May, 1915
By the middle of May, the ground had melted enough for Rose to dig a grave on a nearby tundral hillock. It was high enough to overlook the river, and the ground was soft enough for a fairly deep grave to be dug.
It took two days of work, but Rose finally managed to dig a grave six feet long, three feet wide, and five feet deep, using a hand trowel, a sharp shovel carved from bone, and finally an ax to break up the permafrost four feet down. She wished that she could dig a deeper grave, but the permafrost made it nearly impossible. She was lucky to have been able to dig down as deep as she had.
That afternoon, Rose removed Robert’s body from the storage pit, clearing away the rocks and carting them near to where he would be buried. It took a great deal of effort to lift the body from the pit, but somehow she managed it. Robert’s body was a heavy weight; he had weighed nearly two hundred pounds in life, and in death seemed even heavier. Her grief added to the weight of her burden, making it even more difficult to complete this necessary task.
Rose was surprised at how little decay there was in the body. The cold had kept it well-preserved, and Robert almost appeared to be sleeping, except for the coldness of his body. Bringing the bearskin from the house, she placed it fur side down on the grass and pulled Robert onto it. Slowly, she dressed him in his best clothes, and then wrapped the bearskin around him, tying it closed. Attaching ropes to the ties, she slowly dragged him up to his grave.
Ordering Tripper to guard Robert, Rose walked down to the river several times, bringing more rocks to cover the grave. When they were piled nearby, she stopped for a moment, looking out at the river, her body aching from the exertion.
She wished that she didn’t have to do this, wished that she would wake up and discover that it had all been a dream, but she knew she wouldn’t. The time had come to say her final good-bye, and it couldn’t be delayed.
Carefully, Rose eased the body into the grave, wrapping the ropes around nearby shrubs and slowly lowering the bearskin-wrapped bundle into the earth. She stood looking at the lonely hole in the ground, realizing that few people would remember Robert, and only she would ever know where he was buried.
Someone like Robert, who had been filled such life and vitality, should have been remembered by many people, should have had a funeral with a crowd surrounding the grave, remembering him. Instead, there was only Rose, standing atop a lonely tundral hillock, miles from any other human being. Robert had known so many people in his life, but in the end he was alone. Rose would not, could not, stay in the wilderness, and Robert’s lonely grave would be left behind. She would never know if someone else found it, or even if it remained intact, undefiled by predators.
If the grave ever was found by anyone else, they wouldn’t realize who he had been, or what his life had meant. He would be just another hapless victim of the wilderness, one who had been lucky enough to be buried, but still left behind and forgotten. No one would know that he had been loved and cared for, that he had been a man of uncommon tolerance and understanding. He would simply be another person who disappeared into the wilderness, never to return.
Rose quailed at the unfairness of such an end—he would be forgotten, his life and the things he had done unacknowledged by anyone, save her and perhaps his relatives in Cedar Rapids if she made it back to civilization to tell them. A few other people might remember him, might wonder what had happened to him, but few would really care. After all that he had done, all that he had lived through, his life would mean nothing.
Rose couldn’t bear the thought, and decided to leave behind a memorial, something to show that someone had cared, that he hadn’t simply been forgotten and left behind, something that would show anyone that happened to find him that he had meant something to someone. But what would be a fitting memorial?
Rose sat beside the open grave, reflecting upon what might mean enough to be a memorial. At last, she realized what she could leave.
Rose returned to the house and picked up a small pouch of gold dust that they had kept in the house, tucking it into her pocket. Then she dug through her pack, emptying the contents out until she found what she was looking for—the Heart of the Ocean. Clutching both items in one hand, she made her way back to the grave.
Unwrapping the bearskin, Rose placed the gold dust in Robert’s right hand and the diamond in his left. Almost as an afterthought, she removed her rings and placed them in his hand along with the diamond, curling his hand closed around the items. The pieces of jewelry had been her most valued possessions—not because of what they were worth in money, but because of what they meant to her. She had carried the Heart of the Ocean around with her for three years, a memorial to a time that was gone, and it seemed fitting to bury it with her second love. The rings had represented love, freedom, and a peace and happiness that she had seldom truly known before. Robert had brought those things to her, and she would carry them with her in her heart when she left, but she would leave the symbols with the man who had given them to her.
As Rose stood, she saw Tripper curled up beside the grave, looking at her with mournful eyes. Though only she and the dog were present, Rose felt that Robert deserved a funeral of some sort, and knew at once what would be right—something that both mourned his death and celebrated his life.
Taking a fistful of dirt, she squeezed her hand around it, as though filling it with her love, before dropping it atop the bearskin shroud. Her jaw set, Rose pushed the dirt back into the hole, scraping it in with the trowel and bone shovel. Afterwards, she walked back and forth across the grave, tamping down the soil, packing it in so that it would be harder for predators to dig up. She knew the meaning of walking on a grave, but knew that this time it was necessary, and thought that Robert would forgive her.
Slowly, Rose walked back and forth from the pile of rocks, covering the grave with them and spreading them around for several feet to deter animals from digging. When she was done, she stood back, looking down at the pile of rocks, all that remained to show that Robert had ever lived at all.
Choking back tears, Rose began to sing—songs of memorial, acknowledging Robert’s life and the love she had felt for him. The high, sweet notes of Amazing Grace sounded across the tundra, disappearing into the distance.
When the song had faded away, she sang a song that Robert had appreciated in life, a ribald ballad that he had sung in the vaudeville show in New York, and which he had always teased her with as they traveled north into the Alaskan wilderness. She even managed a smile at some of the lyrics, remembering how she had blushed the first time she had heard the song.
Rose finished off the musical service with the song Nearer My God To Thee, which had always been a song of mourning to her, but had taken on even more meaning after it had been played while the Titanic sank. It seemed a fitting song to mourn the loss of one who had died from the cold, as had so many before.
Sinking to her knees beside the grave, Rose finally allowed her tears to flow, weeping in grief. It was truly over now. Robert was gone, and she was alone again, as she had been so many times before. It was time now for her to move on, to continue with the life that she seemed meant to lead. Happiness had been a fleeting, ephemeral thing, but she was glad to have experienced it, glad to have enjoyed this one short time in a life filled with sorrow.
Rose looked up briefly as Tripper raised his nose to the sky and howled, as though mourning the death of his master. From across the tundra, wolves howled in reply, and it seemed to Rose that the wilderness itself was crying with her.