Beside Still Waters

by AnnaLee Conti

  When the Belle stopped to take on wood, she often strolled away in search of blueberries or low bush cranberries to add to their oatmeal. She could now distinguish bear berries that grew on a thick carpet of low bushes from kinnikinnik, a green creeper with red berries, sometimes called Yukon holly.

  Before she knew it, the last buds on the magenta fireweed had opened, signaling the end of summer. Autumn arrived in mid-August with a killing frost one night. The days became shorter and the nights colder. To Violet, it seemed as though an artist had sneaked in one night and painted the tundra and boreal forests with great splashes of red and gold in striking contrast to the deep blue of the far-off mountain ranges and the nearby evergreens. And the Aurora Borealis frequently lit up the nighttime sky with colorful curtains or streaky splashes of green, red, and purple.

  By mid-September, icicles began to form on the paddlewheel and spray froze on the rear of the vessel as the Belle plowed her way through the skim of ice on the waters of the Yukon during her last few trips of the season. Most mornings, fog filled the valleys. The honking of Canada geese signaled their flight south for the winter. The snowline crept ever downward on the mountains. Any day would bring the storm that would blanket the wild landscape with snow until late spring.

  Chapter 14

  WHITEHORSE, YUKON TERRITORY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1915

  “After our devotions, would you like to go shopping while I run down to the Belle?” John asked as Violet cleaned up the breakfast dishes. Since George had left town, they often spent the time between trips in their new home. “We can walk together as far as the stores.”

  “That would be nice.” Violet dried her hands. “I do need to stock up on some things at the drugstore.”

  That day, they read from Psalm 91 about God’s promise of protection. Violet decided she needed to memorize that psalm. Maybe it would help her to be less fearful. After prayer, John held her coat for her to slip into. “The wind is nippy today. Better wear your wool scarf too.”

  John left her at McPherson’s drugstore on Front Street with a promise to meet her on his way back, and he strode on down to the waterfront.

  As Violet paid for the items she wanted, a woman who had traveled aboard the Belle from Dawson City on their most recent trip entered and struck up a conversation with her. They had just said their goodbyes when five rifle shots in quick succession split the crisp fall air. Everyone rushed out of the shop.

  “Sounded like it came from the waterfront south of town,” a man yelled. “Why would someone be shooting down there?”

  Fear like liquid fire shot through Violet’s midsection. John was down that way at the docks. Was he okay?

  Another man shouted, “It sounded like a .30-30 rifle. Maybe someone shot a bear that got too close to town?”

  That reassured her a little, but she wouldn’t rest easy until she saw with her own eyes that John was all right.

  The people milled around for a few minutes. When no more shots rang out, they drifted back inside. Violet too re-entered McPherson’s. Feeling weak from the fright, she leaned against the counter. She’d feel better when she knew for certain John was safe.

  Since he had promised to meet her at the drugstore, she hung around a while longer. Every time the bell over the door tinkled, she spun around to see if it was John. She must have walked up every aisle and examined every item of merchandise—though she hadn’t seen any of it—but still John had not appeared. Maybe she should go on down to the Belle to look for him.

  As she opened the door to leave, a man strolled up the street holding out a rifle for all to see. He walked straight toward her. Violet’s breath squeezed like she was suffocating. Someone from behind pulled her back inside. Moments later, the man entered the drugstore.

  Someone whispered loudly enough for Violet to hear, “It’s that Russian, Alex Gagoff!”

  Mr. McPherson stepped forward. “Sir, you won’t need that rifle in here. Why don’t you allow me to set it behind the counter until you’re ready to leave?”

  “Ran into him downriver last spring prospectin’ for gold,” an old timer said. “He don’t speak much English.”

  Mr. McPherson pointed at the rifle and then behind the counter. Alex hesitated. Finally, he handed it to the store owner.

  Violet let out the breath she was holding just as everyone else did.

  But where was John?

  She waited another half hour, repeating her circuit around the store, checking her watch pin, hoping that every time the door opened, John would appear. Every time she neared the window or door, she peered out. Still no sign of him.

  He should be here by now.

  She had no sooner decided to go and look for him when the store door burst open. Several Mounties entered and surrounded Mr. Gagoff. They looked grim.

  “Alex Gagoff,” one officer said, “we’re arresting you for the murders of three men this morning—”

  Violet’s vision narrowed, and everything went black.

  Acrid fumes of smelling salts assaulted her. She twisted her head away. Her eyelids felt heavy. She blinked a few times before she could focus enough to recognize Mr. McPherson’s anxious expression. He rocked back on his haunches. “You’re okay now.” His voice sounded gentle and reassuring. “May I help you up?” He held out his hand. She placed hers in his. He lifted her to her feet and escorted her to a chair someone had pulled close.

  Violet looked around. The Mounties were gone, and so was Alex Gagoff. She scanned the concerned faces staring at her but didn’t see John. Swallowing back the tears that threatened, her voice quivering, she asked, “Has anyone seen my husband, John Barston?”

  Mr. McPherson shook his head. “Where did he go?”

  “After he left me here, he headed down to the waterfront—the same direction that man with the rifle came from.” She bit her lip to stifle the sob building in her chest.

  “Don’t worry!” Mr. McPherson patted her shoulder. “I’m sure John’s okay. You fainted before the Mounties could say what happened. Mr. Gagoff shot and killed three men from a section crew working on the White Pass Railway tracks near Ear Lake. The fourth man is in the hospital, gravely wounded. The fifth crew member escaped being shot by hiding in the bushes. He told the Mounties what happened. Alex Gagoff is in their custody now. He’ll stand trial for murder.”

  Horrified, Violet asked, “Why would he kill all those men?”

  “Gagoff offered no reason, but the old prospector said the Russian worked with a section gang last winter and often accused the men of making fun of him.”

  “How do you know no one else was shot?”

  At that moment, the bell over the door tinkled, and John walked in. Violet flew into his arms. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Take her home and put her to bed,” the druggist said. “She’s had quite a fright.” He explained what had happened.

  John swept Violet up and carried her the several blocks to their home. She clung to him like she’d never let him out of her sight again.

  At the house, he laid her on the chesterfield and put on the kettle to make tea. When he brought it to her, he knelt beside her and urged her to drink.

  “Violet, we’re both fine. Tell me why you’re so upset. Talking it out will help.”

  “Oh, John!” She threw her arms around his neck. “When you didn’t come . . . and they arrested that man for shooting four men . . . I thought you were dead.” Shudders shook her body as he held her close. “I thought I’d lost you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I can’t lose you. I wouldn’t want to live.”

  “Don’t say that, sweetheart. Look at me. I’m alive and well. I’m not going to die.” He stroked her hair and murmured gently, “Honey, if the worst ever happened, God would see you through. Remember that psalm we read this morning? God is our refuge and strength.”

  She didn’t argue with him, but in her heart she knew she’d never get over it if she lost him. That night, she dreamed that John had been shot to death, and she woke
up sobbing.

  By mid-October, ice was thickening on Lake Laberge. One morning as they ate breakfast, John said, “It’s time to put the Belle on the skids for the winter. I want to introduce you to my parents. Perhaps we could go to Seattle for Christmas and miss the hardest part of the weather here.”

  Maybe there she could convince him to go back to school to become that professor he talked about. So Violet quickly agreed to his suggestion.

  Once the steamer was secured for the winter, the Barstons closed up the house, packed up their trunks, and made the return trip via narrow-gauge railroad and steamship to Seattle. And Violet began her campaign. John turned the tables on her and insisted that she complete requirements for her teaching certificate instead since she needed only one semester. By the time they returned to Whitehorse the next spring, 1916, she had achieved that dream.

  The little town of only three hundred people during the winter months needed a primary schoolteacher for that school year. Violet landed the job, so the Barstons became permanent Whitehorse residents.

  Between trips late that summer, John took Violet berry picking on the hillside near Whitehorse, where blueberries grew in abundance, so she could make jam and syrup for the winter as Jonesy had taught her. John brought along his hunting rifle.

  “What do you need that for?” Violet asked.

  “Remember all those bears we see from the Belle? This is just a precaution.”

  Violet swallowed hard. John must have read the fear in her eyes, because he added, “Don’t worry. They’re more afraid of us than we are of them. If we make a lot of noise, they’ll most likely avoid us.”

  The hill they climbed didn’t look that high when they first started out. After hopping through spongy tundra, from one dry clump of grass to the next to avoid sinking knee-deep in the bone-chilling bog, Violet was huffing and puffing even before they reached their goal. But the reward when they arrived at the berry patch made the effort worthwhile.

  Violet popped a berry into her mouth. As she bit down, the tangy juice exploded on her tongue. She savored it and rolled her eyes with delight. “This is the sweetest blueberry I’ve ever eaten. No wonder Yukon jams and syrups are so tasty. I think I’ll make you a pie tonight.”

  “That would make me very happy, my dear.”

  Their buckets filled quickly with the plumpest blueberries Violet had ever seen. As she stripped a branch of its fruit, she heard a rustle in the bushes nearby. “John, my bucket’s full. How about yours?”

  A loud snort answered.

  “What’s the matter with you, John?” Violet turned toward the sound, and her heart nearly stopped. She stared up into the bloodshot eyes and gaping jaw of a big grizzly bear that reared up just a few yards away. Her bucket fell with a thud. A scream ripped from her throat.

  “Drop to the ground!” she heard John holler back.

  She dove into the bushes. Crack! A tremendous percussion deafened her. When she could hear again, the sound of a huge body thrashing through the bushes receded quickly.

  Something grabbed her shoulder. She screamed again, expecting to feel pain as claws ripped into her flesh.

  “It’s okay, Violet. It’s just me. The bear’s gone. My shot scared him off.”

  Violet leaped up into his arms. Her entire body trembled.

  “I think you’ve had enough berry picking for one day. Let’s go home. You dumped your bucket, but mine is still full. We can come back another time if you like.”

  Still too shocked to speak, Violet shook her head vigorously.

  At home, she said, “I’m not sure I ever want to go back there.”

  “That’s the best berry patch I know of, but we can find another spot nearer to town.”

  Violet eyed the one full bucket. “At least, we still have enough for a pie. I think I’ve quit shaking enough to make you one.”

  During the short autumn, John hunted for moose and mountain sheep. Violet would make good use of her Arctic cooking lessons with Jonesy. To round out their winter meat supply, John also traded flour and salt for smoked and dried salmon with one of the Native pilots and purchased coonskin and muskrat coats and boots made by the man’s wife for himself and Violet.

  Living year-round in Whitehorse, Violet soon learned that train day was a big event. Everyone dressed up to meet the train at the station. During the winter months, the only link connecting Whitehorse and the Outside was the narrow gauge White Pass and Yukon Route Railway from Skagway, which ran twice a week, unless a rockslide or avalanche blocked the way. When this happened, Whitehorse was completely isolated. No mail, no telegraph, no fresh milk or vegetables could get through from the Outside via the docks at Skagway until the railroad employed their heavy-duty snowplow engine to blast through the snow. If someone died, they had to wait for the undertaker to come from Skagway.

  The week before Christmas, John and Violet decided to look for a Christmas tree. They borrowed snowshoes and bundled up in layer after layer of woolen clothing before donning their fur parkas with fur ruffs that provided warm air pockets for breathing in the subzero temperature. They pulled heavy worsted socks over their boots and added overshoes over all that before stepping into the snowshoes.

  Trudging up the hillside just after sunrise around ten that morning was more difficult than it looked when watching others do it. All those clothes made for stiff and awkward climbing in the crisp, frigid air. And it took a while to acquire the knack of walking in snowshoes. Soon, Violet was panting from the exertion. The hairs in her nose froze and pinched when she inhaled, and her breath frosted the fur ruff around her mouth. In spite of that, knowing that the bears were hibernating this time of year, Violet enjoyed the outing.

  Before John cut down the tree they chose, he held up one hand and touched a gloved finger to his lips. “Listen to the silence. I’m always amazed at how quiet the wilderness is. No mosquitoes. No animals stirring. No sounds of civilization.”

  From far away the eerie, banshee howl of a lone timber wolf broke the stillness. From the direction of town, a mournful chorus of Malemutes and huskies answered.

  “So much for listening to the silence,” John said, and they both burst out laughing.

  John quickly cut down the tree. “We’d better get this home before we lose the light.”

  About three-thirty that afternoon, shortly before the sun slipped below the mountains, they dragged their tree up on their porch. John constructed a stand out of boards and shook the snow out of it before setting it up in the great room. Violet stuck branches they’d trimmed off in the window boxes on the porch. After a supper of steaming moose stew, they popped corn, strung it, and swagged the strands onto the tree. Violet hung the yarn ornaments she had crocheted, and John fashioned a star out of tin for the top. On Christmas Day, they exchanged gifts they had ordered from catalogs in September.

  Life was good overall. The only thing that brought Violet much secret anguish was the fact that she had not been able to conceive the child they both longed for, not even by the end of their second summer as husband and wife.

  Chapter 15

  WHITEHORSE, YUKON TERRITORY, TWO YEARS LATER, JUNE 1918

  Violet closed the door to her primary classroom as the last child left. School was out for the summer. Placing her hands on her stomach, she stretched and arched her back. The baby within her kicked in protest. “Are you as anxious to meet us as we are to see you, little one?”

  The looser styles of modern dress worn with jackets had helped conceal her advancing pregnancy. The baby was due in early August. At long last, she and John would have a family. With the school year over, she could devote herself to making the baby’s layette.

  John had promised this would be his last summer as a sternwheeler captain on the Yukon. She’d finally convinced him to take up his original career plan of becoming a college professor. While completing his advanced degree at the University of Washington in Seattle, he would work summers on one of the “Mosquito Fleet” steamers that serviced Puget Soun
d.

  Violet shrugged into her coat, gathered up her remaining personal items, and glanced around the room to be sure everything was in place for next year’s teacher. She’d miss the children and the challenge of introducing them to the three R’s, but she was ready for motherhood. She’d waited so long that she worried she’d never be able to give John children.

  As she locked the door to the Lambert Street School behind her, she heard a familiar whistle. “I came to walk the teacher home,” John called out. He brushed her cheek with a kiss and took the box from her arms. “Let me carry your books. I don’t want you to overdo it. Not with this precious cargo on board.”

  “Oh, John, it’s not heavy, but thank you. It’s always a pleasure to see my favorite beau.”

  “Oh?” He lifted his eyebrows. “And how many beaux do you have?”

  “Only you—and you know it.” She smiled sweetly.

  “It warms my heart to see you so happy, my darling. I knew your heart was breaking when we struggled so long to start a family, but I didn’t know how to help you feel better.”

  “You just kept on loving me. That was the best medicine.”

  As they neared their house, Violet pointed at her window boxes. “Looks like my pansies are about to bloom.”

  “They’ll be sporting four-inch flowers before you know it.”

  “I want to transfer my vegetable plants to the garden as soon as possible. Mrs. Percy next door said her cabbage grew to fifty pounds last summer and tasted sweeter than any she’d ever eaten Outside.”

  “Please don’t overdo it, sweetheart.”

  “I won’t. Exercise is good for me. Don’t worry.”

  After a lunch of smoked salmon sandwiches, John put on his jacket to head back to the Belle.

  “I’d like to walk with you as far as Taylor and Drury’s to buy some flannel and yarn,” Violet said. “Now that school’s out, I need to make things for the baby.”

  “I’d love the company. Are you sure you’ll be able to carry your purchases back home without me?”