An Island Between Two Shores (7 page)

She curled into a ball and didn’t look outside. She knew she couldn’t be seen, but the wolves had her scent. And besides, the raven—her informant—knew where she lay. The howling seemed to come from the right bank, but because of the echo it felt like they had her surrounded. Liana braced for them to dive through the snow at any time and pull her into the fog. “They must be on the island already,” she thought as she listened to the panting and sporadic yelps drawing ever nearer. The raven responded with its gruesome call, as if to warn, “Her eyes are mine!”

Eventually Liana opened her eyes and lifted her head to the opening between the snow and the log. Peering into the mist, she could just make out the dim outlines of the wolves on the opposite shore. They were dark with white and grey muzzles. Their massive haunches made them look powerful and menacing. She had never seen a live wolf before coming to the North, though she had seen their pelts many times. Stretched and dried, the skins always seemed exotic. She
marveled at the thickness of the fur with outer hairs sometimes five inches long and a softer inner layer. The hair made the best parka ruffs, shedding snow like a steep roof.

“The wolves aren’t on the island,” she realized, consoling herself. “They can’t get here.” She was so relieved that she repeated to herself in disbelief, “They can’t get here.” Liana took a deep breath and settled back into the shadows. The wolves’ panting was loud and heavy, but it was the jarring howls of the pack that filled her heart with terror.

The raven repeatedly called to the wolves with screeching gurgles and abrupt pops. The wolves had Liana’s scent and knew that she cowered under the log. They were whipped into a frenzy. Liana waited breathlessly. Oh, how they wanted her! The diabolical raven encouraged them to swim the gap to the island. In desperation she peered from her lair, and the wolves sensed the motion. They went quiet.

Blood rushed to Liana’s face. The raven’s chilling song and the wolves’ anticipatory breaths filled her with dread. It was quiet for the first time since the raven had brought the wolves to Liana. In desperation, she scurried out from beneath the log and stumbled to her feet. To her surprise, much of the fog had cleared and standing only a few hundred feet away was the pack. The wolves were in a loose semicircle on the ribbon of ice bordering the river. There were seven of them, and the largest, darkest wolf was in the middle. Their lingering stares pierced Liana’s sensibilities.

“Go!” she screeched while waving her arms. “Go away! Go!”

Three of the wolves retreated a few feet back into the forest, but four others stood their ground next to the river. All four lowered their heads and stared intently. The largest met her gaze with his enormous grey eyes. The wolves appeared more alert and began to bray. Massive incisors were luminous in the muted light. Liana waved her knife and screamed again at the wolves. “Go! Go away!” she screeched. “I’ll cut you!”

Defiantly, the largest wolf leisurely took a couple of steps toward the water. Liana gasped as she met his stare. He raised his head to the sky and the rest of the pack joined in a deafening salute. Their unison overwhelmed Liana’s little voice, stomped it into the snow like a mouse. Dispirited, Liana stopped yelling and gasped at the intensity of the standoff.

The wolves held their ground, not intimidated by Liana’s aggressive threats. Across the narrow band of water and ice they stood, all of similar proportions and colouring. The largest wolf had a grey muzzle and its left ear was broken and bent over half way to the tip. Their frosted muzzles opened on perfect ivory teeth, and their muscular, lofting haunches gave them the illusion of being as tall as caribou. Their breath hung in the air between them as they nuzzled each other and yelped. The raven sang with excitement.

The lead wolf raised his tail and suddenly the other wolves changed their tactics. The pack began charging up and down the river, searching for a crossing to the island. They divided: four went up river and two went down river. The wolves wove and darted among the dark trees and leafless willows and poplars, panting, barking, and yipping. But the lead wolf remained steady opposite Liana, staring with his expressive grey eyes.

Liana stood with her back against the log studying the commotion. The raven gurgled mysteriously. Liana bent down, reached through the snow, and snapped a fist-sized rock from the ice. She hid the rock under her sleeve so the raven couldn’t see that she had it. The raven was on his perch on the root of the log and was less than twenty feet away. A moment later, with a swift, deliberate motion, she hurled the stone toward the bird. But the raven didn’t even flinch, and the rock slipped into the snow short of the brazen creature with hardly a whisper. Liana dropped her shoulders and slumped at the hopelessness of her situation. The raven cawed louder at Liana’s feeble attempt to silence it. Liana wanted to cover her ears and retreat under the log but didn’t want the wolves to sense her fear or give the raven any satisfaction.

Glancing up the river she could see the four wolves converge on a small eddy. One of the smaller wolves stood tentatively at the edge of the ice and peered into the water. The other wolves yipped with excitement. The small wolf carefully stepped its two front paws off the ice shelf into the current. Its long legs fell into the water and its head went underwater unexpectedly. Its back legs followed; the wolf splashed into the river. In an instant its gaping maw shot out of the water and gasped for air. Its head emerged from the weak current and the hapless wolf stood in icy, chest-deep water. It struggled to climb on top of a large, smooth rock, but its front paws slipped and fell past its chest into the river with another splash. The weak current spun the helpless wolf, and it faced Liana and whimpered softly.

Liana knew that her best chance of defending herself against the wolves was aggression. She broke her quiet face-off with the lead wolf and ran toward the younger wolf stranded in the icy water. She clutched her knife and screamed, “C’mon! You want to come to my island?” The leader turned its head away, apparently disinterested in Liana’s rant. Liana cut across the icy rocks toward the upstream end of the island. The young wolf raised its front paws onto the ice shelf and repeatedly tried to pull itself up and onto it, but with each effort plunged back into the river. The current was slowly dragging the creature downstream toward the island. The wolf bawled short, sharp cries of frustration at not being able to climb onto the ice. The other wolves watched in stillness, unable to help. Liana yelled, “You’re going to freeze! The raven will be eating your eyes by nightfall.” She laughed at the wolf. The leader remained motionless, indifferent.

The young wolf swam close to the shore and in desperation lifted its two front paws onto the ice shelf. Its rear feet finally touched bottom and it tried weakly to pitch itself out of the river. It whimpered as it bounced its way downstream, pushed by the sluggish current. When the young wolf finally reached a shallower spot, it sprang instantly from the water and onto the ice. The immature wolf scampered clumsily and rolled on its back in the snow. Three wolves ran toward it and licked the young wolf’s muzzle. The wolf regained its feet, shook violently, and dropped again onto its back, writhing in the snow in an effort to drain water from its fur. The wolf looked vulnerable and dejected to Liana. Wet and cold, it was much smaller than it had first appeared, even scrawny. It dropped onto its belly and licked the ice from between its toes in the same way Liana had seen huskies clean their feet after long sled trips. The defeated youngster paid Liana no attention even though it lay close to where Liana stood.

The other five wolves continued to search for a passage to the island and soon wore a path though the snow on the upstream and downstream sides of the shore. This deep trench spoke to their frenzied commitment to get to the island. The wet wolf ignored their efforts while the large wolf steadfastly watched Liana’s movements. The bloodthirsty raven continued to sing its maniacal encouragement in boisterous throbs and shrieks.

When the wolves were unable to find a way to the island, they returned to the lead wolf. They grouped on both sides of him directly across from Liana and stared at her. Liana thought about a time when she and Henry had watched an older female wolf prep a small pack on the intricacies of hunting caribou. She had dug up a caribou leg she had cached earlier in the season. The less experienced wolves in the pack approached her from the front and she wagged her head from side to side as if to say “No.” She then hit them with the leg as she ran past them to inform them of the risk of taking down large animals. The wolves rehearsed over and over in an elaborate instructional game. Henry told Liana that wolves commonly did this and it was often the smaller female wolves that were the best hunters. A lone wolf only took small animals like ground squirrels or rabbits, but in a pack they would take elk, caribou, bison, and moose—animals ten times their size. Many wolves were injured or killed hunting large game, mostly victims of kicks and goring. Henry said he thought the female was likely paired with the alpha male and was too valuable to risk hunting. Instead she had taken on the role of instructor, and patiently drilled the pack until they functioned as a single organism.

“These wolves are well schooled,” thought Liana.

Liana held her ground on the beach and stared the largest wolf in the eyes. After a lengthy silence, he raised his head and started to howl. An enormous blare filled the valley and echoed off the canyon walls. When the wolf ended its call for a quick gasp of air, the rest of the pack joined the refrain and the intensity of their howls caused Liana to step backwards involuntarily. All seven wolves howled for as long as their lungs would allow. The echo made the howls sound like one breathless, constant salvo.

Liana stood in the cold and stared back at the pack. In her hand was her trusted knife. The wolves howled for hours and Liana stood in the chill, facing the din. The light slowly began to fade as the sun tracked across the sky and behind the mountain ridges. Liana’s ears ached with the wolves’ breathless song, which never changed in tempo or intensity. Occasionally the raven would join the chorus with its own maniacal refrain. The raven’s insistent calls, while not loud, were shrill enough to cut through the raucous symphony of wolf howls. Liana felt as though she were losing her mind. She stared at the raven. He stared back with a look of indignation and scorn.

As the night sky took over the indigo of evening, the northern lights once again appeared like a friend. Long sweeping streaks of emerald and pink whipped and sawed across the horizon somewhere between the stars and the northern forest. The howling seemed to intensify with the appearance of the brilliant display. It was almost as though the wolves had called the northern lights. Liana stood transfixed by the enormity of the sight. The howls ripped through her soul and the northern lights dizzied her with their quick swoops and pirouettes. It was the most intense moment Liana had ever experienced.

But eventually Liana grew exhausted from the barrage of howls and dizzying light display and was unable to withstand the brisk evening cold any longer. The wolves were not going to cross the river, at least not this night. They continued their chorus as she climbed under the log and slid into her icy lair. She held her hands over her ears, and in a silent convulsion, she cried. The howls were the worst sound she had ever heard and they resonated in the enormous valley for hours. The sound was unbearable and seemed to vibrate the very stones of the island. Liana cursed the raven as she covered her face and ears and sobbed in the dark. Time had stood still and she couldn’t think of anything except the loud drone that pierced her very heart.

Liana cowered in her gloom through a haunted night. She kept her knees curled into her chest and protected herself as best she could from the dissonance. All her dreams were about wolves, especially the pack leader with the grey muzzle and intense eyes. She dreamed she had a gun and could shoot the raven first and then shoot the wolves one by one. She shot the large wolf last, right between its searching eyes.

Liana opened her eyes sometime mid-morning. The forest was hushed. The quiet startled her. She scrambled to a sitting position and peered into the brightness. Snow flurries filled the sky and the forest was still. Liana peered cautiously from beneath the log, squinting in the light that cleared the ridge. All she could see were footprints from the wolves’ reconnoitering on the opposite bank.

“Were they able to cross the river somewhere else?” she wondered as she scrambled through the opening. A prickle of dread ran from head to toe as she stood beside the log and scanned both sides of the river. But she knew they were no more able to cross the river than she was. They had left because there was no way to reach her, and momentarily this thought gave her comfort. Then she realized that what protected her also prevented her escape. The raven watched silently from its perch on the root of the log. He turned his head and preened his wing feathers, unconcerned.

A
fter so many days stranded on the island, Liana had no doubts: her days were numbered. Her weakness grew as the snow deepened. It concerned her that she no longer felt hungry, only cold. She slipped in and out of dreams all day and night as she lay curled in a ball trying to huddle any warmth that might remain. This morning she opened her eyes to another day of cold and quiet. She felt listless, bored, and alone. She peered above the stone wall in front of her sheltering log at the gloom. The snow had softened the silhouette of the distant forest. A thick drift also covered the ice shelf and the open river had narrowed to a ten-foot gap. The growth of the ice bridge from the shore to the island, once so crucial to her day and her very survival, now left her feeling indifferent. Thinking about the ice made her tired and impatient; she preferred to dream of her loving parents and Henry.

“How many days have passed since Henry died?” wondered Liana. She remembered him chopping wood the morning she left to go hunting. He stopped chopping only long enough to wish her good luck. It was awkward, since they both knew Henry’s hunting days were behind him because his vision was so poor. She could hear the rhythmic crashing of the axe against the frozen wood as she climbed the trail to the plain.

Mornings were now the hardest part of the day. Shivering all night left Liana exhausted as she waited an eternity for the sun to clear the ridge. The dense presence of the cold settled into the valley and slowed everything. She felt coldest for the first hour after sunrise and was always disappointed by the weakness of the morning sun. The first few days on the island Liana had dreaded the dusk, since it brought the biting cold and oppressive dark, but now the futility of the new day bothered her most.

Liana tried to conserve as much of her core heat as she could. She lay on her side and curled her legs to her chest and tucked her hands under her arms. She wished she had some evergreen boughs to make a mattress, which would insulate her from the ground. The agony of spending so much time under the log and the pale chill of the winter was overwhelming. Aside from lying flat, the sleeping positions were basically the same and she only moved when her legs, neck, or back cramped and stabbed with pain. Liana assumed that there was no position she would find comfortable and accepted cramps as unavoidable. Even Liana’s skin was dry and sore. Most of the time the sharpness of her discomfort awakened her from deep sleep and proved that she was still alive.

As winter deepened, the days grew only slightly less biting than the night. The mountains shielded the valley and allowed the night temperature to drop dramatically with each clear, still night. Without clouds to hold the sun’s warmth, the thin night air plummeted into an arctic chill. “I’m falling apart,” Liana said breathlessly from her cracked, faded lips. Suddenly, she remembered Henry telling her earwax could be spread on cracked lips.

As she soothed her lips, Liana cursed her father for bringing her to the North. After her mother’s death, he roamed Paris for six months—a lost soul. And then one evening he burst into their apartment and said they were going to make a fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush. Liana was only ten at the time. But she was happy to see her father planning their escape to the goldfields. Anything was better than seeing her father as a broken man wandering the streets of Paris alone. They would both leave the heartbreak of her mother’s untimely death behind.

The next day everything they owned was for sale on the street in front of their apartment. Liana sat next to her father on the curb and watched people haggle with him for the patchwork of their memories. The first thing to be sold was their mantle clock. It was heavy, and the brass-coloured clock sat inside a thick glass dome. The next thing sold was their kitchen table. Soon Liana’s armoire and her father’s books were gone as well. Their pots and pans, living room chairs, and hat stand walked away. An elderly woman offered a price to buy all her mother’s clothing. Liana’s father stared at her blankly and counter-offered; the woman passed him a crumpled handful of bills. Liana’s heart sank as she watched the elderly woman stagger away under the awkward bail of clothing. During the next two days, Liana sat numbly beside her father and watched as everything she knew slowly disappeared.

In their empty apartment, Liana’s father excitedly told her about how wealthy they were about to become. “There are nuggets just waiting to be picked up,” he exclaimed. Liana knew about the Gold Rush. How could she not? Every magazine and newspaper had written about it for the past couple of years. The fact that her father seemed to think it had just started concerned her. When she asked him whether there would still be gold when they got there, he reassured her: “There’s lots of gold. Don’t worry.”

Once everything was sold, they took a train at the Paris Metro bound for the coast. They arrived in Nantes, where they would spend a couple of days before boarding their ship. Liana’s father found them simple accommodations near the harbour, and they carried their meager belongings to a spare hotel room. They ate bread and cheese quietly on their beds while listening to the ring of distant lighthouses and ship bells. Liana slept fitfully that night, unsettled to be leaving her beloved Paris.

In the morning they sat up in bed, their bags and clothes spread messily around the room, and ate the remaining stale baguette from the night before. They spoke softly about last minute travel details and the adventure they were about to begin. Liana dreaded traveling on the ship and being cooped up for almost two weeks, but her father reassured her that it would be okay.

In the afternoon they visited the Jardin des Plantes de Nantes, an ancient botanical garden. Even though it was October, the plants seemed to flourish. Her father told her of the legendarily cold December in the 1870s when most of the plants in the gardens had died. Nobody could remember a cold snap as severe, and the few magnolias and other plants that survived were so hardy that nothing could kill them. Liana marveled at the ordered gardens, the fountains, and the large man-made hill called the “artificial mountain.”

Liana’s father told her about Paul Marmy, the man who built the garden’s spectacular palm house and orangery after the gardens had been neglected for decades. It was now twenty years later, and to Liana, the trees Marmy planted looked as mature as if they had always been there.

The visit to the gardens was a welcome relief from days of preparation and hurried packing. Liana felt it was the best day she had had with her father since her mother’s death. She felt optimistic about the future because he was in such good spirits, and when he bought her a bag of toasted chestnuts from a street vendor Liana didn’t think the day could get any better.

The next morning they boarded the SS Kolata and said goodbye to their old ways. They were bound for New York City and eventually a fresh start in the gold fields of the Yukon. The days on the ship passed slowly and Liana settled into a boring, repetitious routine. She rarely went above decks and kept mainly to their cramped stateroom. Her father, on the other hand, was never below decks except at night. Occasionally Liana ventured from their room to find him. He was always in the salon, listening to people talk about their travels. The main wave of gold seekers had left a couple of years before, so he wasn’t able to find any kindred souls. Liana heard him ask one of the stewards about his brother. The steward looked weary of having the same conversation repeatedly with Liana’s father, but politely explained that he hadn’t heard from his brother since he had arrived in Dawson City. “He’s probably filthy rich by now,” said Liana’s father proudly, “drinking the best champagnes France can spare!” The steward shrugged and busied himself clearing tables. Liana was starting to feel sorry for her father and his single-minded interest in the gold fields. Little else seemed to captivate him anymore.

Arriving in New York City was anticlimactic for Liana, the Statue of Liberty unimpressive. Her father pointed to it and said “That was France’s gift to America,” but Liana didn’t really care. She was too tired and bored from the journey across the Atlantic. They were only in the city overnight and slept leaned against each other on a bench in the lobby of Grand Central Station. Their suitcases and bags stood at their feet.

In the morning they shared a chewy salted pretzel and boarded a train bound for San Francisco. The travel and disturbed sleep left Liana even more tired and overwhelmed, but as the train rattled and jerked out of Grand Central, her world started to feel expansive again. The confines of the ship were replaced by a coach seat with a large window to lean against and dream. The farmland and grey forests of the east gradually gave way to the silver prairie and mountains of the west.

In San Francisco they boarded a small, worn ship headed north. They pitched in the open oceans around northern California, Oregon, and Washington before entering the protected northerly waters of the Inside Passage off the coast of Canada. Vancouver Island and then the respite of the islands of the Alaska panhandle protected them from the chop of the North Pacific. As the turbulence subsided, Liana felt a greater peace traveling through the hundreds of miles of mist- shrouded fjords. Her father stared at the remote parade of mountains and bright glaciers in quiet contemplation. Liana snuggled into his arms and wondered how they would survive this foreign, fierce landscape.

After more than a week on the ship they approached their destination: Skagway, Alaska. Her father couldn’t contain his glee. “We’re here. We’re at the start of the Klondike Trail,” he all but exclaimed, but Liana was more reserved. She braced for the remaining part of the journey and was barely able to muster a smile for her father.

From the ship, Skagway seemed a cluster of shabby buildings at the base of impossibly steep mountains. It looked cold and raw and Liana felt hesitant to get off the ship. But as she walked down the gangplank, she squeezed her father’s hand and was reassured by his commitment to their journey. As they collected their suitcases, Liana thought about how far she had come. They had crossed an ocean and traversed North America. They had plied the Pacific Northwest for more than a thousand miles before landing at the most peculiar place she had ever imagined. But she knew that the most challenging passage was still ahead. Staring at the seemingly impenetrable wall of mountains made her feel small and full of dread.

Skagway was a bustling boomtown. Broadway, the main street, was crowded with tent stores and false front buildings. Clusters of shaggy looking men crowded the streets and wooden boardwalks. The sounds of pianos and laughter emanated from seedy saloons that seemed to occupy every second building.

Liana clutched her father’s arm as they struggled under the bulk of their bags and slowly walked from the wharf to the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway Station a few blocks away. Her father bought train tickets to Whitehorse, another grubby town they needed to pass through to reach Dawson City. Whitehorse was more than a hundred miles away, on the other side of the Coast Mountains and the Canadian border. Whitehorse was as far as the train went. From there it was either a paddlewheeler or horse-drawn sleigh to cross the remaining hundreds of miles north to mythical Dawson City. This late in the season, they would travel by sleigh.

Liana took a seat at the back of the depot. Her father piled their bags around her and then set out to get them something to eat and explore this shabby little town before their train arrived. As he walked out the door, he forgot to look back and Liana felt small and inconsequential huddled amongst their meager possessions. She wiped a small peephole with her elbow through the condensation on the window and studied the busy little street. A team of what Liana thought were huskies was tethered to a sapling across the street. The dogs were hitched to a small wagon and seemed unconcerned with the bustle of the street. Liana had never seen anything like them before. She had heard of dogs being used to pull sleds but had never seen it with her own eyes. The sight was exotic and foreign to her.

Liana was curious about the street scene, but after several hours her father still hadn’t returned and she became bored with the view. Liana thought about her father’s wanderings in Paris and the way his absences had become both disappointing and familiar. She closed her eyes and napped, and when she awoke, the depot was bustling with activity. The train was about to arrive and porters prepared their carts and trolleys. When the train pulled in, scraggly men climbed down from the coaches and swung their canvas sacks and trunks onto their shoulders and disappeared into the crowded streets. She knew this was the train she and her father were supposed to take, but inherently understood her father wouldn’t make it. Once again, Liana closed her eyes and rested under the wall of bags arranged at her seat. She wasn’t disappointed to delay this leg of their journey.

In the morning her father woke her by holding a stale waffle under her nose. He stank of cigarettes and whisky but she was pleased to see him. Liana nibbled on the waffle and cleared the sleep from her eyes while he told her the stories he had heard in the saloon. They spent the rest of the morning with her father talking excitedly about the Klondike and how rich they were about to become. Liana was happy that her father was so excited and found the names of the people he was describing, like “Flapjack Pete” and “Poor House Jimmy,” comical. And when the train pulled up to the depot they gladly climbed aboard and soon disappeared into the great northern forest with its impenetrable mountains and tumbling rivers.

After a day on the shaking narrow-gauge railway, they landed at Whitehorse, where they marveled at the enormous paddlewheeler ships that had been dragged from the river for the winter. Her father told her Dawson City was only a few hundred miles downriver, and with only a quick stop for the bathroom, they boarded a sleigh pulled by six large horses. They pulled heavy blankets made from wooly buffalo hides over themselves and braced for the cold. With a hearty crack of the whip, the coachmen signaled to the horses to begin the journey. The fresh snow was already rutted from horses and men, and the blades squeaked under the sleigh. Liana took a deep breath through clenched teeth. Her father’s face beamed.