in a scattered array of small log cabins.

  Liana knew that Henry’s stories were her key to survival and she hoped she could remember enough of them. The cold settled evenly throughout her body and its heaviness left her feeling nauseated. It was a weight above her brows, across her chest, and behind her knees. The cold penetrated everywhere and she escaped its crushing burden only briefly by remembering happier times.

  3

  Liana climbed from her lair stiffly and faced the blankness of morning. The sun had climbed over the ridges but wasn’t warm or comforting, but at least the tortuous night had ended. She was still damp and exhausted from the swim two days ago and the cold had settled into the pit of her stomach with a dull ache. She stood facing the river and the canyon far upstream and sighed.

  The little island divided the steely northern river neatly in two. All around, the great forest, with the exception of the high mountain tops, spread as far as she could see. In contrast, the island was barren of vegetation. The only piece of wood was the enormous log and like everything else it was blanketed by a few inches of snow. The island was devoid of anything to eat, even grass. There wasn’t any firewood, other than the enormous log. Sand, gravel, and a few sizable rocks ringing the water’s edge were the sum total of her resources. She sat in the lee of the log and braced herself for another uncomfortable night.

  Liana felt as though she was falling apart; each moment she was weaker than the next. No one knew where she was. All hope had perished with Henry in the ashes of their cabin. The small stone wall and trench she had built at the base of the log gave her some protection from the cold but didn’t seem strong or warm enough. The cold was ravenous, gnawing on her energy like a big cat pouncing on a chunk of raw meat. Each day found her less alert and aware. Her bones ached so painfully that she had no wish to move. It would be so easy to doze, to sleep, to sleep forever.

  A story Henry had told her played in Liana’s head again and again. Of all Henry’s stories, this was the one that Liana had come to hate since being washed onto the barren island. She wondered if it were based on a true story and assumed it was. The situation was very similar to her current plight. Henry told her t
he tale one afternoon as they stacked firewood. It was about a Cree woman stranded near a river with her children, slowly starving to death. In desperation, she cut herself for fish bait. She managed to catch a grayling and the family survived. Liana felt this was one of the few stories that Henry had told her that didn’t seem mystical.

  “Your stories in stories,” thought Liana, gritting her teeth in frustration. “I don’t understand them.” But the problem with this story was that it seemed plausible to her, perhaps even probable. “Henry’s people know how to survive,” she thought. What terrified Liana most was that she knew what she must do. Lying under the log slowly starving and freezing was a horrible fate but using her own flesh as bait was unthinkable. “Will the ice ever reach me, or will I die here?” she muttered into the morning.

  The soul-robbing quiet made her feel like the only living thing in the forest. Nothing ever seemed to move or make a noise in the frozen expanse. Liana pushed air from her chest to empty it and then inhaled an icy breath deep into her lungs. The day absorbed her sigh and the sound trailed to nothing. Liana felt more alone than ever. Once again she waited patiently for clarity.

  She emptied her bladder quickly, hating to expose her naked backside to the cold air, and then raised her arms over her head and stretched until she felt more alert. She was as ready as she would ever be. Taking a deep breath, she reached her shaking right hand for the knife on her belt. With a deft motion she flipped its glinting blade open with one hand while lifting her jacket and shirts with her other hand. Her pale hip, coated with goose bumps, shivered in the bracing morning air. Liana grasped a pinch of skin and with an anticipatory wince fixed her gaze on the featureless sky. She hesitated momentarily and then drew the knife through her flesh. Dark blood rushed into the incision as if a dam had broken. A guttural moan escaped involuntarily from her throat and resonated through her clenched teeth. She twisted her head to examine the cut. Thin blood trickled through her fingers and onto the gravel of the frozen beach. She felt dizzy and closed her eyes.

  Before she could think further or suffer the intensity of the fresh wound a second longer, she drew the knife across her hip a second time. A bloody ribbon of warm flesh the size of her little finger dropped into her hand. Liana dropped the knife and carefully placed the flesh on a flat rock. Then she lay on her back on the icy gravel nearby. Tears filled her eyes as she shuddered with the pain of her sacrifice. Her breath whispered rhythmically with her heartbeat. Somewhere nearby an enormous raven croaked a greeting to the rising sun and then the forest became still once more.

  When her breathing slowed, Liana reached into a jacket pocket and removed a woolen sock. She pressed it gingerly against the wound and felt the wet warmth of blood fill the loose fibers. It was as close to a bandage as she could muster. In preparation for this morning, she had removed and washed the sock in the clear river two days earlier. Liana tried to remain still and pushed her hand against the wound to slow the bleeding. She breathed shallowly and continued lying on her back until the sun had climbed high into the sky. The thought of cutting her hip had tortured her, and she had spent the night sliding into nightmares and then starting awake with the dread of first light. Liana’s head was starting to spin, and the incision throbbed as if it were twice its size.

  She watched tenuous clouds blow into view over a snow-white mountain peak and felt the chill of the morning anew. The clouds seemed to stall overhead and Liana braced herself against the stillness. In her isolation, stillness had become a kind of invisible demon, threatening her to slip away without as much as a whisper in her dreams. She wished she had mastered whistling. She considered singing, despite the rawness of her throat.

  A soft mist shrouded the river as the water split around the island and came together on the other side. The quiet settled into her bones with the cold and pain and hunger. “The quiet and cold are different sides of the same silver coin on this miserable island,” she thought. She closed her eyes and rested for more than an hour in the meek sunshine.

  Liana opened her eyes to scour the riverbank for wildlife, thinking she had heard something coming to the river to feed or drink. Her eyes restlessly scanned the waterline up and down, searching for the slightest motion. She saw only the trees swaying in the occasional breeze. “Where are the animals?” she wondered. “Am I just not seeing them? There should be river otters, at least.” She wished she were still asleep and reluctantly acknowledged the throb from her hip.

  She spent most days studying the forest closest to the island. But this particular morning, inexorably, her thoughts slipped back to the two moments when her blade sliced into her hip. She could feel the knife separating her flesh. As she held the sock against the wound, her mouth was dry and tasted bitter. The odds of surviving the island were remote, and Liana knew it.

  She reached forward and picked up the knife she had dropped after cutting her hip. The blade was still bloody and she carefully wiped it clean on her pants and closed the blade. The knife had belonged to her father. It was made by Laguiole, the famous knife makers of Theirs, France. Her father had told her Napoleon himself had given Laguiole the right to make that particular form of knife because the men of the family had shown great courage in battle.

  The knife was slim and elegant, with rosewood sides and brass bollards. An elegant bumblebee-shaped button was wrought to unlock the blade. With only gentle pressure from her thumb, Liana could easily depress the button. Her father had made a moose-hide sheath with a matching rawhide lanyard that dangled from the knife. It was the only object belonging to her father that Liana still had. She treasured it.

  When her father had been found, the Mounties had kept the knife in their barracks for Liana to collect. His body had been found tangled in a logjam in the creek bordering his mining claim. The Mounties assumed her dad had slipped into the river and been swept beneath the logs by the current. When the cart carrying his body shrouded in a dirty horse blanket reached town, Liana dropped to her knees in grief. First her mother, and now her father was gone.

  Henry had reached down, picked her up, and taken her back to her cabin. He told her that it wasn’t safe for her to stay, and in her confused state Liana didn’t question him. Henry was a trusted friend of her father and the only person willing to involve himself in the new orphan’s affairs. They spent the evening loading up all her essentials and carrying them to a cache outside the town. After her father was laid to rest the next day, Liana and Henry quietly left town without anyone noticing.

  As before, Liana’s ears pricked with the sound of voices from across the river. A soft shout that sounded like someone saying “porch step” echoed from a source unseen. Breathlessly, Liana searched the north side of the river. She tilted her head to better hear another cry. And then she heard it again: “porch step.” She scrambled to her feet and took a couple of steps in the direction of the sound. Then she turned her head and waited for the person to say something again or step from the shadow of the forest onto a nearby beach. She waited patiently but when the silence persisted Liana cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hello,” she screamed. “I’m over here. I need help!”

  Holding her breath, she waited for a reply. When there was no sound, she screamed “Hello” once more, excitedly this time. Liana stood still and waited for a response but only the forest rustled in the gentle breeze. “Hello!” she screamed half a dozen times more. She waited for a response that would not come. Liana knew that the forest could play tricks but this call had seemed so clear, so human, so promising.

  She wondered why someone would yell “porch step”? It made no sense. It must be the wind in the trees, she told herself, still scanning the forest for someone to appear. Who would have said something so ridiculous, anyway? Facing the direction from which the sound had come, she sat on the beach holding the wound hoping that she was wrong and someone would miraculously appear. Eventually Liana retreated to the log and waited. “Am I being watched?” she wondered. “Am I truly alone?”

 
; Her fingertips tingled despite the fact she had slept all night with her hands in her armpits or between her legs. Her left foot felt like she had a stone inside her boot, but she knew she didn’t. Every morning this foot protested painfully, and when she went outside, the limb would throb for a few moments with the increased circulation. Liana couldn’t remember injuring her foot and assumed something must have sprained or bruised it as she was helplessly washed downstream.

  Liana felt marooned in the weak afternoon light, watching the river’s quiet parade and the wind in the trees. She had survived many nights. Aside from the intense sharpness of this morning’s wound and her chilled extremities, she was weak but fine and she consoled herself with this knowledge. She knew it would take hours of soaking in the sun before she felt less cold, but on the island she would never feel warm. She decided that it made more sense to rest under the log, and so she climbed into her lair. The wound had clotted, but when she shifted her weight or moved it would open and trickle blood. She was prepared to spend the day under the log holding the cut, and she pulled her hat down over her ears and raised her legs onto the stone wall. Liana feared infection and the wound hurt far more than she anticipated so she made herself comfortable and spent the day resting.

  For the thousandth time, Liana examined the short wall she had built and the gaps it made where it joined the log. “If I could fill the gaps, it would be much warmer,” she thought. But the island offered no moss, leaves, or anything else she could think of to act as insulation. Liana thought about the gaps and the way the light shone through the openings. The light itself seemed to harbour gusts of cold. Most of the damp sand she had used to fill the gaps had frozen and already fallen away. Sharp drafts penetrated the gloom. The island that had saved her days before now seemed intent to exile her.