To the Bright Edge of the World

by Eowyn Ivey

  As was common to him, his mood shifted like quicksilver, so that I could not tell if my question amused or angered him, or only made him sad for some reason I could not fathom. There was a dangerous edge to his voice that made me wary.

  “Why Sophie — I finished it long ago. Don’t you recognize me?”

  Why had I not seen it before?

  “You have,” he said. “You know it well.”

  It was some sort of riddle, a trick. I tried to guess. Is it the figure with hood and staff? Not the horse with the long mane, or the sea serpent, dipping in and out of the earth?

  No. No. His laugh more like a cough, and he grabbed me up in his strong arms.

  “There I am,” he said, and he pointed to the bear.

  I should have known, for it had always been my favorite. I wish I had told him so.

  April 19

  At last! Oh, it fills me with such joy, and hope, oh dare I write that word “hope,” even if good sense cautions me otherwise. Yet how can I feel anything but elation, when I feel you swimming inside of me, little one?

  I was lying in this bed, as always, nearly drowsing, when it came. A flutter in my belly, as if with nerves. Or perhaps an oddly twitching muscle. I lay completely still and nothing more happened. I waited and waited until I had nearly given up, but then you surprised me again, little one. Was it a summersault, or did you wriggle and swim like a tadpole?

  It is you. I am certain of it now. My sweet little one, hold fast. I am here waiting for you.

  April 21

  Nearly three months Allen is gone now. The weather turns fair and warm, and oh great happiness, I am allowed to venture out of doors again. Still I am not permitted to walk far, so Charlotte brings me a chair so I can sit in our yard and watch the birds come and go. My notebook fills with observations and pitiable sketches. Dark-eyed junco, evening grosbeak, golden-crowned sparrow, song sparrow, a large flock of Canada geese in the far distance, and a solitary mallard drake that quacked as he flew overhead, as if he had lost his way.

  Now and then the baby turns about, as if to call for my attention. Here I am! It seems more and more like another presence within me, and I find myself speaking out loud to the baby. Do you hear that funny old duck, quacking away? Are you listening, little one? Can you hear the sound of my voice?

  I was speaking just like that when Charlotte suddenly appeared at my side with my dose of warm honey water. I started to explain that I wasn’t talking to myself but to the baby, and the girl must have seen my embarrassment.

  “Don’t bother ’bout it, ma’am. Whenever she’s expecting, Mam sings to her belly. She says it makes for happier babies.”

  So I am forgiven this eccentricity. And I am glad, for I do enjoy talking with you, little one. I will tell you all about the wild birds that I see, and I will try to imagine where your father is just now and what adventures he might meet. How I long for the day when he comes home to us.

  Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester

  April 21, 1885

  We came across a grisly scene this afternoon. Tillman & Boyd were stringing snares along the river for rabbits, while Pruitt remained in camp. Samuelson & I set out for a ravine in search of clean drinking water — the river becomes gray & sandy as spring advances.

  Within less than half a mile, the narrow creek valley turned rocky, steep enough to halt our progress. There we found the remains of an avalanche not unlike the one the Old Man set down upon us in the canyon. High above, we saw its path. Trees had been torn out by their roots, rocks & dirt churned into the deep snow that was now melting.

  At the end of this destruction were the corpses of two white animals so far into decay all that remained were loosened fur & discolored bones. Samuelson said they are what the Indians call tebay, a type of wild sheep that live in these mountains.

  A dozen or so ravens & magpies were gathered at the bone piles. They behaved strangely. They did not flap their wings or make to fly off, as one would expect, nor did they utter a sound. They were silent, watchful, & I felt their black eyes upon us as we turned our backs to them.

  April 22

  Now that we are through the canyon, we are no longer driven by fear that the ice will wash out. Instead hunger is our greatest menace.

  This far upriver, the main channel of the Wolverine remains frozen but is too precarious to travel. Much of the valley is now free of snow, so we have abandoned the sleds & rely on packs. Each of us will carry a sleeping bag, blanket, one change of underclothes. Carbines, pistols, ammunition, cooking utensils, account for much of the weight. Lieut. Pruitt continues to carry camera & science equipment. As for provisions, we could easily consume all that we have in three days, but will instead hold them as reserve. We must attempt to live upon the country. Already the men are weakened by hunger — Boyd still recovers from his hard winter, Pruitt seems to waste before our eyes.

  It is an uneasy balance, weighing progress in our travel each day with the need to look for food. We heard geese overhead early this morning. Though it is yet early in the spring, Samuelson says we may be fortunate enough to find nesting birds & so be rewarded with both roasted fowl & fried eggs. Such a meal would be very well received.

  April 23

  All evidence to the contrary, we had a good day’s travel. Our only sustenance was a few spoonfuls of beans for each of us in the morning. We then walked 10 miles over granite boulders, rocky shores, with no sign of game. Beset by hunger, the poor condition of our leather boots, & heavy pack loads, our pace was at times a stumbling shuffle.

  For all that, we were given blue skies & much sunshine, which carried our spirits. The mountains to the northeast become more visible. They are impressive indeed — their peaks gleam white with snow & ice, break through low-lying clouds.

  The riverbed continues to widen to an impressive span, so that it is easily more than a mile across of braided channels of ice. As the days warm, the ice loosens, begins to move. If we were to follow the many bends & twists in the river’s paths, we would double the distance we travel. Instead, we leap across the narrower streams, lay driftwood logs over others to build temporary bridges.

  April 24

  We traveled hard today. It’s after midnight, yet we have just set camp & I write by the fire. Earlier Boyd drew our attention to smoke rising out of the spruce trees several miles upriver. It will be a group of the Wolverine Indians we have heard so much about. We approach them with some apprehension, but also with hopes that they will have food enough to trade.

  Samuelson saw footprints in the gray mud along the river. Looks as if at least three men, several women & children, travel together. He advises us to salute the Indians with gunshot when we near them. It is a show of greeting & strength. The more rounds we fire, the more respect we earn in their eyes. In turn, the Indians will likely throw a feast in our honor.

  I hate to waste the ammunition.

  April 25

  An unnerving discovery, yet I am not sure how much to draw from it.

  This evening as we sought a place to sleep beneath the protection of spruce trees, Tillman came upon a bone. It was broken on one end. Near the break, teeth marks had scraped at the bone, as if the marrow had been sucked. It was weathered, but not so old as to be worn completely clean. Several strands of sinew were still attached. I asked what kind of bone it might be.

   — Leg of some sort, Samuelson said.

   — What’s been chewing on it, that’s what I’d like to know, Tillman said.

   — That there was just voles, whittling away at it, Samuelson said. — But these here larger marks, I can’t be sure. Porcupine. Fox. Something bigger had to break it open to get at the marrow. Any other sign around?

  We followed the sergeant to where he’d found it. Samuelson walked about, crouching now & then to scoop away spruce needles, fallen cones.

   — Yes sir, he finally said. — Suspected as much.

  In the palm of his hand he held a small plate of bone with str
ands of long, dark hair attached.

   — Looks to be part of a skull bone, he said. — Judging by the small leg bone, it was a child, I would guess.

  At this, Tillman let out a yelp, flung the leg bone to the ground.

  Samuelson said Midnooskies most likely cremate their dead or cache them in the branches of trees. We found no other sign. I asked him what he made of it. He only shrugged, eyed the ground & nearby trees.

   — Can’t really say one way or another.

  I think we all would have preferred to camp elsewhere, but we had run out of daylight. We unrolled our sleeping bags beneath the spruce trees, built a fire. We had killed no rabbits that day, found no geese, so we each soaked a small piece of hardtack in water. We face a hungry sleep.

  For a time we were all silent, so I thought the other men were drifting off to sleep. Tillman was the first to speak up. It’s always Tillman.

   — Those teeth marks, you think they might have been human?

   — Could be, Samuelson mumbled as if he had been woken.

  Boyd groaned. — Lord, why’d you have to go & ask that?

  I offered to take first shift to keep the fire going through the night. As the other men sleep, I write here in my journal, feed branches to the flames. Beyond the firelight, the forest is a wall of darkness. I hear nothing beyond the steady roar of the river & the occasional crackle of the fire.

  April 26

  We discovered a crude fish camp that likely had not been used since summer, searched for any bit of food left behind, to no avail. We continue to see sign of Midnooskies, though the Indians themselves remain out of sight. Smoke rises from campfires upriver, but they are extinguished before we can reach them.

   — They’re keeping their eyes on us, Samuelson says.

  We shot seven rabbits during the day, which we ate before the meat was fully cooked. We become more like the Indians every day. Our hunger, however, is not abated. A drizzling rain turned to snow, yet still we made good time. 14 miles.

  April 27

  After trailing the Midnooskies up the river, today we at last caught up with them. We fired several rounds, waited for response. We were greeted with silence, which Samuelson saw as bad sign. We spied their hide-covered shelter through the brush & approached with caution, as we did not know how many Indians were concealed within, or their character.

   — Do you think they’re man-eaters? Tillman whispered too loudly.

  Myself, I was not as concerned with the rumors of neighboring tribes, but instead the reports of the fiercely territorial behavior these Indians demonstrated with the Russians.

   — Hey, ho there, Samuelson called as we entered the clearing of their camp.

  Contrary to our fears, these Midnooskies proved to be a woebegone band. The children peeking from behind the hides were rail thin & vacant eyed; the adults crouched outside, clothed in the most ragged of furs. It was just as the skilly had warned us — a starving land.

  Against hope, we asked if we could perhaps trade for some food. The leader, a gaunt man with much scarring to his face, hesitated, then said he would trade us some dried salmon for tea & gun powder. He had a poor muzzle-loading shotgun that he said his grandfather had acquired from the Russians many years ago. He had several copper bullets that he had hammered himself in order to hunt moose. However, he said he has been without powder for some time.

  When he ordered one of the children to fetch us the salmon, an old woman began to shout at him & gesture wildly.

   — He will kill his own children if he takes this food from their mouths, the woman cried. It is all they have, Samuelson translated.

  The Indian ignored her pleas, showed the dried salmon to us.

   — Good God, I won’t touch the stuff! Tillman said.

   — When your stomach starts to gnawing at your backbone, you’ll eat it & be glad for it, was Samuelson’s reply.

  The withered flesh was moldy & putrid, looked as if it could make us more ill than not, but I took a small portion of what was offered. In exchange we gave him a sprinkling of tea, explaining that we were nearly without ourselves, & Tillman assisted with the gunpowder.

  When we asked if they had seen any geese come through, the Midnooskies were vague. The leader said he, too, had heard them fly overhead recently. Samuelson had trouble translating, but it seemed the Indian was making some kind of threat about the waterfowl.

   — Ah, he’s just trying to hornswoggle us! Tillman said. — They’re as hungry for those geese as we are.

  I was interested in gathering information about other Midnooskies in the area. The Indian informed us that a village is located up another river drainage, its confluence about 50 miles north of here.

  I asked through Samuelson if the village will greet us in a friendly manner.

  The Indian answered that the tyone, the Russian name they use for a kind of chief among their people, is powerful, wary of strangers, but beyond that he was unwilling to provide more insight.

  Did he know a passage through the mountains to the north? We plan to follow the Wolverine to its headwaters, but will need Indian guides to find the easiest way beyond.

  The man said he has never gone that far.

   — His people go to those mountains only after they die, Samuelson said. — They say it is a kind of spirit world. On the other side, you’re in the territory of their enemies.

  The Indian went on to say that the Trail River tyone is powerful, that he has no fear & that is why he is rich. He has traveled farther than any other Midnoosky.

   — Sounds like the tyone knows the way through the mountains, if he’ll tell you, Samuelson said.

  Boyd then attempted to speak to the Midnooskies in their language. Among his broken speech, I was able to discern the words for woman & fog, so that along with his gestures, I knew he asked after his wife. The Indians had no knowledge of her.

  After we left them, Tillman asked how we know they won’t follow us, kill us & eat us all.

   — They look hard up for food, he said.

   — I think you might be a bit gamey for their taste, Samuelson replied.

  Tillman said he didn’t find that much amusing.

  Samuelson advises me to pay my respects to this Trail River tyone. Though it will require us to travel out of our way in search of the village, I agree. Perhaps we will be able to employ him as a guide through the mountain passes or at least obtain some helpful information about the route.

  61°28’ N

  144°26’ W

  38°F, exposed bulb

  31°F, wet bulb

  Barometer: 29.20

  Dew point: 17

  Relative humidity: 41

  Clear.

  Oh, fearsome land. I enter the forge of ancient gods: vapors and glaciers and molten rock and time cleaved asunder. Any man would walk this world in awe, yet I am unaffected. I command you — shudder beneath my feet! Rain ice and broken rock down upon my broken head!

  And I, tin soldier that I am, will remain cold and unmoved.

  Sulphuret of copper and iron, veins of cold water quartz, green hornblende, sandstone and galena and felspathic granite.

  With black wing, beat down the subterranean flames, whisk away ash, bare the dead black in our hearts and the mad glint in our irises: copper knives, flakes of gold, bullets, and brass buttons. Do you not see? Savage white man and Indian alike, our eyes are agleam with it.

  The earth shook and trembled. Smoke out of his nostrils, fire out of his mouth devoured. He bowed the heavens; darkness was beneath his feet. He rode upon a cherub, and did fly yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.

  I would know this place, sudden and pure and without need of conscience or thought, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. I would weep from this longing to know. Instead, I can speak only to the commonest of sins — greed and cowardice, lust and wrath. I speak to them alone because they are written be
neath my skin.

  Midnoosky Copper Blade

  Sophie Forrester

  Vancouver Barracks

  April 23, 1885

  I wish Evelyn had told me none of it, for it is an unsettling revelation. I fear it explains something of Mr Pruitt. I try not to let it make me anxious for Allen, as surely he has led all sorts of men and knows Mr Pruitt far better than any barracks gossip can reveal, and more to the point, I am helpless in the face of it.

  It had been some time since I had a visit from Evelyn. She was gone to Portland for a shopping excursion for several days (the town of Vancouver, she says, offers nothing in the way of fashion, and all in the way of dust, saloons, and rowdy men.) When she returned, I was bed-ridden. She came by the house, but when Charlotte told her my condition, Evelyn promised to come another day. I cannot think she was respecting my privacy, but rather that she’s squeamish and did not care to sit at my bedside.

  Today, however, she found me in the sitting room, fully washed and clothed, and she expressed relief to see me presentable at last. Charlotte brought us tea, and we talked lightly for a while, but at last my irritation overcame my politeness. I asked her outright if she had told Mrs Connor of my pregnancy. “Well of course,” she said. She seemed bored by the conversation. “Surely everyone will know eventually. You can’t keep a baby hidden in your skirts forever. Why bother with all this secrecy?”

  Because I had asked for her confidence, as a friend, and because one should respect other people’s privacy. I daresay she puts no stock in these concerns. “Yes, yes, I am all apologies,” she said. “You can be so prickly, Sophie. But enough of all of this. I have heard some interesting news I’ve been dying to share” — and here she gave a dramatic pause and then — “about your Mr Pruitt.”

  “My” Mr Pruitt? Why would she refer to him in such a way?

  “Because he was clearly smitten with you at the dance. You must have noticed how he watched you all the night.”