Civilization in the Wilderness
A Tale of Adventure on the American Frontier
Read Chapters One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, and Sixteen.
Chapter Seventeen
It should not have been a difficult task, crossing the river above the waterfall. Perhaps it would have been safer to cross below, but that would have required climbing down a very steep gorge and then climbing up again on the other side. Besides, the river was not wide. The current was not strong.
The four of them were undaunted, standing there before the water. Slightly gaunt from months of undereating, but with hope that soon they could rest for the winter. They had crossed more dangerous rivers than this one, and they had survived in the mountains and on the plains, through days without food and on days when they had plenty. Food went rapidly on their journey, and when they had meat, each man ate several pounds per day.
The captain had lost the most weight, and unlike Daniel or Robert he had been a thin man before the journey. But he was the first into the water. The water was very cold, because the land was cold, and because the air was cold, made cold by that cold time of year. But not a man of them made a sound as he entered the water. They loosened their packs in case they would need to cut themselves free. Captain Edwards forged out into the center of the river, where the water was up to his waist. There he stopped and turned and watched the others. He let Sagamore and Daniel and Robert each pass him, and he looked upstream to where the river bent into the trees and he looked downstream out over the falls where the fog obscured the land beyond. He seemed to be savoring this moment, as though there were nothing so much that he desired in all the world as to stand in the cold stream and feel the cold water upon him and know that he was alive in that wilderness.
As Daniel passed him by, the captain remarked to him that he was glad they had decided not to climb down into the gorge, for it had saved them much trouble and the view was much better up here. As it was, they would end up climbing down into the gorge anyway.
It shouldn’t have been a dangerous crossing, nor should the captain’s tarrying have been a dangerous thing to do, but unbeknownst to them, the snow which had fallen recently had brought down a large pine a half mile upriver.