An Island Between Two Shores

by Graham Wilson

  She glanced upstream to the distant canyon with its imposing walls. She then turned downstream and started to walk toward town. She felt weak but invigorated to be off the island and to have her belly full. Rivulets of blood seeped down her right side from the cut. She rhythmically lifted her knees and plunge-stepped through the thigh-deep snow. Liana was grateful to be moving.

  “We did it,” she told herself. “Henry helped me. Anything is possible.”

  Liana stayed on the river. The vegetation on the shore was thick and the progress would be slow and arduous. It was still early and she was optimistic that she would find shelter around each corner. She tried to move quickly but was weak and knew she was not making good time. But she persevered through the snow. Her feet grew wet and cold from the melting snow in her boots. She knew she had to get to somewhere warm before nightfall, as the chill factor would be extreme without the shelter of the log. In the open and exposed it was likely she still would perish. This thought carried her down the trail. “I can get to town,” she told herself. “I can do this.”

  The midday sun was a relief. While the temperature was still below freezing the warmth of the sun gave Liana renewed hope. She squinted in the glare off the snow and ice and determinedly trudged down the frozen river.

  Liana did not pass any berry bushes or other edible plants with which she was familiar. Besides, it would have been impossible to stop to eat, as the dark would be upon her in less than five hours. She did the math in her head and felt she might be able to travel ten miles before nightfall. She thought it was possible that someone lived on the river in the next ten miles. There were trappers spread throughout this country.

  Each footstep brought her closer to town but she tired quickly. She was exhausted from her time on the island. The effort of walking through thigh-deep snow brought fatigue beyond any tiredness she had ever felt. Her feet felt like ten-pound weights were attached to them. But she felt invigorated to finally have escaped the island and her tomb under the log. She licked a bit of salty blood from a finger.

  Bend after bend the river meandered. “Why not here?” she thought with each river bend she crossed. Liana followed its serpentine course to her uncertain future until late in the afternoon. As the light was fading, Liana noticed a blaze on a large spruce tree. The blaze was facing the river as a marker for someone traveling upstream.

  “Perhaps this is a good fishing spot?” she considered.

  “More likely,” thought Liana, “this could be a landing for a cabin.” Trying not to get her hopes too high, Liana circled the blazed spruce and noticed that someone had cleared away the under brush to form a 15-foot clearing. To Liana is seemed like a good spot to land a freighter canoe.

  “You could tie up to the spruce tree and unload your supplies here,” she said excitedly. Liana searched for a path and saw what could be a faint trail leading through the thick forest and up the hill.

  “It may be nothing,” thought Liana, “but I’ve got to check; nightfall will be in an hour.”

  In an instant Liana made a decision and began to break a trail up the hill. The path was narrow and winding. Snow-laden willow trees draped over the trail and as Liana pushed past them snow fell on her. She put her hands in front of her face and pushed through the willows fiercely. Eagerly she looked ahead to see what was along the trail and where it would lead.

  As she crested the hill she spotted the ridge line of a building. She stepped a little closer and saw a small log cabin nestled in a grove of aspen trees. The roof held a couple of feet of snow. It had a rough-hewn door and a small window next to it. At least a cord of wood sat on the porch beside the door. There was no path to the door, no smoke issuing from the chimney; the cabin seemed deserted. Elated, Liana ran to the door and pushed it open with her shoulder. Inside the dim interior sat a cot and a cast iron wood stove. In the corner was a table holding a box of tinned food. “It’s a dream!” said Liana, closing the door.

  The cabin’s interior was as cold as it was outside. Liana twisted the damper control on the wood stove and then with a sharp screech swung open the heavy door to its wood box. Inside sat some newspaper with kindling on top of it. As was tradition in the North this was a “single match fire”—waiting to succor the cold traveler. Liana took a match from a box on the table and struck it on the sandpaper on the side of the box. A rich orange flame burst into her fingers and she squinted in the smudge of sulfur fumes. She delicately placed the match on the newspaper. The fire ran along the edge of the newspaper momentarily and then engulfed the entire sheet. Within seconds the kindling had also caught fire and a low roar reverberated in the stovepipe. Tired beyond belief, Liana stumbled backwards and fell on her backside. She stared in disbelief at the fire through the open door of the woodstove. Soon she would be warm.

  After watching the dappled licks of flames for a few minutes, Liana carefully pushed herself to her feet and stumbled stiffly toward the table. It was a cornucopia, a feast just waiting for her arrival. She reached for the closest tin and the can opener that was next to it. Her hands were shaking but she was able to puncture the tin with the small implement and slowly pierce the tin open. Careful not to cut herself on the jagged lid, she tipped the can on its end and held its lip to her mouth. But like everything else the food inside the tin was frozen solid. Disappointed but aware of this reality Liana turned and placed the tin on top of the stove. She then opened a few other tins with the can opener and placed them one by one on top of the stove. By this time the stove was starting to radiate warmth. Liana sat in front of the roaring blaze straddling her legs on both sides of the stove. The room still felt frigid as a tomb and the sides of the wood stove were not yet warm, but it felt glorious. Liana kept the door to the stove ajar and let the heat play on her palms. The radiating pulses of warmth made her feel drowsy. As the day quickly darkened to night Liana marvel led at what this day had brought. The island was behind her and the taunting of the raven had ceased forever.

  Liana stepped outside the cabin to get more wood and looked down the hill at the icy river. The river shone in the last of the daylight. She gazed upstream and saw the river disappear into hills and distant mountains. “Somewhere up there was Henry’s cabin,” she exhaled softly. Liana picked up a couple of split logs from the woodpile and carried them into the cabin. She made a few more trips and laid the logs next to the stove so they would be as dry as possible. She filled a pot with snow and slid it on top of the stove to melt. She then stuffed three logs into the stove and sat on the edge of the cot. She leaned over and removed her sodden leather boots and wet woolen socks. Her feet were pale and wrinkled, but she had escaped frostbite. She lifted her shirt and examined both hips—one was almost healed into an angry purple welt. A thin open wound and a trickle of blood showed on the other side. Liana pulled herself on to the cot and climbed under the heavy woolen blankets. She stayed fully dressed, as the air in the cabin was still bitingly cold. She stretched on her back and her eyes soon slid shut.

  When Liana awoke the cabin was pitch black and cozy. She could hear a loud wolf call and it reminded her of what she had escaped. Her head ached and her hip throbbed. Reluctantly she sat up in a fog of alertness and felt the dense throb of her temples. She stepped onto the cold floor and carefully tottered to the wood stove. With a screech she cranked the door open. Only a few embers remained in the wood box and Liana quickly resurrected the fire by adding a few pieces of kindling, which smoked at first. Soon bright licks of flame ran along their length. She placed a couple of smaller logs on top of the kindling and waited at the open door for them to catch fire. The fire mesmerized Liana and she stared at it bewildered. She had been cold for so long that it seemed impossible to be in a cabin with food and warmth.

  She reached onto the woodstove and took the pot of lukewarm water and took several massive gulps. The warm water trickled into her chest and her throat felt raw and sore. Liana then reached for the first opened tin on top of the stove and slopped some of the contents into her m
outh with a broad spoon. The excruciatingly sweet perfume of cherries filled her head and made her wince. The sweetness was foreign and almost unpleasant. She swallowed unhurriedly and then filled her mouth with a second sloppy gulp. The soft texture and fragrant intensity of the fruit made her heart race. It was a firecracker of sensation. Liana took more gulps and soon the tin was empty and thick warm syrup dripped down her chin.

  The other tins beckoned, but Liana remembered Henry telling her about the danger of eating too much at once after a long time without food; like so many other things, he had known hunger. Liana made the decision to wait to eat more food. Her stomach groaned in its effort to digest the cherries. She didn’t want to get sick and knew that it would take a long time to regain her strength.

  Liana strained to remember a story Henry had told her: An old man living in Alaska had lost all of his friends and family, and he felt sad to think that he was left alone. While this man was traveling along the woods, it occurred to him to go to the bears and let the bears kill him. But when he saw a bear he became frightened and told the bear “I want to invite you and the other bears to a feast.” He then went home to prepare for the feast. Once all the food was laid out, he took off his shirt and painted himself with stripes of red across his arms, a stripe over his heart, and another stripe across his chest.

  The bears arrived the next morning and the man let them into his home. First he served them large trays of cranberries preserved in grease. The large bear seemed to say something to his companions, and as soon as he began to eat the rest started. They watched him and did whatever he did. The man followed that up with other kinds of food, and after they were through, the large bear seemed to talk to him for a very long time. When the large bear finished, he started out, and the rest of the bears followed. As they went out, each in turn licked the paint from the man’s arm and chest. The old man felt as though they were licking his sorrow away.

  The day after all this happened the smallest bear came back in human form and spoke to the old man. He had been a human being who was captured and adopted by the bears. This bear-man asked the old man if he had understood their chief, and the man said he did not.

  “He was telling you,” the bear-man replied, “that he is in the same condition as you. He, too, is old and has lost all of his friends. He told you to think of him when you are mourning for your lost ones.”

  The cabin’s interior flickered in the glowing radiance of the wood stove’s little glass window. On the cot, Liana propped herself on one arm still in disbelief at her good fortune. She ran her hand over her ribs and marveled at how thin she was. She felt her flat stomach and almost absent breasts. And once again Liana drifted to sleep.

  When she awoke she was startled to not be in the confines of the log on the island. It was morning and the sun shone through the one tiny window beside the door. The cabin felt warm and inviting and Liana was covered in a layer of sweat.

  “Being warm is going to take some getting use to,” she thought.

  She pushed the coarse blankets to the side of the bed and kicked them away with her feet and stood carefully. The wooden floor was cold to her bare feet and she leaned toward the half dozen logs next to the stove. She lifted the heated pot of water to her lips and took a small slurp. She let its warmth radiate though her torso and immediately she felt like she was going to be sick. She stepped backwards and dropped onto the bed. Liana rested her head between her legs, the room lightly spinning.

  “It doesn’t take much these days,” she thought wryly.

  After a few minutes Liana stood carefully and padded toward the table, resting her hand on the table top for stability. She looked at the tins of food with soft focus and picked up the partially eaten tin from earlier. Without reading the label of the tin she dipped a spoon into congealed gravy and lifted out pieces of carrot and potato. She hesitated momentarily before spooning these morsels past her swollen, reddened gums. The oily richness of the gravy filled her mouth with an almost unbearable intensity and in a few enormous gulps the entire can was finished. Liana examined the label and the picture of the stew before placing the empty back on the table.

  Liana stuffed another few logs into the woodstove and staggered back to the cot and stretched out. Under the log she always curled into a ball; being able to stretch her body filled her with a tingling sensation. In another moment she was asleep once again.

  It was midday when she awoke. The cabin was much warmer and Liana’s head ached. She lay on the cot for several minutes taking in her new surroundings. It was a small cabin, like most trappers’ cabins. Whoever owned it had taken care to chink the logs with moss and scraps of wood. This chinking kept the cabin warm and somewhat draft free. The cabin was dark in even the brightness of the day. On the wall by the door was a calendar with “1899” written across the top. “A year old,” thought Liana. Once again she heard the shrill tremolo of the wolf.

  Liana carefully climbed out of bed and once again fed kindling to the dying embers. The fire quickly leapt to life and before long a roar raged in the wood box. Liana slid her boots on her feet without socks. Her boots were wet and cold to the touch. She was thirsty again. Next to the door was an enamel bucket; she picked it up and stepped outside. The air felt cold compared to the inside of the cabin and she squinted in the brightness of the afternoon. Liana dipped the bucket into a snowdrift. She then walked back into the cabin and placed the bucket on the stove where it hissed loudly.

  Liana walked over to the pile of tins and examined their labels. Mostly they were just canned cherries and stew. She took a can of stew and worked the can opener to reveal its moist interior. She placed the can on top of the wood stove next to the bucket and climbed back into bed. Liana laid on her back because both sides were too sore and she had never liked lying on her stomach. Liana looked at the stovepipe and its exit through the roof of the cabin. Her head ached, as did everything else. Her mouth was dry and her stomach groaned in confusion.

  After about half an hour Liana got out of bed and got a tin cup from the table. She poured water from the bucket into the cup and slowly sipped it. Her lips stung and she remembered that the salt from the stew must still be on her lips. She licked her lips clean and reached for another tin of warmed stew. She dipped her spoon into the stew and ate a little more slowly. The stew felt strange warmed and she could feel it drop down her throat and dissipate its warmth to her fragile body.

  When she was finished eating Liana sat and looked at the fire. She thought about Henry.

  “He would have loved this cabin,” she thought. She had not allowed herself to dwell on Henry’s death because she feared falling apart. But now warm and fed and alone it was all she could think about. She sat on the edge of the bed and for the first time she allowed herself to weep out her mourning. Her body convulsed with sobs and deep gasps. Henry was gone and she felt an emptiness that frightened her. Tears crossed her swollen cheeks and her body shook. Liana fell back onto the cot.

  For the next week she cried and ate, cried and slept, cried and fed the fire. When she could cry no more she got out of the bed stronger than she had been in weeks.

  Liana wanted to leave the cabin as strong and healthy as possible. She melted snow in both buckets and undressed to have a bath. She found a sliver of soap and made a rich lather on a faded rag. First she washed her hands and face, the soap hardly foaming in the accumulated grime. The soap smell stung the tip of her nose and made her sneeze. Cautiously she dipped her head into the bucket and braced herself breathlessly and washed her hair. It required several buckets of water heated over the course of an afternoon for her to finally begin to feel clean. Liana even washed her shirts, socks, and underwear but didn’t attempt to clean her jacket or pants. She liked feeling clean and it felt good to be busy. Her hips hadn’t throbbed in days.

  One clear morning she awoke, dressed, and prepared to walk to town. She had been at the cabin for almost a month and was starting to run out of food. She adjusted the knife on her belt. It
was now mid-winter and the daytime temperatures weren’t much warmer than the nights. The snow was deeper and the air bitingly cold. But she was strong enough to survive the walk.

  Liana didn’t re-stoke the fire but simply left it to slowly die out. She put on her jacket and wrapped a blanket over her shoulders like a shawl. She pulled her hat over her brow, shut the cabin door firmly, and stepped off the porch into the bright morning.

  Liana walked down the trail to the river. She felt strong and the crunch of dry snow under her feet filled her with optimism. Snow had covered the tracks she had made when she first arrived and she relied on the blaze to lead her back to the river. She stumbled through the deep snow to the bottom of the hill and then walked onto the river, now fully frozen. She plunge-stepped through the powdery snow. It was slow going but faster than bushwhacking through the forest. Liana was invigorated to be moving again.

  Liana moved quickly and rarely stopped to catch her breath or take a mouthful of snow. The snow felt like hard candy and slowly dissolved in her mouth and quenched her thirst. By dusk she had made good progress. “Maybe ten miles, probably more,” mused Liana. But the dark made it impossible to avoid stumbling. It was too dark to walk forward and she didn’t want to build a shelter so she waited an hour. Once the moon cleared the treetops, the frozen river became an illuminated path. The snow glistened in the pale yellow light and Liana was able to make good progress walking in the silvery moonlight. In the far distance she could see the lights of the town light up the mountainside. It would take all night but she would get there.

  8

  It was dawn when Liana saw the distant silhouette of the buildings and tents of Dawson City. After a day and a night of walking, she reached the outskirts of the grim little town. She felt invigorated to have finally reached her goal. While Liana trudged through the snow, she thought about something Henry had said many times: “Fear makes the bear look bigger.” She felt enormous gratitude to him now for protecting her from Cody. She wondered how she would react when she finally met him. She fingered the outline of her knife: cold comfort.