Where Heaven Begins

by Rosanne Bittner

  Elizabeth ducked inside the tent, quickly crawling inside her blankets. She waited while Clint changed into dry clothes, then worked outside building some kind of frame to hang their clothes on. It took nearly an hour before he ducked inside the tent and crawled into his own blankets.

  “I built up the fire more. I’m just glad we actually found enough wood, considering how used up most things are on this trail.” He began coughing again. It took several seconds for him to stop.

  “This is the worst thing that could have happened to you,” Elizabeth lamented.

  “Well, my head hurts more than anything else. I washed off the blood as best I could.”

  They faced each other. “You have quite an egg on your forehead. It’s purple and still bleeding some.”

  “What about your back?”

  “It hurts. I’m sure it’s just bruised. We’re very lucky, you know.”

  Clint watched her lovingly. “I know.” He leaned closer to kiss her, then turned away, the cough returning. “Let’s get some rest.”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes, listening to the rushing waters nearby. So many miracles, she thought. God most certainly was hard at work keeping them safe.

  Chapter Forty

  Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.

  —Psalms 27:7

  A rainstorm kept us from breaking camp for another three days. Luckily our clothes dried almost completely from the heat of the fire that first night, before the downpour began.

  Today is our third day back on the river. Clint’s cough is much worse, and he’s fevered again. He lay sick the entire time we were camped, and has been getting sicker ever since we left. I pray for him constantly, as in spite of his worsening condition, he continues to insist he can handle steerage while I watch Devil.

  The rain has turned to snow, and it is getting very cold again. All either of us wants now is to make it to Dawson alive.

  Elizabeth closed her diary and put it into one of Clint’s bags, as her own carpet bags were still missing. They would probably never be found. She would arrive in Dawson with literally nothing but the clothes on her back. Even her Bible was gone. Thank God she had, for some reason, shoved her diary into one of Clint’s bags before the accident on the rapids. It was damp, but intact.

  “Let’s go!” Clint yelled.

  Elizabeth grabbed hold of Devil’s reins again and hung on as Clint shoved the raft into the water.

  Three more days. Men in a boat that had passed them going in the other direction yesterday had told them they were only about three days from Dawson. Now those three days seemed like an eternity. There was absolutely no time to spare. Clint’s face was flushed and his eyes bloodshot from fever, but he insisted on standing at the rudder and doing the steering while Elizabeth stayed beside Devil to keep him steadied.

  Elizabeth was worried sick about Clint. He’d never really rested enough after being so sick back in Skagway. Now, having to weather the blowing snow and the searing cold of the water that splashed up and kept his pants damp could surely kill him in his condition. She thought it amazing that he was able to stand all day steering the raft, and she suspected he was only doing it out of a stubborn effort not to show any weakness in front of her. Besides that, they were both desperate just to finish their long, cold, tiresome, dangerous journey.

  Twice she’d called out to others in passing boats to ask if one of them might be willing to help steer their raft so that Clint could rest, but none would help. All were too anxious to reach their pots of gold, and Elizabeth’s heart ached to think what little Christianity lay in the hearts of men lusting for wealth. She could see now why Peter felt such men would need the Word of God, if any bothered to listen.

  She looked back at Clint. He understood such men. That’s why he carried on relentlessly. He knew no one would help. It was up to him now to get her to Dawson and warmth and safety. Actually, that had been his burden through this whole trip. She realized she never would have made it without him, and she loved him all the more for it.

  He looked so haggard, so tired and so sick. His face was heavily bearded now, and she’d almost forgotten what he really looked like. Only those blue eyes reminded her. And the determination he put forth now to get them to the end of their journey reminded her of his strength and abilities. He was everything a woman could want in a man, but he still had that last hurdle to cross and his own need to put the past behind him and learn to trust God again.

  First they had to reach Dawson in one piece.

  Within an hour after leaving camp the wind picked up, howling through the canyon from the south and bringing with it a heavy, wet snow. The direction of the wind helped propel them along the river a little faster, but Elizabeth wasn’t sure how much more Clint could handle in his condition. Since they had been back on the river, he’d barely spoken. All he did was try to sleep between fits of coughing.

  The only food they had left was beans, a few sweet potatoes and some coffee. They’d used up the last of the oats for Devil, who now had to paw his way through snow to find enough grass to nibble on to keep him alive. The poor horse was looking just as bony and weary as she and Clint.

  Last night there had not been enough wood around to make a fire. They’d been forced to huddle together for warmth, and Elizabeth thought how they had already been tested for their ability to stand up to adversity and hard times together. That was one thing they wouldn’t need to learn about each other after marriage.

  She no longer worried about what others might think of her traveling all this way with a man. This trip had taught her lot about what really mattered in life, and that appearances meant nothing. She often wondered about Collette, how the woman was doing, if anything she’d said to Collette had perhaps helped turn her to God.

  In many ways people like Collette and Clint were just as good if not better than Reverend Selby, for all his pretended righteousness. At least Collette and her friends, and men like Clint, were honest about what and who they were. They recognized their own faults and knew they needed to change their lives. And who knew what lay in Collette’s past that made her what she was? It was such people who could teach pompous Christians about God’s grace and forgiveness.

  The river wound through spectacular country, country only God could possibly take credit for. She fully understood Peter’s description of the Canadian Rockies, Alaska and the Yukon surely being a gateway to Heaven. Maybe once she and Clint were safe and warm and well, she could fully appreciate the beauty of this land.

  Clint refused to stop at midday for anything to eat or to rest. “The fewer stops we make, the sooner we’ll get there,” he told her. He stopped only long enough for her to run to the shore and find a place to relieve herself. She in turn just looked away when he warned her he’d be doing the same.

  Elizabeth had to smile at how familiar they’d been forced to become without being married. Trust was certainly not something they would ever have to doubt. If Clint were an abusive man, he certainly would have shown it by now, but he’d never been anything but a gentleman, although she had to smile at his sometimes grudging reluctance to behave properly.

  He was a good man…too good to be so lost and to be living without love. She knew by now that there could never be another man in her life but Clint Brady. How could she live without him if he chose to go after Roland Fisher and continue the life he was leading? She worried that he still felt he wasn’t good enough for her, or perhaps felt God could never forgive him, and so would use that excuse to leave once he found Fisher.

  Night came on too fast in this season of short days, but a full moon allowed them to continue after dark, until finally Clint decided to make camp. They tethered Devil, then dug out of the snow an area big enough to pitch their tent. The snow had not let up, and it reminded Elizabeth of the night they’d spent in the snowstorm back at White Pass.

  Clint went into another fit of coughing and turned his back to her. Elizabeth turned to put her ar
ms around him from behind. “What can I do, Clint?”

  “Nothing.” He coughed again. “You wanted me to stop smoking. This sure has done it,” he added.

  “Clint, maybe we should stay right here for a couple of days. You’re killing yourself.”

  “I’ll make it.” There came another fit of coughing. “We’re too close now. I just hope…your brother is there and that he has a decent, warm cabin where we can stay.”

  Suddenly Devil’s frantic, screaming whinnies roused both of them from their quiet conversation. They heard low growling just outside the tent.

  “Wolves!” Clint exclaimed. He threw off his blanket and grabbed his rifle, cocking it and ducking outside.

  “Clint!”

  “Stay there!” he ordered.

  At almost the same time Elizabeth heard much louder growling and barking, as well as literal screams of terror from deep in Devil’s throat. Wolves must be attacking him!

  By the dim light of their lantern Elizabeth found Clint’s handgun, and against his orders, she, too, ducked outside just as Clint fired his rifle once, twice, three times. Elizabeth screamed when a wolf attacked Clint from behind. She heard growling behind her then, and she turned and fired, downing another of the vicious attackers.

  Clint wrestled with the wolf that had attacked him, and two more of the animals rushed inside the tent, knocking over a lantern, which blazed up and started the tent on fire.

  Elizabeth shot at yet another wolf, and the bright blaze of the tent fire frightened the rest away.

  By then Clint had a choke hold on the wolf that had tried to maul him. He stood up and literally flung the choked wolf into the darkness, then scrambled to the burning tent to fling out some of their belongings, but the tent itself was too far ablaze to save it or the rest of what was inside.

  Clint stumbled backward. “Liz!” he yelled.

  “I’m right here!” Elizabeth hurried up to him. “I think I got one or two of them myself!”

  Clint wrapped his arms around her. “I got three of them,” he panted, “plus the one I choked.”

  By the light of the burning tent Elizabeth could see his face. Three deep scratches on his right cheek bled profusely. “Clint, you’re bleeding badly!”

  He pulled away, putting a hand to his face, wiping at blood. “Thank God we left our heavy clothes and coats on. It could have been a lot worse.” He looked her over. “What about you?”

  “I’m okay. Clint, what if they come back?”

  He looked around into the darkness. “I don’t think they will, but we’d better spend the rest of the night on the raft.” He walked up to a still-frightened Devil, putting an arm around the horse’s neck and talking to him softly to calm him. “So much for God helping us finish this trip safely,” he spoke up to Elizabeth. “Now we don’t even have a tent to sleep under.” He broke into another fit of coughing. “We’ll have to just sleep under blankets and keep our heads covered.” He shook his head and looked over at Elizabeth. “We’re in quite a fix.”

  Oh, what a test of faith. “Maybe God just wants us to realize that all we need is each other, Clint.”

  Still panting, he shook his head. “Then He sure has a way of teaching a lesson.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.

  —Psalms 107:7

  Elizabeth smeared more ointment onto the deep cuts along Devil’s neck per Clint’s orders. He’d brought along a supply of the greasy concoction purchased from a livery in Skagway in case his horses developed any kind of infection. Doctoring the horse made Elizabeth wonder about Red Lady and how the mare was doing. A part of her felt bad for talking Clint into giving up the horse, but it had been the Christian thing to do, and was just another reason she couldn’t help loving Clint.

  After three more days of rafting, the scratches on Clint’s face seemed to be healing, with no redness around the long, deep cuts. The biggest problem was his fever and worsened cough. She looked back to see him bent over coughing again.

  “Lord Jesus, please heal him! Don’t let him die!” she prayed quietly.

  The rest of today and one more night—just one more miserable night of sleeping without a tent, and sometime tomorrow they should reach Dawson…and Peter…and safety…and warmth…and help. She could take a real bath, wear a real dress again. Clint could shave and bathe, get his hair cut, feel human again, get some much-needed rest, food and medicine.

  Then there would be just that last hurdle, and they could finally be married and share the intimacy they both longed to share. She could imagine nothing more wonderful than lying in Clint Brady’s arms, ever safe, ever loved.

  She watched ahead, beginning to yearn for just a glimpse of a real town. Maybe they had misjudged. Maybe they would reach Dawson today. More boats pushed past them in the same direction, men paddling wildly, practically racing each other to their destination and to what they were sure were riches just lying in wait for them.

  After a few minutes Elizabeth realized the raft was floating toward shore. She looked back and gasped. Clint was on his knees. “Clint?” She patted Devil to keep him calm, then walked carefully over the logs to Clint, who was gasping for breath. “Oh, dear God! God help him!”

  The pneumonia was back, if it had ever left him! Was he dying before her eyes? Clint couldn’t even speak. He collapsed, lying on his side and gasping for breath. The raft floated against a log and lodged there. Elizabeth hurried to their supplies, putting the horse ointment back into them and taking out a blanket and the bottle that held what was left of the smelly, lemony vapor rub. She rushed back to where Clint lay on his side, and for a moment she feared he wasn’t breathing at all.

  “Clint! Clint, we’ve got to get some of this liniment on you!” she told him, urging him onto his back. Quickly she opened his wolf-skin coat, the sweater beneath it, then his woolen shirt and woolen long johns, exposing his chest. She poured some of the cold concoction into her palm and began smearing it on his chest, wishing she had a way of warming the liniment first, as she was sure it would be more effective that way.

  “Just try to relax, Clint.” She began rubbing on the liniment. “I’ll do the steering from now on. We’ll just have to pray that Devil stays calm the rest of the way. We’re so close! So close! And Devil is used to the raft now. He’ll be all right. The important thing is keeping you alive!”

  She had to keep talking! She finished smearing him with the liniment, then capped the can and rebuttoned his long johns, shirt, sweater, coat. She put the blanket over him and leaned close. “Clint, can you talk at all?”

  He just looked at her with fevered eyes, eyes that said he was sorry.

  “Clint, I’ve never known a more able or a braver man. Right now you’re down with something even the strongest man can’t control. You’ve got to rest the remainder of the way, Clint. It’s only one more day! I’ll get us there.”

  Tears stung her eyes. “Don’t you die on me, Clint Brady! We’re supposed to get married, remember?” She couldn’t believe her next words, but she couldn’t think of another way to make him want to live. “My first and only man is going to be Clint Brady, understand? It can’t be anybody else. It has to be you. You aren’t going to deny me that, are you?”

  He actually managed a hint of a smile before closing his eyes and rolling back to his side, pulling the blanket over his head.

  Wiping at tears, Elizabeth found and dragged over their last five-pound sack of beans, not very large, but big enough for Clint to have something to rest his head on. She knew the logs had to be terribly uncomfortable, but maybe his heavy coat would help cushion him. He was probably too miserable even to notice.

  She lifted his head and shoved the bean bag under it, then retrieved a canteen of water, glad that fresh water was one thing of which there was a plenty in this country. She set it near Clint.

  “Clint? The canteen is right here. Drink as much as you can. My mother told me on
ce that it’s important to drink a lot of water when you’re fevered.” She lifted the blanket to see his eyes closed. “Clint? Can you hear me?”

  He grasped her hand and squeezed it.

  Elizabeth’s heart pounded so hard with fear for his life that her chest hurt. She turned and grabbed hold of his rifle, which he always kept nearby, and hurried to the front of the raft, using the gun to push at the log that had snagged them, shoving the raft back out into the current enough that it again began flowing toward their destination. She laid the rifle aside and hurried back to the rudder handle and began steering the raft to keep it in deeper waters, surprised at what a hard job it was to keep it steady.

  “You have to help me, Lord,” she prayed aloud. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep this up.” She was weak from hunger and exposure, but now they were so close. And she had to get Clint to some kind of help. What a horrible ending it would be to their long, hard journey if he died before they reached Dawson!

  “Don’t let this happen, Lord Jesus,” she prayed. “Don’t let me lose him now! I know You want him, but please take him in life, through his faith! Not in death!”

  She wiped at tears that made it hard to see. She had to concentrate. If God saw fit to bring them another night brightly lit from aurora borealis, she would not stop. Maybe she could save another half day of rafting and finally get this trip over with if she traveled through the night.

  She wrapped both arms around the rudder handle and held it against her side in order to keep a firm hold.

  “Don’t let him die! Don’t let him die!” she whispered over and over in prayer.

  She noticed Clint reach over and take hold of the canteen. He managed to sit up and drink some water, then corked the canteen and collapsed back down to the bean sack, pulling the blanket over his head again. For the next many hours, Clint’s taking a drink once in a while was Elizabeth’s only way of knowing he was still alive.