As we have safely passed through the canyon, I have decided to take a day, possibly two, to rest. We have chosen a stand of aspen not far from shore. Farther up the hillside, we can see bare ground where the snow has melted, but the climb is beyond our diminished strength. We are too worn from our long march & cold sleepless night to do much more than strip off our wet boots & climb into our sleeping bags, though it is yet the middle of the day.
Boyd said he is much relieved to not be sleeping on the ice in the rocky narrows.
?—?Amen to that, Tillman said.
He spoke for us all.
We have slept most of the day, just now woke to warm sunlight & a grinding, steady roar.
?—?Look, there! Boyd said.
A hundred yards downriver, the Wolverine had come alive; the ice collapsed, churned. We all scrambled from our sleeping bags, pulled on our boots, walked along the shore until we were at the break. Down into the canyon, we watched as slabs of ice buckled & overturned. An impressive sight. From here to Alaska’s coast, the Wolverine is a deluge of floating ice blocks, slush, roiling water.
?—?Nattie!
Tillman ran past us, shouting.
It struck us all then. The woman & the dog were somewhere down in the canyon. A somber quiet descended on us all as we returned to camp.
Pruitt set to calculating his survey & meteorological readings. Samuelson fed the fire to dry our wet boots & garments. Boyd was preparing yet another meal of stewed hares with a handful of flour thrown into the broth.
Tillman, however, remained agitated. He paced the river, much as the dog had done when separated from us. He watched as another large slab of ice broke from the edge. His eyes followed it down into the canyon. He marched with determination from camp until he neared the canyon walls. There he cupped his hands to his mouth, shouted. —?Boyo! Here, Boyo! Then,?—?Nattie! Can you hear me? Nattie!
He called until his voice was hoarse & broken.
Boyd suggested that they might have made it through somewhere, or at least found higher ground.
Tillman ran his fingers through his wild hair.
?—?You think so?
I see little hope that the woman or dog could have survived, but I did not say it.
As for us, for good or ill, our entrance is sealed. Until now, we might have turned back, gone home the same way we came. No longer. We now belong to the Wolverine.
Wolverine River, April 1885
Dear Mr. Sloan,
I can’t tell you what a kick I got out of the photograph of the canyon that you sent. I have it up on my refrigerator, and I like to see it every morning when I go to get the orange juice. It’s hard for me to imagine what it must be like to step out your door and into that country every day. I do believe it’s one of my greatest regrets, that I never made it up there. I should have thought some of that over better when I was laying out my life. But I suppose that’s always going to be the case.
Good to hear you are still plugging away at the reading. There are more than a few mysteries in those pages, some that I’ve worked out over the years, and others that I’ve just settled with. You best read on and come to your own conclusions. When you’re done, we’ll compare notes. I will say that I, too, have wondered about the irregularities in the official papers versus my great-uncle’s private diaries. I suspect the Colonel was too proud to admit he had witnessed such bizarre occurrences. Or he was wary of how it would be received by his stalwart commanders.
The advertising clippings, greeting cards, and all that must have come from a scrapbook Sophie kept. They were a popular pastime with the ladies back then. Someone in the family saw fit to dismantle it years ago, and I never did find the original book. I don’t know if someone was high grading them for profit, though I can’t see there would be much money to be made in trade cards and Christmas greetings. More likely a child in the family was using it for art projects. At least some of it remains.
My favorite is the card with the polar bear looking as if it’s about to make a meal of a man. It was from the Colonel’s brother Harry, the Christmas before the expedition set out. Interesting story about Harry?—?he and the Colonel were at West Point when the Civil War broke out; my grandfather, the youngest brother, was still just a small child. The cadets were all chomping at the bit to join the fight, so they petitioned the academy and eventually were allowed to graduate early and enter the war as officers. All too quickly Harry landed in a hospital bed with battlefield injuries. He lost both his right arm and right leg. No antibiotics or much for anesthesia back then?—?they must have knocked him out with chloroform right in the field, sawed off the bloody limbs, and hoped for the best. Tough to imagine how he survived. He was the oldest of the brothers, and from the letters I’ve read, I think he was the one expected to do great things in the army. Instead that fell to the Colonel.