Beside Still Waters

by AnnaLee Conti

  Violet shuddered. “So it is based on a real event. Poor man!”

  As the twilight lingered, the cool breeze turned uncomfortably chilly. John hugged Violet close. Muffled voices of passengers on the deck below conversing as they played cards, a gramophone playing a waltz, and feet shuffling as couples danced prevented conversation, but Violet felt content in John’s arms.

  Soon everything quieted as the first-class passengers retired to their cabins, and the second-class passengers rolled out sleeping pads on the carpeted floors in the observation saloons. A baby’s wail pierced the calm but quieted quickly as a mother shushed her child’s fears.

  As the evening sounds subsided, a lone loon’s cry carried across the lake. “It sounds so lonely out there in that vast stillness,” Violet said.

  “Yes, it does. Only birds and animals make their homes out there, with maybe a sole prospector or woodsman here or there.”

  After a bit, John whispered into her ear, “I wish I could stay here holding you in my arms all night.” His breath stirred the sensitive places at her nape.

  “Mmm . . . me too.”

  “But I must make rounds before I can retire.”

  Violet lifted her face for a kiss.

  Even when John released her and headed forward to check on the midnight watch, the sky was still a bright twilight. Entering the cabin, Violet changed into her nightclothes, turned back the covers, and slid into bed. The heavy curtains darkened the room, but she didn’t sleep. She lay alone, kept awake for a long time by the endless slap, slap of the paddlewheel and the periodic rumble below deck of cordwood being dumped from handcarts.

  She had scarcely fallen asleep when John slipped into bed beside her. Rousing, she rolled over and snuggled into his arms. They both slept soundly until the engine going into reverse awoke them.

  When John leaped out of bed, Violet sat up, heart pounding. “Is everything okay?”

  “Don’t worry, my love, we’re just rounding a bend and entering the Thirty Mile.” As he dressed, he explained, “The river current is strong. There are many snakelike twists and turns, but here, two are so close together they form an almost perfect S. When heading downstream, we reverse the paddlewheel and position the Belle so the force of the current will carry her around the bend. ‘Drifting the bend’ gives us more control so the river undertow won’t run her aground.”

  At that moment, the paddlewheel engaged full speed ahead to complete the maneuver. “Ah,” John said, “All is as it should be. It’s time to make my rounds.”

  “Will we eat breakfast here?”

  “Sure, my love. Right after my rounds. What do you want?”

  Violet slid out of bed. “Are sourdough hotcakes on the menu? That’s what I’m hungry for. I haven’t had any since Skagway.”

  “I’m sure Jonesy will be able to whip some up while you get dressed.” John slipped into their washroom while Violet made the bed.

  When John came back to their room, he caught Violet around the waist and kissed her neck. “You’re so beautiful with your hair tumbling down your back.”

  She turned in his arms. “But I’m such a mess!”

  “A lovely mess!” He kissed her lips.

  “I’ve got to get dressed before the steward comes.” She squirmed away and escaped to their washroom.

  By the time John and the chief steward returned with their breakfast on a large tray, Violet had dressed in a cotton skirt and shirtwaist, ready for the day. John seated her and then himself at the round table for two in the middle of their cabin. While the steward set out their plates of steaming hotcakes, Violet served tea in Aunt Mabel’s teacups. She couldn’t be happier.

  After breakfast, they had just finished their Bible reading and prayers when the Belle swung around and, with a hard lurch, came to an abrupt stop. Tea sloshed out of the cup Violet was drinking from, and she nearly dropped it.

  Chapter 13

  VIOLET LEAPED OUT OF HER chair. “What’s wrong?” Her voice sounded shaky and shrill.

  John stroked her arm. “Everything’s okay! We’re just dropping off mail.” He pulled her into his arms and rubbed her back. “There are no docks at these makeshift postboxes, so we just nudge the bow into the soft riverbank. Sorry I didn’t warn you. I’ve been so engrossed in your company that it sneaked up on me.”

  Once again, she’d imagined the worst. She’d overheard too many stories of the dangers of the Thirty Mile section of the Yukon River—the swiftness of the current, the snakelike winding, the crooks and bends and treacherous rocks. John must think she was a ninny.

  As the Belle backed off the bank, Violet’s trembling subsided, and her curiosity emerged. “Do you just throw the mail ashore?”

  “No, the purser jumps off the bow, throws the mail into a gunny sack nailed to a tree or a canned-milk case perched on the bank, and leaps back on board.”

  Violet giggled at the image of prim and proper Mr. Edwards swinging apelike off and back onto the deck. “He must keep in good shape.”

  “Our purser is very agile.” John tilted her chin up so she could look directly at him. “My lovely wife, the Belle will make many stops along the way to Dawson City. I don’t want you jumping out of your skin at every one. The Belle is strong. We have capable pilots. River travel is quite safe now, or I wouldn’t have brought you with me. Okay?”

  “But I’ve heard so many scary stories.”

  “Yes, dear, there have been many mishaps in the past. The Thirty Mile is a challenge, narrow and swift, but the sternwheelers are built stronger. We know the river better now. Our pilots are highly skilled in navigating the hazards.”

  John gestured for them to sit back down and finish their tea. “You don’t need to worry, sweetheart. A Yukon steamer is like a small floating town, equipped with whatever we need for just about any emergency. We have a forge and blacksmith, and the deck crew is outfitted with a full complement of tools to make repairs far from port. Relax and enjoy the trip.”

  Violet nodded. “I’ll trust you on that, John.”

  He emptied his cup and stood, bent down next to her, and whispered into her ear. “I’m only human, my love. Put your trust in the Lord. He’ll never fail you.”

  He kissed her cheek and slipped into his jacket. “This morning, we’ll be stopping for about an hour to pick up a load of wood. If you like, you’ll be able to go ashore with the other passengers and walk around.”

  Later that morning, at the end of the Thirty Mile, near the junction with the Teslin River, the Belle pulled alongside the riverbank next to a pile of wood that looked to be as large as a Boston warehouse. Out went the freight gangplank, and the “wood monkeys” with their handcarts trundled load after load of wood, sawn into what looked to be about four-foot lengths, into the bowels of the steamer. Violet and the passengers strolled up and down the bank in the sunlight, batting the swarms of mosquitoes.

  To one side, the woodcutter, stooped and bearded and surrounded by his Malemutes, counted the cart loads and continually checked to be sure that the purser, Mr. Edwards, recorded the exact amount of wood taken.

  Violet stopped beside Mr. Edwards to watch. “The Company pays eight dollars a cord,” he told her. “A cord is 128 cubic feet of wood. That equals a pile of wood eight feet long by four feet wide and four feet high. We take on ten to twenty cords each time we stop for fuel. The woodcutter wants to be sure he gets everything due him.”

  “I can’t blame him. It’s got to be a lot of hard work cutting all this wood.”

  “Not only does he cut it all, he has to haul it here from inland. That’s why he has so many dogs.”

  By the time the Belle got underway again, it was time for the midday meal. That afternoon, John took the wheel for a while. He often had to stop or slow the steamer and sound the “wild-animal whistle,” as Violet overheard the children call it. Everyone would rush to a window or rail to watch a bear fishing along the riverbank, a grizzly running up a treeless hill, or a cow moose and its calf feeding in the und
erbrush.

  When a herd of caribou swam across the bow and along the flank, Violet could see their soft brown eyes and the fur on their antlers. “They look like reindeer.”

  “They’re closely related,” John said. “They’re so curious I must often bring the Belle to a near standstill to avoid running them down as they migrate to their summer feeding grounds.”

  As he turned the tiller to head the Belle into a soft stretch of riverbank, he said, “A passenger wants to disembark here.”

  “But there’s nothing here,” Violet protested. “I see only spruce and aspen stretching away for miles all around.”

  “He’s headed into the wilderness.”

  As they pulled away, leaving the old prospector standing alone with a year’s grubstake in packs and gunnysacks, Violet thought he looked awfully lonely with no cabin or trail in sight.

  Many solitary graves dotted the riverbanks, sometimes marked by rough-hewn crosses or bleached wooden slabs. Most were only mounds. Finally, Violet asked about them.

  “Many men lost their lives in search of gold.” John ran a hand over his face. “I often wonder what they could have accomplished with their lives if they hadn’t succumbed to gold fever.”

  The Belle rounded a bend, and Violet spotted several tiny houses enclosed in a fence. She frowned. “They’re so small. How do people stand up in them?”

  John chuckled. “That’s an Indian burial ground. They erect little houses over the graves and surround them with a fence to keep wild animals from stealing the gifts they place there for the departed. They always leave a spoon, plate, and cup for the Indian spirits to eat with.”

  “I guess they don’t understand heaven, do they?”

  “No. A few missionaries came north with the stampeders to tell them about Jesus, but they haven’t penetrated this far into the wilderness.”

  Violet spied an empty cabin, waist-deep in weeds. Its windows and doors were gone, and grass grew on the roof that had been caved in by winter snows. “I wonder what stories that cabin could tell.”

  “By the looks of it, probably sad ones.”

  She thought of her family, all gone now, and a sense of loneliness settled into the pit of her stomach. Those stampeders had left families Outside to wonder what had become of them.

  “Why so pensive all of a sudden?” John asked.

  “That cabin made me feel lonely.” She swiped at her cheek. “Without you, I’d be all alone in this world too.”

  John stepped back from the tiller momentarily and encircled her shoulders with his arm. “I promise as much as it is within my power to never leave you, Violet. We’ll create our own family.”

  Violet smiled through her tears. “Yes, we will. I can’t wait to have your child.”

  “All in God’s perfect time. For now, let’s enjoy each other. No more dark thoughts. Okay?”

  Her heart too full to speak, she simply nodded.

  When she spotted a ghost ship, bleaching in the sun like a skeleton, beached forever against the riverbank, she shivered to think of the Yukon’s treachery. What had she gotten herself into?

  Trying not to entertain more dark thoughts, she lifted her eyes to the surrounding hills. Immediately, her heart felt lighter. “What a view! From here, it seems as though the land rolls off endlessly from the riverbanks like a gigantic hooked carpet of spruce, pine, aspen, and birch until it meets the dusky mountains in the distance.”

  A wisp of smoke spiraling from the vast expanse of boreal forests caught her eye. By now, she knew it was probably a solitary man living in a shack somewhere out there with only his Malemutes for company. “What leads a man to live so far away from civilization?”

  John shook his head. “I don’t know. That life certainly isn’t for me.”

  Reassured, she answered, “Me neither.”

  Around every bend in the river, a new vista unrolled as silent and empty and mysterious as before. By late afternoon, the Belle arrived at Carmacks, which sported a trading post, a North-West Mounted Police detachment, and a coal mine. They dropped off mail and a couple of passengers and took on another Native pilot.

  Two hours later, John and Violet had just returned to the Texas deck from dinner when Violet spotted a massive barrier looming up ahead. The river had narrowed. Two great, irregular blocks of reddish rock appeared to span the river like piers of a bridge, forming two main channels. The Belle seemed to be rushing pell-mell toward it in the swifter current. The channel on the left growled ominously over shallow rocks.

  “Five Finger Rapids,” John said. “This is the major obstacle between Whitehorse and Dawson City. Many a stampeder ended up in the water here after choosing the wrong channel.” He took Violet’s arm. “Let’s go up to the wheelhouse and watch the pilot navigate.”

  From that vantage point, Violet saw that, not two, but four immense boulders rose in the middle of the river. The boulders, along with the sheer rock walls on either side of the river, formed five “fingers” of water. The current was even swifter this time of year due to snowmelt and runoff, forming falls that dropped a couple of feet. At the bottom, waves rose angrily in a return curl before dancing on in rapidly diminishing chops until lost in the swift current.

  When John introduced her nonchalantly to the Native pilot, hired by the company because of his skill at reading the river and navigating sternwheelers, Violet could scarcely drag her eyes away from what looked to her like an impending disaster. She was sure the Belle would ram the middle rock and bit back the scream that threatened to jump from her throat.

  John calmly pointed at the rapids. “We aim the prow squarely toward the middle rock to line up with the channel.”

  Before he could say another word, the steamer swung left and shot between the rocks on either side into comparatively quieter waters.

  Violet let out her breath with a loud whoosh. It was too late for her to change her mind on this trip, but maybe she’d be better off staying in Whitehorse next time. When she found her voice again, she said, “That was even scarier than the trestle over Dead Horse Gulch.”

  Half an hour later, the Belle approached another set of rapids. “Rink Rapids,” John said. “This one is formed by a reef at a right angle to the current. To add more difficulty, it’s at a bend in the river. But don’t worry. We’ve done it many times. Our pilot is skilled at navigating it.”

  Before she knew it, the Belle had negotiated the rapids and entered a calmer stretch of water. Lifting her eyes to the rugged mountains in the distance above the clay banks of the river, Violet breathed in deeply to calm herself. “Any more rapids?”

  “Not until our return trip,” John said.

  “Good! I’ve had enough frights for one day.”

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it? It just looks scary.”

  The rest of the trip to Dawson was uneventful. Violet decided she’d rather be here on the Belle with John than alone in their house in Whitehorse where she’d constantly worry about him. From then on, though, she looked for things to do on board where she couldn’t see what was happening on the river.

  On the return trip, they stopped at the mouth of the Stewart River to connect with the barge carrying silver ore from the Mayo mining district. Pushing the barge slowed their progress considerably, and they had to stop twice as often to take on wood for fuel.

  Going through Five Fingers Rapids on the return trip was trickier than it had been going downstream. A shore-anchored cable was wound around a steam-powered capstan, and the boat essentially pulled itself up through the channel.

  “Why do you need the cable going upstream when you didn’t need it going downstream?” Violet asked.

  “Because of the shelf in the rapids,” John said. “Going upstream, when the bow goes through, the paddlewheel on the stern is lifted out of the water over the falls, causing the ship to lose its power.”

  “I never thought of that. That cable’s a pretty good solution.”

  Often, while John made rounds, Violet visited Jonesy in
the galley. By the time the Belle arrived back in Whitehorse after its first trip of the season, she had learned how to stew moose meat to make it tender, fillet fish to remove the bones, and make sourdough pancakes. When they disembarked, Jonesy gave her a crock of starter to take home.

  Passing through the passenger deck so often, Violet had noticed how restless the children were on the long trip and how frustrated the mothers became trying to entertain their young ones. She concocted a plan to give them a break. She filled the bookshelf in their quarters on the Yukon Belle with books she’d brought from Boston for Jenny. After they got underway on their second trip down the Yukon, she gathered the children together in a corner of the main observation deck for a story hour each day. As she learned more about the river and the places they passed, she made up stories of what had happened in years past along the route. She also invented games to see who could point out the most wild animals or birds on shore and in the water, or who could spot them before the “wild-animal whistle” blew.

  Violet had never been happier—secure in John’s love and enjoying her role as the story lady to the children on board. Word got around, and soon the Belle was known as the steamer for young families. And the children kept her from worrying so much about the dangers of the river.

  As the summer progressed, the Arctic burst into vibrant bloom. Violet learned to recognize the wide variety of wildflowers that grew along the mossy banks of the Yukon and the gushing mountain streams or among the gold dredge tailings near Dawson City—great masses of white bedstraw and baby’s breath, six-foot spikes of wild blue delphinium, masses of yellow arnica, tall clumps of blue lupine and yellow yarrow, five-foot tall larkspur, and the ever-present magenta fireweed. If the mosquitoes, sandflies, blackflies, and horseflies weren’t too bad, she sometimes cut a bouquet for the table in their quarters.