Tisha Page 3

  What happened next went so fast that it was over before I knew it. We were about forty feet away from a caribou mother and a calf that were separated from the rest of the herd. All I saw at first was something moving fast—a humpbacked shape that was charging down on the calf in one moment and in the next was launching itself through the air.

  It was a huge grizzly, and it landed on top of the calf with a terrible bone-crushing sound. The calf tried to get out from under but it didn’t have a chance. I watched, horrified as the grizzly, snarling and raging, held the struggling calf down with one paw. Then, like a wrestler, it wrenched the calf’s neck back, snapping it.

  Blossom reared and I went tumbling into the mud, praying he wouldn’t fall on me. Scrambling and stumbling, he managed to stay on his feet, then ran off. The whole herd started to move at the same time, antlers clacking, all of them pushing and shoving at each other in a panic to get away. A few stumbled and fell, but were back on their feet in a moment. Then the whole herd was bounding off.

  Only the mother stayed, watching as the grizzly tore a great chunk of flesh from the twitching body. I started to back off, but I must have moved too fast. The grizzly dropped what he was eating and snarled at me, flashing bloody fangs.

  I was too scared to move until I was sure he was more interested in his meal than in me. Then I started to black off slowly, the mud sucking at my shoes. Finally I turned and stumbled away.

  After I felt I’d gone a safe distance, I turned around. My heart almost stopped as I stared into a pair of eyes.

  The caribou mother had followed me. Only ten feet away, she looked enormous now that I was on foot. She let out a mournful wail that scared me even more and I screamed at her hysterically. “Go away! You hear me? Go away!” I started to cry.

  At that she wheeled and loped off. I saw why a few seconds later: Mr. Strong was riding toward me, leading Blossom. Covered with mud from head to toe, aching all over, I couldn’t stop crying. There was even mud up my sleeves. Mr. Strong got down from his horse and came over to me and I threw my arms around him. He stood straight as a statue, giving me a soft pat on the shoulder once or twice. “Now, madam,” he said after a couple of minutes, “you mustn’t take on so. Whatever happened you seem to have weathered it.”

  Finally I was able to blubber out the whole story.

  “It is something you must get used to in this country,” he said. “We will find some dry ground and after you change clothes you will feel better. Can you ride now?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Madam, where is your hat?” “Back there somewhere. I don’t care about it anymore.”

  He rode back a ways before he found it. When he returned with it and I saw the shape it was in I told him to throw it away. He said he’d prefer not to.

  “It is very becoming on you. Perhaps we can wash the mud off at the next creek.”

  The revolver lay heavy against my thigh. I hadn’t even thought to use it, I realized. I mentioned it to Mr. Strong.

  “It was fortunate you didn’t. That grizzly would have torn you to pieces.”

  As soon as we reached some dry ground he unpacked the horse that had my things on it, then turned around so I could change. Luckily, I’d bought an extra pair of knickers back in Eagle, but having to put on a pair of practically new pumps, I wished now that I’d bought some boots. Mr. Strong had advised me to, but I wanted to save the money.

  “After this,” he said before we mounted up again, “I want you to keep up with the pack train.”

  “I’d like to, but I just can’t get Blossom to mind me.”

  That made him mad. Without saying a word he walked over to a tree and broke a branch from it. He swished it around a couple of times, then grabbed Blossom’s rein. First he jerked Blossom’s head from side to side, punishing his mouth with the bit, then pushed him backwards until he almost fell. Blossom was scared and so was I. He tried to rear, but Mr. Strong held onto the rein. Then he lashed out at Blossom’s neck with the switch while he held the rein tight Blossom snorted and whinnied in panic, but Mr. Strong wouldn’t stop. Dirt and stones were flying all over the place. How he held onto that big animal I didn’t know, but he must have hit Blossom on the neck and face about twenty times. When he was done Blossom was quivering so badly I felt sorry for him. Mr. Strong’s hat had fallen off. I gave it to him when he handed me the switch. He was sweating, and with his hat off, the top of his head bald, he didn’t look so forbidding.

  “If he gives you any trouble after this, whack him on the neck. He’ll mind.”

  I didn’t have to. All I had to do from then on was tap him and he did what he was supposed to do.

  After that Mr. Strong became more friendly. Up to then I didn’t think he liked me, but after a while he even asked me where I’d come from and how I happened to come to Alaska.

  I told him about how I’d been teaching in Forest Grove Elementary in Oregon when the territorial commissioner of education visited there last year. “He gave a lecture in the auditorium about teaching here, and he made it sound so exciting and adventurous that I made out an application. And here I am.”

  “Where were you brought up?”

  “In Colorado. My father was in the mining business,” I said. Somehow it sounded better than saying he’d just been a coal miner.

  “You seem a little young to be out on your own.”

  “I’m almost twenty,” I said.

  “You don’t look it.”

  I knew he was going to say that Just before I’d left Forest Grove I’d gone into a barbershop and had my hair bobbed. I’d figured that since I was going to be teaching somewhere in the wilds, it would be easier to take care of if it was short Up to then people always took me for being older than I was, but from then on they kept telling me I looked like a kid.

  “I meant no offense by that, madam,” he said. “I was twelve when I left home myself and the experience hasn’t hurt me yet.”

  “I was an old woman compared to you. I was sixteen when I left Colorado and started teaching in Forest Grove.”

  As we rode he told me a little about himself, of an unhappy childhood in North Carolina, then running away to go to California. He was in his late twenties when he came to Alaska to look for gold, and he’d been in the Forty Mile country for twenty-one years now. He was on the town council and was a member of the school board in Eagle.

  The two of us having left home early gave us something in common. He didn’t stop calling me madam, but I could tell he felt kind of fatherly towards me. All the rest of that day, seeing how badly off I was, he helped me down and let me walk a little even when we weren’t going down a steep hill. It meant that the whole pack train had to slow up and I really appreciated it.

  It was getting towards dark and I was thinking that we were never going to reach Steel Creek, when we came to the foot of the steepest trail we’d come across so far. The brush around it was so thick and high that it formed a tunnel. Even without packs it would have been a tough trail for the animals to climb. Now since it was the end of the day and they were tired, they balked at it and I didn’t blame them.

  They weren’t the best animals to begin with—I’d seen finer horses pulling vegetable wagons—and they were overloaded. Besides that, most of the loads weren’t packed on them right and half of them had sores full of pus and blood where the loads were rubbing against them. One of the mules whose back was the worst of all kept trying to knock his pack off against every tree he passed. I mentioned it to Mr. Strong, but he said they’d be all right.

  Now he kept smacking the lead animals on the rump with his coiled whip and yelling at them, but it didn’t do any good. They were played out. I’d thought he was mad when he’d whipped Blossom earlier in the morning, but this time he went into a rage.

  Dismounting, he searched around in the brush until he came up with a length of dead limb as thick as a two-by-four. Then helling and damning to beat the band, he clubbed the first few animals all over their bodies. I thoug
ht he’d gone crazy and was going to kill them, but they moved. One after the other they disappeared up into the tunnel of brush, dirt and rocks coming down behind them. When Mr. Strong reached me, he threw the limb aside and took Blossom’s reins.

  Leading Blossom to his own horse, he mounted up. “This will be a tough climb, madam. You’re going to have to hold on.”

  Before I could say anything, he’d spurred his horse forward, jerking Blossom’s reins, and the next thing I knew I was charging up through the tunnel after him. It was so steep I couldn’t see how we were going to make it to the top. I could barely see ahead with all the dust that had been raised, and a couple of times I was almost blinded by branches. It was a full five minutes before we broke out of it. When we did the horses and mules were dripping sweat onto the ground and breathing so hard they sounded like bellows. My backside was raw and I was all for just dropping off Blossom and giving up then and there, but when I asked Mr. Strong if I could get off, he shook his head, too winded to talk. It took him a minute before he could say, “Walk your horse over there.” He pointed to a spot about a hundred yards away and I nudged Blossom over to it.

  I didn’t know what to expect, but what I saw made me forget every ache and pain I had. The sun was below the distant mountains, and the land in between was covered with a strange veil of gray. Pine and spruce loomed up from the slopes below me, and beyond there was so much land, all of it bursting with spruce and tamarack, that I felt like a speck of dust that could be swept away in a second. Winding through it for as far as I could see were the waters of the Forty Mile River. And directly below, on the other side of the river, looking almost unreal, were twenty acres of tilled farm land. A big red barn was set to one side of them, and near that was a log building with bright patches of flowers all around it. Another half acre, directly behind the building, was lined with the orderly green rows of a vegetable garden.

  “Steel Creek,” Mr. Strong said, riding up beside me. “That’s the creek, branching into the river down there. And that’s the Prentiss roadhouse.”

  There was no problem getting the pack animals down to the river. Once they saw what was below they came to life, knowing that feed and a warm stall were waiting. They were so anxious that Mr. Strong had to keep holding the lead horse back, afraid that once the animals started to move fast there’d be no stopping them. If one of them was to fall he was liable to drag all the rest down. I knew how they felt. I couldn’t wait to get there myself. Mr. Strong had told me I’d be able to take a hot bath when we reached Steel Creek.

  As we kept going down and drawing near the river, I wondered how we were going to cross. The river wasn’t high, but it was flowing pretty fast. When we reached the bank I was glad to see a thick cable stretched across the water. It was anchored to the cliff face on this side and to a big iron tripod on the other. There was a raft pulled up on the opposite shore that had a line attached to the cable.

  No sooner did we arrive at the river than about a half a dozen people appeared on the other bank. Except for a girl in bib overalls, they were all men. One of them hallooed and yelled a question, but what with the rushing water and the animals milling around, I couldn’t hear. Mr. Strong understood. He shook his head violently from side to side and waved a hand to make sure they understood he was saying no.

  Almost as soon as we were at the bank, Blossom began to give me trouble for the first time all day. He kept heading for the water, and each time I turned him away from it he’d try again. He’d been so good that I’d dropped the switch a long way back. Now I wished I had it.

  Mr. Strong dismounted, and I thought he was going to grab Blossom and help me down. Instead, he started untethering the pack animals. As each one was untied it splashed into the waist-deep water. After the third one went in Blossom was so mad at my holding him back that he started trying to bite my foot again, his teeth clicking evilly.

  “Mr. Strong, can you help me? I can’t hold Blossom!”

  “Give him his head, madam. He knows what to do.”

  “You mean let him go in the river?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Can’t we use that raft?”

  “We don’t need it. Rest assured, madam, it’s not necessary. I’ve been doing this for years.”

  You may have, I thought, but I haven’t, and I wished I had the courage to tell him that. The lead animals had reached the middle. Almost up to their haunches, they had to fight to keep their feet in the powerful current. I couldn’t swim, but even if I could cross the Channel like the champion Gertrude Ederle I still wouldn’t be too anxious to do it with Blossom. But I took a deep breath, eased my hold on the reins and let Blossom go. Hungry and bad-tempered, he plunged right in.

  To my surprise, it was easy. Once I stopped caring about getting splashed, I began to enjoy it. I’d seen cowboys cross rivers in picture shows and they’d done it in deeper water than this. I was feeling so good that I even waved once to everyone on the opposite bank.

  Then Blossom slipped.

  He went down on his hind legs and I almost slid off. While he was down the water hit us in the side with so much force that we almost went over. Blossom held his feet, but he started losing ground. The current was pushing us into deeper water. As hard as he tried, Blossom couldn’t hold out against it. He slipped again, and I felt the shock of cold water up to my waist. I began to panic. With Blossom not able to get any purchase on the slippery bottom, it was only a matter of time before we’d be swept away.

  He knew we were in trouble and fought harder than ever to make it to the opposite bank. If I wasn’t so busy just holding on, I’d have had the sense to point him downriver and ease him over to the bank gradually, but I was too scared to think. Suddenly he stumbled. His forelegs went down and I was pitched forward at the same time that his head snapped back and it cracked against my forehead. Dazed, I hardly knew what was happening after that All I knew was that I couldn’t faint and I had to hold on.

  I grabbed a handful of mane and had a quick flash of the people on the opposite bank whirling away from us. Then they were gone. A big blood-red blotch kept coming between me and everything else. I heard Blossom blowing and snorting, and once I felt the two of us being pulled down, only to be pushed right back up again.

  I couldn’t tell how long it was before I realized that Blossom had calmed down. The red blotch in front of my eyes had disappeared and left me with a headache, but somehow I was still in the saddle. Blossom was swimining. Moving along smoothly, he was heading for the bank. I felt him touch bottom, and a few seconds later he heaved himself up out of the water. Once we were on dry land he shook himself so hard that even if I’d wanted to I couldn’t have stayed on him. I slid to the ground and landed hard.

  It took me a minute before I started telling myself that I’d better get up. I was shivering with cold, but didn’t have the strength to move.

  I’d finally managed to sit up when I heard someone coming. It was a girl. Breathing hard from running, she leaned down, one of her braids dangling in front of me.

  “You all right, ma’am?”

  I managed a nod.

  “Can you walk if I help you?”

  She got me to my feet and we were making our way along tibie bank when Mr. Strong came riding up. He wanted to put me up on his horse, but I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t want to look at another horse right then. Between the two of them they brought me to the Prentiss roadhouse.

  Inside, a stocky woman with gray hair and a bossy manner took me in charge right away. Holding me away from her so she wouldn’t get wet, she told the girl to unfold the canvas tub, and then ushered me into a room. There she told me to take off my wet clothes, and dry myself off. She came back with an old flannel bathrobe a few minutes later, steered me into a bathing room and eased me into a portable tub that was full of steaming water. It burned me where I was raw, but it felt wonderful everyplace else. She was furious at Mr. Strong. “That old tight-fisted sonofabitch,” she said, when I leaned back again
st the wooden frame of the tub, “—it was his fault you went in. If he’d of let us send the raft over it wouldn’t of happened. But he wanted to save the money.”

  The girl came in then carrying a big copper kettle. “This is my daughter Nancy,” the woman said. “I’m Mrs. Prentiss. This isn’t the first time this kind of thing’s happened.” She turned to her daughter, “You remember when he lost those two mules loaded down with parcel post?”

  “Yes’m.” The girl let the hot water into the tub slowly.

  “You stay here with her. I got supper to make and I don’t want her falling asleep in there. Be a hell of a thing if she ended up drowning in here after all that.”

  She left. Nancy finished pouring the water and sat down in a homemade chair. I slid further down along the smooth rubber lining and let my head rest against the frame. I’d rather have been left alone, but Mrs. Prentiss wasn’t the kind of person you argued with. Nancy was uncomfortable. Her green eyes kept looking everyplace but at me.

  “Thanks for helping me,” I said.

  She made a little motion with her head to say it was nothing, then looked down at her fingers. She had on an old middy blouse under her overalls and her fingernails were bitten down to the quick. She could have been pretty if she didn’t keep her mouth pursed so tight.

  “We didn’t think you were gonna make it.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Everybody figured Chicken was gonna have to do without a teacher for another year.”

  When she saw me smile she grinned, trying to hide the cavities in her front teeth. I told her she didn’t have to stay. “I won’t fall asleep.”