But there were things she could do to escape it. To help. To make a difference, for others and herself, and every day, she ticked them off on her fingers to make sure they stayed on her mind.
Exercise her fingers and toes to fend off frostbite.
Tend to the children, all the while pretending good cheer so they would feel less of the aching, desperate fear that most of the adults had grown too overwhelmed to hide successfully.
Make a game of hunger.
Make one good effort to find new food, whether that meant scraping down through the ice to find the bark of a not-yet-stripped tree, or sitting silently as far away from camp as she dared in the hopes a lone squirrel or rabbit might happen by, or turning something that had never been intended as food into some minor, sad form of nourishment. The only book they had left was the family Bible, and she’d taken a knife to it, separated cover from pages, to get at the glue on the inside of the spine. It had no taste, but there was a chew to it, a texture. Five of the children happily jawed away at it for over an hour.
The other thing she did, which no one else wanted to do, was go back and forth between the lake camp and the Donner camp, keeping the path from vanishing under the snow. By appearing in both camps regularly, Virginia decided, she could stay on everyone’s mind. As if there weren’t enough real fears to keep her awake and trembling, she’d developed a pathological fear that she might get left behind. If relief parties ever did come—and at this point, that felt not just uncertain or unlikely but impossible—she had a terror that they would come, sweep up the children on sledges, then come back for the adults, but because she was neither truly one or the other, she’d get left in camp to fend for herself. She was less weak than most—that would be another reason to deny her escape. And yet. Wouldn’t any rescue party try to help as many as they could? Where was this fear coming from, and what could she do to banish it? If she knew what it was, she thought that might mean that she could overcome it, but for now, there were no easy answers.
Earlier in the winter, they’d tried to walk out and seek help, four of them: Virginia, her mother, and two hired hands, a driver named Milt and their cook, Eliza. Her mother joked grimly at the time that Eliza might as well help in the search since as it was, there was no food left for her to cook. It seemed funny to say so until another snowstorm blew up and they had to abandon their trek, giving up and turning back. When they returned after four days, in their absence, even the rotting oxhides that had formed the roof of their cabin had been eaten. Even less funny considering what had been left to eat after that, which was only sometimes cooked, fuel growing almost as scarce as food as the snow piled high around them.
The next time a party went for help, Virginia begged to be included. She still carried a burden from the failure of the first party. If only they’d turned right or left at a different moment, would it have mattered? It had only been the poor timing of more snow that had forced them back; this time, wouldn’t things be better? Besides, this time, one of the men had made them snowshoes.
Sarah Fosdick, the married daughter of the Graves family, heard Virginia’s pleas to be included and took her aside. Bending down, she looked Virginia in the eye and said, “You are not coming. The die has been cast. What we need more is someone we can trust to care for those who remain behind. Rally spirits. So take all the energy you are wasting begging to come with us, and save it to keep the rest of the party alive.”
Somehow, even those wise words did not keep Virginia from protesting once more. “But couldn’t I be of more use—”
“No,” said Sarah, her voice harsher now, her hands gripping Virginia’s shoulders. Virginia would never forget how she could feel every one of the woman’s fingertips, sharp and steady. The flesh had grown so scarce on her upper arms there was nothing to shield bone from bone.
Sarah went on, a rasp in her voice, “Do what you can. God be with you. I have every hope we’ll bring back help. If it is at all possible, we will do it, I swear. But absent that—when all is uncertain—the only person you can count on is you.”
She pressed a kiss against Virginia’s forehead. It was dry and painfully cold and felt nothing like a kiss at all. Her lips had no more spirit or give than a thumb. That put more fear in Virginia than anything Sarah or any of the others could do or say.
She watched the snowshoe party depart over the mountains. She watched until the dark outlines of their bodies vanished into the white. She paid particular attention to the slender form of Sarah Fosdick, setting a crisp pace, her body unbending even with the strain. In the end, every form, even Sarah’s, disappeared into the white distance, swallowed whole.
Virginia had tried and failed, and she had hated how it felt to fail. But she hadn’t known what it felt like to stay behind, to not be part of the group that tried. To wait while important decisions and actions were underway elsewhere, her fate in others’ hands, trusting those others to do what was right to bring her back from the brink of death. Now, she knew how that made one feel.
Like even more of a failure.
Chapter Forty-Three
Ann
On the Expedition
January 1854
Ann knew as well as anyone that when explorers had to choose between their own lives and the lives of their dogs, they chose themselves.
But for all her days and weeks and months on this expedition, Ann told herself grimly, she was not really an explorer.
It was funny, she thought. She could tell she was well on her way to death. She had been exhausted and starving for so long, you’d think that every day would feel just as awful as it possibly could, but today, she felt a little better. That was how she knew she would die soon.
She’d never been on an expedition herself, but she’d been told the tales of dozens. Maybe a hundred even. Men coming back, telling her all the places the dogs had gone, but so rarely returning with them. Ann would much rather have seen the dogs again than the men. Every last one.
Ann raised her eyes to the horizon. Was it even a horizon, what she was seeing? Sometimes it was hard to tell apart the snow from the sky.
These ten dogs, dearer to her than any human, she could not sentence them to death. Nor did she want to sentence the women to death, but she knew their own choices were coming soon, and she could not risk them making the wrong choice.
She’d given the dogs her portion of meat every day—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten—and fed them from a secret trove of jerked meat she hid inside her clothes. While the women were put on a strict ration, they had not appointed a guard to watch the stores and make sure no one stole. When things got desperate, she was sure this would change. She would take her moment to act before it did.
Her eyes returned to the far-off point in the distance, farther than she could see.
The horizon was a smear of white, the gray-white of the clouded sky only a shade lighter than the white-gray of the snowy ground ahead.
When she released the dogs, they leapt and nuzzled her. The one she called Spotter made a playful bark, but she motioned for silence, and after that, they nudged and rubbed against her without sound. They tucked their heads under her dangling hand insistently, competing to be petted and stroked, fixing on her with their bright blue eyes. There was nothing in the world more beautiful than that blue.
Steady now, she told herself.
Ann had stolen one more thing, one more time. She hoped the women would forgive her. Particularly the doctor, whose kit she’d stolen it from. She had never been a habitual thief, not like Stella. The food for the dogs and the medicine for herself were the only things she’d ever filched. But even though she knew what she had to do, she was afraid. It wasn’t death she feared so much as pain.
One at a time, she gave each dog the command to go. She could tell they wanted to stay with her, but when she repeated the command, even the most reluctant—Spotter—turned his
head away and struck out in the direction she sent them.
South and east.
Ann removed her glove. The stinging, numbing cold licked at her fingers immediately. She had to act quickly or be lost. With as much speed as she could muster while the tears welled in her eyes, she raised the phial, uncorked it, and gulped the contents in one swallow. She hoped she had guessed the contents right. Either way, this would all be over soon. But dying in agony and dying in peace were different things, and she knew which one she wanted.
She lay down with her eyes on the horizon, aiming her face in the direction the dogs had gone. Dark smears against the snow, they flung themselves wholeheartedly into their unknown future. In her way, she did the same.
The feeling spreading inside her was cool and painless. She’d chosen well, she thought. Luck was on her side, or whatever passed for it in this situation.
Only two dogs were still visible at all, off in the distance.
Her dogs, her treasured dogs, she could almost feel her own heart freezing. How soon it was too late. Unlike Virginia Reeve, she was not the kind of woman who prayed, but in this moment, she did hope. The dogs’ survival was far from guaranteed, but their chances were better as a pack. She imagined them bringing down caribou and foxes, hares and raccoons. She envisioned them running south and east and south again, turning the journey they’d already made inside out, back to where the white land began to turn brown and then green. If nothing else, once they reached the shore of Hudson Bay, they would be found and welcomed. But in the miles between here and there, much could happen. Perhaps they would find a group of Esquimaux and join their nomadic family life. That would be lovely, thought Ann. She pictured them tumbling over the ground with children, their mouths open in wide dog grins, pink tongues lolling.
The picture in her mind was beautiful. She lost track of the far horizon, rejecting the visible, embracing what she’d imagined.
Thinking of the dogs warm and happy, Ann gave a soft, almost inaudible sigh.
The sigh died in her throat along with her.
Chapter Forty-Four
Caprice
On the Expedition
January 1854
If anyone else had found Ann, the whole party would have been wakened by a scream. Irene was unlucky enough to discover her body, so instead, she woke up only Caprice and Virginia to show them what had happened. It was possible, thought Caprice, she’d only been included because she slept between Virginia and the door, but once she was awake, there was no going back.
Together, they saw the tracks of the dogs disappearing over the horizon. They saw Ann’s sightless eyes. They wrapped her body and carried it farther away from camp so it would not confront every woman who came out of the ice house, but Caprice told the other women they should keep it close so they could quickly act to give Ann a proper burial. That was not in fact why she wanted to keep the body close, but it would do as a reason.
And it was Caprice who broke the news to the rest of the women, as a group. Virginia opened her mouth over and over to say something—something reassuring, something firm, something that acknowledged the shock and pain they were all feeling—and yet no sound ever came out, only air wet with her breath. Doro thumped her fist against her thigh, over and over, her eyes shut tight against the world. Siobhan stared at the ground; Elizabeth looked to the sky. Stella alone looked right at Caprice, her gaze steady, her eyes dry. No one asked any questions.
Then Virginia turned her back on the women and walked toward the lake. Caprice hustled after her, concerned she might step onto the lake’s frozen surface just to test it or even try on purpose to break through. On the worst climb of her life, a failed summit attempt on Mont Andraes, Caprice had seen suicide become contagious. When people felt trapped, it was the only sure escape route, and there was no telling who, in a weak moment, might be tempted to take it. If Virginia laid herself down and died, it would likely spell death for all of them. They’d had their differences, but Caprice knew by now that losing Virginia would break the remaining spirit these women had. The combined loss of Ann and her dogs would bend them to the breaking point. They would not be able to endure more.
Caprice balled her hands into tight fists under her enormous gloves. If her hands had been bare, she would have been able to feel her fingernails biting into her palm, but as it was, in the enormous mittens, she could not even close either hand all the way.
She approached Virginia slowly from behind, not sure what to say but certain she had to say something. She wasn’t even sure the other woman knew she was there until Virginia said, “And what do you want?” She bit off her words like the leathery jerked meat they’d all tired of ages ago.
Caprice said, “We need to discuss what to do with her.”
Staring over the frozen water, Virginia said, “What can we do? Leave her in the ice until the thaw comes. We can’t bury her in the land, and we can’t bury her at sea.”
“People in our situation—they don’t always bury bodies.”
“Of course they don’t. What did I just say?”
“That’s not what I mean,” said Caprice carefully. She had no desire to do what she was talking about, but she had to bring it up. It was a possibility, if a disturbing one. They weren’t desperate enough yet, but they could easily become so. It would behoove them all to be on the same page before that happened.
“Then say what you mean.”
“She let the dogs go because she didn’t want us to eat them,” said Caprice, forcing out each word against the cold air that threatened to freeze her lips shut. “And you know what? We probably would have.”
Virginia didn’t look at her. “You’re so sure?”
“Yes. Certain. I wish Ann hadn’t done what she did, of course I wish that, but about the dogs, she was right. She knew these next months could kill us. That we could die of hunger if we don’t make hard choices. And now we have—”
Virginia wheeled on her then, raising her hand to bring across Caprice’s face. Caprice’s move away was equal parts dodge and stumble, her limbs slow from cold, and the few inches she moved made the difference. Virginia’s mittened hand clouted Caprice on the side of the head, but through her thick hood, scarves, and Welsh cap, she barely felt the blow.
Virginia’s voice, though, sent fear whistling down her spine.
“If you so much as mention that possibility again, I will kill you myself,” Virginia said. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“Virginia,” said Caprice in disbelief. “I’m just trying to—”
“I don’t need you to try,” Virginia fairly snarled. “I need you to shut up and keep your head down until you get sick of real work. I’m sure that’s coming soon. We’ll hunker down. We’ll survive the winter. Then whatever happens next, we’ll find a trading post or another ship to leave you on, and I won’t have to see you for the rest of my life.”
Caprice crossed her arms. “You keep on like this—”
“Like what?”
“You keep on like this, pushing us away, refusing to let anyone help you do anything, even when you need it, and good God, Virginia, you’re not going to have much life left to live.”
“Language,” responded Virginia automatically in a taunting tone. “Don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“Profanity isn’t the only thing God hates.”
“How dare you presume to know what He hates or loves?” Her voice was full of anger but not just anger—there was fear there, and desperation. She sounded far too close to a breaking point. Caprice wondered if perhaps she was already there.
“I’m trying to talk in words you’re going to understand.” Caprice wanted to soothe her, but she knew Virginia was in no shape for soothing. She had to speak boldly, without apologies. Only the unvarnished truth could help now. “Everything else seems to fall on deaf ears. I hoped that by talking to you in the only la
nguage you seem to understand, the words of God, you might actually hear me for once.”
“I hear you.” But her words were without emotion.
“But are you listening? Are you taking it to heart?”
“What difference does it make to you?”
“I want to survive!” Caprice almost shouted. “I think my chances, all our chances, are best if you survive too. But I’m not even sure you want to!”
In a small, almost inaudible voice, Virginia told her, “I’m not sure of that either, for what it’s worth.”
Lowering her voice so the other women back by their shelter would not hear it, Caprice said, “We chose the risky path when we could have been safe. We all had our reasons. We took our chance. Now none of us may make it out alive. But that doesn’t excuse any of us, especially you, from trying.”
“That was well put.”
“Try not to sound so surprised.”
Virginia said, with a little more spirit, “I’ll try.”
“And by the way, mountaineering wasn’t just idle sport.” If they were being completely honest at last, Caprice had something to get off her chest. “I know you think I’m a dilettante. I know you think that money insulated me from everything. But just because there were guides who watched me summit the mountain, that doesn’t mean I didn’t do all the work to summit it. No one carried me up there on a litter. It was cold and dirty and hard, and I did it, damn you, Virginia, I did it. And you don’t get to look down on me just because my background is different from yours.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Virginia, seeming like herself at last. “I won’t look down on you for having money if you don’t look down on me for not having it.”
“That’s fair,” said Caprice. “And I owe you an apology.”
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