by Henry, Sue
At last we have split with them, to my relief. We have divided our goods, but I am sure that my bag of flour has been opened and part of my supply of beans is missing. I made the mistake of mentioning it when Ozzy was within earshot. He growled that I should take better care of my goods and that I’d better not be accusing him. I dropped the subject, but I am convinced he took them, more glad than ever to be without his company.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1897
DAWSON CITY, YUKON TERRITORY
Three days ago McNeal and I moved into the rough cabin of a Scotsman that Ned met on the street in Dawson. Very low on supplies, he has gone with a small party to attempt the long journey from here to the coast, where he can catch a ship out for the winter. In exchange for this winter shelter, we have promised to burn a shaft for him during the cold months.
We have already begun this effort and it will be a miserable one at best. Its one redeeming feature is that it will require finger-warming fires to melt the frozen ground as we must first heat, then dig out as much as we can, making a deeper space to build another fire. Between times, we must walk miles to cut timber for those fires, since every close tree was long ago reduced to ashes in the shafts of other claims. We must quickly get sufficient wood hauled and cut before the snow buries it all too deep to find easily.
All the rubble we dig out is piled around outside the cabin to await sluicing when the spring melts enough water to allow it. The melted earth immediately refreezes into solid lumps. The claim will be a mire when warm weather returns.
The cabin, if it may be called one, is minimal shelter at best; so low is the roof that we must stoop rather than stand when inside it. Little was done to chink the spaces between the narrow logs that form its walls, so the frigid wind whistles through like a sieve, whipping heat away from my stove, which we have set up in one corner, as fast as it is produced. We spent one day collecting moss and cramming it in the spaces with mud. Now it is somewhat better, though nothing which could be identified as cozy.
We have hopefully seen the last of Warner and Oswald, who have found a place of their own somewhere close to Dawson. What they are doing, I have no idea and care not. I am still furious that Oswald somehow contrived to make off with portions of my beans, sugar, and rice, as we separated our outfits. Damn his eyes.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1897
DAWSON CITY, YUKON TERRITORY
There will now certainly be no boats full of supplies for the winter. The river is frozen. Word has come with a trapper who came in by dogsled that the riverboats Weare and Bella battled heavy ice in their attempt to make the three hundred and forty mile run down the river to Fort Yukon. The Bella froze in once at Forty-Mile, but a warm chinook wind melted the center ice, allowing him to clear a channel and escape to Circle City. The Weare, which had reached that place earlier, headed on, only to be solidly halted by ice, forcing its passengers to trek over fifty miles to Fort Yukon, where food was also dangerously low.
We carefully guard what we have, for without it we would not survive the winter. Food is the foremost subject on everyone’s mind.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1897
DAWSON CITY, YUKON TERRITORY
The temperature dropped alarmingly and has held at fifty degrees below zero for several days. We huddle in our tiny shelter, taking turns going for wood, trying to keep warm. I shudder at the thought of those on the long trail back to the Chilkoot Pass, for they must be suffering terribly.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1897
DAWSON CITY, YUKON TERRITORY
Still, depressingly, too cold to write, though we have reached eight feet in burning our shaft. Ned and I stay close to our cabin, except for trips to find wood.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1897
DAWSON CITY, YUKON TERRITORY
Walked into Dawson today, where on the street I saw Joaquin Miller, the “Poet of the Sierras,” sent to the Clondyke by the newspaperman, Hearst, to report on the gold rush. He had attempted to make it to Fort Yukon on the Weare, but after being stranded in Circle City, he and another man turned back to Dawson on foot and finally made it, though Miller suffered greatly, losing his left ear, part of a toe and one finger. He came in on November fifth completely snowblind with both cheeks frozen. He is a tall, gaunt, unusual figure with a white beard, and is dressed in fur and reindeer skin. At almost sixty years old, it is remarkable that he survived to reach Dawson and is to be hoped that he lives through the winter.
On November 29, the temperature dropped so low we spent two whole days wrapped in our blankets, shivering though the fire was never allowed to subside. We know now that it was sixty-seven below and trees cracked like gunshots in the cold.
Thanksgiving night two dance-hall girls reputedly had an altercation which ended in one throwing a burning lamp at the other. The resulting fire burned most of Front Street in Dawson, leaving people on the street in fifty-eight below zero weather. McDonald’s saloon, the site of the lamp-throwing, burned to the ground, but has already been replaced and is once again open for business, which is brisk.
We toil doggedly on, alternately building fires and digging out the thawed soil. At fifteen feet, we hit a rock too large to raise and dug around it. There, we began finding nuggets of gold, which we pick out of the dirt when we see them. Ned’s friend will be pleased, if he ever returns, for there are now over forty such nuggets in the tin under my bed, a few as large as my thumbnail, others half that size. Obviously, others lie in the piles of dirt to be sluiced in the spring, for we pick out only what we see easily.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1897
DAWSON CITY, YUKON TERRITORY
Christmas Day. I think of my family, Polly and the children, so far away and wish I could see them. In recognition of the day, we cooked up a good batch of beans and ate them with a hare Ned shot last week when we went for wood. It was tough, but wonderful to have fresh meat.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1898
DAWSON CITY, YUKON TERRITORY
I am heartsick and frightened. McNeal is dead. His head crushed in the shaft by a large rock rolled in on him, certainly by Warner and Oswald. I came back to the cabin with a load of wood and found Ned crumpled and half buried in the shaft, his bright blood frozen on his clothes and broken skull. There I left him and walked to the next claim for help. We pulled him out and wrapped him in his blanket, but the two fellows who helped gave me odd looks and mentioned cautiously that two friends of mine had found him earlier and gone to Dawson for the law. Their description matched Frank and Ozzy, and I recognized their tracks in the snow.
So I am now hiding with a friend in Dawson, whom I will not name for fear this journal may be found. He has determined that Frank and Ozzy told the authorities they saw me leaving the cabin just before they found him dead. I could assure my innocence and provide witnesses of my character, but would I be believed? The deciding factor, however, is that I know they intend to kill me as surely as they killed Ned, and why.
They came to our camp last week, asking to share and claiming rights as our partners. When we refused, they insisted they would have it, one way or another, that the owner would not return and the claim would be ours and, therefore, theirs. Ned showed them the shooting end of his rifle and they left, making threats.
They will not leave me alive to witness against them, when my death would make all easy. I expect that if they had the chance, they would kill me and tell the authorities, such as they are, that I attacked them, tried to escape, or some other such nonsense. Whatever they said, it would be two against none, with me dead, and two against one, if I were to go to report it myself.
I have decided that my only course is to attempt to head down river for Forty-Mile. My friend agrees and has made me the loan of a wolfskin coat, beaver-fur mittens and hat. We both know it is more of a gift. Probably I will not make it, but, who knows? God being just, I may, and can return his coat next spring. It is better than waiting here for their nefarious and certain judgment. The first time it snows to cover my trac
ks, I will be off with a small sled and only enough goods for survival, probably tomorrow. I have buried most of the nuggets here in Dawson, in the best place I could think of that could not be easily located, and have drawn and hidden a map.
Dearest Polly, If I perish and this is found, know that I love you and the children. All I can leave you is this record and the gold, which does not really belong to me. If you will remember where you secreted the letters I wrote you before we were married, you will know where the map is hidden. I am only sorry things did not turn out differently, but it was not a bad idea to come here, all being considered. Events simply conspired against me, and against Ned, certainly. If we had been wintered in at Lake Bennett and forced to wait until spring, it might have been advantageous. But one can go crazy saying what if. Just know that I would never leave you with two children to raise unless it were as necessary as it seems to be. Either I die here, or try to make it there and perhaps die on the way. I like my chances better in not waiting here. Whatever happens, I send you all my love. In haste. Your loving husband, Addison Harley Riser.
—3 Sleeping Lady (1997)
SLEEPING LADY. Copyright © 1996 by Sue Henry. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Microsoft Reader February 2007 ISBN 978-0-06-136869-1
This one’s for Jerry Bunker (aka Maule 9864 Mike), pilot extraordinaire and friendly source of much valuable advice and information, whose approach to life is on the step, who has a knack for finding remote locations to be put to fictional uses, and who is always willing to answer even the dumbest questions with a straight face.
Appreciation and thanks to:
The Abbott Family Proofreading and Promotion Service.
The Friday Night Adoption Society, as always, for their assistance, cheerleading, and essential sense of humor.
Cindy Schroeder (aka Jane Dyer), Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Law Enforcement, Madison, Wisconsin, for enthusiastic long-distance assistance. And for the firsthand story of her hair-raising participation in Operation Brooks Range, a successful international undercover investigation into the illegal commercialization of wildlife by big-game guides in Alaska, from 1990 to 1992, that resulted in the arrest of seven in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, and Washington, and the seizure of eight airplanes in Alaska, Idaho, and Texas.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, Ashland, Oregon, and its amazing staff, for a remarkable tour of its facilities and for generously sharing technical information about the essential work they do.
Ken Goddard, its dedicated director, for the assistance necessary to write both fiction and nonfiction for publication in the United States and abroad.
Hank Rust, of Rust’s Flying Service (flying Alaska’s backcountry for over 30 years), for information and patient assistance on charter services and use of the call numbers for his Cessna 206.
Nancy Sydnam, M.D., for information on aviation communications and the use of the call numbers for her Piper Super Cub.
The Alaska State Troopers, the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, and its director, George Taft, for generous technical assistance.
Bill Farber, Alaska State Trooper, retired, for continued technical assistance.
Karen Boyer, Operations Assistant, First National Bank of Anchorage, South Center Branch, for information on the ins and outs of safe-deposit boxes.
Max Rothman, New York Life Insurance Company, Anchorage, for information on high-risk insurance for pilots of small charter services.
My sons, Bruce and Eric, encouragers and promoters, who—booksellers beware—have been known to stealthily rearrange the display of my books to best advantage.
And my agent, Dominick Abel—who must have an inexhaustible supply of patience in a cookie jar on one of his office shelves—for optimism and the support of his considerable talent.
It would be fitting, I think, if among the last manmade tracks on earth could be found the huge footprints of the great brown bear.
Earl J. Fleming, “Do brown bears attack?”
Outdoor Life, November 1958
Map
AKLAK, THE GREAT BROWN BEAR. LAY ATOP A PILE OF dirt, brush, and vegetation he had dragged up as cover for his latest kill, protecting it from any predator or scavenger that, catching the scent of blood, might come looking for an easy meal. Partway down a narrow, tree-and brush-filled ravine, half-asleep and completely relaxed in his position on the heap, he was still highly aware of the sounds and smells of what went on around him. One ear twitched at the chirp of a ground squirrel, but, satiated with what he had gorged from a wolf-killed moose carcass the day before and the few bites from this fresh kill, he ignored it. He would lie here, or somewhere in the nearby undergrowth, until he had digested enough to be hungry again.
It was late in the year. Here and there on the north-facing slope, sheltered from the ineffectual rays of a pale sun that hung low in the southern sky for only a few declining hours each day, several thin patches remained of a premature snowfall. Aklak had already reconnoitered the den in which he had spent the previous winter, and to which he would soon return. In anticipation, he had raked a new pile of leaves and brush into the cave that lay beneath two huge granite boulders, through the opening that would slowly fill with heavy snow and seal him in, warm and dry, to hibernate till spring.
For the cold half of the year, perhaps longer, if the winter was severe, he would not eat or eliminate, living off the fat he had accumulated during the warm months and the fluids stored in his body, losing 15 to 30 percent of the thirteen hundred pounds he now weighed. The summer just ended had been a bounteous one, during which he had gained well over three hundred pounds from a rich and omnivorous diet that included grasses, mushrooms, bulbs, herbs, birds and their eggs, wild honey full of bees, marmots and other rodents, seaweed, salmon berries, the underbark of trees, frogs, insects and larvae.
Existing primarily as an herbivore of more than two hundred types of plants, he was also a carnivore when opportunity presented him with an injured or newborn animal, or the carcass of one brought down by accident or another predator. He could as easily turn cannibal, ingesting any of his own kind that he killed or came upon already dead. Like other males, he would sometimes kill and eat bear cubs if they wandered within his reach, and their mothers if they were not quick or ferocious enough to elude him. Two thirds his size, females with cubs tended to avoid him, and other males, if possible.
During hibernation, eating nothing, he would require only about half the oxygen he needed when awake, and as he slept, his heart rate would slow from a normal ninety-eight beats per minute to eight or nine; his temperature would drop from ninety-eight point five to as little as eighty-nine degrees. If his body grew any cooler, he would rouse himself, increasing his metabolic rate and his temperature along with it. Otherwise, safely removed from the harsh northern winter, he would curl up and snooze away the cold, foodless months, snugly unaware in his singular den. For Aklak, winter—even bitter Arctic winter with its howling blizzard breath and subzero temperatures that cracked trees and froze falling water before it hit the ground—hardly existed.
Now, as he lay possessively, belly on the pile, the smell of still steaming blood and body fluids rose up through it and from his long, sharp claws. A hint of it remained in his mouth and he curled his long tongue up to where splotches of blood reddened the fur of his snout. The taste almost encouraged him to uncover the carcass he had buried, but he was sated and too comfortable to bother. The ma
n would keep and would be better eating when he had tenderized a bit.
It had been an unusually easy kill. Before finding the man, he had been angry and frustrated with the whining, annoying thing in the air that he could not catch. Again and again it had returned, diving and circling, driving him at a run, always west across the rolling ground of the plateau. Furious and roaring, Aklak had stopped on three successive ridges to stand up on his hind legs, swiping high in the air with his claws, futilely attempting to reach and strike it from the sky. When it had fled from his last unsuccessful effort, thwarted, he had watched and snarled as it spiraled higher and away. Then, dropping to all fours, he had become aware of the scent of human blood and, following it to where the man lay on the ground, taken out his unsatisfied aggression.
There had been little resistance. No metal stick had barked fire as he charged, and the human did not stand up or run away, only struck at him ineffectively with its paws and made a high piercing sound when he took its chest between his great jaws and shook it hard. Closing his teeth over its head, he had swung it back and forth again and, all sound silenced, it had gone dead limp.
Usually he avoided humans when he caught their smell, retreating before he came in sight of them. Once or twice he had met them by accident and bluff-charged before leaving the area. He still carried an ache in one shoulder where fire from a stick had struck him. But this kill had been so simple that perhaps they had lost their power to hurt and in the future he might not go so far out of his way for them.
He had dragged the man carcass from the open ground of the ridge down into the ravine below it. As he went, he ripped the cloth covering from the body and left it where it fell. Finding a spot that satisfied him, he fed a little, and buried the man by scratching up the ground in a wide circle, breaking small trees, uprooting brush, heaping it over the carcass. Then he lay down upon it and drowsed.