Ice Dogs

by Terry Lynn Johnson

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1 Saturday

  2

  3 Sunday

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9 Monday

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14 Tuesday

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22 Wednesday

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27 Thursday

  28

  29 Friday

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2012 by Terry Lynn Johnson

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhco.com

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

  Johnson, Terry Lynn.

  Ice dogs / by Terry Lynn Johnson.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In this survival story set in Alaska, fourteen-year-old Vicky and her dog sled team find an injured sledder in the wilderness.

  ISBN 978-0-547-89926-8

  PZ7.J63835Ic 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012045061

  eISBN 978-0-544-15689-0

  v1.0214

  For my parents.

  Both are long-suffering but supportive fans of all my ill-advised adventures

  1

  Saturday

  ALL EIGHT OF MY DOGS ARE stretched in front of me in pairs along the gangline. They claw the ground in frustration as the loudspeaker blares.

  “Here’s team number five. Our hometown girl, fourteen-year-old Victoria Secord!”

  A male voice booms out my racing stats while my lead dog, Bean, whips his crooked rat tail. He tries to lunge forward, and then catches my eye and screams with a pitch that shoots up my spinal cord and electrifies my teeth.

  “Easy!” I grip the sled with shaking hands. I freaking hate starts.

  With close to a hundred dogs here, the energy in the air is frantic. The bawling of the dogs in the team behind me echoes in my ears while the distinct odor of dog doo smeared under my runners assaults my nose. I try to focus on my dogs and the race chute ahead. Not the burning need to win. Not the fact that there’s no one here to cheer for me.

  “We gotcha.” Two burly guys kneeling on the start line struggle to hold my bucking sled stanchions.

  “Three, two, one, GO!”

  We leap forward and shoot through Wicker’s parking lot. The main race sponsor insisted we start at his feed store, even though it’s three blocks away from the trailhead. They trucked in snow to get us through the streets, but as we skid through the dirty slush, I can tell this is a bad idea. Mushers need a real snow base for any kind of control.

  My frozen eyelashes stick together, and I swipe at them as I peer ahead. We fly to the first corner, my heart pounding.

  “Haw!” I shout.

  My leaders swerve left, and the dogsled skids sideways. We’re gaining momentum. With the wind cutting into my face, it feels as if I’m being sling-shot out of a jet.

  A red Chevette is the last in a line of parked vehicles along the other side of the road. I crouch lower, stick my left foot out, and dig the heel of my mukluk in to carve a tighter turn.

  The sled continues skidding—closer, closer.

  I jump on the brake, smashing the two metal points into the ground with every ounce of my five-foot-nothing frame. Still we skid. And then we careen into the door, my teeth rattling with the impact. A metal screech announces the collision to everyone. I hear a grinding pop.

  We clear the car, and I look down to see a little extra weight in the sled bag—a side mirror. Glancing around to see if anyone noticed, I grab it and nonchalantly toss it away. The cold wind whistles through me when I grin.

  I turn my attention back to my dogs. My leaders, Bean and Blue, dig for the trailhead with matching strides. Blue’s classic husky coat, with his black and white facemask, is even more striking next to Bean’s rusty-propane-tank shade of fur.

  We hurtle down the middle of the street that’s been blocked off for the race. Now that they’re running, my dogs are all business, focused ahead with tight tuglines. My heart squeezes with pride. They don’t glance up as they barrel past a crouched photographer with a telephoto lens. They even ignore the smell coming from the hot dog stand next to the coffee shop. We catapult past a truck with its doors open blasting country music, past the historic log building that is the trading post with the two moose over the door. Someone had found the two sets of antlers locked together and the scene of how the animals died is forever replicated. When I was young, I could hardly stand to look at it, imagining what the moose had to endure, stuck together in battle, helpless and starving to death in the bush.

  Finally we’re past Main Street, and we slip by the snow fencing that funnels us toward the trail.

  I feel an instant calm.

  The din of the crowd fades behind us. It’s just me and the dogs and the sunbeams breaking through the spruce branches stretching across the trail like cold fingers. The runners slice over the snow making their familiar shhhh sounds. I breathe in the tang of spruce pitch and the icy air is sharp in my throat.

  But the most important thing is the dogs. It’s always about the dogs.

  I watch the way Whistler paces with her lopsided gait, the way Bean flicks his ears back to check on me, and how they all run together as if listening to the same beat of a drum, like a dragon boat team paddling in sync.

  Bean and I have some kind of soul connection that I can’t explain. I have a connection with all of my dogs, but Bean just gets me. I like to imagine we were friends in another life. Not that I believe in that, but there’s no other way to describe that day when he was a pup and we looked at each other. Recognition. It’s Bean who I greet first in the dog yard every morning, or when I get home from school. We have conversations. Sarah Charlie calls it crazy. She worries that I’ve changed too much since the accident.

  “It’s not healthy to just want to be with your dogs, Vicky. Life is about more than racing. You need to try to get back in the game. Remember when we used to have fun?”

  I shake my head and lightly touch my good luck mink. It’s a narrow pewter charm as long as my hand that’s hung around the handlebar of my dogsled since Dad gave it to me when I was nine. I’ve secretly named it Mr. Minky.

  I pat the base of my nose with a shaky mitt, and call to the dogs. “Good dog, Blue, attaboy! Easy, Dorset. Who’s a good girl?”

  Their ears swivel back, but they keep trotting ahead. The sled bumps and skips over dips in the hard-packed trail. I pedal my foot to help the dogs pull faster. I want to win this race for Dad. I glance at Mr. Minky, and then concentrate on the trail.

  As the dogs take a corner, I lean out from the handlebar. We skid, snow spraying out from the runners. Tears squeeze out the corners of my eyes and freeze in lines across my temples. I blink rapidly to stop my eyelashes from sticking together again.

  Some mushers wear ski goggles, but I don’t like how looking through goggles separates me from my environment. I like to see things clearly.

  The dogs have good speed coming out of the turn. They’re really pulling, as if they know we need to win. But they should drop back to their trots—we have a long way to go yet.

  “Easy. Easy, dogs.”

  They run faster, smoking around a poplar stand. When we get to a straight stretch I loo
k ahead. And then I see the wolf.

  2

  THE WOLF IS A BEAUTIFUL, burnished brown loner. Or he seems to be, as I can’t see any others around. He’s a big one too, about a hundred pounds. He’s trotting right along the trail. The dogs speed up even more, and I can feel the power come up through my feet and into the handlebar. We’re running so fast, the wind cuts into my cheeks. I hunch forward and squint.

  We’re gaining on the wolf, even though he’s loping now, and I’m torn between excitement and worry. Alaskan wolves don’t normally get along with pets. Sled dogs are probably tougher than the average pet, but since they’re about half the weight of a healthy wolf, they’d still be ripped apart. A few years ago dogs and cats started going missing in town. A bounty was put on the wolves and many of them were shot. I didn’t like that, but I don’t want any of my dogs to be snacks.

  We’re less than two team-lengths away when the wolf suddenly stops. Just stops dead on the trail. He turns around and stares at us. Bean and Blue slam on the brakes and do a move that looks as if they’re tucking under the snow while doing a backwards somersault. All the dogs behind them pile up before I can slam my own brake. Then I throw down the snow hook and stomp on it.

  When I look up at the wolf, our eyes meet and hold. He stands like royalty and stares directly into my soul.

  Assessing me.

  I’m enveloped and frozen in his spell. He’s gorgeous. Wild.

  My breath catches like a hiccup in my throat. I glance at the dogs and the moment is gone.

  “Hey, wolf. Git!” I do a false charge toward him.

  He spins and trots in a beeline toward the trees. Not in a frightened way, but with dignity. He leaves a path of silence except for the pounding in my ears. For a few breaths, the dogs are absolutely still. They stand in a tangled mess all sheepish-looking. Then they begin to squirm and mutter to each other. Bean shoots me a look with eyes as big as panic buttons.

  “Yeah, that’s what you get for chasing a wolf, Bean Brain. What did you think was going to happen?” I grab the tuglines of the two leaders and walk backwards along the trail to stretch out the team. Whistler’s tugline is wrapped around her back leg. When she feels it pinch her as it tightens, she growls at Gazoo.

  “Hey! Enough.” I sort out tuglines, necklines, unclip a few dogs, straighten them out, then clip them back in. My legs still feel shaky.

  The dogs start to whine, and Drift screams and slams on her tug to get running. Dorset leaps on her and they exchange savage growls and shrieks—teeth flashing, whites of their eyes showing. In the next instant, that conversation is over and they go back to barking at the trail ahead. I wish I could be more like that. Just lay into someone who’s bugging me. Well, I guess I don’t have much trouble with that part. But once I’ve said it, I’d like to just let it go.

  Drift succeeds in popping the snow hook, but I grab the sled as it goes by and swing onto the runners.

  “All right, Beanie. Let’s go. That a boy!”

  Uncle Leonard should be heading to the finish line by now. Sarah wonders how I can stand having Uncle Leonard around since he looks so much like my dad, but I don’t think he looks that much like him. I look more like Dad, with my tan complexion and thick dark hair that cowlicks right in the front of my forehead. Dad had a habit of slowly running his hands through his hair when he was deep in thought, so his hair usually stood straight up. He was a methodical thinker.

  Unfortunately, I don’t think that trait rubbed off on me, but I definitely inherited his dog-training talent.

  “Dad,” I whisper.

  Bean glances over his shoulder at me. I wipe my nose and straighten my shoulders.

  After another hour of running, I can tell by the way the dogs’ ears perk forward and their increased speed that there’s something ahead. They smell and hear things way before I do. I wish I had senses like that. But being with them means I do have those senses. I read my dogs constantly to be aware of their moods and what they’re telling me.

  A tangle of alders shields my view until we skid around the corner and I see two teams far in front of us. From this distance, the orange of the mushers’ race bibs stands out against the snow fencing as they glide toward the crowds. They cross the finish line to muted cheering. Since this is a timed race, I won’t know till later how well we did, but I’m pretty sure we should’ve passed those two teams to be in the running. The wolf has cost us time. The dogs’ ears twitch back when I groan with frustration.

  It takes us several more minutes to run the home stretch and trot through.

  “Vicky! Over here.” Uncle Leonard strides forward on long legs covered with tan Carhartt overalls. The overalls and his lined canvas Carhartt jacket are pretty much the only things I ever see him wear. Even in summer. The rest of the guys he works with all wear the same. A couple of times I’ve gone by the construction sites and it looked like an episode of Deadliest Catch, minus the rubbers.

  “Hey, kiddo, great race! Did you have fun?” Uncle Leonard grabs my leaders with a bare hand, and steers them toward the dog truck.

  “Yeah, but we couldn’t catch Cook and that other team. Who’s the other one, anyway?”

  A bucket full of bloody, chicken-laced water sits on the ground near the back tire and the first four dogs all try to stick their heads in at once.

  “I dunno, but that Cook has himself some fast dogs.”

  “Git! Out of there, wait your turn.” I wrestle the dogs over to the drop lines attached to the truck and clip one to Bean’s tug to keep the line straight.

  If our time puts us in the top ten, we qualify for the White Wolf Classic. Imagining Dad’s pride if he knew I made it to the White Wolf this year fills me with a yearning so thick, I can taste it. The need to win has been the most important thing in my life this winter.

  I grab the bowls off the tailgate and toss one to each dog down the gangline. “We’re going to make it to White Wolf, right, Uncle Leonard?”

  “You bet, kiddo.” Uncle Leonard leans toward me, his face all graying whiskers and tanned squint lines.

  “I heard some interesting rumors while I was waiting,” he says, in a gruff attempt at whispering. “Seems Cook lost his job at the mill. May be getting out of dogs.” He gives me a pointed look with his brown eyes peeking out below his fur hat.

  I glance over at Cook’s truck with all his champions bent over drinking. Out of dogs? I’ve run with Cook on our trails at home. I can’t believe he’d be getting out of dogs. He loves his dogs.

  Drift rakes her front claws down my shin and stares up at me.

  “Sorry, girl. I’m getting it.”

  I stir the bucket with the long-handled scoop. Bits of pulpy chicken gobs float around in the red liquid. We bait the water in winter to get the dogs to drink it before it freezes. The only problem is that it spoils them and they get fussy drinking plain water.

  I start at the leaders and scoop the raw- smelling water into their bowls, then continue down the line. Drift bounces up and down. Whistler dumps her bowl over to eat the chunks off the snow.

  “Picky girl.” I’m pouring more water in it when Drift suddenly scuttles sideways under her partner, Dorset, as far away as her neckline reaches.

  I turn to see a man approaching wearing a puffy, light green parka. As he marches closer, he takes off his fancy North Face glove and holds out his hand. His face is red with a flat nose. Surrounded by the thick coat, he looks like a stuffed olive.

  “Russell Price from Endurance Dog Food,” he says.

  “Um. Victoria from Secord Kennels.” I take his hand, but remember too late I still have on my dirty fingerless gloves.

  “Yes, indeed. Harold Wicker tells me you’re quite the racer. Says your dogs eat Endurance from his store.”

  “Yeah. My dogs like it.” My voice sounds small and far away as blood charges through my veins. Why did he come to talk to me? Is he checking out my team for future reference? Maybe as a contender for the White Wolf?

  “Your team does
quite well in the racing circuit. And you run the kennel yourself, I understand?”

  “Yes, I run and train them myself. I think we do well since I’m a lot smaller than most of the mushers here—less weight for my dogs to pull.” There’s a short silence that I rush to fill. “Well, I’m small for my age. I’m almost fifteen. Anyway. My size is good for dogsledding—not so great when I try to find clothes without Disney princesses all over them.” I’m horrified to hear some kind of gargled giggle come out of me, and my face heats up.

  Russell scratches his nose and scans the dogs. He looks over at the dog truck and the sled. The pause in our conversation feels thick with significance. Thankfully, the slurping of the dogs licking their bowls clean covers it. Gazoo and Whistler have a short scrap over whose bowl is whose. While Drift is busy watching us, her partner leans over and steals her bowl by dragging it with her teeth.

  “Well, congratulations on your smart finish. Guess you’ll have to wait for a while yet to know your results. But very impressive. I wish you well.”

  I watch him walk over to Cook’s team next, and I kneel down to bury my face in Gazoo’s neck ruff.

  “I wonder what brings the Endurance food rep out to this race,” Uncle Leonard says. “Think he’s looking for the next team to sponsor?”

  “Yeah. And I didn’t say anything except to tell him I shop in the kids section.”

  “I think he senses a winning team.” Uncle Leonard claps me on the shoulder as I stand. The softness in his eyes looks so familiar, I get an ache in my throat.

  “Yeah. Now we really need to up our training. Wouldn’t that be something to win the White Wolf?” I take off the dogs’ harnesses as I look over at Cook’s team. A new plan starts to form.

  3

  Sunday

  “I’M NOT TAKING YOU TO ANOTHER dog yard.” My mom thumps her briefcase down on the kitchen counter and grabs her cheese and cucumber sandwich from the fridge. “Jeremy Cook’s dogs aren’t any better than the ones you already have. A dog’s a dog, Vicky. And we’ve already got too many.”