Black Bubble [the Dread of the Yukon]
Black Bubble
[The Dread of the Yukon]
1
The Decision
And the Journey
The Witch Speaketh:
Once witches danced
To plenilunal magic
With weak souls to molest—;
Ah! Yes—way back when?
When—witches robbed men
Of virtue and piousness.
[July, AD 1909] I’m over fifty, and Shauna, over forty, she’s more on the order of being, so-so in her ways than I, so-so meaning, you never know, and can be very stern if not given her way. My illness is of a peculiar order—I’ve thought possible she gave it to me—my wife, if in deed, one can give illnesses to another, I’d not put it past her; and the question is: could I go there without becoming fragmented and hurting someone in a panic state as I now often get because of the blame damn illness? This illness no one has a name for but is of some neurological makings, with side effects that disturb the emotional makeup of a person; she thought I’d be fine; should I become panic stricken; that I’d not hurt myself intentionally. I even mentioned—fruitlessly—even death by a hundred different reasons could occur. Again I repeat myself: she was indifferent to these worries of mine. My work used to be rather trying, as I spent much time in the Yukon years ago, now a professor at the University, with cross-cultural clients from every walk of life. I teach psychology.
“Robert doesn’t mention any one but you, Lowell,” was Shauna’s rejoinder.
“I gather he’s lonely for travel, or so I expect?” said I in return.
Incidentally, she looked at me as if I was out of my mind, turning toward the window; it was obvious she was dumbfounded in my lack of interest in joining him again on a surprise journey to the Yukon—it was fifteen-years since we had last been there. She didn’t push the menu, I might add, but she wanted me to take the invitation, she was acting timid, and that is not her statuette. Robert has what I would call—a not worth mentioning, personality. But he has money, influence, and it pays the bills; or used to. He also has blood shot eyes most of the time, likes to drink you know, like a fish out of water; his expression is dull, dim and flat, and he’s 61, too old for such nonsense.
I think of the barren, spacious Yukon, its cold roomy country, a wing of the devils where you can’t find much to eat, hard to sleep, and it does not have hot baths. I’ve been in the Yukon, as well as the far Arctic, it is no dream trip at our ages, or so I feel.
Wealth flashed across my wife’s face, and to enticed her, the unscrupulous professor made it worth her time to intimidate me: the fine things of life it would buy he shoved in front of her enigmatic, paranormal face; after the expedition that is shed be the queen of the city, sort of speaking; and the truth of the matter is, I could rest for a year or two, in a quiet work-room and just write poetry, with a perfect cup of coffee, or tea each day, instead of that same old, same old crap. Sure, there is a good point about his, I admit, and not many people would be demanding my every minute once I got back, and it would be only a four month endeavor, but again I say, it is too demanding; and so the Professor asked to me to go along with him, Professor Robert Spellvice; ‘why?’ to look for old bones, old mammal bones in the Yukon, this is not my cup of tea at fifty-seven years old; not anymore anyway. But if I stay around here, it will be a long winter with my wife, and I can tell you, short in days can be long in months with her, if she’d doesn’t make me into a toad in the mean time. Like I said, there are points to this, I admit.
“I spoke with him yesterday, and he really wants you Lowell, he said he wanted your answer today, and not a ‘no,’ informing me he’d give you three times your wages than the university, along with a big bonus once completed, and he can acquire a leave of absence for you without any issues raised…?” I found myself gazing in the dullness of my library: eyes in a pause, looking at my wife, but not saying a word.
I spoke at length with her about how long we’d be gone—feeling it was a long time, and exactly how much was he was offering was not worth it, and the books that would be written thereafter, and the royalties, was still more work to be done—implying: it was not as simply as she was making it out to be, and I wanted to retire for the most part, I had written twenty-nine books (for god sake how many more must a man write to prove his worth?). Shauna did not budge from her insistence in that I should go, nor move from the archway of our library, as I expected. She kept her dark green eyes on me, a mist formed around her, like a black bubble, it often did when she was thinking hard, thinking and not wanting anyone in to some safety zone of hers, as if I could, or someone might be able to, read her thoughts; it was her compilation of hidden knowledge in witchcraft I was witnessing, and skeptical about: should I not agree to do it, I might end up doing it anyhow as it may appear to me—with her art of magic—I wanted to in the first place, and by the time the spell would fade, I’d be in the Yukon anyhow. I didn’t know she was a witch when I married her; it came out when she healed me with some stupid shrub, or herb from it, of scurvy or whatever I had back then, back in l886, if I recall right.
I fought it, but it didn’t’ do much good until I returned and she hurled her the unexplained, delightful enchantment on me, along with that shrub-herb. Oh, that isn’t all, in the Yukon, there are deep dizzy mountains, deathlike, and graves here and there of those before you that tired to find their fortune in it. I scrabbled and mucked like a slave them days. It is the cruelest land that I know. Yes, there is beauty also, the big husky sun, the stars tumble about at night; the caribou run in the wild, it is fresh, silent, a stillness to it also, a good portion of it unpeopled; but there are hardships that nobody reckons; keep it, I will take a hot bath and think about those who wish to go back to that world, should I have such a pleasure in making the decision not to, but I fear not
Instead of me inviting it hopefully, as an alternative, I told her I’d try to look forward to it, but I only did so in depression, a kind of creeping one at that. Here I was to enter a world of fog and slush, gloom and cold; these melancholy thoughts I must put aside. Now she went into her room, with that impassive face, an evil woman at times.
[Interlude I] Lowell’s mind was now free for the moment, having Shauna’s spell and demand packed away, thus he lost the fearfulness that was lingering within his stomach, his intestines, his head and spine—the uneasiness she could provoke upon and within his system, make it endure should he defy her. Now he committed himself to the irretrievable blunder to be, which lay ahead of him: or so he felt it would turn out to be; he devoted long hours to getting in shape the following two months, for the September trip. He lost over ten pounds, put on some muscle in its place. Found new maps of the Yukon, and Arctic regions, for they’d be in both areas before their trip was over; he was never losing hope the Professor would cancel the trip, and perhaps go in the summer months, but he didn’t. He packed away for the trip a few books, one by George Sterling of poetry; he liked his imagery, a great poet out of California; and another one by Gertrude Stein.
It seemed to him, Professor Spellvice had not done any extraordinary preparation for the long enduring trip that lay ahead of them, which required specialization for the most part, hence, Lowell was baffled. His head was whirling with conflict and contradiction of this idleness. Did he think the Yukon, or the Arctic was summer year round? I mean, he wasn’t the man he was fifteen-years ago, or twenty-five years ago when they had made their first of several trips to the enduring North. Perhaps the Professor had bones and artifacts in general on his mind so much he forgot that it gets sixty to eighty below zero up there, should they not make it back before winter; and he was playing a most dangerous game trying to beat the cold and freezing up of the lakes and rivers by going in late September. So these were Lowell’s thoughts. In addition, He felt the Professor could lose twenty-pounds, minimum, which would do him well; scrap off that pot belly of his; he was only five foot six inches tall, and the bellow lapped over his belt like rolls from a pig, he must had been 190-pounds. He also had a black beard and his back and arms, legs and all was hairy like an ape.
By and large, Lowell McWilliams was in a state of addlement [becoming rotten] when he met the day he and the professor were to take the train from Minnesota to the Canadian boarder; and then onto the Yukon, to Dawson to get supplies, and all the way to the Arctic, and perhaps even to Mackenzie Bay [which was not on the agenda, but in the back of the professors mind which would add another for or five months to the trip back and forth, but should he had told Lowell, it would have only made matters worse]. Both Lowell and Professor Spellvice were aware Peary had made it to the North Pole [April 6, l909] by sledge, and it may have had inspired Spellvice to make the trip before winter, and the summer of the following year, or at least that is what came to mind for Lowell. But Lowell was more interested in the possibility of the fight that was to take place with Jack Johnson, come the summer of next year [l910], on July 4th, thus leaving in August of 1910, would had been excellent for him.
2 The Yukon
And the Lake
The Raw Arctic
I have seen its vastness—
A lonely land I know;
On its silent splendor,
Its beauty: strung my soul!...
For the first few weeks nobody spoke unless there was an absolute need to, and Lowell chopped ice as they shifted through the waters, his ores heavy with ice, cliffs all about him. Lowell wanted to turn about a hundred times, but his will refused his mind and bodies better judgment. And Professor Spellvice, whom never swore, learned how to somehow this time, as the river become more dangerous, and he become more exhausted. Lowell got thing about this time: ‘…for some odd reason, it would seem each man wants to prove something in his life before he dies, and thus, puts life and limb in harms way if need be, heart and soul into it, even if he puts others in harms way, and this was one of those times for the professor.’ It seemed that, each man had reached his breaking-point during this journey, but jerked back from pulling their revolvers out and shooting the other.
During the evenings in camp, each would take their turns with some kind of hesitated and sort hysterical laugh, and a few hours later they’d both be fast asleep; a way of releasing the pressure of the long hatchet struggle in the Yukon. One blamed the other for whatever anguish had rested on his soul that day, but by nightfall it usually was forgotten, and by morning after a cup of coffee, it was time to loosen up the stiffen muscles and the ache of moving from the sleep of fatigue of the night before.
It was on the 41-day, they had woke up, finished with the coffee, it was dark yet, Lowell rolled up the sagging tent, said to Robert, “Come on, we got to get across the lake before it freezes up; it was thirty-below, and as they started to cross the lake the wind started to freeze up the Roberts cheeks and nose, when he touched them, they were froze hard like an ice cube. He stopped rowing, left the ore by itself as he pulled his gloves off to warm his face with his own fleshly hands. Thus, as they floated down the swift river, shore-ice extended out into the lake and it was hitting the boat as it broke from its main sheet. Lowell didn’t see Robert, he was starting a fire in the little iron stove they had in the boat, for it was to be a six hour trip across the lake, and into the river; which would bring them a landing point, just before the water falls; consequently, his back was turned to him.
The older man, Professor Spellvice, was beyond fatigue, and was now rubbing his face, it was dead tissue he was rubbing, tissue that was frost bitten: turning white; his ore had slipped gently into the lake, there was one left, it remained connected to the boat on the other side, then all movement ceased—they hit a big rock in the middle of the lake, the professor fell forward onto Lowell’s back, sound like he was in extreme anxiety: “I’ll sure go back now,” his eyes bulging out of their sockets: then apologized for taking him into this ‘forsaken land,’ hunting for old bones; then like a sack of potatoes, he fell limp: dead to the world. What had come over him, Lowell didn’t know there were no real signs that had forecasted such a quick expiration.
Lowell had food, some gold-dust they had traded for dollars in Dawson, just incase they needed to buy some camp items along the way, should they find someone willing to sell them, along with meat or other needed items, hence, dollars would not hold the value as gold would. He knew he had flour, some beef-jerky, a few tin goods; as he looked about the boat; then he noticed he had one ore. The shore was about a mile away; he’d turn the boat that way, but didn’t have it, it seemed somehow to turn by itself in that direction compelled to go that way he told himself—“Why?” He then pulled out a bottle of whiskey, took a few drinks, after thawing out his mustache to get the bottle into his mouth.
He looked at old Professor Spellvice, “So-long, old chap,” he said with a regretful- ness, while his red-hot stove gave him new vitality. It was getting colder, for he spit in the air and it froze before it hit the ice in the lake. “It’s getting colder all the time…” he told the stove, as if it had a mind of its own, rubbing his bare hands to the warmth of its flames, turning now and then to the back of the book looking at the Spellvice humped over like a lump of lard, chin on his chest.
“Ssh!” he said aloud. He heard a woman’s voice from the shore; he could see the shore now. “Huh!” said he, in a whisper to himself. For some reason, Shauna did not occur to him that the voice coming from the shore was hers, or could be; it was some other woman’s. As his boat oddly enough was being pulled to shore by some hidden force, the snow in this areas was feet thick, deep snow he noticed. ‘Nobody could live up here,’ he told himself, the stove now going out, ‘…only the devil,’ he added to his monologue. He felt his legs and knees, he knew his muscles were still strong with warm circulating blood; hence, he could trudge along the snow for a few days once ashore, but he needed to find a log cabin—sooner or later—and wait out the winter. There was no way of going back. He’d bury the old professor in spring, when he’d make his way back across the lake; it would freeze over soon—the lake that is, if not this evening, surely tomorrow or the following day.
[Interlude II] Lowell loved beauty, be it in nature as it was in the North Country here, or in women, for his wife was most beautiful, or in poetry; and now the great north had provided this beauty for him. He and the professor, if they had enjoyed anything together on this trip, it was in the gazing into the magic of its beautiful landscape, it silent nights, its overpowering vastness; it stirred within him, profoundly, within both of them. It seemed to fill the blank pages of his Lowell’s mind, those that had been gathering for so many years. These past six weeks he had sung to himself aloud, something he had not done for a very long time. The landscape illuminated both the professor and him, although the professor seemed to have experienced darkness because of his avidly unpreparedness for the trip, he did find time to absorb its wondrous beauty. But now he was gone forever, a sad case at best, thought Lowell. Under all those cloths the professor had on, he was sweating out the old stress and strain he had carried a thousand miles; his shirt clung to his shoulders from the sweat.
[Part Two: Black Bubble]
3
Reaching land
And the
Fate beckoned Lowell McWilliams, one might say, for on the cold desert like sheet of ice came echoes sliding to his ears, echoes from a Polar Eskimo, in this geographical isolated land. Oaassaaluk, a seer of sort whose husband was an Eskimo like her, and hunter and the master seer, was now alone with her children by her side, all waiting along the coast with their traditional sledge of: whalebone joined together with sealskin, no rivets or nails. They had journeyed a long way. She was now moving briskly with her dogs along side her—dogs which were restlessly guarding her, as well as useful for the sleigh. Now the shore passed quickly before Lowell’s eyes, catching the glimpse of the female Eskimo. She had two young children by her side, along with the four dogs, he noticed, yet she was small framed, yet pretty—an eye catcher he told himself.
Build strong with a round face, almost harmless, but for some odd reason, he knew she wasn’t; I mean, how could she be harmless and with two children in the frozen North like this, waiting by a shore of ice in ten below zero weather. She had willed the boat over, he could see the roof of her tent, plus she had been cooking something. The atmosphere looked good, he was hungry, more than hungry, he was next to starving, and he had a dead body to look at, which was becoming disheartening. Behind the tent was a fairly good size igloo, standing at the lips of a cliff, somewhat lost in the vastness of the almost all white, snowy landscape. He had never used his ore once, it was all by the force that the boat found its way to the shoreline; some hidden force of this Eskimo woman he knew, whose name he’d fine out was Oaassaaluk: yes, the boat was brought to shore by her will.
—Lowell had learned as he met young Oaassaaluk, and her two children, that she was from an Inuit tribe from Greenland, a Thule tribe. When she scented the dead man in the boat, she was a bit fearful, hoping he was not ill-treated during his life, lest he come back to haunt them. She spoke the language of the Inuit’s from Greenland, and thus, performed a ritual that evening for the dead man. She circled him like a wolf, wondering if he was going to come back and haunt them, then like thunder in the middle of the night, as the fire was going down, somewhat flickering out, she ran outside of the tent she had, with a sharp tooth for a knife, a tooth from a huge bear, and stabbed him again and again through the heart, to insure he was dead, and would not come back and haunt her children and her; Lowell saw it all, as he had stayed by the fire, and the children in the igloo saw nothing.
She was well understood by/or to Lowell, he didn’t’ know why or how, but it seemed she had some supernatural power to make it so—thus they communicated without any problems. As he looked at his friends body, she had scalped him, turned his eyes, mouth, ears and genitals inside out, saying, “…it is better my new friend, to kill him once and for all, than to have him follow us at night.” Lowell said not a word. He had thought his wife was dangerous, but Oaassaaluk was far more vicious should she want to be, more than Shauna had ever thought of being.
As the days and weeks passed, they both found themselves sleeping together in the tent as one as one would feel to a wife or husband, and he learned many things of her, and she of him. They even taught each other their personal songs. She explained, Perlussuaq was their evil spirit, who could wish living creatures ill, and she believed his friend had met the evil spirit, and thus, he was doomed. Had Lowell continued down the river, his fate would had been the same she explained, but the evil spirit was lazy, and did not think she was close by and therefore felt it had time to squander, for the spirit was looking for her but her magic created kind of black bubble around her so he could not smell, or see her: detect her in anyway. But once she had used her powers, she had opened herself up, had come out of that safety zone, thus was open to his wickedness, it was why she hand to insure the man was dead.
She had taught Lowell by this time, spoken charms, and to chant them softly. And about the taboos of food, and eating of meat: basically, the age mattered as did the kind of animal, and sex. Should he eat the heart, his vitality would diminish. He’d explain to her of his wife whom would use her skills in black magic to insure he’d do as she wanted. But Oaassaaluk never said a word bad about his wife; she turned out to be a good listener. And as the days passed they become not only lovers, but soul mates. In the mornings she’d cook eggs, and have meat, coffee made, where she got those items, he never knew nor asked, but his supplies were almost depleted, and so he was thankful she had a resource, whatever it was.
In her beliefs, she knew she had a soul [her breath], she told Lowell; matter of fact, she had three ‘breaths,’ if not more, so she indicated, and life was everlasting and She wore amulets, the skin of the upper jaw of a bear her recent husband was killed by, of which, she endowed with pride and courage. And she had in her tent, and in the igloo, skulls of foxes.
[Interlude III] Lowell, as time went by, found his new mate to be most desirable, and seemingly had all but forgotten Shauna, his wife. He now preferred the warmth of his new mate, of which she was more than willing to provide for him. She, Oaassaaluk had produced in him a swimming sensation of bliss he had never felt before; one that accepted death, before idealism. His face flushed when they met often; at the same time his hair became stimulated to its roots. Her gracious spirit drove him insanely excited.
4
Evil Spirits
The Demon’s Ark
Born from the horns
Of a wingless archangel
With the pulse of
Perpetual night—
Lo, the demonic horizon:
Mortals jagged plight.
It was in January, of the year l910; Lowell had been missing for months without any word to civilization, that he was alive. And suddenly when Oaassaaluk had returned one morning back to the camp, she was ill, very ill. Oaassaaluk’s husband had been an ‘angakkoq,’ shaman, or priest, and she had learned much from him. He was the interpreter of the signs, and he was her precedence, and the evil spirit was mad at Oaassaaluk for saving the white man, taking Lowell away from him. As he was angry at Oaassaaluk’s husband previously; for they had been escaping, running away from it—the evil spirit, as to not have to give it respect, it wanted, respect in the form of worship, which it pleaded for, and swore it would get revenge should they not give it.
In consequence, in fear and faith they had run a thousand miles, and then of course the evil spirit sent the bear to kill the husband, and she had been lonely and would not sleep with the evil spirit and hid from it; out of loneliness, isolation, and knowing the evil spirit was on a rampage, she helped Lowell escape its deadly intent, his unknowing it; hence, he evaded his fate of death; now she had taken him as her mate. She sang ‘ajajas,’ calling on the good spirits to help her. Her illness was unceasing though; she became mute and extremely violent at times, then temperate as lamb, yet she held onto Lowell as if he was her breath, or part of it. As she lay dying day after day, Lowell had found himself much in love with her; he loved her dearly, so much so, he stayed with her night and day without eating, only preparing food for the children. He had also found out he did not want to return to his home in the lower states to face his bewitched wife whom kept him as a slave; life was less valuable than he had thought, if it was to be without his Oaassaaluk.
It was a deadly night when he sat in the igloo by her side as she was dying, when all of a sudden out of nowhere, people he had never met seemed to come in and out to the igloo, he knew they were ghost’s from the sky, but he said nothing. They were having a feast of some kind, laughter, drums sounded, in the space of a few days, it looked like a village outside the igloo, it had become over populated, fifty people maybe. Despite the influx, the snow did not stop them or the cold, or the small igloo, the guests were puckered eyed, and talked in her concise language.
In the summer of l911, the bodies of Oaassaaluk and Lowell were found, side by side, ugly in the sun, skin rotting as if they were a black bubble of flesh, harnessed to one another like a team of dogs. He had tied himself to her, and ordered the ghosts to tie him tighter, so tight, he’d not be able to get out; for it was said no one could have done it alone. And so as he had wished, they died together, arms and body entangled around one anther. From the edge of the cliff, where the igloo was, the two children were gone.
Nightmare
He lives within the deep
Where others never sleep—
Monstrous fathoms below,
Where Lava Rivers flow,
And crowding waters rush.
He is the nightmare demon
With a flat, untraversable form—
Lying in a bottomless tomb,
Haply awakened from doom
Thirsting diabolical ruin!...
Author and Poet: Dennis L. Siluk: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com/
[The Dread of the Yukon]
1
The Decision
And the Journey
The Witch Speaketh:
Once witches danced
To plenilunal magic
With weak souls to molest—;
Ah! Yes—way back when?
When—witches robbed men
Of virtue and piousness.
[July, AD 1909] I’m over fifty, and Shauna, over forty, she’s more on the order of being, so-so in her ways than I, so-so meaning, you never know, and can be very stern if not given her way. My illness is of a peculiar order—I’ve thought possible she gave it to me—my wife, if in deed, one can give illnesses to another, I’d not put it past her; and the question is: could I go there without becoming fragmented and hurting someone in a panic state as I now often get because of the blame damn illness? This illness no one has a name for but is of some neurological makings, with side effects that disturb the emotional makeup of a person; she thought I’d be fine; should I become panic stricken; that I’d not hurt myself intentionally. I even mentioned—fruitlessly—even death by a hundred different reasons could occur. Again I repeat myself: she was indifferent to these worries of mine. My work used to be rather trying, as I spent much time in the Yukon years ago, now a professor at the University, with cross-cultural clients from every walk of life. I teach psychology.
“Robert doesn’t mention any one but you, Lowell,” was Shauna’s rejoinder.
“I gather he’s lonely for travel, or so I expect?” said I in return.
Incidentally, she looked at me as if I was out of my mind, turning toward the window; it was obvious she was dumbfounded in my lack of interest in joining him again on a surprise journey to the Yukon—it was fifteen-years since we had last been there. She didn’t push the menu, I might add, but she wanted me to take the invitation, she was acting timid, and that is not her statuette. Robert has what I would call—a not worth mentioning, personality. But he has money, influence, and it pays the bills; or used to. He also has blood shot eyes most of the time, likes to drink you know, like a fish out of water; his expression is dull, dim and flat, and he’s 61, too old for such nonsense.
I think of the barren, spacious Yukon, its cold roomy country, a wing of the devils where you can’t find much to eat, hard to sleep, and it does not have hot baths. I’ve been in the Yukon, as well as the far Arctic, it is no dream trip at our ages, or so I feel.
Wealth flashed across my wife’s face, and to enticed her, the unscrupulous professor made it worth her time to intimidate me: the fine things of life it would buy he shoved in front of her enigmatic, paranormal face; after the expedition that is shed be the queen of the city, sort of speaking; and the truth of the matter is, I could rest for a year or two, in a quiet work-room and just write poetry, with a perfect cup of coffee, or tea each day, instead of that same old, same old crap. Sure, there is a good point about his, I admit, and not many people would be demanding my every minute once I got back, and it would be only a four month endeavor, but again I say, it is too demanding; and so the Professor asked to me to go along with him, Professor Robert Spellvice; ‘why?’ to look for old bones, old mammal bones in the Yukon, this is not my cup of tea at fifty-seven years old; not anymore anyway. But if I stay around here, it will be a long winter with my wife, and I can tell you, short in days can be long in months with her, if she’d doesn’t make me into a toad in the mean time. Like I said, there are points to this, I admit.
“I spoke with him yesterday, and he really wants you Lowell, he said he wanted your answer today, and not a ‘no,’ informing me he’d give you three times your wages than the university, along with a big bonus once completed, and he can acquire a leave of absence for you without any issues raised…?” I found myself gazing in the dullness of my library: eyes in a pause, looking at my wife, but not saying a word.
I spoke at length with her about how long we’d be gone—feeling it was a long time, and exactly how much was he was offering was not worth it, and the books that would be written thereafter, and the royalties, was still more work to be done—implying: it was not as simply as she was making it out to be, and I wanted to retire for the most part, I had written twenty-nine books (for god sake how many more must a man write to prove his worth?). Shauna did not budge from her insistence in that I should go, nor move from the archway of our library, as I expected. She kept her dark green eyes on me, a mist formed around her, like a black bubble, it often did when she was thinking hard, thinking and not wanting anyone in to some safety zone of hers, as if I could, or someone might be able to, read her thoughts; it was her compilation of hidden knowledge in witchcraft I was witnessing, and skeptical about: should I not agree to do it, I might end up doing it anyhow as it may appear to me—with her art of magic—I wanted to in the first place, and by the time the spell would fade, I’d be in the Yukon anyhow. I didn’t know she was a witch when I married her; it came out when she healed me with some stupid shrub, or herb from it, of scurvy or whatever I had back then, back in l886, if I recall right.
I fought it, but it didn’t’ do much good until I returned and she hurled her the unexplained, delightful enchantment on me, along with that shrub-herb. Oh, that isn’t all, in the Yukon, there are deep dizzy mountains, deathlike, and graves here and there of those before you that tired to find their fortune in it. I scrabbled and mucked like a slave them days. It is the cruelest land that I know. Yes, there is beauty also, the big husky sun, the stars tumble about at night; the caribou run in the wild, it is fresh, silent, a stillness to it also, a good portion of it unpeopled; but there are hardships that nobody reckons; keep it, I will take a hot bath and think about those who wish to go back to that world, should I have such a pleasure in making the decision not to, but I fear not
Instead of me inviting it hopefully, as an alternative, I told her I’d try to look forward to it, but I only did so in depression, a kind of creeping one at that. Here I was to enter a world of fog and slush, gloom and cold; these melancholy thoughts I must put aside. Now she went into her room, with that impassive face, an evil woman at times.
[Interlude I] Lowell’s mind was now free for the moment, having Shauna’s spell and demand packed away, thus he lost the fearfulness that was lingering within his stomach, his intestines, his head and spine—the uneasiness she could provoke upon and within his system, make it endure should he defy her. Now he committed himself to the irretrievable blunder to be, which lay ahead of him: or so he felt it would turn out to be; he devoted long hours to getting in shape the following two months, for the September trip. He lost over ten pounds, put on some muscle in its place. Found new maps of the Yukon, and Arctic regions, for they’d be in both areas before their trip was over; he was never losing hope the Professor would cancel the trip, and perhaps go in the summer months, but he didn’t. He packed away for the trip a few books, one by George Sterling of poetry; he liked his imagery, a great poet out of California; and another one by Gertrude Stein.
It seemed to him, Professor Spellvice had not done any extraordinary preparation for the long enduring trip that lay ahead of them, which required specialization for the most part, hence, Lowell was baffled. His head was whirling with conflict and contradiction of this idleness. Did he think the Yukon, or the Arctic was summer year round? I mean, he wasn’t the man he was fifteen-years ago, or twenty-five years ago when they had made their first of several trips to the enduring North. Perhaps the Professor had bones and artifacts in general on his mind so much he forgot that it gets sixty to eighty below zero up there, should they not make it back before winter; and he was playing a most dangerous game trying to beat the cold and freezing up of the lakes and rivers by going in late September. So these were Lowell’s thoughts. In addition, He felt the Professor could lose twenty-pounds, minimum, which would do him well; scrap off that pot belly of his; he was only five foot six inches tall, and the bellow lapped over his belt like rolls from a pig, he must had been 190-pounds. He also had a black beard and his back and arms, legs and all was hairy like an ape.
By and large, Lowell McWilliams was in a state of addlement [becoming rotten] when he met the day he and the professor were to take the train from Minnesota to the Canadian boarder; and then onto the Yukon, to Dawson to get supplies, and all the way to the Arctic, and perhaps even to Mackenzie Bay [which was not on the agenda, but in the back of the professors mind which would add another for or five months to the trip back and forth, but should he had told Lowell, it would have only made matters worse]. Both Lowell and Professor Spellvice were aware Peary had made it to the North Pole [April 6, l909] by sledge, and it may have had inspired Spellvice to make the trip before winter, and the summer of the following year, or at least that is what came to mind for Lowell. But Lowell was more interested in the possibility of the fight that was to take place with Jack Johnson, come the summer of next year [l910], on July 4th, thus leaving in August of 1910, would had been excellent for him.
2 The Yukon
And the Lake
The Raw Arctic
I have seen its vastness—
A lonely land I know;
On its silent splendor,
Its beauty: strung my soul!...
For the first few weeks nobody spoke unless there was an absolute need to, and Lowell chopped ice as they shifted through the waters, his ores heavy with ice, cliffs all about him. Lowell wanted to turn about a hundred times, but his will refused his mind and bodies better judgment. And Professor Spellvice, whom never swore, learned how to somehow this time, as the river become more dangerous, and he become more exhausted. Lowell got thing about this time: ‘…for some odd reason, it would seem each man wants to prove something in his life before he dies, and thus, puts life and limb in harms way if need be, heart and soul into it, even if he puts others in harms way, and this was one of those times for the professor.’ It seemed that, each man had reached his breaking-point during this journey, but jerked back from pulling their revolvers out and shooting the other.
During the evenings in camp, each would take their turns with some kind of hesitated and sort hysterical laugh, and a few hours later they’d both be fast asleep; a way of releasing the pressure of the long hatchet struggle in the Yukon. One blamed the other for whatever anguish had rested on his soul that day, but by nightfall it usually was forgotten, and by morning after a cup of coffee, it was time to loosen up the stiffen muscles and the ache of moving from the sleep of fatigue of the night before.
It was on the 41-day, they had woke up, finished with the coffee, it was dark yet, Lowell rolled up the sagging tent, said to Robert, “Come on, we got to get across the lake before it freezes up; it was thirty-below, and as they started to cross the lake the wind started to freeze up the Roberts cheeks and nose, when he touched them, they were froze hard like an ice cube. He stopped rowing, left the ore by itself as he pulled his gloves off to warm his face with his own fleshly hands. Thus, as they floated down the swift river, shore-ice extended out into the lake and it was hitting the boat as it broke from its main sheet. Lowell didn’t see Robert, he was starting a fire in the little iron stove they had in the boat, for it was to be a six hour trip across the lake, and into the river; which would bring them a landing point, just before the water falls; consequently, his back was turned to him.
The older man, Professor Spellvice, was beyond fatigue, and was now rubbing his face, it was dead tissue he was rubbing, tissue that was frost bitten: turning white; his ore had slipped gently into the lake, there was one left, it remained connected to the boat on the other side, then all movement ceased—they hit a big rock in the middle of the lake, the professor fell forward onto Lowell’s back, sound like he was in extreme anxiety: “I’ll sure go back now,” his eyes bulging out of their sockets: then apologized for taking him into this ‘forsaken land,’ hunting for old bones; then like a sack of potatoes, he fell limp: dead to the world. What had come over him, Lowell didn’t know there were no real signs that had forecasted such a quick expiration.
Lowell had food, some gold-dust they had traded for dollars in Dawson, just incase they needed to buy some camp items along the way, should they find someone willing to sell them, along with meat or other needed items, hence, dollars would not hold the value as gold would. He knew he had flour, some beef-jerky, a few tin goods; as he looked about the boat; then he noticed he had one ore. The shore was about a mile away; he’d turn the boat that way, but didn’t have it, it seemed somehow to turn by itself in that direction compelled to go that way he told himself—“Why?” He then pulled out a bottle of whiskey, took a few drinks, after thawing out his mustache to get the bottle into his mouth.
He looked at old Professor Spellvice, “So-long, old chap,” he said with a regretful- ness, while his red-hot stove gave him new vitality. It was getting colder, for he spit in the air and it froze before it hit the ice in the lake. “It’s getting colder all the time…” he told the stove, as if it had a mind of its own, rubbing his bare hands to the warmth of its flames, turning now and then to the back of the book looking at the Spellvice humped over like a lump of lard, chin on his chest.
“Ssh!” he said aloud. He heard a woman’s voice from the shore; he could see the shore now. “Huh!” said he, in a whisper to himself. For some reason, Shauna did not occur to him that the voice coming from the shore was hers, or could be; it was some other woman’s. As his boat oddly enough was being pulled to shore by some hidden force, the snow in this areas was feet thick, deep snow he noticed. ‘Nobody could live up here,’ he told himself, the stove now going out, ‘…only the devil,’ he added to his monologue. He felt his legs and knees, he knew his muscles were still strong with warm circulating blood; hence, he could trudge along the snow for a few days once ashore, but he needed to find a log cabin—sooner or later—and wait out the winter. There was no way of going back. He’d bury the old professor in spring, when he’d make his way back across the lake; it would freeze over soon—the lake that is, if not this evening, surely tomorrow or the following day.
[Interlude II] Lowell loved beauty, be it in nature as it was in the North Country here, or in women, for his wife was most beautiful, or in poetry; and now the great north had provided this beauty for him. He and the professor, if they had enjoyed anything together on this trip, it was in the gazing into the magic of its beautiful landscape, it silent nights, its overpowering vastness; it stirred within him, profoundly, within both of them. It seemed to fill the blank pages of his Lowell’s mind, those that had been gathering for so many years. These past six weeks he had sung to himself aloud, something he had not done for a very long time. The landscape illuminated both the professor and him, although the professor seemed to have experienced darkness because of his avidly unpreparedness for the trip, he did find time to absorb its wondrous beauty. But now he was gone forever, a sad case at best, thought Lowell. Under all those cloths the professor had on, he was sweating out the old stress and strain he had carried a thousand miles; his shirt clung to his shoulders from the sweat.
[Part Two: Black Bubble]
3
Reaching land
And the
Fate beckoned Lowell McWilliams, one might say, for on the cold desert like sheet of ice came echoes sliding to his ears, echoes from a Polar Eskimo, in this geographical isolated land. Oaassaaluk, a seer of sort whose husband was an Eskimo like her, and hunter and the master seer, was now alone with her children by her side, all waiting along the coast with their traditional sledge of: whalebone joined together with sealskin, no rivets or nails. They had journeyed a long way. She was now moving briskly with her dogs along side her—dogs which were restlessly guarding her, as well as useful for the sleigh. Now the shore passed quickly before Lowell’s eyes, catching the glimpse of the female Eskimo. She had two young children by her side, along with the four dogs, he noticed, yet she was small framed, yet pretty—an eye catcher he told himself.
Build strong with a round face, almost harmless, but for some odd reason, he knew she wasn’t; I mean, how could she be harmless and with two children in the frozen North like this, waiting by a shore of ice in ten below zero weather. She had willed the boat over, he could see the roof of her tent, plus she had been cooking something. The atmosphere looked good, he was hungry, more than hungry, he was next to starving, and he had a dead body to look at, which was becoming disheartening. Behind the tent was a fairly good size igloo, standing at the lips of a cliff, somewhat lost in the vastness of the almost all white, snowy landscape. He had never used his ore once, it was all by the force that the boat found its way to the shoreline; some hidden force of this Eskimo woman he knew, whose name he’d fine out was Oaassaaluk: yes, the boat was brought to shore by her will.
—Lowell had learned as he met young Oaassaaluk, and her two children, that she was from an Inuit tribe from Greenland, a Thule tribe. When she scented the dead man in the boat, she was a bit fearful, hoping he was not ill-treated during his life, lest he come back to haunt them. She spoke the language of the Inuit’s from Greenland, and thus, performed a ritual that evening for the dead man. She circled him like a wolf, wondering if he was going to come back and haunt them, then like thunder in the middle of the night, as the fire was going down, somewhat flickering out, she ran outside of the tent she had, with a sharp tooth for a knife, a tooth from a huge bear, and stabbed him again and again through the heart, to insure he was dead, and would not come back and haunt her children and her; Lowell saw it all, as he had stayed by the fire, and the children in the igloo saw nothing.
She was well understood by/or to Lowell, he didn’t’ know why or how, but it seemed she had some supernatural power to make it so—thus they communicated without any problems. As he looked at his friends body, she had scalped him, turned his eyes, mouth, ears and genitals inside out, saying, “…it is better my new friend, to kill him once and for all, than to have him follow us at night.” Lowell said not a word. He had thought his wife was dangerous, but Oaassaaluk was far more vicious should she want to be, more than Shauna had ever thought of being.
As the days and weeks passed, they both found themselves sleeping together in the tent as one as one would feel to a wife or husband, and he learned many things of her, and she of him. They even taught each other their personal songs. She explained, Perlussuaq was their evil spirit, who could wish living creatures ill, and she believed his friend had met the evil spirit, and thus, he was doomed. Had Lowell continued down the river, his fate would had been the same she explained, but the evil spirit was lazy, and did not think she was close by and therefore felt it had time to squander, for the spirit was looking for her but her magic created kind of black bubble around her so he could not smell, or see her: detect her in anyway. But once she had used her powers, she had opened herself up, had come out of that safety zone, thus was open to his wickedness, it was why she hand to insure the man was dead.
She had taught Lowell by this time, spoken charms, and to chant them softly. And about the taboos of food, and eating of meat: basically, the age mattered as did the kind of animal, and sex. Should he eat the heart, his vitality would diminish. He’d explain to her of his wife whom would use her skills in black magic to insure he’d do as she wanted. But Oaassaaluk never said a word bad about his wife; she turned out to be a good listener. And as the days passed they become not only lovers, but soul mates. In the mornings she’d cook eggs, and have meat, coffee made, where she got those items, he never knew nor asked, but his supplies were almost depleted, and so he was thankful she had a resource, whatever it was.
In her beliefs, she knew she had a soul [her breath], she told Lowell; matter of fact, she had three ‘breaths,’ if not more, so she indicated, and life was everlasting and She wore amulets, the skin of the upper jaw of a bear her recent husband was killed by, of which, she endowed with pride and courage. And she had in her tent, and in the igloo, skulls of foxes.
[Interlude III] Lowell, as time went by, found his new mate to be most desirable, and seemingly had all but forgotten Shauna, his wife. He now preferred the warmth of his new mate, of which she was more than willing to provide for him. She, Oaassaaluk had produced in him a swimming sensation of bliss he had never felt before; one that accepted death, before idealism. His face flushed when they met often; at the same time his hair became stimulated to its roots. Her gracious spirit drove him insanely excited.
4
Evil Spirits
The Demon’s Ark
Born from the horns
Of a wingless archangel
With the pulse of
Perpetual night—
Lo, the demonic horizon:
Mortals jagged plight.
It was in January, of the year l910; Lowell had been missing for months without any word to civilization, that he was alive. And suddenly when Oaassaaluk had returned one morning back to the camp, she was ill, very ill. Oaassaaluk’s husband had been an ‘angakkoq,’ shaman, or priest, and she had learned much from him. He was the interpreter of the signs, and he was her precedence, and the evil spirit was mad at Oaassaaluk for saving the white man, taking Lowell away from him. As he was angry at Oaassaaluk’s husband previously; for they had been escaping, running away from it—the evil spirit, as to not have to give it respect, it wanted, respect in the form of worship, which it pleaded for, and swore it would get revenge should they not give it.
In consequence, in fear and faith they had run a thousand miles, and then of course the evil spirit sent the bear to kill the husband, and she had been lonely and would not sleep with the evil spirit and hid from it; out of loneliness, isolation, and knowing the evil spirit was on a rampage, she helped Lowell escape its deadly intent, his unknowing it; hence, he evaded his fate of death; now she had taken him as her mate. She sang ‘ajajas,’ calling on the good spirits to help her. Her illness was unceasing though; she became mute and extremely violent at times, then temperate as lamb, yet she held onto Lowell as if he was her breath, or part of it. As she lay dying day after day, Lowell had found himself much in love with her; he loved her dearly, so much so, he stayed with her night and day without eating, only preparing food for the children. He had also found out he did not want to return to his home in the lower states to face his bewitched wife whom kept him as a slave; life was less valuable than he had thought, if it was to be without his Oaassaaluk.
It was a deadly night when he sat in the igloo by her side as she was dying, when all of a sudden out of nowhere, people he had never met seemed to come in and out to the igloo, he knew they were ghost’s from the sky, but he said nothing. They were having a feast of some kind, laughter, drums sounded, in the space of a few days, it looked like a village outside the igloo, it had become over populated, fifty people maybe. Despite the influx, the snow did not stop them or the cold, or the small igloo, the guests were puckered eyed, and talked in her concise language.
In the summer of l911, the bodies of Oaassaaluk and Lowell were found, side by side, ugly in the sun, skin rotting as if they were a black bubble of flesh, harnessed to one another like a team of dogs. He had tied himself to her, and ordered the ghosts to tie him tighter, so tight, he’d not be able to get out; for it was said no one could have done it alone. And so as he had wished, they died together, arms and body entangled around one anther. From the edge of the cliff, where the igloo was, the two children were gone.
Nightmare
He lives within the deep
Where others never sleep—
Monstrous fathoms below,
Where Lava Rivers flow,
And crowding waters rush.
He is the nightmare demon
With a flat, untraversable form—
Lying in a bottomless tomb,
Haply awakened from doom
Thirsting diabolical ruin!...
Author and Poet: Dennis L. Siluk: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com/
posted by Dennis and Rosa Siluk at 8:21 PM
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