MEG SPENT THE WINTER OF I896–7 on Moore’s unpopulated town site. It was my time in the wilderness, she thought in retrospect, and I almost did not get out of it. I was so unaware of what would spring out of that relentless darkness when alone and unprotected.
In the end it was her Yukon Sally who led her out and up the Chilkoot Pass then on to Dawson City. But in the beginning of that winter, Yukie, the pup, showed only a wolf-like aloofness and desire to escape Meg and the confines of her cabin. Food did not entice her. Yukie ate only part of what was in her dish, then sat down, stared at Meg, went to the door, scratched, then looked appealingly at Meg to be let out to rejoin the Moore’s malamutes. Amy had to chase Yukie away from their kennel and eventually carry her back to Meg’s. Yukie was so persistent and looked at Meg so mournfully that the ultimate solution was to have one of Amy’s dogs come to play with Yukie twice a day. At night Yukie was locked in the cabin with Meg but would not sleep by her bedside like Poley. Yukie slept by the door.
The long winter hours of northern darkness dominated, arriving earlier and earlier each afternoon. Candles and oil lamps had to be used sparingly. Amy insisted upon Meg sharing the evening meal in the Moore’s cabin. They were intelligent company, with interesting tales to tell. But when Meg returned to her cabin, holding the lantern like a minuscule flickering firefly in the forest of darkness, silent Yukie seeming reluctant at her side, Meg thought of Amy and Captain Moore, warm body pressed up against warm body. She got into her bed alone, having brushed her teeth in a mug of icy water, shivering from her toque-capped head to her sock-clad feet, she uttered her repeated prayer; “Please God, a mate someday, a human mate, for life.”
There was little to do throughout winter beyond the survival chores of gathering wood so the fire in the stove never went out and making repetitive meals of porridge, stew, or beans. Underwear was washed and dried in the cabin. Outerwear could wait until spring. In the short hours of daylight, Meg left Yukie to play with the other growing pups and went with Amy and her team to exercise on the lower part of the White Pass. Meg strengthened her legs for the Chilkoot climb and learned how to operate a dog sled.
Outside Meg’s cabin was a rough sign saying, “Dog Doctor,” but there were few takers over the course of the winter. Mushers came occasionally from Juneau en route to the White Pass and Dawson City but their dogs were generally in good shape, suffering at worst from cracked or bleeding paws. The mushers knew as well as Meg how to bandage them, but they liked to see her and talk to her, so they asked for her services, paid twenty-five cents, rested their dogs a few days, then were on their way, the rankness of their unwashed, sweaty bodies and clothes wafting after them.
It was Christmas, when the days were closest to endless nights, that one Jon Teskey and his team of wounded dogs staggered onto Moore’s town site. Teskey’s parka was torn, his face, arm, and back bleeding. His four dogs were limping, ears torn, faces torn, their fur bloody.
“What the hell!” Moore shouted.
“Cougar attacked me from behind,’ Teskey managed to say. “Got two of my dogs. God help me save the rest.”
Meg turned her cabin into an infirmary, Amy and Moore into her staff. Teskey was laid on her bed, the dogs on her table, one by one, to be cleaned, chloroformed, stitched up, the others lying in pain on the floor, trying to lick their wounds. Yukie sat pressed up against the foot of Meg’s bed and would not be moved. She growled threateningly when Amy tried to order her out of the cabin.
While Moore held down the dogs, Amy held scissors, knives, needles threaded with cat-gut, cloths of chloroform, basins of hot water, clean cloths at the ready. Meg pushed an eyeball back into its socket, not that it would ever again be good for seeing. Ears were sewn back together. Several nostrils were stitched up. A torn-open chest was pulled back together, stitched and bandaged, Meg pulling the length of cat-gut thread and knotting it … just as the dog expired.
The other three survived, as did Teskey, whose lacerations were not deep, thanks to the density of his beaver parka. He was moved from Meg’s bed to a cot in the Moore’s cabin, then to another abandoned cabin while his dogs healed. He was a quiet man, in his early thirties, used to the silence of mushing the trail from Wrangell and Juneau up the Alaskan coast. He liked to listen to the conversations in Moore’s cabin, telling of himself only that he had fled from an orphanage when he was twelve years old. “I truly appreciate your care, ma’am,” he said to Meg and repeated it to Amy. “Yous are fine women.”
Late January, it was still dark in the morning when Meg rose from her bed and pulled on her thick wool robe to let Yukie out, then put the kettle on the stove. There was a brief knock, then Teskey opened the door and stepped inside.
“Pardon me,” he said, “I’ve just come to thank you and say goodbye.”
“But …” Meg turned her back to adjust her robe.
Suddenly his hand clamped over her mouth and she was forced onto her bed face down.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said growling into her ear. “You’re gonna like this. I’m gonna give it to you every which way. You never felt a cock like this one.”
He pinned her down with the weight of his body as he pulled a snot filled hanky from his pocket and stuffed it in her mouth. She choked and gasped for air as he forced her knees up under her and began his every which way. She blanked out briefly when he rolled her over, yanking her by the hair and drove his knuckle into her temple.
“Now you have my seed,” Meg heard as she came to. “Consider yourself lucky.”
Frantic yelping and scratching continued at the door until Amy and Moore came running, letting Yukie inside. Meg covered her eyes as Yukie whimpered and licked her head.
“I’ll get that bastard!” said Moore and set off after him with a team of seven dogs.
But Teskey gave Moore the slip. It was snowing hard enough for his tracks to be covered and he turned off the trail early on, heading for a trapper’s cabin far inland where he held up for a few weeks then headed down to Wrangell.
Meg slowly recovered from the internal and external bruising, and the lacerations of dirty fingernails. But the visual memory, the nightmares and the agonizing over what might be the long term consequence of the attack continued to torment her. What if she were pregnant from that man?
Amy was too fearful to speak of it. She hugged Meg tightly and often.
“What matters is that you live!” said Amy and urged upon her the potions of their time.
A bottle of hootch and the hottest bath she could endure.
“Jump from the roof into this snow bank,” said Amy. “Land hard as you can.”
“Mild food poisoning,” Amy further suggested. “A piece of this fish … tomorrow.”
Meg smiled wanly. “I know enough about anatomy to know the digestive tract does not supply the reproductive organs. But too little else we know,” she lamented. “Far too little else.”
Twenty-three interminable mornings, days, and nights later, Meg had a full menstrual period. “I am so lucky!” she said out loud and wept. She came out of the outhouse like a person saved. Yukie leapt up on her. Meg took Yukie’s front paws and danced with her in the snow.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so grateful for, for ‘nothing,’” Meg smiled at Amy as she sat in the Moores’ cabin, “ever in my entire life.”
“It was a terrible thing,” said Amy. “Don’t be feeling grateful for what was done to you. It’s going to be hard for you to trust men. Nor should you. Dogs are better behaved.”
“It’s certainly been a turning point for Yukie.” Meg patted her as she lay near Meg’s chair. “She’s been keeping me in sight ever since that morning.”
“She’s not such a pup any more,” said Amy. “You’ve become her pack.”
“Yes,” said Meg. “I don’t feel quite so alone as I did before …”
“It’s not safe for a woman to be alone,” said Amy. “You know you can sleep in our cabin until you leave for Dawson. And by that time, Yukie will be big enough to protect you. Not that a malamute is ever a good guard dog … the way they go silent as wolves when someone approaches. And they’re far too friendly. But Yukie is attached to you now and if anyone comes at you with evil intentions, she would know and her protective instincts would kick in.”
“You can’t rely on that!” Captain Moore shouted from his chair in the corner. “You should carry a knife, Meg. Out of sight. In your boot or whatnot. Jon Teskey ain’t the only crazy man in the world. They should all have their equipment sliced off. I say put them all on that operating table of yours and put your knife to work!”
“Yes! Knife and spear. Harpoon too!” Ike shouted. Enraged out of his rest, he could find no calm since witnessing what Teskey had done to Meg. But witness is all a spirit can do. Had he had a knife and substance at the time, he would have sliced Teskey
into morsels and fed them to the crows. Piji had also flown into a flurry of ineffectual attack, kicking, gouging with her nails, yanking, to no real avail. They were two helpless spirits.
As winter passed, Ike fell into depression. Piji thought deeply then concluded, “Meg should move on. There are more dogs than ours in need of her services. Ike,” she shook his shoulder. “Let us go with her.”
In spring, when the mail boats were resuming, Meg wrote to Deputy Chief O’Mara
April 29,1897
My Dear Mick,
It has been a long, dark and difficult winter. I long to hear from you, but I realize I gave Dawson City as my next address when I wrote to you in Vancouver. I got waylaid here at Moore’s Landing because I fell in love with a malamute pup and I have to wait until May to take her over the Chilkoot Pass. The ice is expected to break up on the Yukon River at the end of the month, which will enable us to take a quick boat ride to Dawson City. I have heard so much about the challenge of climbing over the Chilkoot and then the dangerous rapids beyond, I am not without trepidation about this journey. But my hosts, Amy and Captain Moore, who have been like parents to me, assure me that I am fit for the climb and that I will be in the care of the best of Chilkoot packers and guides. My party is also to include a young native woman, with the unexpected name of Daisy, who is likewise knowledgeable about the trail and will be my companion.
I had a terrible experience this winter. I now carry a knife, ready at the waist, in its own holster. Like a policeman carrying a gun, I like to think. I was attacked by a musher, Jon Teskey from Wrangell, whose wounds I tended and whose dogs’ lives I had saved.
I had no inkling of the brutal thoughts of this man until he surprised and attacked me in my cabin. As you said, men can be a “scurvy lot.” Yet there are men like you. I want you to know I treasure and admire you more than ever. I’ve gained more understanding of the ugly scenes you must face during the course of your work and how difficult it is to get these scenes out of one’s mind, or at least push them aside, to allow for vision of all that is good and beautiful in life.
I am most fortunate to have survived that attack, apparently without long term physical injury. I do fear “pushing my luck” by going up the Chilkoot and facing whatever awaits a lone woman in Dawson City. But I have come this far and I must not give up out of cowardice. I am determined to make it to Dawson City and hope word from you awaits me there. Whatever happens, know that you have my love.
Meg