Beside Still Waters

by AnnaLee Conti

“You’ll soon see!” John’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he chuckled. “The previous locomotives were tea kettles compared to this one. It took three of them pulling and another one pushing from behind to get the train up these steep grades. The railroad bed rises nearly three thousand feet in elevation in only twenty-one miles—a very steep grade for a train that’s not only carrying passengers but also freight and supplies from the coast to the Yukon.”

  They climbed aboard the day coach, and John seated Violet by the window on the left side. “I’ve been this way many times. I want you to see all the sights unobstructed.”

  The bench was barely wide enough to accommodate the two of them. Glancing around the narrow car, Violet recognized people she had seen on board the Princess May. She smiled and John nodded at several of them.

  She nestled against John just as the bell clanged, and the conductor walked through the car collecting the passengers’ tickets. When he came to them, he greeted his acquaintance with a questioning lift of his eyebrow. John introduced his new wife, and congratulations followed.

  “Everyone’s so friendly here. Does everyone know everyone else in the North?”

  John could only nod in answer as with a loud whistle and a hiss of steam, the train chugged slowly forward, gaining speed. After a few miles of a gentle rise through green-forested terrain along a rushing river John called the Skagway, black smoke billowed from the stack as the train began to zigzag up the steep slope toward White Pass.

  John pointed out a thin path paralleling the railroad bed still visible below. “That’s where thousands of gold seekers plodded on foot, along with their beasts of burden, more than fifteen years ago.”

  “They walked there?” Violet asked. “I never dreamed the trek was this rough.”

  Soon, they were crossing ice fields. Across the canyon, white streams slid down steep slopes into a deep gorge. “These are some of the white rivulets I so admired from the ship, aren’t they?” Violet asked. At John’s nod, she added, “From a distance, I didn’t realize the mountainsides were this rugged.”

  As the train continued to ascend, Violet stifled a gasp at the steep drop-off from the train’s dizzying heights into another gully far below. The train swayed like a drunkard. She clutched John’s arm. “I can’t see the rails! If I didn’t hear the clacking of the wheels, I’d think we were flying through thin air.”

  John laughed and pulled her close. “It just looks scary. It’s perfectly safe.”

  He pointed ahead to a granite boulder marked by a black cross just below the track. “That hundred-ton rock tore loose in a blast and buried two men there in 1898. The cross marks their resting place.”

  Violet shuddered. “Their poor families!”

  “Yes, it is sad.”

  “How many men did it take to build the railroad?”

  “Around thirty-five thousand men worked on it at one time or another during the twenty-six months of construction—”

  “That’s the size of a small city.”

  “Everything had to be done by hand. Interestingly, it was the most highly educated work force ever assembled—doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other professional men who had come north in search of gold but didn’t make it to the Klondike.”

  “That’s sad, isn’t it? They didn’t get to fulfill their dreams.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for them. They probably earned more money working on the railroad than most stampeders did in the Klondike. Only a few made it rich there.”

  Violet glanced out her window. “Look at all those waterfalls.” She swung her head toward the glass across the aisle and back again to see more white water cascading from snow high above on one side, under the bridge, and on down the valley.

  “Bridal Veil Falls!” John grinned. “Appropriate name for us newlyweds, don’t you think?”

  Violet blushed and ducked her head, hoping that none of the other passengers had heard.

  “They tell me that as many as twenty-two cataracts have been sighted tumbling down this gorge from the ice fields above.”

  “It’s so beautiful. They glisten like silver in the sunlight.”

  At a sign for Glacier Station, the train halted.

  “We’re stopping to take on more water,” John told her. “The engine requires a lot of water as well as coal to create a head of steam big enough to power us up and over White Pass.”

  Before long, the train inched forward again along the face of the mountainside. Dead ahead of them, a perpendicular barrier of solid rock jutted out. Startled, Violet opened her mouth to ask how the train would get around it when she spotted a gaping black hole. “How on earth did they dig that?”

  “With nothing but manpower, horses, shovels, picks, and hundreds of tons of black powder,” John said. “They had to dig two hundred fifty feet through solid rock.” His voice became animated as darkness enclosed them. “Those men manhandled machinery and equipment up the sides of these steep cliffs a thousand feet from the floor of the gulch below. They hacked and blasted through the dead of winter, often in fifty below weather, dangling in ropes over sheer drop-offs, buffeted by high winds and incessant snow.”

  Violet gasped, and John continued. “It’s amazing that only thirty-five men died in the railway’s construction, most of them from pneumonia or influenza not accidents.”

  As the train emerged back into the sunlight, the admiration shining from John’s eyes shot a pang of fear through Violet’s heart. Had she married a man who craved adventure like the stampeders and would run off to try to accomplish some impossible feat? Would she lose him too? Instead of asking, though, she merely commented as calmly as she could, “They must have really wanted this railroad.”

  “You bet! Conditions were so brutal at times they could work only in one-hour shifts so their fingers and toes wouldn’t freeze.”

  “Do you think it was worth it?”

  “Oh yes! Once the ‘Railway Built of Gold’ was completed in August of 1900, the weeks-long, torturous trek from Skagway to Whitehorse had been tamed to a one-day ride on the railroad. From there, they could board a sternwheeler and float down the Yukon River six hundred miles to the goldfields near Dawson City.”

  “The train ride is certainly comfortable so far,” Violet said.

  John nodded, but his expression saddened. “Unfortunately, the stampede had peaked by the time the railway was completed.” His face brightened. “But it opened up the Yukon to other kinds of mining. Gold seekers discovered copper near Whitehorse. Last year, hard rock silver was discovered along the Stewart River, a tributary of the Yukon in the Mayo District upstream from Dawson City, ores I’ll be transporting on the Yukon Belle.”

  Violet could no longer hold back her fear of being left alone in this wild country if John were to be overcome with an attack of wanderlust. Trying to sound nonchalant, she asked, “Are you sorry you missed the excitement of the Gold Rush and building the White Pass Railway?”

  John studied her face. “No, don’t worry! I admire the ingenuity and grit that built this railway, but I won’t go off and leave you alone if I can help it. Piloting the Yukon Belle provides me with enough drama.”

  How did he do that? Once again, John had answered the unasked question behind her words. He was so sensitive to her feelings. How she admired this near stranger she’d married!

  A sudden turn threw the train out along a shelf of the mountain range. A long, steep, heavily wooded valley dropped away from the tracks.

  “O-o-h! How beautiful! Isn’t that Skagway way down there?” Violet asked breathlessly. She pointed at a tiny, boat-shaped speck pulling out into a finger of water she assumed was Lynn Canal. “And look! Isn’t that the Princess May pulling away from the dock?”

  “Sure is. She’s returning south.”

  As the train swung around another sharp turn, Violet lifted her eyes forward and caught sight of a rickety-looking bridge spanning a deep, wide canyon. It reminded her of the new-fangled Tinker Toys, which had become the rage the previous Ch
ristmas. While shopping with Mrs. Henderson in a Boston store for her trip west, she’d observed a demonstration of the sticks and spools being assembled into all kinds of creative constructions.

  To her dismay, her voice trembled when she asked, “Are we going over that?”

  “Yes.” John smiled reassuringly. “It’s called a cantilever bridge. Made of steel, and it’s perfectly safe.”

  “But it’s so high!” Her voice came out in a squeak.

  “It saved a lot of horses. Before this bridge was built, this section of the White Pass Trail was particularly deadly. The stampeders worked their pack animals to death carrying tons of supplies to the Klondike goldfields. Three thousand beasts of burden died of exhaustion here and were pushed into the canyon. That’s why they named it Dead Horse Gulch. If you look closely, you can see the skeletons of horses down there among the boulders.”

  “How can men be so cruel?”

  “Not all men. The Mounties forced the stampeders to rest their animals at the border—if they made it that far.”

  “Good for them!”

  “I agree, but the stampeders sure didn’t like it. They were in a hurry to stake claims.”

  The train slowed as it rolled onto the span. Fearfully, Violet clutched John’s arm. “It feels like we’re launching into space.”

  He put his arm around her. “It was a little unnerving to me too the first time I rode over it, but I’ve done it many times now with no problems.”

  The train swayed. “O-o-h!”

  “It’s a bit like faith, isn’t it?” John wrapped his other arm around her. “We can’t see God, but we know He’s there. Like He says in the Psalms, ‘ . . . and underneath are the Everlasting Arms.’ Why don’t you close your eyes and try to picture yourself in God’s arms being carried across this wide chasm?”

  As she did, her panicky breathing slowed. Before she knew it, they had traversed the bridge.

  At the summit of White Pass, nearly three thousand feet above sea level, they crossed the International Border and picked up speed down the other side, surrounded by snowfields not yet melted.

  “From here, all water eventually flows north to the Yukon River,” John said. “A system of long lakes forms its headwaters.”

  Soon, they stopped at Log Cabin where the Canadian Customs and Immigration station was manned by two gentlemanly Mounties wearing their dark blue work uniforms. With a few questions to determine passengers’ nationalities, everyone was cleared, and the train rolled on.

  The snowfields became patchy. Bushes and boulders appeared here and there. As they descended, tall evergreen trees, standing stately and symmetrical, appeared here and there among the spindly, snaggly ones deformed by harsh winds or some disease, as they reached the lower, more heavily forested mountain slopes.

  A few minutes later, John asked, “Are you hungry?” She nodded. “We’ll be stopping at Lake Bennett for lunch. That’s where the stampeders paused to build rafts and crude boats to carry themselves, their equipment, and supplies through Bennett, Tagish, and Marsh Lakes to the Yukon River and on to the Klondike.”

  With a long blast of the whistle, they pulled into the station at Bennett at the head of the enormous blue-green glacial lake of the same name just as the oncoming train from Whitehorse, bound for Skagway, puffed in. All of the passengers from both trains disembarked and entered a huge barn-like hall.

  John stepped off the train and offered his hand to steady Violet as she exited.

  “That wind is biting!” She shivered and pulled her coat closer around her.

  “It blows down off ice fields up there.” He gestured up toward the surrounding peaks.

  Violet took a deep breath. “It smells so fresh and clean, not polluted like in Boston.”

  John nodded in agreement. “That’s what I love about Alaska and the Yukon.”

  “Look! There’s still some ice on the lake,” Violet said.

  “We’re still over two thousand feet above sea level,” John said. “It’s early spring here. Even the Yukon River ice doesn’t usually break up until early May.”

  The passengers and crewmembers from both trains all seemed to know each other. After exchanging greetings, they sat at long tables loaded with food—braised moose meat, macaroni and cheese, hash, baked beans, pickled beets, blueberry pie, and canned milk.

  George Henderson slid onto the bench next to John. “How do you like the trip so far?” he asked Violet.

  “It’s beautiful . . . but scary at times.”

  George and John both nodded in agreement.

  As they loaded their plates, Violet said, “This seems to be the standard fare in the Yukon, as well as in Alaska. The menu here is like the restaurant in Skagway.”

  “Yes, and every time I’ve traveled the White Pass, it’s been the same—a gold rush meal served Klondike style.” John took a bite of baked beans. “The food is always tasty, and the price is always one dollar.”

  “That’s pretty expensive, isn’t it? A meal like this in Boston would be half this price.”

  “True, but think of all the shipping costs and the difficulty of getting food here,” John reminded her.

  “And wages are higher here too,” George added.

  “We have only half an hour to eat, so we’d better hurry, or we’ll miss out,” John warned.

  Not wanting to waste such tasty food, Violet stopped conversing and focused on her meal.

  Chapter 10

  BACK ON THE TRAIN, VIOLET relaxed beside her new husband. After their meal, her eyelids drooped. The gentle rocking of the train as it clickety-clacked over the narrow tracks threatened to lull her to sleep, but she fought it. Even though the other passengers were dozing, she didn’t want to miss the scenery here along the rugged shores of Lake Bennett. Ringed by mile-high peaks that reflected in its mirror-like surface, the lake was equally as beautiful as the climb up to White Pass but not as scary.

  John too was quiet. She peeked sideways at him to see if he was sleeping. He was watching the scenery as the train chugged on through forests of tall, spindly evergreens.

  What was he thinking? What did she really know about this man she’d married? Did he regret giving up his freedom to marry a penniless girl he scarcely knew? What did he expect from her? Could she make him happy?

  So far, he’d been full of surprises. He treated her with gentlemanly manners and was obviously cultured and intelligent—just the opposite of what she would have expected of a Yukon riverboat captain. She’d already learned that they shared a love of the classics and poetry. Reading the Bible and praying together, as they had this morning, showed his deeply spiritual nature. She determined that no matter what hour he had to get up each day, she’d be sure they made time for that.

  As she enjoyed the passing scenery, she grew pensive. The same God who had set these mountains in place and carved out these canyons and lakes had held out His hand to her, offering her friendship and a relationship. And that wasn’t all. Yesterday, she’d had no home, no job, and no prospects. She’d trusted Him, and He’d kept His word. What a difference a day made! Thank You, Heavenly Father!

  And He’d given her John.

  A smile touched her lips as she recalled the wonder of their love making the night before—their first night together as a married couple. She’d been nervous, but he was very gentle and sweet. He sure made her happy.

  “You’re smiling.”

  Startled by John’s voice breaking into her reverie, she glanced up at him. “I was just thinking about . . . you.”

  “And that makes you happy?”

  “Oh yes!”

  His brown eyes twinkled. “How do I make you happy?”

  “Well, let’s see.” She tried to match his lighthearted mood. “I came to the Yukon to be a companion and teacher for a little girl. I could identify with her even before I met her because we’d both lost so much.” Violet grew serious. “All that vanished when she died before I even got to meet her. That left me homeless, penniless, and
terribly frightened and confused.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “But you . . . ” She laid her hand on his arm. “You swept in like the fabled knight in shining armor and . . . and married me—”

  “I didn’t marry you because it was the gallant thing to do, Violet.” John slid his arm around her, drew her closer, and touched his lips to her cheek. “I married you because I was already falling in love with you.”

  His breath brushed her ear, sending shivers down her spine. She looked up at him. “And I said yes because I was falling in love with you too. And you keep surprising me with so many thoughtful acts and gentle ways that . . . well . . . I was just thinking about . . . ”

  Her face grew hot. Could she express her true feelings to John? Talking like this to a man was something she’d never done before, but John was her husband. Shouldn’t she trust him enough to share her true feelings? John’s playful expression turned sober too as he gave her time to express herself.

  “ . . . last night,” she whispered.

  “I love you, Violet. It was special for me too—a memorable night.”

  Violet nestled contentedly against John’s side. They rode in silence for a while. The wonder of love and happiness filled her up as no feast, no matter how scrumptious, ever could.

  Finally, she realized she’d been so caught up in her thoughts that she’d missed the passing sights. She frowned at the tall, skinny trees streaking by her window. “Are these trees stunted by the long, cold winters?”

  “No, that’s normal for them. They’re black spruce, probably the most prevalent evergreens in the North Country. Despite the permafrost, they do well here due to their shallow root systems.” John touched her nose with his fingertip. “That’s one thing I like about you—your thirst for knowledge.”

  Violet giggled. “And I like that you don’t look down on me for my ignorance but are so willing to share your knowledge with me.”

  He grinned. “What’s it good for if not to be shared?”

  As they passed a tiny lake, John pointed out a cow moose with its twin calves feeding off the bottom. Fascinated, Violet watched the mama moose plunge her huge head into the water and come up dripping, greens dangling from her mouth. She nuzzled her young until they followed her example.