Page 1 of Echoes of Twilight (Dawn of Alaska #4)

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Stikine River Wilderness, Alaska; November 1888

T hey were all going to die. The only question was how long it would take.

Bryony Wetherby dipped a wooden spoon into the pot over the fire and stirred the soup, trying not to think of how it steamed and swirled against the air that grew colder with each passing day. Trying not to think of how her fingertips were so cold they ached and the big toe on her left foot was numb.

And it was only the beginning of November. Not late November or December. But she was already fighting frostbite.

“Bryony, come here and look at this.” Her father’s voice filled the campsite. “I think I found a new species of lichen.”

Bryony looked over to where her father and Dr. Ottingford were crouched on the ground near a boulder on the outskirts of the camp. Behind the boulder, a glacial lake filled the valley, its water a creamy turquoise color from the minerals of melted glaciers.

“I think it’s a member of the Stereocaulon family.” Her father studied the lichen through his magnifying glass, his snowy white hair sticking up from his scalp in odd directions, as though he’d scratched it a half-dozen times while studying the new flora. “But I’ve never seen one with a gray hue.”

“Yes, I agree. It’s definitely part of the Stereocaulon family.” Dr. Ottingford, her father’s research associate, nodded as he examined the specimen. The man’s balding head made him appear fifteen years older than his true age.

“Hurry and grab that journal.” Her father looked over at her, and she was tempted to laugh at his hair jutting every which way. But his brow was furrowed into lines of irritation. “Walter here will collect a sample to take back to Washington, DC.”

She almost asked her father what the point was of recording anything about the lichen, when it seemed more and more likely they would die in the Alaskan wilderness, surrounded by towering mountains and rocky valleys that didn’t contain enough soil to grow any vegetation they could eat.

Ten weeks. That’s how long they’d gone on like this after their guide was killed in a bear attack. At first they hadn’t been worried. After they buried their guide, her father and Dr. Ottingford had decided to collect samples for a few more days. After all, the Department of the Interior had commissioned their study on the flora and fauna of Southeast Alaska, and her father had wanted a chance to conclude the research he’d been working on at the higher elevations near the Stikine Icefield for most of the summer.

But that was when they assumed they’d be able to find their way back to the river. Or to a stream. Or to anything that might lead them to the place they’d beached their canoes on the banks of the mighty Stikine River and headed inland.

“Bryony?” Impatience laced her father’s voice. “Didn’t you hear me? I need the journal.”

“Come eat, and I’ll record your observations after dinner.” Not that she could call the three handfuls of edible roots she’d thrown into the stewpot much of a dinner. It was flavored broth, at best, and probably not enough to sustain them through the night and into the morning. But it was the only thing they had.

“Get the journal.” Her father’s voice grew louder, echoing over the forgotten valley and into the crags of the mountains towering around them. “This is too important to wait.”

She sighed, then left the spoon in the simmering pot and grabbed the journal she was using to sketch her findings. She headed toward her father and Dr. Ottingford, who were studying a snow lichen with small, grayish-white leaves that covered a series of smaller rocks beside the boulder. She knelt on the ground beside them, causing the cold to seep into her skirt and the thin trousers she wore beneath it.

Her father gave her a moment to open to the correct page and take out her pencil before he continued.

“Note how dense the coverage is, and that the leaves are more gray than white.” He reached out and brushed one of the leaves with his finger, then rattled off a list of observations about the size and shape of the leaves, the density of the coverage, and how the lichen grew in both sunny and shaded areas.

Bryony recorded every detail, just as she’d been doing for the past fourteen years. She even asked about the vegetation growing around the lichen and recorded a few notes before finally sketching a picture.

“The leaves look too feathery. Create a more defined edge.” Her father peered over her shoulder. “Don’t you think the leaves need to be more defined, Walter?”

Dr. Ottingford carefully scraped a small sample of the lichen off the boulder and placed it between two sheets of herbarium paper before straightening and looking at the journal. “Yes, make them a bit more distinct if you could, Miss Wetherby.”

Bryony did as asked, waiting until both men nodded their approval and read over her notes before she closed the journal. “Now can we eat dinner?”

Her father blinked, as though just now remembering they needed to eat at least a few bites of food if they wanted to keep from starving. He got like this when he was focused on something, almost as though eating and drinking and not dying of hypothermia were all somehow secondary to studying vegetation.

“Right. Yes. Let’s eat dinner.” He scratched the side of his head, which caused yet another tuft of white hair to stick out at an odd angle. “What did you prepare?”

“A stew made primarily with roots.” It was the only thing they could eat on the cusp of winter. The wild blueberries had ripened and died months ago, the fireweed stalks that could be eaten as young shoots were now brown and tough. And the glacier lilies, whose bulbs could be eaten, had also died. The only way to find food was to dig up edible roots. Either that or hunt, but that had been their guide’s job, and they’d struggled to find food ever since he died.

“That’s it? Root stew?” Her father raised a bushy white eyebrow, then slid a hand over his flat belly. He was older than most scientists who went on expeditions, but his lithe form, good health, and experience made him fast and skilled.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t very skilled at planning. He never had been. Which was why he was now frowning at her, his hand still resting over his stomach. “I’m rather hungry tonight. Didn’t we skip lunch?”

“Yes.” And breakfast had been the same roots, only she’d fried them in a pan over the fire rather than boiling them in a stew.

“Can’t you make something with the jerky or pemmican? Maybe cook up some biscuits and fry it over the fire for sandwiches?”

She tried not to clench her jaw and tense her shoulders. Tried not to let the heat pricking the backs of her eyes turn into actual tears. Tried not to let the panic bubbling in her stomach creep into her voice.

But she wasn’t sure she succeeded. “We ran out of pemmican two days ago, and we sent the last of the jerky with Heath and Richard when they went to find help.”

“What about biscuits?” Dr. Ottingford’s voice, which was normally dry and monotone, held a note of hope.

“We ran out of those ingredients last week. I told you.”

“You did?” Father blinked, his eyes large behind his thick spectacles. “I could have sworn we had enough supplies to last us when Richard and Heath left.”

“We also assumed they’d be gone for about a week. It’s been three.”

“There, there. Don’t fret.” Father reached out and took her hand, then patted it as he’d done when she was a child. “I’m sure Richard and Heath have found the river by now. Maybe they even went to one of those Indian villages to ask for help. It will all work out. You’ll see.”

“But what if it doesn’t?” Bryony tugged her hand away from her father. “What if they slipped while trying to make it down a mountain? Or what if a grizzly bear attacked them too? What if snow comes tonight and makes passage out of the valley impossible?”

At this point, the only thing she could assume was that her brother, Heath, and his best friend had perished in the wilderness. They should have been back weeks ago. Why couldn’t her father see it? How could he be so smart when it came to science, and so utterly clueless about everything else?

“We’ll be fine.” Her father reached out and patted her hand again. “This isn’t my first expedition where something’s gone awry. Walter, remember the time when we were in the Southwest studying vegetation in the Texas desert?”

Dr. Ottingford rubbed the bald spot on top of his head, his eyes wide behind his own wire-rimmed glasses. “Yes, I remember. We were able to find water before running out. It wasn’t nearly as dire of a situation as our guide first thought.”

That wasn’t how she remembered it. It had seemed beyond dire, as though they’d been hours away from dying. She’d been accompanying her father on his expeditions since her mother died when Bryony was the ripe old age of eight. Before that, she’d crept into her father’s hothouse to sketch plants and record her observations about whatever he happened to be growing. But even though that expedition to Texas had been six years ago, she could still recall the terror she’d felt when their guide realized the creek they’d been planning to get water from was dry, and they had to look for another water source.

It had taken them four hours to find one.

But they’d been lost in this wilderness for ten weeks. Surely that had to be more serious than a four-hour delay in finding water.

“Your brother and Richard made it back to the river. I’m sure they did. Help will be here any day now.” Her father turned toward the pot hanging over the fire. “I know a meal of boiled roots doesn’t seem like much, but we’ll be eating fish aplenty soon enough.”

But what if Heath and Richard got lost? Or what if they were dead?

“I think we should leave in the morning.” She followed her father back to the fire.

“No.” Her father picked up one of the tin bowls beside the fire, then stirred the broth in the pot. “We said we’d stay here and study the vegetation until they returned. The last thing we need to do is move. That will make it impossible for them to find us.”

“That assumes they’re alive and well enough to lead an expedition back to us. And we don’t know that they are.”

Her father dropped the spoon back into the pot, his light blue eyes piercing beneath his bushy white eyebrows. “Do you truly think your brother is dead, Bryony?”

She shifted her weight on the uneven ground, her throat growing tight. She didn’t want to think that. Didn’t want to believe that what had once been a happy family of four, with two parents, one son, and one daughter, was now just a father-daughter team.

But what else was she supposed to think?

What—other than a major disaster—would possibly keep Heath from returning to them when he knew they were stranded in the wilderness?

“I don’t know what to think. That’s why I’m so worried. Part of what makes me think we need to leave in the morning.” And hope and pray they’d somehow find their way through the towering mountains and winding valleys that had confused them for the past ten weeks. “You can tell winter is coming. I know you can.”

Almost as though confirming her statement, a brutal gust of wind blew down from one of the mountains, working its way beneath her wool coat.

“The girl does have a point, Atticus.” Dr. Ottingford looked to the north, where the tallest of the mountains surrounding them towered over the valley with its snow-capped peak.

It should have been a beautiful sight, the majestic mountain with a turquoise lake at its base and a series of smaller mountains circling the lake. It had been beautiful the first time she’d seen it. Before she’d realize just how lost they were.

Now it terrified her.

“The weather is turning, and we don’t know what might have befallen Heath and Richard.” Dr. Ottingford gestured toward the mountain to the north, then dragged his gaze along the series of peaks that surrounded them to the east and south and west. “Half the time, the peaks are too shrouded in clouds for us to see them, and when we can, the snow line is always farther and farther down. We can’t afford to be here when winter comes. The canyon we followed to get here will become impassable with the first bit of snow.”

Her father sighed, his shoulders heaving. “We need to wait longer. I really do think Heath and Richard will return, possibly with an entire team to guide us out.”

“That might be true, Atticus, but we still need to leave before the snow comes.” Dr. Ottingford met her father’s gaze. His voice was painfully calm as he spoke, not sounding worried or excited, as though he didn’t truly believe they were in danger, even though all the evidence pointed in that direction. “We don’t know enough about the wilderness to survive a winter in these mountains.”

“We’ll give it another week, just to make sure they aren’t coming back.” Her father dipped the ladle into the pot and dumped the watery broth into his bowl. “If Heath and Richard still haven’t arrived by that time, we’ll leave.”

Bryony wanted to open her mouth and object, to tell him a week might still be too long, but her father was a stubborn man, and science always came first for him. She wasn’t going to convince him to leave his work a moment sooner than he had to. So she wrapped her coat tighter around her as another gust of wind swept into the valley, then simply said, “Thank you.”

Her father didn’t respond as he wordlessly spooned the stew into two more bowls.

And Bryony couldn’t help but wonder if staying an extra week meant she’d never see home again.