Down the Yukon (11 page)

When at last we couldn't rope the canoe through the shallows any longer, we had to climb out of the creek banks and look for the portage trail.

We couldn't find one.

On both sides of the creek we found mossy bear trails with deep, alternating foot wells the size of dinner plates. Jamie and I looked at each other with eyes wide. “I've never seen the like,” she said. “In the interior the bears don't get this big. The salmon must be the difference.”

There was no apparent man trail. We remembered the warning that this was a winter route, and reasoned that winter passage here by sleds and dogs had left no mark on the land.

With the canoe over my head, the middle thwart biting into my shoulders and the weight of my packsack in addition, it was easy to see why neither the Indians
from the Yukon nor the Eskimos from the coast were fond of this route in summer.

Unable to free a hand to swat the mosquitoes swarming my face, and with the ground softening by the minute, I understood better and better.

We found our head nets, but I lacked the strength or the will to shoulder the canoe again. I looked at Jamie, saw utter exhaustion in her face. Her packsack was heavier than mine; I could see her staring at it on the ground. The limit to her endurance was bound to be close if I'd nearly reached mine.

“I'm done in,” I said.

“We've gone far enough,” she agreed. “The sun will set in an hour. I can't even remember when we slept last. We can only do so much.”

We backed into the spruce forest where the mosquitoes were fewer and built a smoky fire to keep them at bay. We brewed tea and we ate dried salmon and bannock cakes. With our strength revived a little, we took the saw, made poles, and erected the tent. We draped our big piece of netting over the entire tent. As we got into our bedrolls I mumbled a worry about our dried salmon and the bears. With a yawn Jamie said, “The bears have plenty of fresh salmon; they won't care for dried.”

“I'm happy to hear that,” I said.

We were facing each other, and our lips were only inches apart. Her eyes were closed. I touched my lips to hers. After a moment, she kissed me back, lightly. I freed a hand and stroked her hair. She opened her eyes and found mine.

“Dawson City seems so far away, Jason.”

“I know. We're a whole lot closer to Nome than Dawson. But honestly, today I had my doubts.”

She put her hand to my cheek. “I have a feeling it's
going to get harder. But we can't give up. We've come too far.”

“You're still undaunted.”

“I've been thinking about the women I met climbing the Chilkoot Pass with loads on their backs. Even when it was straight up at the last and too difficult to be believed, I never saw one give up.”

“Me neither, and I spent a lot of time on the Chilkoot.”

“All the same, I feel like I've been beat with a stick over every inch of my body. Jason, we have to reduce the weight. What can we get rid of?”

“Any number of things, I hope. Wait a minute, I'm still carrying Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root.”

“You actually have that? What is it?”

“A liquid, I can tell you that much. A fellow back in Dawson threw it into my outfit for free.”

“Don't dump it in a stream. It might kill all the salmon.”

Chuckling at the thought, I whispered, “I'm drawing strength from you, Jamie.”

“And I from you. Keep remembering about getting the mill back, Jason. No matter what, we can't let that murderer get his hands on our twenty thousand dollars.”

“Twenty thousand dollars,” I whispered, and then I slept like the dead.

 

We woke to birds squawking and Burnt Paw growling. A pair of ravens had landed on our packsacks and were tearing at the heavy canvas with their powerful black beaks. Burnt Paw surprised one of them with a coiled leap and came back to earth with tail feathers in his mouth. The ravens flew to a nearby tree and squawked what I presumed to be profanities at him until
we were under way again. The sun was far above the horizon. By Jamie's watch it was seven in the morning.

Ten miles off, perhaps, a lone mountain rose in the distance. Old Woman Mountain, we figured. By a stretch of the imagination we could even make out head and feet.

The tracks of our enemies in the soft ground began to aim to the right, to pass the mountain on the north.

Having no desire to run into them, we aimed to the left, to clear the mountain on the south.

Jamie walked in front with the heavy packsack, the shotgun tied on the back with slipknots.

The bow of the canoe blocked my view. Mostly I kept my eyes on the ground, careful to choose the best footing to support the weight I was carrying. I had a close view of the fine spruce-root cordage that fastened the gunwales, and my nostrils were full of the scent of spruce pitch from all the caulking that waterproofed the canoe. I tried to think about how light this canoe was compared to the Peterborough. Birchbark, thin slats of birchwood, rootlets, pitch, that's all it was.

That's all.

Why did it bite so fiercely into my shoulders, and why did the back of my neck feel as if it had been gored by a bull?

The divide that separated the Yukon from the Bering Sea was not a high one, thank God, with the exception of Old Woman Mountain, which we were skirting. The climbing was steady but never steep, through birch and aspen thickets and underneath the dark spruce forest. Our constant companions were ravens and gray jays. Burnt Paw chased red squirrels and nearly got himself a noseful of porcupine quills before I managed to call him back, just in time. Game trails were everywhere, with
sign of moose and smaller droppings we guessed were left by caribou.

In the forest we could no longer see Old Woman Mountain. I couldn't tell west from east. Jamie had grown up nearly at this latitude and seemed to have a sense of direction from the position of the circling sun and the time of day. I was hopeful that our enemies were thoroughly lost.

When at last we crested the hills, the vast land spreading before us and to both sides took us by surprise. It was treeless. We were looking at an immense expanse of tundra barrens dotted with ponds and lakes but lacking anything like a river canyon.

Carefully, I lowered the canoe to one knee, then to the ground. “Where, in all that, might the Unalakleet River be hiding?”

Jamie shook her head. “If we can't find it, it's going to be a long walk to the sea.”

We made our way down out of the hills and onto the barrens, where the spongy mosses and white lichens gave with every step. We had to skirt the muskeg swamps, and the ponds grew in size and number. The mosquitoes were a maddening, droning horde and would have made short work of our sanity if not for the netting and our gloves. Midday, the wind came up in advance of ribbed clouds speeding inland and kept the mosquitoes at bay.

We kept slogging, endlessly. At last the sky was a riot of reds and oranges. The sun was close to setting. I put the canoe down and threw myself next to it on my back.

We hadn't found a river.

I doubted I could continue. Jamie must have felt the same. “My suggestion is,” she said wearily, “we give up for today and sleep.”

There were bushes nearby with scraps of dead wood, but we were too exhausted to make a fire, even a small one for tea. There were no poles for pitching our tent. We sank the blades of our canoe paddles in the tundra and draped the tent over them as best we could.

As we were about to crawl under the canvas we heard a gunshot, and then a second.

We strained to see where the blasts had come from. We made out, across the undulations of the tundra, a mother bear and two small cubs running in our general direction, in all likelihood from the gunfire. They seemed to be fleeing an unnatural feature beyond them, a tiny patch of white—a tarp or tent. Now we made out the figures of two men over there.

“No doubt it's Donner and Brackett,” I whispered. “Let's keep down. Maybe they won't notice us way over here.”

“Are the bears still coming our way?”

“They're down in a swale. They could've turned another direction. No way to tell which way they're moving.”

Burnt Paw hadn't seen the threat, but the gunshots and the tone of our voices had him sheltering right between us where we lay.

Bears move fast. It took little time to find out they'd kept running in our direction. A short while later, bounding out of the swale, here they came. They were startled to suddenly find us in front of them. All three of them, the mother and her little cubs, stood on hind legs and inspected us from no more than fifty feet.

I knew black bears, and these weren't black bears. They were brown bears, wide-faced, with humps on their backs and long claws on their front feet. Grizzlies.

The cubs wheeled away to the side, but their mother didn't. She woofed a couple of times, clacked her teeth,
laid back her ears, then came charging right for us. We were still on our bellies, and I reached instinctively for the shotgun an arm's length away. I came to my senses and let it be.

No more than ten feet away, the mother grizzly rose to her full height and let out a horrible roar. The stench from her gut washed over us. One moment I felt Burnt Paw's trembling body at my side, the next he let out a yelp and ran the opposite way.

The grizzly swayed on her hind feet, watching Burnt Paw go, watching us. Now that she could see exactly what we were, she wheeled in the direction of her cubs.

As soon as the grizzly had her cubs at her side, she stood up for another look at us, the cubs doing the same; then she woofed and laid her ears back again.

“Oh, no,” I heard Jamie whisper, as here came the grizzly, charging fast and furious as before. Jamie's hand found mine and we held on tight.

As before, the grizzly pulled up short, stood, roared, and roared again.

Once again, it proved only a warning. She went to all fours, retreated slightly, glanced once over her shoulder at us, then bounded back to her cubs. This time she collected them and was gone.

“I just died of fright,” Jamie told me.

“You're not the only one. Where's Burnt Paw?”

“He'll come back. Poor fellow—he was so scared.”

An hour later Burnt Paw wasn't back, and an hour after that, with the sun rising again, he still hadn't returned. “Maybe we should just go to sleep,” Jamie suggested. “He'll come back.”

“If he's lost, should we take the time to search for him?”

“You should decide that.”

I thought hard. “I can't leave him,” I said finally. “Darned dog.”

I got in my bag. Before long I heard Jamie's breathing start to come with a little whistle. I was about to let myself fall into exhaustion's tomb as well, when my thoughts turned to Donner and Brackett. My breathing came fast; I was filled with dread. Without doubt they'd seen our tent. They'd know it was us. What would they do if they caught us unawares?

They wouldn't come after us, I realized, they'd come after the canoe—just like before. With birchbark it would take so little.

I slipped out of my bedroll. Keeping low to the ground, I took the shotgun with me and hid behind the scrub willows at a spot that gave me a line of sight at the approach to our camp and our canoe.

I waited.

It wasn't an hour before a bit of motion between the scrub willows caught my eye. It was Donner, keeping low with an ax in one hand, a rifle in the other.

I held my position and let him keep coming. Donner halted behind the last piece of scrub between him and the canoe, then peeked around the side of the willows at the canoe and the tent.

Put the rifle down, I thought. To bash the canoe in, you need both hands on the ax.

Donner put the rifle down on the ground, and then he put the ax down. Eyes constantly on the tent door, he touched his hand to the hilt of the sheath knife at his side.

Donner started out across the clearing empty-handed, but now his hand was going to the knife again. I understood clear as day. He'd seen we had a birchbark canoe, not the Peterborough. The knife would be quieter.

“Don't,” I said in a low voice.

Donner swiveled toward me as I rose to my knees, keeping the barrel aimed at his heart. His face was a sunburned mask of surprise, all welted above his beard from mosquito bites. He'd lost his hat and lacked mosquito netting, and I didn't feel a bit sorry for him.

“Touch that knife and I'll blow you to kingdom come,” I told him.

He must have thought I meant it. I wasn't sure if I did or not. I only knew he might be able to throw that knife.

Donner broke into a broad smile. “Hawthorn, it's you!”

“Indeed it is.”

“Why are you whispering?”

He was using his phony voice on me, the soothing one. Watch it, I told myself. This is a murderer.

“I aim to let Jamie sleep. She needs it. What are you doing here, Donner?”

“Come to see if our neighbors were okay, of course. Put the shotgun down, Hawthorn, there's no call for it.”

“Why did you bring a rifle and an ax?”

“It's bear country, or haven't you noticed? I came over to see if whoever was here was okay. We scared some grizzlies away from our camp. They ran this direction. You must have seen them.”

“Oh, we saw them. Have you seen my dog?”

“Scared off, was he? That's too bad. We'll sure keep our eyes open. For God's sake put the shotgun aside, Hawthorn. What's eating you?”

“Don't you remember our Peterborough?”

“Of course—it was just like ours. I suppose you've traded it for a lighter one, same as us. What of it?”

“You felled a tree on it back in the Flats.”

Donner feigned surprise. “Surely you don't think me capable of such an act.”

“Oh, I do. Not only that, I think you came over here to find out if your neighbors—whoever they might be—had a canoe. From what happened to us back in the Flats, I'd say you take this race far too seriously.”

He snorted. “We'll complete it, for sport, but we've lost our chance of winning. We've been wandering around lost the last two days with no idea where to put our canoe in the water. The natives give such flimsy directions.”

“I know.”

“Hawthorn, we're both in the same predicament. We should team up, at least until we reach the sea.”

“You'll help us find my dog, then? Because we aren't going anywhere until we find him.”

Donner laughed. “You'd give up the chance at twenty thousand dollars to search for that miserable excuse for a canine? I remember him as quite unpleasant.”

“He's the better judge of character.”

“You're as unpleasant as him! Now, put the shotgun down. You wouldn't use it anyway, I know you wouldn't.”

“You've checked on your ‘neighbors'—we're fine, thank you. Now you can go back to your camp. I hope you're remembering your promise to sell me the mill….”

His sly smile was back on his face. “For twenty thousand dollars, as I recall.”

“In a turkey dream. That's too high.”

Donner shrugged. “I'll find another buyer.”

I motioned with the shotgun for him to leave. “Good-bye, Donner.”

“We'll see you in Nome, then, if not before. Meanwhile, good luck on finding a river.”

“Same to you. All the luck in the world.”

“Get some rest, now….”

Donner retrieved his ax and rifle without looking back. I watched him disappear into the folds of the tundra. At last I could put the shotgun down.

Jamie poked her head out of the tent. “You saved the canoe, Jason—thank goodness for that. I was listening carefully. Donner still can't tell if we know about the detective and the fire and all that. He thinks you had the shotgun on him because of what he did to us back in the Flats.”

“That's what I was hoping.”

“If I'm wrong, he'll try to murder us both.”

I crawled back into the tent. “Now, that's encouraging.”

“They'll find the river. They'll be on their way.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Just a hunch. Those bears must have come down out of the hills to feed on the salmon. That's what the bears are doing this time of year. We must be close to a river.”

 

By the time we woke, no vestige of Donner and Brackett could be seen across the way, and Burnt Paw still wasn't back. Calling at the top of our lungs, we started out in the direction he'd run. As we were about to lose sight of camp, I had Jamie stand still and I made my way out across the spongy terrain, in and out of hollows but never losing sight of her. All the while I kept calling.

At the extremity of sight distance from Jamie—a mile or more—I saw a moving patchwork climbing out of a steep draw: a herd of caribou. The ones at the back were shaking themselves out as if they'd just been swimming.

“Burnt Paw!” I hollered into the emptiness. “Burnt Paw! Burnt Paw!”

That shrill bark of his was faint at first, but unmistakable. I yelled with all my might, and at last he came running, a tiny speck in the vastness.

That dog was so happy he ran circles around me, leapt in the air like a jack-in-the-box, nearly licked me to death. I fell to the tundra and grabbed him to my chest.

On our return he jumped into Jamie's arms and went just as crazy over her. “Look who's back!” she exclaimed.

“I may have found the river,” I reported.

Indeed I had. It was more of a creek, but it was deep enough to float the canoe and, even more importantly, was teeming with salmon. It would lead us to the sea.

It was with the greatest relief, several hours later, that we floated the canoe and started paddling downstream. It would be too soon if I never walked another step on tundra.

As it turned out, Donner and Brackett had found another fork of the same stream. Where the two joined, we saw them paddling down the other fork. They slipped in a few hundred yards behind us.

Frequent creeks added volume to the river. With our enemies at our backs, we paddled over salmon and among waterfowl taking explosively to the air.

The river was never fast, never rocky. The sea, we guessed, was no more than sixty miles away.

We flew. We were anxious that Donner and Brackett not overtake us, for fear they would wait in ambush around a bend.

For whatever reason, they seemed content with the distance between the canoes. By the time the sun set, we
could no longer see them behind. We wondered if they had stopped to sleep.

“Shall we keep pushing?” I asked. “All the way to Unalakleet?”

“To U-na-la-kleet,” Jamie chanted, “counting no sheep.”

“To U-na-la-fad-dle,” I chanted back, “flashing our paddles.”

“To U-na-la-muck,” she sang, “dodging the ducks.”

“To U-na-la-dish,” I sang, “bumping the fish.”

We kept on this way until we ran out of rhymes.

The sun rose and resumed its great circle around the sky. We kept paddling. At three in the afternoon, with the gulls crying and wheeling overhead, and the ocean air palpable in a thick mist, we spied the white spire of a church atop the headlands, and then a settlement of huts fashioned from bleached driftwood and whalebone.

Unalakleet.