Chapter 37 #2
It felt as if they were hovering near a greater truth than that, but Brendan said nothing more and neither did Maggie, even though she wanted to.
After a few moments of silence, she rolled back onto her back, and so did Brendan, and she must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew, she was blinking in bright daylight, the air inside the tent was stifling, and Brendan had already risen to see to their preparations.
An hour later, they were loading up to take the scow out onto the lake. Dozens of other miners were doing the same with their own boats, eager to start their journey, and Maggie realized they would make up quite the flotilla as they all headed toward the mouth of the river.
At first, it felt easy. They stood in the middle of their boat, surrounded by rucksacks and saddlebags, and paddled out into the middle of the lake and then toward the headwaters.
The river flowed swiftly, carrying them along at a pace that would have alarmed Maggie if the waterway hadn’t been so straight and calm.
It was over seventy miles to their first set of rapids, and she let herself enjoy the sight of the mountains rising steeply on either side, gashes of granite bisecting endless, verdant stretches of spruce and pine, a few other boats visible on various parts of the river, so it almost started to feel like a picnic.
Once, she leaned over and dipped her fingers in the water, shocked by how icy it was, although she realized she shouldn’t have been. Just a few weeks ago, the river had been completely frozen.
Brendan estimated they made thirty miles on their first day, and they camped at a flat point with several others, a small settlement of tiny tents in a vast and indifferent wilderness, its beauty both awe-inspiring and frightening at the sheer, utter expanse of it.
The next day, they made the same distance again, and Maggie let herself start to relax, just for a little while. Maybe, she thought, this really was the easy part of the trip. At least, it could be.
At Mile Canyon, they found another small encampment of tents, with a ruddy-faced young man offering to pilot boats down the half-mile of the White Horse Rapids, before walking up to do it all over again. He charged five dollars per boat, a sum Maggie and Brendan paid gladly.
“Women usually walk along the shore,” he told them as he inspected their boat, shifted a few boxes to distribute the weight more evenly. “And then meet us at the end.”
“That’s a very sound idea,” Brendan said firmly, giving Maggie a friendly glower.
“And what am I to do, if the boat breaks apart on the rapids, and I’m all on my own?” Maggie asked, trying to sound good-natured, rather than frightened.
“Your concern on my behalf is overwhelming,” Brendan joked, but Maggie could see by the tense way he held himself how anxious he was.
“If that happens, you’ll have to join some other miners until you reach Dawson.
” He took the oilskin bag he kept their money in from around his neck. “I’ll give you this, just in case.”
“Brendan—” Maggie protested. She felt a clutch of panic at the thought of the very real danger he was in.
“No,” the young pilot, who had introduced himself as Jack London, interjected. “It’s a good idea.”
Wordlessly, Maggie took the little bag and put it around her own neck. She wanted to say something more, something about how she felt, even if Brendan wouldn’t. But the opportunity slipped away before she could seize it, and Brendan was stepping into the scow with determination, along with Jack.
“All right, then,” the river pilot said cheerfully. “Let’s be off!”
Maggie watched, her heart feeling as if it were beating its way up her throat, as they pushed off from the shore and steered toward the swirling water of the rapids.
Within a few seconds, the boat was caught in the current, the bow lifting so high into the air that Brendan stumbled back and water foamed over the sides.
Maggie pressed her hands to her mouth, terror-stricken, but then the boat came down on the other side, the water receded, and Brendan steadied himself. From the shore, Maggie heard Jack London laugh.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she turned and started to walk along the shore, picking her way through the long grass, trying to keep the boat in sight, but it was soon swallowed up by the dips and curves in the river, and she could see it no more.
She walked for half a mile under the warm spring sun, and despite her anxiety, she enjoyed the warmth, as well as the peacefulness of the scene.
All around her, the world stretched endlessly—meadow and mountain, river and rock and sky.
There was nothing else, nothing for hundreds and hundreds of miles. It was an incredible thought.
Finally, after about twenty minutes, she made it to the end of the rapids, and a sob escaped her when she saw their scow pulled up on the shore, and a soaking-wet Brendan laughing and shaking hands with Jack London, who pocketed his five dollars and, whistling, walked up the way Maggie had just come to do it all over again.
“Good Lord.” Brendan turned to her with a smile as he swiped his wet hair from his eyes.
His clothes were clinging to his body, and he was already starting to shiver.
“I wouldn’t want to do that again. I thought I was a goner at one point, but Jack just laughed like he was on a child’s merry-go-round. ”
“You should put on dry clothes,” Maggie said. She wanted to hug him, but, for some reason, she didn’t dare. “Before you catch a chill.”
“Too right,” Brendan agreed. “But then we should keep on. Jack said if we can push to Lake Laberge, there’s an encampment on Policeman’s Point.”
“Policeman’s Point?” Maggie asked in surprise. “Surely there aren’t police all the way out here?”
Brendan nodded. “There’s a mounted police station there. They check your boats to make sure they’re seaworthy, but since we made it through the White Horse Rapids, I’d say this one is!”
Within a few minutes, Brendan had changed and they were back in the boat, heading downriver.
It was nearing evening by the time they made it to Policeman’s Point on Lake Laberge, which looked like a smooth expanse of glass underneath the darkening sky.
The air was starting to get chilly as Brendan set up the tent and secured their supplies, while Maggie built a fire and warmed yet another can of beans for dinner, to be washed down with coffee.
After nearly three weeks on the trail, she’d become used to its deprivations as well as its moments of surprising peace—the first stars starting to twinkle in the endless, indigo sky above them, the lake mirrored with moonlight.
“Do you think they’re all right?” she asked Brendan as they warmed themselves by the fire and dug into their beans. “Do you think they’re even alive?” It had been over a month since the Inuit had mushed past Danny and Da’s stake on Hunker Creek. That seemed like a very long time ago.
“I hope so,” Brendan replied as he tipped his head to the sky. “That’s all I can say, Maggie. I hope so.”
Hope, Maggie thought, was all they had. She prayed it would be enough.
The next day was relatively peaceful as they traveled down Lake Laberge, although when they reached the center of the lake, the wind kicked up and for a little while it became nearly impossible to navigate.
They’d already had their boat approved by the mounted police, a lone man who lived in a log cabin and inspected the boats as they went by. It seemed a very lonely job to Maggie.
They managed to cover the lake, thirty miles long, in one day, and camped on the north end before they started the next part of their journey, toward Hootalinqua, another police point, where the lake emptied into the confluence of the Yukon and Teslin Rivers.
“It’s another hundred or so miles to Five Finger Rapids,” Brendan told her, “and after that, the home stretch to Dawson.” He smiled tiredly at her, and Maggie smiled back, everything in her lightening at the thought of finally reaching the end of this journey, together.
It happened so suddenly that she was barely aware of what was going on.
One moment she was smiling at Brendan as they paddled out of the lake toward the river, and in the next the paddle had slipped from Maggie’s hands and she was knocked flat on her back on the bottom of the boat so hard and fast she was breathless.
Water foamed over the sides of the boat as it rocked to and fro, caught in a sudden strong current.
“It’s the spring thaw, coming down the Teslin,” Brendan gasped out as he righted himself. He crawled over to her on his hands and knees, his face taut with anxiety. “Maggie, are you all right?”
“Yes—” She struggled to sit, bruised and winded from her fall. “But I lost my paddle.”
“I’ll make another one. Let’s just get to shore.”
The boat was still careening down the river, too fast to control, the water foaming all around them as the spring thaw poured from both the Yukon and Teslin Rivers, the separate currents crashing into each other in churning, angry-looking waves.
“Just hold on,” Brendan shouted, his face pale and taut as he gripped the paddle tightly and tried to steer them toward the shore, which right then seemed as if it might be a hundred miles away. All around them was nothing but endlessly seething river.
“I am, I promise,” Maggie replied shakily, trying for a laugh, just as the boat hit a submerged tree and then flew into the air.
At least, Maggie flew into the air. For a second, she was airborne, weightless and stunned, and the next she was plunged into the river, the icy water closing over her head.