Dog Driven

by Terry Lynn Johnson

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Sample Chapter from SLED DOG SCHOOL

  Buy the Book

  Read More from Terry Lynn Johnson

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Copyright © 2019 by Terry Lynn Johnson

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Map artwork by Keith Robinson

  Cover illustration © 2019 by Cliff Nielsen

  Cover design by Andrea Miller

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the print edition as follows:

  Names: Johnson, Terry Lynn, author.

  Title: Dog driven / by Terry Lynn Johnson.

  Description: Boston ; New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2019] | Summary: McKenna, fourteen, is losing her vision to Stargardt’s disease, but that will not stop her from competing in a rigorous new sled dog race through the Canadian wilderness.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018026339 | ISBN 9781328551597 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Dogsledding—Fiction. | Sled dogs—Fiction. | Dogs—Fiction. | People with visual disabilities—Fiction. | Wilderness areas—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Ontario—Fiction. | Canada—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.J63835 Dog 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018026339

  eISBN 978-0-358-10627-2

  v1.1119

  To the Stargardt disease community, for your support

  Chapter 1

  Whoever’s behind me is coming fast.

  I peek over my shoulder and see a blurry line of shapes bearing down. Mustard glances back too, then faces forward and digs in. He’s so cocky. He hates getting passed.

  An unspoken message travels through the whole team and they surge forward together. I love how the speed comes up through my feet. Cold air darts through cracks in my neck warmer. I squint into the wind.

  “Gee over, Mustard. Don’t be rude. Attagirl, Twix.”

  I have an eight-dog team, so my front-runners are at the edge of my visual range. All I can see of my leaders are furry shapes. It’s as though my sunglasses are coated in Vaseline. The bright sun compounds the issue. When it reflects off the snow, it hurts my eyes, even with my dark shades.

  The sound of synchronized panting grows louder behind me.

  “Trail!” a boy’s voice calls.

  I have just enough time to angle my sled to the right before his dogs come loping up beside me. They move along my sled, then shoulder past it to my dogs.

  Saga and Haze both stick their faces directly in the way, stretching their necks for a good sniff. I cringe. Sixteen dogs running this close beside one another at ten miles an hour can make a nice tangled ball in a blink.

  “Ahead!” I call, trying to keep the embarrassment out of my voice. Why can’t my dogs behave like everyone else’s when we’re out in public? I’m driving savages. I watch the other team. Focused ahead, no nonsense, passing like pros.

  I stare at the musher as he glides by. He’s near my age, or maybe a little older. And he’s wearing some kind of war uniform that looks like it came out of his great-grandfather’s closet.

  “Ma’am,” he says. He doesn’t even watch his dogs to make sure they’re going straight, just turns backwards on the runners and bows at me. Bows.

  “Hey, Retro,” I call. “Why bother? Now I’m going to have to pass you!”

  He laughs and then he’s out of my range, leaving me with the sounds of the trail—the shush of the runners gliding over sun-softened snow, then the clacking noise they make on the harder, shaded sections of trail. The necklines tinkle, and the wind whistles. I could never run this fast on my own. Never feel the clean bite of air filling up my nostrils. Filling me up.

  I’m never as free as I am out here behind this team.

  My gaze roves up and down my dogs. Sumo’s dipping snow already but keeping pace. The fluorescent strips I’ve stitched along the backs of the dog harnesses make them stand out, especially on white dogs like Damage and Haze. Without the strips I can hardly tell them from a snowbank. But the real trouble will start at dusk, when everything turns into black blobs, fluorescent strips or not.

  A wide-open expanse appears. My team goes down the bank and then moves onto the frozen lake. There’s a commotion ahead; I hear it before I see it. Two mushers, yelling.

  “Grab your leaders!”

  “Sorry! I’m sorry!”

  Dogs barking.

  Their teams flounder in the snow. I arrive just as the dogfight breaks out. I throw down my snow hook, wondering what to do next. Should I go help? No, I’ll surely give myself away, stumbling over dogs.

  My team shrieks and lunges to get closer to the action. I’m hesitant to leave the sled in case Sumo pops the hook and we have three teams tangled. But I can’t tell what’s going on from back here. I creep closer, moving up beside my leaders. The mushers are grabbing armfuls of dogs and tugs.

  “They wouldn’t listen!” A girl wearing yellow wind pants struggles with a dog as if she’s never untangled a dog team before.

  “What are you doing?” It’s the retro boy who passed me. “Unclip the tug or my dog will get pinched!”

  “This one?”

  “No, your point dog! Hurry! Yoda, enough!”

  His wheel dog, not even in the tangle, is screaming so loud now, it’s hard for me to think. Which is why I dive into the fray.

  I reach for the girl’s leggy point dog, flicking off my mitts as I do so my bare fingers are ready. Once I’ve grabbed the dog, I go by instinct. Unclip the tug, flip the line under, then reclip her dog. It’s all automatic and takes about two seconds.

  The line is still tangled.

  I walk backwards a few steps with the tugs, straightening the leaders, and squint at the gangline. There. A neckline needs to be unclipped. Once I’ve got the leaders untangled, I have to hold the leggy dog’s collar to prevent him from turning around. It’s satisfying to know that my dogs aren’t the worst brats ever.

  I peer at my team but can see only a line of crazed, hopping mongrels. I’m too far away to tell if the snow hook is coming loose. Please don’t come loose.

  My feet sink through the crust of snow and I slop around in slush. “You want to get them going,” I tell the girl. “I’ll hold them out.”

  She seems to suddenly come out of her fog and leaps onto her sled.

  “Hike up!” she yells, and the dogs pitch
forward, picking up speed. Her sled zips past me, throwing up a rooster tail of slush.

  “Thanks,” the boy says. “I think she’s new.”

  I feel a nose shoving at my butt. I turn and recognize the black and silver markings of the boy’s lead dog. But then I do a double take and peer closer. Her eyes! “What’s wrong with your dog?”

  “What?” The boy looks up, then relaxes. “Oh, you mean Zesty. Yeah, she’s blind as a bat. Anyway, thanks for your help.”

  “You . . . your lead dog . . . you have a blind lead dog?”

  “She’s the best. Hey, love to chat, but should we get going? You know. Race.”

  I peer intently into Zesty’s face. She’s focused on the departing team, ears erect, body tightly coiled. She appears to be watching, but her eyes are fully clouded over. She swivels her face toward me as if sensing I’m staring.

  “Your team!”

  I jerk my gaze up. The boy lunges for my sled as it shoots past him. His feet get bogged down in the slush. He misses.

  I have one chance. I try to line myself in the right place but it’s going to be tight. I can’t see the sled clearly, and my depth perception is off. How close is it? Where is that handlebar? My dogs rush past me as I lean over, desperate, reaching . . . reaching.

  Bam!

  My bent arm hooks the handlebar. I swing up onto the runners. Step on the brake. Lean down to where the snow hook should be. There it is. Snag it up. Set it in its cradle. Straighten, focus ahead. Adrenaline still pumping.

  I can feel my dogs smiling from here.

  I told him I’d pass him.

  December 7, 1896

  Dear Margaret,

  I leave the port of Killarney on the morrow with the mail courier Raymond Miron and his team of dogs. There is wild beauty here with windswept pines and stark white cliffs, but also loneliness. I miss home terribly. Alas, the Hudson’s Bay Company requires me at White River upon the most haste, and I shall endeavor to comply . . .

  Love to little Anna. She will be grown enough to beat me in a horserace when I return.

  Your loving brother, William

  Chapter 2

  Two months before the race

  I open the puppy pen’s metal door with a creak, and our three yearlings from last year’s litter explode past me.

  Their frenetic energy rarely fails to cheer me up, but this time I stand next to the pen, a shovel in hand, and peer at the door in dismay.

  When we first built the pen, Mom painted BARNEY KENNELS in bright red across the door. Though it’s faded now, the letters are still stark against the pattern of dog-paw prints she’d added in blue. It’s the same pattern as the trim in my little sister’s old bedroom. I’ve always been jealous of it. The trouble is, I can no longer see the pattern.

  For the past few months I’ve let myself believe that perhaps I just need glasses. Glasses or something else, maybe corrective surgery, and I’ll be all fixed. However, living with Emma, I know the signs.

  Last month, I could still see the pattern. Today, it has slipped behind a spot in the center of my vision. I close one eye. The little off-center patch in my vision has grown over the past few weeks. It’s slightly purple and distorted, like when you press on your eyeball and see sparkles. When I open that eye and close the other one, the spot moves. I open both eyes, and the spot now meets in the center of my vision. I’ve been tracking where the distorted spot appears. Up to now, when both eyes were open, I could still see in the center. It’s happened so fast. And because of how fast it happened, I know.

  I clutch the smooth wooden handle of the shovel. There is no denying it any longer. I have it. A hot bubble of fear and grief swells inside me. How can I live with this?

  I hear Mom and Emma pulling into the driveway. “I’m in the yard,” I call out, eager for a distraction.

  “McKenna! Oh my God!” Em’s voice, quivering with excitement. “You’ll never guess!”

  “The yearlings are loose!” I warn Mom as the pups thunder past me.

  Emma comes into view, holding on to the crook of Mom’s arm as they make their way to me. Em’s not even bothering with her cane. Again.

  The yearlings turn and gallop back, biting each other’s necks, not looking where they’re going. But they somehow avoid plowing into my sister and continue on a loop around the fence line.

  I wait till Emma comes close. “Good day at school?” I ask.

  “There’s gonna be a new dogsled race in Canada, McKenna! It’s called the Great Superior Mail Run,” Emma says, speaking quickly as she releases her grip on Mom. “Mushers carry real mail in their sleds so it gets stamped with DELIVERED BY DOG TEAM on it! And guess what—our class is going to write letters! They can be to anyone.”

  “That sounds cool,” I say.

  The yearlings arrive at my feet in a pile, growling and mock fighting. They have the whole dog yard to run around in, but apparently they need an audience. Their faces are covered in one another’s goober, which is beginning to freeze stiff like hair gel. Suddenly they leap up and go tearing off again full throttle.

  Emma giggles as she turns her head to the side to see them. “I bet if I wrote the Foundation for Fighting Blindness and asked them for more research on Stargardt disease, they’d have to do it. It would stand out from all the other mail with the stamp on it. I mean, duh, right? And then I bet it’ll be on TV. Everyone would hear about Stargardt’s and want to donate money for research.”

  It’s my sister’s simple view of the world. The research for a cure needs to be done, so everyone should care about it.

  “Right.” I glance at Mom uneasily. I hope this isn’t going where I think it’s going.

  “And they’d for sure put it on TV when they find out it’s my sister who’s delivering it!” Em waves her arms around like a dork, flapping her fleece gloves, and I have to smile despite the dread that’s lodged in my gut.

  I look to Mom again, grasping for a lifeline, but she has no idea what’s going on with me. She nods as if to say of course I’m racing it. I realize they’ve already talked about this and now I’m ambushed.

  “The dogs would love a stage race like this,” Mom says. “You’ve run them so much this season, they’re in top form. And it’s a great idea to help your sister. We could all use a bit of hope, don’t you think, McKenna?”

  Mom takes my shovel. She’s trying to bridge the gap of silence that’s grown between us lately, but I don’t know how to cross it. There’s an awkward little moment when our eyes meet, but then I look away. She sighs and starts cleaning the yard where I left off.

  “But they wouldn’t let the junior mushers carry the mail,” I say—and then almost get knocked off my feet from behind when two of the three nerds barrel into the backs of my legs. “Watch it!”

  “That’s the perfect part,” Emma says. “This race is open to mushers fourteen and up, so you’ll just make it! Juniors race with adults!”

  Em carefully takes the two steps to Sumo’s doghouse and leans her butt against it. She claps softly, and the big dog rests his chin on her thigh. I have no idea how he knows not to jump up on her, but it’s probably the reason she adores him. He’s a gentle giant. Until he’s running in the team—then he’s a steam engine.

  Emma continues. “The race is like a celebration of dogsledding because they used to bring stuff to the towns by dog team. It’s important to history. That’s why my teacher wants us to be part of it. She said the Canadian dogsled mail run was like the Pony Express here in the States. Can you believe it? Everyone in my class was talking about how amazing dogsledding is!”

  And there’s the reason she wants me to run it. Because she can’t. Suddenly, all her friends are interested in dogsledding, and wouldn’t it be great if she were the star of her class for once? My heart cracks.

  You’d think for someone who gets everything done for her, she’d be bratty. But that’s the thing about Em. She’s so sweet that it makes you want to do things for her all the time. She’s not like most kid
s her age. Maybe because she’s been through so much crap already. Hardship makes you tough. She doesn’t take kindness for granted or expect stuff from people, like big gifts or trips to Disney.

  Since she was young when the symptoms began, only six, it took a while to get the diagnosis from the retina specialist. I can never forget that visit when we were told what it was. Having so many different tests in one day traumatized my whole family. And in the two years since then, her disease has quickly worsened.

  She has some sight. Most people don’t know there are levels of sight impairment. Her last exam showed she’s 20/600, worse than last year, when she was 20/200, which is legally blind. I hate that it’s labeled like that because it’s so confusing. She’s not blind just because she can’t see that stupid letter at the top of the eye chart anymore. She can see better in her peripheral vision.

  Before I started worrying about crashing, I used to take her out with me in my sled all the time because she made it so fun. Her excitement over the wind in her face, the motion of going fast. She would love to be able to mush a team on her own. But she can’t run like she used to. She only has me to run her dogs for her.

  Mom corrals the yearlings back into the pen and looks up at the house. “Are you okay, Emma?” She asks this question about fifteen thousand times a day.

  “Yeah, Mom.”

  I’m standing right here, but still Mom hesitates to leave Emma. “Well, if you’re sure, I’ll see you inside.” She rubs Emma’s arm. To me she says, “We’ll talk over the details at dinner, okay? I’m going to get it ready. Watch your sister.”

  Em turns to me expectantly and my mind spins. How could I enter this race? I can’t run on trails I don’t know. It’s dangerous enough running my own trails where I remember all the corners. Even running here is getting worse. Painful when it’s too sunny out. And now that I know for sure what I have . . .

  What if there are low-hanging branches on the race trails that I don’t see in time? What if there’s a bad hill? I could roll off a cliff. I could lose the team. I could hit a tree and break my collarbone like Keith Scott last year. I could fall off, break a leg, break my teeth, get dragged, get Mustard hurt. I could get us all lost! How easy would it be to miss the trail markers and flounder around alone on unblazed, unsafe trails?