She didn’t speak English, but with hand gestures & his smattering of Midnoosky, they were able to communicate. Over the next weeks, they met each day high on the mountainside. Boyd would bring pemmican to share. They would sit together, watch the mist move across the hills.
?—?I couldn’t get my fill of her, Boyd said. —?She was like a little trickle of cold water from a mountainside that you just want to drink & drink, but you’re only getting a sip. I begged her to come on back home with me. She kept pulling away. I told her straight out?—?if you don’t love me, just say so. I’ll leave you be. She said it wasn’t that. She said she liked me fine, that’s why she shouldn.’t come. There was no sense to it.
While he talked, Boyd ate three helpings of supper, then smoked a pipe with a bit of Samuelson’s tobacco. I suspect it will take several meals for him to regain his strength.
?—?Gave her a pair of beaver mittens I’d stitched myself, he went on. —?Promised her I’d keep her warm & dry in my cabin. I just wanted to wake up to her face every morning. Finally won her over, I did. One day, she followed me back home.
Boyd stared glassy-eyed at nothing for some time. —?The fog was like nothing I’d seen before, he said. —?It came that night & hasn’t left since.
He was nearly out of provisions, as he had planned to leave before spring. He always could rely on his hunting skills. During the winter he had eaten rabbits, porcupine, a moose now & then. With this fog, though, he couldn’t see but six inches in front of his nose to hunt.
?—?She says, I told you, I told you I shouldn’t come. Pretty soon, we got to starving, so that we were scrounging for any bit of something. We stewed straps of moose rawhide, tried chewing on that. We were sleeping too much, couldn’t even find the strength to fire up the woodstove. I figured we were going to die in each other’s arms.
Boyd spoke his next words with much difficulty.
?—?Two days ago she left me. God help me, but I was too weak to follow her. Now she’s gone. She told me she’s going over the mountains somewhere I can’t ever find her. What she said is crazy, that she & the fog are one & the same, that there can’t be one without the other. She says she leaves me because she loves me, that I’ll be better off. I don’t see that she can be right.
?—?For a woman? Christ Almighty! Samuelson said. —?You lose your head over a woman so you nearly kill yourself? I’d have thought better of you.
Tillman seems equally disgusted at the display, yet Boyd has my sympathies. He wept like a child at his kitchen table. I was grateful to have this journal to take my eyes away from his suffering.
April 12
We woke this morning to a welcomed sight. As we heated water, prepared breakfast, a camp robber called. The noisy chatter went on as we ate. Tillman threatened to search out the annoyance & bring it down with a rock. When the squawks did not cease, I stepped out of the cabin to see if I could scare it off.
Instead I found sunlight breaking through the mountains to the east. Blue sky stretched overhead. Upriver, along our intended route, I spied the last of the fog as it crept up the narrow valleys to the northwest. I could not help but think of Boyd’s Indian wife traveling over those mountains, taking her mist with her.
The camp robber set to calling again. It flew past, landed in a tree just down from the cabin. My eyes followed it, down to the riverbed?—?out on the snowy plain, there were dozens of caribou!
Boyd is still too weak, but the rest of us grabbed rifles, sprinted down the hillside.
Without much cover on the open riverbed, it was no easy task to stalk the animals. The Indians scattered upriver from us. Samuelson warned us to stay low, quiet as we approached the herd.
?—?Once they stir, they’ll be gone over those hills before you can blink.
We crouched as we ran, ducked behind willow shrubs. Each time one of us raised a rifle to shoot, Samuelson waved us down, gestured for us to get closer.
The animals twitched their ears. Those that had been bedded down got to their feet.
?—?I’ve got that one in my sights, Tillman whispered & put his finger to his trigger.
Samuelson nodded approval.
Tillman shot & the caribou’s legs buckled. Shots went off all around us. The animals leapt & ran.
We continued to load & shoot, except Pruitt, whose rifle had misfired.
The caribou were like a flock of birds, suddenly across the river, gone into the trees. In our haste we all missed our targets. We were left with only Tillman’s kill.
As we approached the dead caribou, we were pleased to see that the Indians had downed one nearby as well. We had meat!
Samuelson set to disemboweling the animal. He directed Pruitt to hold back a hind hoof so as to expose the pale-gray fur of the belly. As they worked, several camp robbers found their way to our kill. They hopped about in the bloody snow, heads cocked, black eyes watching. The Indians skinned their animal & tossed bits of meat to their open beaks.
Tillman asked why they threw scraps to the birds.
?—?They’re saying their thanks, Samuelson said.
?—?To a camp robber?
Samuelson looked up from his work, grinned.