Dog Driven

by Terry Lynn Johnson

I groan inwardly. The last thing I need to hear right now is another letter about heroic mail couriers when I’ve failed so spectacularly with my own attempt.

  “Who is William Desjardins?” Harper says.

  “I’m glad you asked,” Guy says, pulling out his book. “I bet you didn’t know I have a famous great-great-gramps. I think we’re stuck here for a bit, so who wants to hear a story?”

  Harper shrugs and blows on her tea.

  Guy begins reading. As we listen, I lean over and add another piece of driftwood to the fire. It sparks and snaps and blasts my face with heat. The wind moans outside.

  “Okay, wait.” Harper interrupts Guy, holding a finger up. “You said it takes four days to get to White River from here?”

  “Four days for them,” Guy says. “It’s seventy miles, so about a day for us. They carried more, their dogs were bigger, and I don’t imagine their trails were as nice.”

  Harper mutters under her breath, something about crazy mail couriers needing to get a life. Guy continues reading, ignoring her, until she interrupts again. “They used that sharpened stick like a gee pole to help control the sled? The mountains are that steep?”

  “Sounds like it,” Guy says.

  “Awesome. So you read about this stuff in your spare time, or is this for a school project or something?” Harper asks.

  “Don’t you find it interesting, especially since we’re running this race? Imagine delivering that mail that you’re carrying a hundred years ago.”

  “I’m imagining myself . . . yes . . . yes, I see it.” Harper closes her eyes and theatrically waves a hand. “Yes, I see myself carrying many bags. I’m shopping with all of my winnings. You’re right, this is an interesting game!”

  I burst out laughing. Harper and I share a chuckle while Guy pretends to be offended.

  After that, a silence settles. We’re all lost in our own thoughts. Gusts blow past the cave opening, and some sneak their way inside. They shove the sparks around. Smoke stings my eyes.

  The smoke mingles with the smell of wet dog and our thawing mitts and gloves. It’s become warm in here, but I don’t dare remove my hat. I know my hair is a rat’s nest caked with dried sweat and grease from an appalling lack of showers. My hands are wrapped around my cooling mug. They ache from all the time spent freezing while checking dogs. They’re chapped and covered in nicks and scrapes and dried blood, and there’s dirt caked around my fingernails.

  I realize I’m exhausted. It’s been three days now of working on very little sleep. I’m running on fumes. I’ve been so busy making sure the dogs are taken care of and fed and healthy and getting their rest, I haven’t spent a lot of time keeping myself healthy.

  My eyelids are heavy. I snuggle farther into my sleeping bag and put my cup down so I don’t wear the tea. I see Guy’s and Harper’s heads nodding too. Everyone is so tired.

  “I wonder how long this will blow?” Harper says. “We’re stuck here for a while, it looks like. No one is moving in this.” Then she curls up with her back to me.

  Guy does the same. I watch the flames burn lower until I close my eyes for a moment to rest them. The last thing I hear is Mustard talking in his sleep.

  * * *

  “McKenna! Get up!” Guy is bending over me, shaking me awake.

  I bolt upright so fast I get dizzy. “What?”

  “Harper made a break for it while we slept.”

  “Wh-what?” I search around for Harper. Guy is right. She’s no longer lying in her sleeping bag by the fire. Her sleeping bag is gone.

  Her dogs are gone.

  Chapter 28

  Harper has given us the classic slip.

  “Come on,” Guy says. “We have to go catch her! She must’ve just been pretending to sleep and now she’s gone ahead to win. Gah! I can’t believe I fell for that! Oldest trick in the book. How far ahead do you think she is?”

  We both look outside. The wind is still blowing the snow sideways, though it doesn’t seem as violent. I think it’s calming down, but now it’s darker out so I won’t be able to see well.

  I check my watch, not bothering to hide how close I bring it to my face. It’s half past four in the afternoon. “We slept for over an hour,” I say.

  “How could she have left without waking us up?” Guy asks.

  “She’s trying to win. Us staying here is part of the play. Why would she wake us up?” I start packing my cooker and mugs.

  “I mean, how did she do it? You didn’t hear her at all?” Guy stuffs his sleeping bag in his sled. He shrugs on his down jacket and his anorak.

  “Wait. Just wait. You’re actually going out in the wind? Do you remember what it was like out there?” I’m getting anxious now as the reality sets in. Harper is going to win this race if we don’t leave right now. But the last thing I want to do is go out in that wind again. I can’t believe how crazy that girl is. But really, she doesn’t know any better. She doesn’t have the experience Guy and I have to even know what dangers are out there. The fact she’s gotten by this far is a combination of sheer luck, some physical skills, and her amazing dogs. But still, it takes courage to keep going. I shake my head with reluctant admiration. She’s got grit.

  “The wind’s slowed down. It’s not as bad as before,” Guys says. “I’ll be your guide musher.”

  “My what?”

  “That woman who ran the Iditarod, she was blind but they let her race if she used a guide musher.”

  “Who? A blind musher? Like, how blind? Did she have Stargardt’s?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’d never heard of it before I met you.”

  I’m trying to process this information. Why haven’t I heard of this musher running the Iditarod? But as the snow whips by outside, I have to focus. “I don’t need a guide team. I’m not blind.”

  Guy makes a frustrated growl and turns to face me. “Hey, I think you’re amazing. Obviously. I know you can do it. But what did you say about aids and how if your sister uses aids, it evens the playing field? Isn’t that what I’d be, just another aid? You still have to handle your own sled. It’s not like I’m suggesting I’ll run the race for you.”

  I know I’m acting like an idiot. And what he’s saying makes sense. I take a deep breath. “So, how did she use a guide musher? Like a team that ran in front of her dogs the whole way?”

  “They used earpieces, I think, to communicate. The guide let her know when corners were coming, I guess. I didn’t pay attention to most of it, just how it related to Zesty. I thought it was cool. The point is, I can run in lead, and we can get back in the race! Come on!”

  I glance at the dogs. They’re all still curled up, but their eyes are trained on me. They know an opportunity when they see it. I nod.

  “And how did you guys let Harper and her dogs leave without telling me?” I demand as I make my way to the sled. Mustard gets up slowly and performs a long luxurious downward-dog stretch. That appears to be the cue for everyone else to uncurl, stand, and stretch. Tails wagging. Seems they think this is a fine idea. Surprising, since they didn’t seem so keen the last time we were out there.

  “Don’t you guys see the wind? Are you sure?”

  Arooooooooo, Mustard says, and then sneezes with feeling.

  It doesn’t take us but a few minutes to pack up our makeshift camp. I don’t think too far ahead, but once the sleds are ready and the dogs are ready and we’re heading out, my heart begins to pound.

  The wind wallops us as soon as we step outside. It has slowed down, but it’s still blowing snow particles so hard, they feel like little knives hitting my face. The wind sucks away my gasp of dismay. Are we really doing this?

  Maybe Harper doesn’t know any better, but we do. If we get into trouble out here, it will be our own fault. We’re going into this with our eyes wide open to the risks. But something I’ve learned running dogs: the joy you get from doing something isn’t as intense if there isn’t any risk.

  Guy gives me the thumbs-up and pulls his h
ook. “Ready? Let’s go catch her.”

  As soon as we get past the cliffs, the full wind hits us.

  The trail leads straight out across the bay and into the dusk. My sled bag acts like a sail, catching the wind. I struggle to keep the sled from tipping over in the gusts.

  Once we cross the bay, the trees will give us some protection from the wind. It will be okay once we get into the trees. But twilight is descending fast all around us. Not only is it a race to catch up to Harper, it’s a race to get off the bay before the cloak of night falls.

  On our left, something dark moves across the ice. And then past us.

  “Driftwood!” Guy yells above the wind. “Heads up!”

  All I see are dark shapes and more dark shapes flying past us. Where is all this driftwood coming from?

  The wind claws down my throat. Guy gee-haws Zesty and Diesel around the driftwood. I hear his commands over the wind and see his team doing a graceful ballet across the ice.

  Guy’s voice is guiding Zesty. When he yells, “Gee-gee-gee,” that means we have to make a hard right. When he says it softer and slower, it means we have to make a gentler arcing right turn.

  When I tell non-mushers about how I steer the dogs, they seem to think it’s like driving a car. As if I can step on the accelerator when I want more speed or make them turn left or right, as if I’m driving between traffic cones.

  I’ve tried to explain. “They’re dogs with real personalities and fears and wants and needs. They are not a car.”

  But Zesty is weaving between the blowing driftwood like a well-tuned machine. She and Guy are a team. Even though she can’t see, Zesty is sensing what Guy wants, how much she should turn. It’s as though they’re sharing one mind. Guy is her eyes. Just like Mustard is mine.

  I don’t know many dogs who could lead in this right now. Zesty, along with Diesel, is leading both of our teams. She’s a blind dog doing the work of a regular sled dog. An exceptional sled dog. Guy was right.

  A thought hits me so hard, I physically feel the impact at my core. It’s something I’ve known all along but haven’t really understood until this moment. A jolt of comprehension shifts my world.

  Zesty is not disabled. Her differences make her better.

  Chapter 29

  Once we finally leave the lake ice, the furious wind is buffered by the trees.

  It’s a straight run on flat trails under a dark blanket of night. The cool thing about running this race along the north shore of Lake Superior is the dense woods. That deep sense of quiet and solitude that I love so much on the trail at home is even more pronounced here. There are longer stretches where you don’t find any civilization. We run for hours without seeing another soul. No cities or towns or houses or people or traffic. Not even a plane going by. It’s like the end of the earth out here. It makes you feel as if you’re the only person alive.

  The Canadian wilderness is immense and stark and dangerous and beautiful. And it hasn’t changed much since the couriers went through here. The land is the same—indifferent to all who travel along its trails.

  Ahead I see the flash of a headlamp wink at me and I smile. It’s nice not to be completely alone. I respond with my own flash and then turn it off again. The dogs don’t need the light to see. They smell the trail easy enough.

  We run and run. The dogs are tireless. They continually amaze me with what they can do. But we don’t catch up to Harper. Not that I’d imagined we would with those dogs of hers. Still, we had to try. And since everything is timed, our run tonight will count for something.

  I check on my dogs with my headlamp, aiming it along the team. I have the light off center, not right on my forehead but on the side, so I can turn my head to study each dog in my periphery. Even with the trees to block it, the wind gusts are blowing snow around. My light catches particles in its beam and reflects back. Diamonds of light glitter in the air and streak past me like I’m in a video game.

  Through it, I can still see my dogs. Everyone has tight tugs. Everyone is trotting, tail straight, ears forward. Even Aspen looks good, no sign of soreness or slowing down. In fact, the dogs seem faster and stronger than when we started this race. They thrive on the exercise and the new smells and scenery. They’re all working like a single unit, matching their pace, intent on enjoying the smooth night trail.

  I hold them back with the drag. We’d be going faster if we were alone, not behind a team with only five dogs. But I’m grateful to Guy for helping us across the bay, so I keep my dogs back.

  Eventually, the lights of the Pukaskwa checkpoint glow through the trees ahead. We didn’t catch up to Harper. But there’s still one more section to run after this. We haven’t lost yet. Harper has to stay at the checkpoint for her mandatory six-hour layover before heading back out. It will give us a chance to catch up.

  We sign in with the officials and their clipboards and stopwatches. “When did Harper Bowers come through?” I ask.

  “Looks like twenty-three minutes ago,” he says, studying the board.

  “What about Bondar? Gant?”

  “Not yet. You’re the only teams arrived in this storm. You crazy juniors are leading the race.”

  I peer around, looking for my family and my dog truck. This checkpoint is just a hastily erected shelter tent in the middle of nowhere. There’s a landing area where a few dog trucks are waiting. Floodlights are on around the tent. There aren’t any handlers out here by the trail.

  “Where is everyone?” I ask. “Where are all the trucks?”

  “Only some got through before they closed the highway. There’s a blizzard going on, in case you missed it. And with the winds, there’s zero visibility on the roads.”

  I sink my hook, drop to the ground, and crawl through the team to thank the dogs. I kneel next to Mustard and we share a deep discussion about lost mail and secret deals and lost freedom. “But I understand what I have to do now, Mustard,” I say. “I have a new plan.”

  Aroooo. He peers back at me with knowing eyes. There’s ice coating each of his long chin hairs. The floodlights nearby make the whiskers glow.

  The sound of snow crunching behind me makes me sit up and turn. Harper is standing next to me. “Did you see the driftwood?” she asks. Her voice comes out high and tight. Terrorized.

  “Yeah, we saw the driftwood. Thanks for that.” We wouldn’t have been out there to see it if we weren’t chasing her.

  “Well, I saw one piece a bit too close. It crashed into my sled and freaked me out so much that I’ve scratched.”

  It takes several seconds for this to sink in. “You what? You . . . what?” My mind is sluggish.

  “Yup. And I have you to thank. If I hadn’t finally told my dad after the first day like you suggested, he’d probably make me keep going. But when I came in tonight, he’d been so scared for me and felt bad for pushing. He said no sponsorship is worth my safety. And he said he believed I was going to change my mind and realize how great dogsledding is. Like that’s going to happen in a blizzard. So guess what—we’re going home.”

  “But . . . you’re winning. And you have only one more section. There’s sixty miles left in the race.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the Cascades. I’ve been dreading them since the start. I just can’t do it.”

  A fresh stab of fear hits me. Right. How could I forget?

  “So I just have to turn in my mailbag,” Harper is saying, “plus this other mailbag I found on the trail.”

  Suddenly, I can’t quite breathe. “What other mailbag?”

  “Yeah, it was lying on the trail, and I just scooped it up as we went by. Some loser is going to be surprised when they get to the finish and can’t find their mail!”

  “Can you show me?”

  In a daze, I follow her to her sled next to her dog truck. Her dad is feeding the dogs. I suppose that’s allowed now that she’s scratched. When she hands me the mailbag, my knees almost buckle. “This is mine.”

  “Really?” She grins at me. “Now we’re e
ven again, huh?”

  I lunge and wrap my arms around her. She laughs in surprise and hugs me back. She smells, oddly, like strawberries. How is that even possible after three days on the trail?

  Relief flows through my limbs. I clutch the bag to my chest. As I make my way back to my dogs, I also realize nothing has changed. I’m still going to go through with my plan. The one I worked out on the lake after watching Zesty. But the knot that had formed in my gut over worrying about the mail is gone.

  A short while later, the dog trucks arrive. I guess the highway reopened. But still no other teams have come in, so that’s good news. I stand and wait for my family to find me.

  “McKenna!” Mom’s voice.

  Three figures come toward me. Once they’re closer I can tell by their shape who is who, but it’s so dark out here, I can’t see their expressions. Mom grabs me, holds me out at arm’s length, then pulls me close. Em wraps her arms around my hips with a strength that conveys how worried she’d been.

  “How did you run through this storm?” Dad asks.

  “I had some good friends,” I say. “There’s something I have to tell you guys.”

  January 26, 1897

  Dear William,

  I do not know when you might receive this dreadful news; we have not heard from you in over a fortnight. I am sorry to tell you our dear young Anna has been stricken with the awful ravages of cholera. She has succumbed. The loss is unbearable. We are overwrought with grief. Please come home immediately.

  Your sister, Margaret

  Chapter 30

  Pukaskwa checkpoint

  60 miles to finish

  “What is it?” Mom asks.

  We’re all seated at a folding table inside the shelter tent. Nervous energy skates down my legs. My right knee won’t stop jerking.

  “What do you need to tell us?”

  I look at them fully, with my head angled a little off to the side so I can see their expressions. I’ve been careful not to look at them this way for so long, and it feels good to finally see them completely.