Page 76 of A New World for the Irish Daughter

Within a few minutes, Brendan had changed and they were back in the boat, heading downriver.

It was nearing evening by the time they made it to Policeman’s Point on Lake Laberge, which looked like a smooth expanse of glass underneath the darkening sky. The air was starting to get chilly as Brendan set up the tent and secured their supplies, while Maggie built a fire and warmed yet another can of beans for dinner, to be washed down with coffee. After nearly three weeks on the trail, she’d become used to its deprivations as well as its moments of surprising peace—the first stars starting to twinkle in the endless, indigo sky above them, the lake mirrored with moonlight.

“Do you think they’re all right?” she asked Brendan as they warmed themselves by the fire and dug into their beans. “Do you think they’re evenalive?” It had been over a month since the Inuit had mushed past Danny and Da’s stake on Hunker Creek. That seemed like a very long time ago.

“I hope so,” Brendan replied as he tipped his head to the sky. “That’s all I can say, Maggie. I hope so.”

Hope, Maggie thought, was all they had. She prayed it would be enough.

The next day was relatively peaceful as they traveled down Lake Laberge, although when they reached the center of the lake, the wind kicked up and for a little while it became nearly impossible to navigate. They’d already had their boat approved by the mounted police, a lone man who lived in a log cabin and inspected the boats as they went by. It seemed a very lonely job to Maggie.

They managed to cover the lake, thirty miles long, in one day, and camped on the north end before they started the next part of their journey, toward Hootalinqua, another police point, where the lake emptied into the confluence of the Yukon and Teslin Rivers.

“It’s another hundred or so miles to Five Finger Rapids,” Brendan told her, “and after that, the home stretch to Dawson.” He smiled tiredly at her, and Maggie smiled back, everything in her lightening at the thought of finally reaching the end of this journey, together.

It happened so suddenly that she was barely aware of what was going on. One moment she was smiling at Brendan as they paddled out of the lake toward the river, and in the next the paddle had slipped from Maggie’s hands and she was knocked flat on her back on the bottom of the boat so hard and fast she was breathless.

Water foamed over the sides of the boat as it rocked to and fro, caught in a sudden strong current.

“It’s the spring thaw, coming down the Teslin,” Brendan gasped out as he righted himself. He crawled over to her on his hands and knees, his face taut with anxiety. “Maggie, are you all right?”

“Yes—” She struggled to sit, bruised and winded from her fall. “But I lost my paddle.”

“I’ll make another one. Let’s just get to shore.”

The boat was still careening down the river, too fast to control, the water foaming all around them as the spring thaw poured from both the Yukon and Teslin Rivers, the separate currents crashing into each other in churning, angry-looking waves.

“Just hold on,” Brendan shouted, his face pale and taut as he gripped the paddle tightly and tried to steer them toward theshore, which right then seemed as if it might be a hundred miles away. All around them was nothing but endlessly seething river.

“I am, I promise,” Maggie replied shakily, trying for a laugh, just as the boat hit a submerged tree and then flew into the air. At least, Maggie flew into the air. For a second, she was airborne, weightless and stunned, and the next she was plunged into the river, the icy water closing over her head.

CHAPTER 38

“Maggie!”

Brendan’s voice sounded as if it had been ripped from his lungs as Maggie surfaced, kicking wildly as she choked and gasped for air. With shock, she realized she’d already been drawn by the current far from the boat—Brendan was fifty feet or more away from her, scanning the river wildly.

“I’m—” she began, only to get a mouthful of freezing water as she was pulled under again.

The water felt like a weight all around, dragging her down, so cold that Maggie’s head throbbed and her whole body felt numb. Already, she felt her mind going fuzzy, her thoughts hazy things impossible to grasp. It would be so easy simply to stop fighting, let herself drift and sink…

“Maggie!”

She heard Brendan’s voice again as her head broke the surface once more, filled with fear and urgency, and her own mind snapped back to survival and once more she started to kick.

“I’m… I’m here…” she called out, but her voice was as thin as a thread. She was too cold and shocked to feel panicked, and itwas with an almost surreal sort of curiosity that she wondered if she was about to die.

“Try to make it to the side,” Brendan shouted. He was paddling madly, trying to get to her. “Make it to the shore, Maggie, if you can! Please!Try! Try as hard as you can!” He sounded as if he were sobbing.

Theshore? Maggie wondered distantly, her mind feeling as numb as the rest of her body. How could she possibly make itanywhere? The water was too fast, too cold, toomuch. She couldn’t evenseethe shore, and she couldn’t swim, not that she even knew how, because the current was pulling her so hard.

The water went over her head again, and something caught at her side, causing a searing pain. She really was going to die in this freezing water, Maggie thought dumbly. She was going todiewithout ever seeing Danny or Da or Sheetka again, without Brendan having told her he loved her, because she was almost certain now that he did. Maybe she should have been bolder, she thought as she futilely tried to kick her way toward the shore she couldn’t even see. They’d been traveling forweeks, she could have said or done something…

Brendan’s voice was growing fainter, and then she couldn’t hear it at all. The whole world suddenly seemed still, the roar of the raging river dying as the once-rushing water became placid. She was over the worst of it, Maggie realized, and she was still alive.

She drifted for a little while, too shocked and exhausted to attempt anything at all, but then she glimpsed a flat stretch of shore, and she started swimming toward it, as best as she knew how, her arms and legs feeling as heavy as tree trunks, so she could barely move at all. She was going to drift past it, she thought, and all she could see ahead were steep, rocky sides on both sides of the river, impossible to climb.

If she stayed in the river much longer, Maggie knew, she might very well freeze to death. Even though it felt as if it cost her everything, she started kicking harder. Her side screamed and her whole body ached in protest, and she honestly didn’t think she’d be able to do it. She was too tired, too weak, she couldn’t, shecouldn’t…