To the Bright Edge of the World

by Eowyn Ivey

  Even Mr Audubon’s beautiful paintings that I have long admired — all were done in death. He would shoot the birds down, then re-create their beautiful details. I was foolish to not realize it sooner. Why, in our efforts to understand and observe life, must we so often snuff it out?

  Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester

  April 13, 1885

  We have seen the Aurora Borealis! Tillman woke us in the night. At first we all complained loudly, but when we brought our heads out of our sleeping bags, we understood his excitement. Sheets of eerie green light wavered in the clear dark sky, then shifted, turned, shot through with purplish red. The brightness was enough to put a glow over the white mountaintops. We were struck silent.

  Nearby the Indians were also awake. Several whispered, pointed to the northeast where a large wedge-shaped mountain was illuminated by the auroras.

  This morning over breakfast we learned more. Skilly says this mountain has its own mysterious power, not unlike that of the Aurora Borealis. For as long as he can recall, the mountain has emitted smoke, fire. Often the earth shakes. Deep rumblings can be heard. They say the mountain spirit is both great & dangerous. Before we leave this morning to travel past the active volcano, the Indians insist on smearing their faces with charcoal, ash, mixed with water into a muddy paste. All but the young woman, who seems defiant.

  I asked Samuelson about her.

   — She likes to stir up trouble, he said. He pointed to the scrap of bear pelt she sleeps on.

   — No good. Bears are strong spirits. Only the men are supposed to look at them, much less lay hand on their hides. See, she’s got nothing to lose. She’s young, but they say she’s barren & that it’s her own fault.

  I studied the young woman. She is slightly younger than Sophie, perhaps 20 or 25, but there is something older in her thin face — a sharpness to her features that speaks of hardship.

  Samuelson said she disobeyed her family to run off with that otter husband of hers. They had already promised her to a chief’s younger brother. When she came back home, she took to hunting & wandering alone.

   — She comes & goes as if there aren’t any rules. No one will have her now.

  I asked if he knew her name.

   — I don’t know what they used to call her, but now it’s Nat’aaggi, he said. — Like the geese & cranes that fly through when the seasons change, on their way to someplace else, never stopping for long, always looking for a better place to be.

  At last, the weather has allowed Pruitt to take his readings, calculate our location. He estimates we are a day from the canyon.

  Samuelson warns me that the Indians will likely refuse to go beyond. With the ice weakening, it is considered dangerous passage. I regret our decision to hold back at Boyd’s cabin these past days. We saw no more sign of the caribou despite hunting far across the river in the direction they fled.

  Equally frustrating is the lack of reliable information. The Indians who travel with us warn that the river will break up within the week. When we met a small band of Midnooskies traveling downriver to trade with the Eyaks, one said the ice was still strong up to the canyon. Yet another in the very same group disagreed, said there is already open water only a few miles upstream.

  Tillman asked what we should do if the river gives way while we’re traveling through the canyon.

   — Say your prayers, if you’re the praying type, Samuelson said. — From what the Midnooskies tell, there won’t be any escaping up those cliff walls. Hard, vertical rock. Hundreds of feet up on either side.

  Pruitt asked if there is no way to travel around the canyon.

   — Through those mountains? You’d be slowing yourselves by weeks, maybe more. Not sure you’d even be able to find a way. This is rough, glacier country. You could run into a gorge or crevasse that would stop you dead in your tracks.

  I was impatient with the discussion. Our success depended entirely on traveling through the canyon with the river still frozen. Everyone from Haigh back to the Russians had proven it.

  It seemed Boyd could read my expression.

   — I suspect your Colonel thought all this through well before now, he said.

  I am glad Samuelson & Boyd continue to accompany us up the river. Since Boyd says the ‘color didn’t pan out’ in the creeks near his cabin this past year, Samuelson is keen to explore upriver of the canyon where there is rumored to be gold & copper. Boyd’s condition, however, concerns me. He is thin, weak, distracted. I suspect he goes on in hopes of finding his Indian wife.

  April 15

  We have suffered a considerable loss, delayed our expedition even further. I can blame no one but myself.

  As we travel towards the mountains, the Wolverine narrows, deepens, the ice collapses to the center of the river. Samuelson says it is unsafe, so we keep near the shore, where we must traverse the mouths of creeks that flow out of the mountains into the Wolverine.

   — I don’t like it, the trapper repeated often. — That water would be over our heads, & the ice is weak.

  I began to think him overly cautious. At my urging, we passed quickly over the creeks without incident.

  We eventually came to a much larger crossing.

   — This is not one of your little trickles, Colonel, Samuelson said. — I do believe this is Half Mountain River. Under that ice, it’s a powerful current. We don’t want to take a swim here.

  He advised we travel up Half Mountain River to find a safer crossing. It would push us a mile out of our way, perhaps more, the path slowed by deadfall trees.

  Or we could risk this hundred yards, pass over it in minutes. The ice was blown clear of snow but for a few small drifts, & appeared thick, unbroken, rose several feet before dropping down into the Wolverine.

  I asked if the crown wasn’t strong.

   — Maybe. All the same, I’d advise against it.

  Downstream of the crown, the ice sloped sharply towards the Wolverine. The ice sunk dark & low.

   — But it’s just a hop across, Tillman said. — Why, I’ll wager we can make it, if we run quick.

  The trapper has never steered me wrong. Yet I begrudged another delay, which might be enough to jeopardize our passage through the canyon. I ordered that we would cross, one by one.

  Pruitt volunteered & traversed the mound of ice first, pulling a sled behind him, with no sign of difficulty. Once he was safely across, I followed. Most precarious was the slippery footing, yet the ice stayed solid beneath me.

  Tillman came next.

   — It’s slicker than a greased eel, he said as he neared the crest.

  At these words, his sled veered just enough off the crown to begin to slide down towards the Wolverine. As the sled gained momentum, it yanked Tillman’s feet out from under him, & he too slipped. As he & the sled slid down onto that dark, thin ice, the sled broke through first, then Tillman, so that he was chest-deep in water.

  His sled was heavy, loaded with the last of the caribou meat as well as a large portion of our flour, rice, beans. The current was swift enough to suck it beneath the ice & into the main flow of the Wolverine. Still Tillman held its tether. Even as Pruitt & I ran back across, leaving our sleds behind, I could see Tillman’s feet shift beneath him. He leaned forward with all his weight so that his shoulders were submerged. He was losing ground, nearing the point where he would be dragged out into the big river. Once he was pulled beneath the ice, there would be no saving him.

  I yelled for him to release the sled.

  He growled like an animal as he fought the current.

   — Save yourself, for God’s sake. Let it go!

  I then saw the trouble. The tether was tied about his chest, to make pulling easier, but now it trapped him.

  The Indian Skilly was quicker than any of us. He jumped into the water beside Tillman, a knife in hand, & slashed the tether. The sled was lost.

  Samuelson handed me a long driftwood pole. I lowered the end to
the men, helped each climb out of the water onto the icy shore. Tillman’s body quaked, from both the cold & the loss I suspect.

   — I’ve done it, Colonel. D —— d us good, I have.

  The blame was all mine. I told him so. I should have followed Samuelson’s advice. The trapper, however, was kind enough to not point out my folly. He wrapped his own dry coat around Tillman’s shoulders. We stood & watched as the dog ran down the shore of the Wolverine, as if it chased some grind or clunk of the sled beneath the ice that we could not hear.

  We camp tonight near the creek that claimed our stores. Our supplies are reduced to meager indeed. Less than a month into Alaska, perhaps a year still ahead of us, our remaining food will last us only weeks. We must be resourceful & also count on the good will of the natives we meet upriver.

  Samuelson sets out snares to check at dawn. The snowshoe hares have little meat & no fat, but we will subsist on them as the Indians do.

  Tomorrow we follow Samuelson’s advice after all & travel up this valley to seek a better crossing. We must then make our way back down the opposite bank to retrieve Pruitt’s sled. Two days lost instead of one. I am only thankful Tillman is alive & well.

  Sophie Forrester

  Vancouver Barracks

  March 24, 1885

  At last some news of Allen. The general sent word that he and his men have arrived at Perkins Island, but they have so far been unable to cross the sound. I am glad to know he is safe and well. Yet more than a month has passed, and they have not even reached the mainland of Alaska!

  These past weeks I studied the map and tried to picture them already traveling up the Wolverine River and into that empty, unmapped territory. I sped them along, my finger skimming the paper through a land of pleasant weather, friendly natives, easy walking. Might they travel even more quickly than they hoped? At this rate, they could be home in another month. I should never have allowed it, but one night I imagined them all the way to the western coast and home in time for Allen to place his hands on my swollen belly.

  To learn instead that his journey hasn’t even truly begun, it is a heartbreak indeed. I could brush away my worry when he had only just left, but now, against my will, my brain conjures river ice that cracks into swift water, and Indians who dress in furs and eat their enemies.

  March 28

  It is past dark now, and I shiver beneath the covers and long for sleep. A gale whips the fir trees around the cabin and sleet pecks at the window; I think the dreary weather must account some for my restlessness. This bed was never so cold and empty when Allen was here. Even with Charlotte tucked in across the hall, I feel wholly alone. The house creaks and groans, and I hear some board or branch outside that knocks in the wind. I do not usually possess a fearful imagination, but I could almost expect a “rapping at my chamber door.”

  I have given myself a chill to recall Mr Poe’s lines. It is absurd, for they are just words of poetry, and this house is no different than when Allen slept here beside me. Yet it is. If only I could hear Allen, his voice in another room and know that he was soon coming to bed. In the warmth and comfort of his arms, sleep would soon be upon me.

  Instead my only company are the books at my bedside. Illustrations of deformed organs and stillborn infants, descriptions of all the ways one might die in childbirth — the stuff of nightmares surely.

  The photography book, on the other hand, numbs my brain, with its “depth of focus” and “width of angle” and chemical formulae, but I will turn to those pages, for at least they might lull me to sleep.

  March 30

  Such a coincidence. It is as if I conjured Mr Poe’s raven. Last night I wrote of a “rapping at my chamber door,” and this morning I woke to the noisy calls of a raven outside the bedroom window. It was much too late to be sleeping, well past dawn, yet there I was still bundled beneath the wool blankets. I did not know at first what had wakened me, but then I heard another throaty “caaaaww” and a gurgle, something akin to water being drained from a narrow-necked bottle.

  I wrapped myself in my shawl, went to the window and saw the bird hopping about on the grass just in front of the largest fir tree. Its right leg is deformed in some way so that its movements are lurching and strange.

  I have spotted many of his smaller cousins, the crows, on my walks down by the millpond, but not many of these larger, more impressive specimens. If I were to heed Mother’s advice, I should have quickly drawn the curtains. Despite her devotion to reading, teaching, and the Society of Friends, she is astonishingly superstitious about the natural world. The notion that ravens are harbingers of death! I recall once when a local woman bore a stillborn child, Mother told me that she had spied the woman throwing scraps to a raven in her yard just days before.

  I suppose these nonsensical ideas arise from the birds’ scavenger nature and their midnight color. Myself, I have always found them quite fascinating. It is said that they are considerably more intelligent than they are given credit, that they can be trained to speak and perform tricks.

  “Birds and Bird-Life” has never been one of my favorite books; it is a bit too fanciful for my liking, but it does include some interesting stories about the various species. For example, Mr Buckland reports that a raven will pluck the eyes out of a sick lamb. I confess it startled me after reading this passage, when I then peeked through the bedroom curtains again to see the bird still on the lawn, black feathers disarrayed about its head, head cocked with an eye toward me. I actually jumped when it opened its great black beak and cawed.

  Oh, and now I am doing precisely what I find so frustrating about this book. Mr Buckland would personify this bird as an impudent “busy body,” always teasing and playing jokes, and I would turn the bird into a fright. I should like more rational, objective observations. I want to know the facts of this creature. What does it eat? How does it court? Where are its nests to be found?

  This, however, is interesting. Mr Buckland states that ravens may live as many as a hundred years! Could it be so? Perhaps this noisy old bird outside my window has seen more than we can ever know.

  March 31

  So stupid of me! To lose the most precious gift I have ever been given!

  Just after breakfast, I decided to take a walk along the lane and down through the barracks. Though it is a trifling distance compared to my previous excursions, it lifts my spirits all the same. Not far beyond the Baileys’ home, I noticed a nest high up in the branches. I longed for a closer look, so walked the short distance into the trees. A few twigs and damp leaves had stuck to my hat along the way, so I removed it to shake off the bits.

  It was only when I had returned to the lane and walked for a time that I realized the comb had fallen from my hair. Oh why did I wear it out of doors like this!

  When I realized it was missing, I returned to the place where I thought I had removed my hat, but search as I may, I could not find the comb. A flushed panic overcame me and I was nearly to tears.

  And then I spotted it! It was in the wet grass just across from the Bailey house. I was so glad, and was just beginning to walk toward it, when that raven — the one with the deformed leg that has been frequenting the yard — swooped in and landed just a few feet from the comb.

  "Go on, shoo!" I shouted.

  I don’t think I understood before just how large and intimidating these birds can be. It was the size of a house cat, and its black beak looked strong enough to snip off my fingers. It shook its wings at me and hobbled about in its strange way. I trusted that it would take flight. Instead, it stepped closer to the comb, and pecked at it once, twice. I yelled and waved my arms. And then, to my astonishment, it snatched the comb up in its beak! I lost all fear and was overcome with anger. I ran at the bird, but it flapped its wings, hopped, and took to the air. It flew toward a stand of trees, and I thought for a moment it might land on a branch and somehow drop the comb. Instead, the raven kept to the air, flew over the tops of the trees, and continued on his way. Flew away! Wi
th my lovely comb!

  I am positively sick with guilt. It was a treasure to me, both as a gesture of Allen’s affection and for its own beauty. And I am afraid I attached some superstitious quality to it — I hoped to wear it every day until Allen returned safely.

  April 2

  I do not know that I have ever been so frightened. I am bleeding. It is slight, almost imperceptible, but oh so brilliantly red and terrifying. If these same drops were from a pinprick at my finger, I would not give it any notice, but this blood I cannot ignore. It was with tremendous dread, but when I discovered it, I asked Charlotte to please fetch Dr Randall.

  Hope still lives. The minutes were agonizing as he searched with stethoscope, but at last he found the heartbeat. He conceded that if the bleeding soon stops, I may yet carry the child to term, but he offered little assurance. He has prescribed opium tincture, and has ordered me to remain in bed with my feet elevated day and night. I am to call for him if the bleeding does not stop. He says there is little else to be done, except to rest and wait.

  When I asked how long this confinement might last, he said as long as I am so fortunate as to bear a living child.

  And then, as he stood to leave, he placed his hand upon my beside table and looked down to see his book. He exhaled sharply, as if in surprise, then picked it up. For some time, he flipped through its pages, and I saw he lingered on a section. He then set it back down on the table, thumped it with his forefinger several times, shook his head as if I were a fool, and left.

  If only I could hear your voice just now, Allen. What would you say to comfort me? But you are half a world away, and I must brave this alone.

  April 4

  “Does it make you happy, Mrs Forrester, to know all of this?”

  Still I cannot answer Dr Randall’s question. To know that I am not whole, that my womb is deformed. To know the terrible odds. A flip of the coin, he said, and while it sounds cavalier, I suspect it is the truth — according to the book, half of such pregnancies thrive, the other half abort spontaneously. Often a rupture or infection kills the mother as well. How can I say I am glad to know this?