To the Bright Edge of the World

by Eowyn Ivey

  The Indians wait for the steamboat with rifles in arms. All in all, this cabin downstream seemed a better place to spend the night. It holds no food or supplies. It does, however, provide comfortable enough quarters. It is a quiet & picturesque spot, with a creek running nearby.

  Pruitt was the first to notice the large tusk lying in the creek bed, just a foot or so beneath the clear running water. Wooly mammoth, he says, from thousands of years ago. It is the same as the ones we saw in the mountain pass.

  July 29

  Pruitt today asked me if he might find some peace along this creek. It struck me as odd. All that we have seen & endured in this territory, peace was not among them. I said as much.

   — There is a certain stillness at the center of it, he said. — You must feel it, too?

  I looked where he did, down where the clear water washed over the mammoth tusk. He said that it was perhaps the creek. I could not follow all he said, as his speech had a rambling quality to it, but he talked about the immensity of it, drop by drop down the mountain valleys, then this rush out to sea.

   — That is a comfort, isn’t it? he said. — Each day, we rise. Wash in cold water. Gather wood for the fire. Eat to stay alive. The next day, do the same again. Maybe it can be simple enough when so reduced.

  There’s also rain & mosquitoes & rotten salmon & walking for days on end while your boots rot off your feet, I offered, but he was too focused on his own philosophy to see my humor.

  Elemental. That is the word he used again & again. Hunger, sun, cold. Pure unto themselves. No false veil between a man & the world around him, he said. No pretenses. Nothing to hide behind.

  I supposed that is what a man like Samuelson finds in this country.

  Pruitt then told me he would like to spend his last days here.

  It took me aback. Did he mean to kill himself?

   — I think I would like to live here alone for a time, he said.

  Just then a group of ducks floated down the stream. We watched as they bobbed in the current near the far bank.

   — At Elk Creek, sir, I was no bystander or deserter.

  We were both of us quiet for some time.

   — That might have been tolerable, he went on. — To have watched & done nothing & live with that shame alone. To have fled & been shot. That would have been a relief. I might have wished for it even.

  Men who are afraid often make poor choices, I said.

   — That cannot explain the capability, he said. — Don’t you think evil itself must exist already inside of a man for him to commit such acts?

  I could not give him an answer except to say that for all creation men have done such things, the strong misusing the weak. Every civilization has its own versions of cruelty.

   — I’ve spent the past three years telling myself that, but it does me no good, Colonel. It’s as if that day I entered hell itself, &, God help me, I cannot find my way back out again.

  He began, then, to weep openly.

   — Forgive me, Colonel. Forgive me, he said.

  It is not for me to forgive him. Who on earth can? A boy like him was never suited for war. It saddens me, to think of the young Andrew Pruitt, intelligent yet so feeble-hearted. Had he been a school teacher or a lecturer, he never would have been tested so, never would have faced his own moral deficiency.

   — Do you read the Bible, Colonel? he asked.

  I admitted that I did not. Religion has never held much interest for me.

   — There is a poetry to it, he said. — That’s what always draws me back to it. Even with all the ways it fails, I can still find that to admire. The poetry of it. At my best, I imagine it the highest of arts. An expression of what we wish we could be. There is hope in our wanting to be something better, even if we never manage it. Maybe that is what I can hold to. The wanting. Do you know what I mean, sir?

  I am not sure I do. All that matters is how a man lives in this world.

  Pruitt has given me his journals. I expected detailed notes of flora, fauna, geology, & the like. Not this. I have asked him to copy out all the pages of meteorological readings & mapping data. As for his rambling entries, they serve no purpose in our reports to headquarters, but would rather be an embarrassment. They are nearly incomprehensible. Yet he says he would like me to have them.

  He officially resigns his commission. I will arrange for his salary to be paid through the trading post at St. Michael’s. When we meet up with the steamboat, we can likely obtain enough supplies to sustain him until then.

  I take him at his word, that he seeks a life here & not a death. I hope I do right in agreeing to his resignation.

  Indians passed through our camp this morning with news — the steamboat nears Nulato.

  64°42’ N

  158°08’ W

  Rain.

  Prevailing winds from the west.

  I am set down in this valley. A cold wind washes over me like water over unearthed bones.

  The land is open and wide and blown clear. The mountains are far.

  Can something half-dead and rotted to pale be resurrected? Can the clean breath of this land enter me?

  From whom shall I beg forgiveness?

  And I will lay sinews upon you, and will spring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live.

  Thou knowest.

  Written aboard the steamboat Yukon, bound for the coast of Alaska

  August 1, 1885

  My dear Sophie,

  These words do not come easily to me. Since I received your letter at Tetling, I have been seized with such emotion as I cannot express.

  I am not like you. I am ill-equipped to know, much less speak of, my heart. Yet as I waited to board the steamboat, I recalled an incident from my childhood that has allowed me some small understanding of myself.

  My cousin Robert & I planned to sail to Africa to search for the source of the Nile. We drew maps, made our supply list, & for months wrote letters to one another about our impending expedition. I was 10, Robert two years older. I looked up to him a great deal.

  It was my poor mother who had to inform me on a summer day that Robert had drowned trying to swim across the family pond. She must have expected me to collapse into her & weep, for I was still a child, but I did not. Instead I ran to my upstairs bedroom & retrieved the box where I kept our maps & plans. I opened my bedroom window & threw it all out, so that the papers scattered through the trees & the wooden box shattered in the yard. I did not cry. Anger was all I could comprehend.

  Your letter cut me deeply, Sophie. How could you so belittle me as to think that I would abandon you or lose my love for you because you suffer some ailment beyond your influence? In so few words, you lessened every act of love between us.

  I cannot explain all that we have encountered on this journey, though I will share my diaries so that you might know as much as I. Yet even as we marched, half-starving & faced something of our nightmares, all the while I thought of you & our child & knew I would endure any hardship in order to return home.

  Can you then know how much your letter robbed of me, not just to learn that we will not have a child, but to know that you could doubt my love? Did you believe that I loved you only for a mother you might be, rather than the woman you are? When I looked up to see you in a treetop with the schoolchildren, I fell in love with your courage & intellect & sweet voice. I thought, ‘I should like to climb trees & mountains with this woman.’ All those afternoons at the boarding house when I courted you, we did not talk of children — we talked about what I had seen of the wild country & all that you hoped to see. I was to show you Yosemite; you were to teach me the names & songs of all the birds. As we grew braver in our affection, what did we whisper of but how we would spend nights together in a tent? Was all this forgotten?

  Sophie, it is our loss together, this child & all others that might have been born in our future, but it surely it is not all that b
inds us together? You left the schoolhouse, I would leave the Army, so that we might have the life each of us has always desired.

  Yet I see now, recalling Robert’s death, that I am quick to anger in the face of grief. I read of your anguish & loneliness, yet I was stranded thousands of miles away. I could do nothing in your aid.

  I have calmed & can now comprehend that you did not set out to injure me with your words, but instead to share with me your truest pain.

  I have not been so brave. I have kept things from you & you are right to question me. It was not from any lack of respect for you, for you possess more insight than many officers I have known. Nor is it shame on my part — I have endeavored to be good & decent even in the throes of warfare.

  There have been grim days, though, I will say that now. At times it has been at my orders, even my own hand. Even within the bounds of order, morality can be hard found.

  You asked me about the day with the telegraph machine. I will tell you now. I had accepted the surrender of a renegade band of Indians, with my promise that I would send them back to their reservation to be with their families if they agreed to our terms. Once the Indians were within my custody, however, I received orders from Washington, D.C., to march them to Florida, where they would be incarcerated in the dungeons of Fort Marion.

  I did everything in my power, but my superiors were not to be persuaded. In the end, I was made to break my word. It sickens me all the more to know that many of the Indians, acclimated to the deserts of the Southwest, perished in their dank cells.

  Can you understand my reticence now? Not only to be forced to recall the incident but then to speak of it? I would not cast such a shadow over you.

  Yet I did a discredit to your fortitude. I should have remembered that you, too, have known grief. You are by no means naïve or unwitting, yet somehow you still find beauty in each day. It is a gladdening thought, & one that saves me just now.

  I am able to count on my hands the number of men I have left in the field, & now I come home without Lieut. Pruitt. He is well provisioned, improves in physical health. Yet I cannot be sure I do well by him. He is unsteady & irritable of heart. I leave him along the Yukon River, a land more tame than the Wolverine River, but this wild territory is still beyond our explanation.

  I can find no means to account for what we have witnessed, except to say that I am no longer certain of the boundaries between man & beast, of the living & the dead. All that I have taken for granted, what I have known as real & true, has been called into question.

  I am certain only of this — I come home to you in love.

  Allen

  Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester

  August 2, 1885

  St. Michael’s

  We left Pruitt near Nulato. It seems a desolate outpost. I asked again if he would fare well alone, to which he replied that it was his last hope, as he could no longer find such hope in humanity. A gloomy answer indeed. Yet I see little choice but to honor his resignation. There were firm handshakes all around. I left him a spare pencil I still had in my possession. He thanked me. He also asked me to give his good wishes to Sophie.

  Despite the unrest at Nulato, Tillman, Nataggi, & I then boarded the steamboat with little incident. We did, however, encounter some difficulty in enticing Boyo to come aboard.

  Tillman, true to nature, was engaged in a fistfight with a white trader before the night was out. I suspect it had something to do with Nat’aaggi, though none of the parties involved would give explanation. Considering we are so near the end of our journey, I chose not to pursue the matter further.

  We arrived this afternoon at St. Michael’s on Norton Sound, where we will wait for the revenue cutter. I hoped that I would find a letter from Sophie waiting for me, but there is none. I try hard not to think on it.

  The young Mr. Troyer, the trading agent for the Yukon area, has welcomed us with much hospitality. Tillman & I have been given quarters in his home. Today was devoted to arranging back pay for Pruitt & additional supplies to be sent to him.

  We now have little to do but wait for the revenue cutter. No one can provide an estimate on its arrival — it could be within days or as long as a month. Never have I been so anxious to return home. More than once I have pictured myself jumping into the cold gray waves to swim south.

  St. Michael’s is a sparse settlement. There is but the Alaska Commercial Co. post, some small & weather-beaten houses, the old Russian church. Only a few outbuildings remain of the Russian fort. The way these structures are set out on this small point into Norton Sound, with long views in all directions over seascape & vast, treeless land, the ocean wind whipping at it, it is as if we have reached the edge of the world.

  August 3

  I read most of the day, catching up on a stack of newspapers in Mr. Troyer’s office. He must be an avid reader, Mr. Troyer, for every shelf & desktop is piled with newspapers & books.

  Tillman & Nat’aaggi have wandered off together. The dog has chosen to sit at my feet while I read & I do not mind.

  August 5

  After traveling for months on end, it is unnatural to be still for so long. I am impatient beyond measure to return to Sophie.

  Mr. Troyer tries to engage me in frequent conversation. He is a philosophizer with little opportunity in this territory, but I make a poor partner in such discussions. He asks much about our journey. I have relayed some of the more bizarre details.

   — Amazing! Simply amazing! But what do you make of it all? he has asked enough times to become a bother.

  Make of it? Is it not enough that we survived? The more Mr. Troyer burdens me with such talk, the more I avoid his company.

  Tillman is restless, too, though I do not think he is keen to leave. Nat’aaggi does not make her plans known. Could she intend to travel south with us on the ship? It seems unlikely. Yet it is equally implausible that Tillman will want to part from her. She keeps her feelings concealed, from what I can tell, but he is clearly lovesick.

  The three of us often walk along the gray beach together. Tillman throws sticks for the dog, though Boyo is wary of the water. Nat’aaggi has found a few sea-shells.

  This afternoon Tillman & I came across some houses for the dead near the shore. They are cone-shaped constructions of drift wood, with the body laid inside & wrapped in cloth & animal skins.

  August 6

  All these days at the beach & rocky points, I find nothing suitable.

  Nat’aaggi asked me today what I seek. I told her I look for some small gift to bring to my wife — a feather, a pretty sea-shell, perhaps even the egg-shells of some shorebird.

  August 7

  We were invited to an Innuit meal. Their favorite food seems to be seal oil, which they eat voraciously, dipping with fingers from bowl to mouth. Tillman & I politely declined. We did, however, venture a go with their dessert — a whipped concoction of seal oil, berries, & tallow. It looked appetizing, almost like a sweet cream, but we could each only manage a few bites.

  August 9

  More than a week with no sign of the revenue cutter. I cannot tolerate this waiting.

  August 11

  Today Nat’aaggi brought two Innuit boys to me. Their English is quite good. She told them I wanted to find an egg for my wife.

   — To eat? one of the boys asked.

   — No, I said. — She thinks they are pretty. Just the shells would be fine.

  At this they became quite animated, beckoned for me to follow them. They led me away from the sea, out through the grass & hummocks. We walked for so long, I thought perhaps they led me on a wild chase. Now & then they would poke around in the low bushes, but then continue their walking.

  At last one of them shouted with excitement.

  They had indeed found a small nest. It had long since been abandoned but inside the bed of grass & feathers were two broken shells.

  The boys indicated that often these nest hold as many as a dozen eggs. The villagers gather them to e
at in the spring.

  I thanked them, gave them each a coin, carefully collected the bits of shell.

  When I showed them to Nat’aaggi, thanked her for her assistance, she indicated I needed something to put them in. A tin can will be fine, I said.

  August 13

  Tillman has spiffed himself up for the evening. There is a gathering at the trading company. Several villages will bring in their furs. They will celebrate with a feast & dance.

  Tillman borrows my Indian moose-hide jacket. He thinks it will impress Nat’aaggi. He spent a long time in front of the mirror, readying himself. He still looks a frightful mountain man, I joked, & the jacket is too small for him. He was all seriousness. He said he would dance with her tonight, find out once & for all if she loves him.

  He asked if I wouldn’t come, too.

   — I hear these Eskimo men are something at wrestling, he said. — Wonder if we could best them?

  I declined, told him I have never been much for socializing, but I wished him a good time.

  Sophie Forrester

  Vancouver Barracks

  July 8

  The second humming bird chick has broken from its shell. The mother bird leaves her nest only briefly, but spends most hours brooding over her newborns.

  I now know the limit of my days, for within three weeks they will fledge, and the mother bird will have no need to return. The only chance I have to catch her image is when she is perched, in stillness, in a place where I have already focused my camera. The nest is my only hope.

  Last night I developed what plates I have. Even in the negative, I can see the mother bird in focus, the lines sharp and the textures varied. It is exhilarating indeed, yet I do not lose sight of my original desire. It is the light that I must come to understand.

  July 12

  Evelyn is most disappointed with me, and I do feel as if I have behaved poorly as a friend. I did not attend the Fourth of July festivities in Portland, though she begged, for I had no desire to brave the pressing crowds, roman candles, and cannons. And then I again declined an invitation from her, this time to resort to the coast for several days to take in the sea air. I would not leave the nest.