To the Bright Edge of the World

by Eowyn Ivey

  It must have dove, for it disappeared, then resurfaced on the far side of the other canoe. Again its long back was barely visible, but we could see that its skin was smooth, mottled green and black. No apparent ridges, fins, or limbs.

   — Paddle! I commanded.

  Nat’aaggi & Tillman were making quick progress towards shore. Our own canoe, however, faced the wrong direction. For a few strokes, Pruitt & I worked at odds to each other, until we were at last able to turn about.

  We were still several boat lengths behind the others when the creature struck our vessel again. We were overturned, both of us thrown into the cold water.

  I descended several feet below the surface. My ears filled with the rush of water. I could see nothing beyond dull gray on all sides. The glacial coldness seized my muscles, so that I could not even let the air from my lungs.

  Though muffled by the water, I heard what I took for a cry from Pruitt. I gained my senses, swam upward, surfaced with a gasp. That was when I first felt contact. Cold skin, smooth as if without scales. Large enough to shove me aside with its weight.

  Pruitt tried to hold to the canoe as it filled with water. When the creature rose to attack him, for a brief moment I saw its head. A prehistoric beast, with a wide, flat skull & a bill-like mouth.

  We gained a brief advantage when the creature instead went for the canoe. For what seemed like several minutes, it thrashed with the canoe in its mouth as it tried to drag it under.

  Tillman & Nat’aaggi paddled their canoe to our aid. The two reached Pruitt first, just as the creature again came near the surface. Nat’aaggi beat at it with her paddle. Pruitt grabbed on to the side of their canoe but lacked the strength to pull himself aboard. His weight upon the side threatened to overturn it.

  Tillman tried to help him into the canoe, but it tipped too far, Tillman lost his balance so ended up in the water as well. Nat’aaggi just managed to keep it from capsizing entirely. I swam for the other side so that I could steady it when they tried to climb in.

  Tillman held to the canoe, used his shoulder to boost Pruitt aboard. Before he could save himself, Tillman was abruptly pulled down. The creature had hold of him. From my position, I could do nothing except shout an order for Pruitt to shoot.

  Pruitt stood with the rifle, took aim. The canoe teetered beneath him. He hesitated. I think he feared shooting Tillman, who was now fiercely engaged with the creature. Nat’aaggi continued to beat down into the water with her paddle. Pruitt finally shot, aiming for the tail-end of the creature, well away from Tillman. It was enough to at least startle if not wound it.

  Tillman climbed aboard as I counterweighted the canoe. It occurred to me then that it would never hold all of us. Already it was sunk to within inches of being swamped. I ordered them to head into shore.

  Tillman reached down to offer me a hand out of the lake.

   — You could hold to the stern while we paddle, Tillman offered.

  They could make no headway with the added drag. Again I ordered them to paddle on.

  I swam after them with all the strength I could muster, but by now I was worn out from the struggle & cold. I made little progress. As I thrashed in the water, I again felt the thing pass near me. It was most unnerving. Its bulk & power moved through the water so that I could feel its current beneath me before my feet struck its back.

  It would have had me, I am certain, if it weren’t for the Indians. I was half frozen & fading. When I saw their canoes approach, I gave one last effort to swim towards them.

  I cannot describe the relief of being pulled from that lake. Two Indians helped me aboard their vessel, as those in the other canoe were at the ready with bows & arrows. I was weak & my body felt impossibly heavy, so I lay on the bottom of the boat. In the short time it took to reach shore, I commenced to shivering & teeth-chattering with such violence that my muscles ached. It would be some time before I fully regained my warmth.

  The Indians were able to retrieve our water-filled canoe, tow it back to shore. Remarkably our packs were still strapped inside, though one rifle was lost.

  As we were helped ashore, it became clear that Tillman had no sense of his injury, only wanted to boast of fighting the creature. — I got in quite a few good clobbers, he said, demonstrating with his fists. Then he began to laugh. — Guess I can swim after all, if I’m riding a 50-foot water snake.

  Pruitt insisted that the creature was neither a snake nor anywhere near 50 feet. The two began to argue. Tillman quieted, however, when I drew his attention to his leg where the cloth of his pants had been torn away. He said he was surprised to know he had even been bitten, then he looked down.

   — Good God! he said in a weak voice, so that I expected him to faint.

  His wounds were clean & cool due to the lake water. Unlike most injuries I have encountered in the field, there was of course no ball or shrapnel to concern us. All that said, it is not pleasant to behold. In their arrangement the wounds reveal the size & shape of the creature’s jaws. Punctures to the skin of his upper thigh, as well as that of his lower leg beneath the knee, show the jaw to be nearly three feet wide. The teeth seem to have been comparatively small, concentrated at the back of the jaw, & notably sharp.

  Most of the puncture wounds are neat. However, several gashes did require suturing.

  When Pruitt brought out needles & silk thread, Tillman protested.

   — Not without a drop of whiskey, he said.

  I pointed out that there were no such spirits for 500 miles in any direction.

  While Nat’aaggi held his head in her lap, Pruitt & I set to work. I credit Tillman — while he did shout & curse, he also managed to keep still enough. We went as quickly as we could. I am grateful, too, for Pruitt’s skills as impromptu field surgeon.

  Nat’aaggi tends to Tillman. She sits by his side tonight in one of the huts, offering him drinks of water.

  June 17

  My diaries & Sophie’s letter are nearly dry. I have laid them along the ground in the afternoon sun, keeping them in place with small rocks. It is fortunate that I keep them wrapped in squares of oilcloth within my jacket. They are damp in places, but all considering, they are in decent shape & I am much relieved.

  A medicine man visited Tillman this afternoon. His ceremony was long & bizarre. For an hour or more, he remained concealed beneath a skin blanket inside our hut. He eventually began to writhe, dance, sing, all the while still hidden. After some time, he had worked himself into such a state of excitement that the skin blanket fell from him, his face dripped with sweat, his voice was gravelly. He next placed the blanket over Tillman’s injured leg, spoke incantations, then seem to catch some unseen entity, which he wrestled with on the ground for some time before dragging it out of the hut.

  If it were me, I would not hold to such nonsense. Tillman, however, says it can do no harm.

  Dear Josh,

  First off, I see now that I might have used language in previous letters that would likely offend your kind. Please excuse that. I’ve never bothered myself with being politically correct, but truth be told, I don’t care much one way or the other about people’s sexual leanings. I tend to get lazy and resort to the easy insults. I apologize for that.

  It’s a limitation in writing back and forth like this. You don’t see a whole person in their words. I am surprised, though, that you two landed some place like Alpine, at least how you describe it. It seems the city might be a more accepting place.

  I am curious, too, why you mention it at all. Life would be a whole lot easier if you just kept that under your hat. Down the road from me a couple of old spinsters have lived together for as long as I can recall. They don’t make a show of it or march to get married at town hall. They keep their business to themselves, and that suits us all just fine.

  As for the money, take it. I don’t have family to speak of. I was married once years ago, but we never had children. It was probably for the best. I don’t think we ever much liked each other. L
ooking back I think I was only truly in love once, when I was about 18 or 19. She was a sweet girl, and if I’d known how rare that commodity was, maybe I would have done things different. Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes when I think back on my younger self, it’s like trying to read the mind of a stranger. And a damned idiot at that.

  On to more important matters, it’s true what you said about the way a person comes to history. There’s nothing like a textbook to bleed all the life out of the past. And for you, a boy all the way up in Alaska, the Civil War might as well have happened on another planet.

  Interestingly enough, though, it was at one of those battlefields that I first got interested. It was much like your finding those train cars. My father took me out to Gettysburg when I was a boy, and even at that young age, I was moved. I was still young enough to hold onto his hand, and while we walked, he told me that his uncle, the Colonel, had fought there. He made me to understand that my feet were touching holy ground where men had killed and bled and died. All these years later, I can still recall the day. The clouds were moving fast across a blue sky, and the green grass and trees were so peaceful. Nearly 50,000 men dead, wounded, or missing. I always did have an overactive imagination as a child, and I could hear the cannons firing, and I could see the ghosts of the soldiers walking those gentle hills. It troubled me for some time.

  I’ll tell you one thing about history — we leave a lot of carnage in our wake. The only way we know, it seems, no matter how many times we see it done.

  Sincerely,

  Walt

  It became very quiet in the house. All sat with downcast eyes. The shaman also remained silent with his head down, thinking for a minute or longer, then, without a word he left the house. In a few minutes, he returned with a dirty, greasy sack and shook from it the objects of his profession, namely wooden rattles used in dancing, colored sticks, strips of wood, feathers, a doll with hair and queue, and other trinkets which were so dirty that one could not handle them without repulsion. Then one or two similar dolls were brought in by some women: All these things were burned in their presence on the street. It was amusing to see the indignation of one old woman when she saw my churchman spitting on a doll brought by her.

   — From Hieromonk Nikita, Travel Journal, Kenai, 1881–1882,

  Documents Relative to the History of Alaska, volume 1

  (translated from Russian)

  Sophie Forrester

  Vancouver Barracks

  June 18, 1885

  An unexpected turn of events at the General’s house this afternoon, although my embarrassment could have been much worse. Mercifully, Mrs Haywood interrupted my outburst before I could say all that I had prepared, about the right of a woman to run her household as she sees fit and the impertinence of anyone to suggest otherwise.

  “And do not suppose that my husband will not defend me in this case,” I was saying. “I will certainly do everything I can to make amends, but if I cannot, I suggest we take it up with him upon his return . . .”

  “Mrs Forrester, Mrs Forrester. Calm yourself,” said Mrs Haywood, who was directing her servant to pour the tea. “You have not been called here to be reprimanded.”

  “What? Of course not!” the General said. (In truth, every word the General spoke was at the auditory level of a shout, but his demeanor and that of his wife indicated that this was his customary voice.)

  “What is she talking about?” the General shouted at his wife.

  Mrs Haywood placed a hand on her husband’s knee and directed her attention back to me.

  “I have not seen you at the ladies’ tea in some time. And it’s so unfortunate that you missed the concert at the parade ground. It was rousing, though of course quite loud.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I was able to hear the drums and horns even as I worked.”

  “Working on your photographs?” she asked. “We understand you have modified the pantry in your house where you do such things.”

  I nodded but dared not speak, so instead sipped at my tea.

  “We have seen you about the grounds often with your camera,” Mrs. Haywood continued. “It is the landscape that interests you, rather than portraits?

  “Enough!” said the General. “I don’t have all afternoon to natter away. Do you see those over there?”

  He pointed to a wooden box near the door of the parlor.

  “Plates. From the expedition. They came down the river with the papers. They need to be handled.”

  I did not understand. Were these photographs from Allen’s journey? And did he ask me to develop them?

  “Yes! Yes!” the General shouted.

  Of course I would do anything to assist, but I suggested that Mr Redington in Portland would be better suited to develop such important photographs.

  “We’ve been in contact. He recommended you. Frankly, I’d prefer he do it. But he can’t get to them for some time, and he says you’re more than capable. I’ll have them sent up to your house.”

  General Haywood stood then, eager to be free of the parlor, but I could not let him go without asking if he had heard anything from my husband or his men.

  “Not a word since Haigh Canyon.”

  As for the glass plates, it seems no one has opened the box since its delivery, as it was marked “Photographs” and the General prudently wanted them handled only in a dark room. I am anxious to discover their contents.

  June 19

  Such a disappointment! More than two dozen photographs from the expedition are lost. Not only are the plates cracked and broken, but it looks as if someone stripped them out of their protective slides and exposed them. At first I thought all were destroyed, but I have discovered just nine that were spared.

  I sent word to the General, and he replied that he feared as much, as there were rumors that the Wolverine Indians had tampered with the shipment before it was delivered to Alaska’s coast.

  As I waited for his reply, I found myself hoping that the General would say that he had reconsidered, and request that I send the plates on to Mr Redington after all. I have yet to put any of them into solution.

  Some part of my hesitation is irrational. If the men were injured or in danger at the time these were taken, surely such reports would have been sent along with the plates. Yet against my will, photographs from our Civil War come to my mind. What if, alone in my dark room, I am confronted with some scene of Allen or his men in distress? The thought nearly incapacitates me with dread.

  A more rational concern, however, is that I may very well ruin these precious plates. I grow more confident with my skills, yet I cannot rule out the possibility that I will wrongly measure my chemicals, or misjudge how long to leave a plate in solution, and it is not as if these photographs can ever be retaken. I hope Mr Redington has not been too generous and reckless in his recommendation.

  I know the General is anxious to have this done, but perhaps I will wait until tomorrow, with hopes that I will be calmer of nerves.

  June 20

  I regained my courage after all. Five plates developed to varying degrees of success late last night, and today I made prints in the sunshine. Mr Pruitt had neatly annotated each with a slate pencil, so I am able to identify them as such.

  The first was marked “Wolverine River, April 1885,” and showed a wide river made of slabs of ice so closely piled up on one another so as to reveal only small patches of dark water. Though the weather is foggy and overcast, one can see in the far distance a stand of evergreen trees along a steep hillside. The terrain makes me think that there must be tall mountains beyond that are obscured by the low clouds. It is an icy and forlorn scene, so that I can hardly imagine anyone living comfortably in such a landscape.

  The next plate was irretrievably damaged by fogging, a problem I know all too well. I suspect Mr Pruitt was challenged to handle the plates without a dark room, probably working beneath the focusing cloth in daylight. I am sorry to not be able to see the image, for it was titled “Midnoosky dance” and
sounded fascinating indeed.

  There then was an image marked as “Kings Glacier,” a mountain of broken and towering ice. This was the scene Allen so wished me to see.

  “Nat’aaggi.” This is a photograph of a young Indian woman, not much more than a teen-ager I would suppose, crouching beside a large, wolf-like dog.

  It is petty and vain of me, but I felt a sickening kind of jealousy to see the woman. She is wild looking, with a fur pelt over her shoulders, clothing of animal skins, and her dark hair long and unbound, but she is not unattractive. There is a certain hardness in her face that causes me to think she is of a strong disposition. I am not sure romance, imagined or real, is even the root of my envy. Rather it is the thought that she should be on such an adventure with my husband, while I wait for any scrap of news and go with none. Does she travel shoulder-to-shoulder with the men as they ford rivers and sleep beneath the stars? Does she laugh and joke with them? If so, how is it that she has the good fortune to walk alongside my husband, to know his fate from moment to moment, while I am left behind? What I wouldn’t give to be there in her place. The last photograph I developed today is unmarked. It is of Allen. He sits on a makeshift campstool with his Army tin cup in his hand, and in front of him is a sled piled high with backpacks, crates, and rifles. At first, I did not recognize him, for where he once had a well-trimmed moustache, he now wears a full beard, his cavalry hat is stained and misshapen, more like that of a trail-worn cowboy than a gentleman officer, and all of his attire appears shabby. At his waist is a pistol in holster. He does not look up at the camera, so I cannot see his eyes.

  I was overcome with emotion at the sight of him. I am sure it never entered his thoughts that I might be the first person to see this photograph. I wish he had known, for maybe he would have looked into the camera and I might have seen some tenderness there.

  Sophie Forrester