Ice Dogs

by Terry Lynn Johnson

  “Well, that shows how much you know about it, since a dog is definitely not a dog.” I raise my chin and stare at her.

  Every time we have this fight about the dogs, I brace myself. For months now I’ve been waiting for her to say she wants to move back to Seattle. I can see it in her eyes when she talks about growing up in the city. Whenever Nana calls, I know she’s trying to talk Mom into moving closer to her.

  She looks at me as if I’ve just proved her point. “You have sixteen dogs to choose from. I’m sure your uncle can figure out which ones to run in the wolf race.”

  “The White Wolf. And he doesn’t choose, I do. Dad taught me to choose.” I know it’s a dirty card to play, but I do what I have to. And if she tells me we’re moving, I already know what I’m going to say. She can move if she wants, but I will choose to stay. The dogs and I are staying, end of discussion.

  She presses her lips into a thin line and a heavy silence descends around us. If she knew dogs, she’d see why I need a couple of Cook’s leaders. Even just two of his best race leaders may mean all the difference for us. I wish she knew dogs. A cold ache spreads through my body and I miss Dad as if the loss were fresh.

  “I don’t have time for this today.” Mom breaks the stalemate with a slump of her shoulders. “I have to work.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Make sure you do your homework,” she says, ignoring my tone. “And can you make dinner for us? I should be home around five.”

  Mom grabs her gear for the open house, sees my sixth-place ribbon from yesterday on the table, and hesitates. She turns back to me. “Oh, Vicky. I’m sorry I forgot to ask you how your race went. You did well.”

  I shrug. She looks tired and drawn, her eyes peering out of sunken sockets. I suddenly notice how much older she seems, as if she’s aged a lifetime this past year. Well, so have I.

  She opens her mouth as if she’s going to say something, then runs a hand through her graying blond hair and turns away. Our conversations have stuttered like this since the coffee shop incident.

  The bell hanging from the doorknob tinkles and I’m alone.

  The dogs outside begin a howl, the song gaining strength as all the dogs join in. I can pick out the individual voices. Bean isn’t hard to pick with that awful bawling—his version of a howl. He’s got a little too much hound in him. Drift’s voice is gorgeous, full and throaty like a wolf howl.

  Listening to them makes me more determined to carry out my plan with or without Mom’s support. Her car crunches over the snow as she backs out of the driveway, leaving the dog truck just sitting there. I can’t talk Cook down in price over the phone; I need to do it in person. And I need to check out all his dogs. I wish Uncle Leonard wasn’t going ice fishing today, but I don’t need him either. I can get to Cook’s myself. Really, what does a couple more years matter? It’s not as if I don’t know how to handle the truck now. A license is just a piece of paper.

  Before I can talk myself out of it, I hurry to the closet to find the topographic maps. I’m not exactly sure which roads to take to get to Cook’s. I mentally kick myself again for leaving the race yesterday before I spoke to him. He and Dad were friends, but I’ve never been to his house.

  The dogs’ song ends abruptly just as I find the topo map. I lay it out on the kitchen table and bend over, tracing a path with my finger all the way to town—if you could call tiny Spruce River a town—then on to the other side.

  I grunt a little in annoyance. There’s really no way I can drive there without traveling the main roads. Any cop who happens to glance over and see what looks like a nine-year-old peering over the steering wheel will surely pull me over.

  I finger the chicken-pock scar beside my ear. Maybe I don’t need the truck. If I follow the trail network behind the dog yard until the power line, I could cut through the brush there, hook on to the trappers’ trails, and eventually get to Cook’s. If I drive, the trip is maybe fifty miles, but cross-country it’s more like thirty-five. One good thing about living in the Tanana Valley, there’s lots of trails to run.

  I glance out the window at Bean. He’s standing on top of his house, watching me. Reading my mind. Our eyes connect and he throws his head back and barks a command to go. We really need to get to Cook’s today. He has champion dogs. If I wait too long, someone else will get there and I’ll lose my chance at the best picks. Having a champion team will be a good reason to stay in Alaska. Hard for Mom to argue with that. How can I race dogs in the city?

  I imagine crossing the finish line of the White Wolf in first place. Secord Kennels—that’s Michael Secord’s daughter, isn’t it? they’d say. He was a real musher; he taught her well.

  Mom has never understood.

  It will take less than four hours of running if the trails are hard—longer with the cut through the brush. We’d keep it easy after the long run yesterday, but we could go and be back before it gets dark. I’d tell Mom we’d been gone for a regular training run. Yeah, one where we found a few extra dogs.

  I grab the map and sprint up the stairs to my room. I have to push on the door to move aside the books and gear on the floor. My closet doors haven’t been able to shut for years due to my gear collection: tent, Therm-a-Rest, insulated pants, sleeping bags, camp stove. I glance over the pile assessing what I’ll need. Extra woollies, dry socks. Should I bring a sleeping bag? It’s not that far.

  When I was younger, I went on what was supposed to be a short run with Dad. We didn’t make it back home until the middle of the night and as I sat shivering but silent in the sled, he muttered over and over, “Why didn’t I bring the sleeping bag?”

  I take the bag.

  I throw everything in a duffel and stop in the kitchen just long enough to grab some snacks.

  Go hungry—get cold. I can almost hear Dad’s words over my shoulder.

  The bag is heavy as I lug it to the yard.

  When I step outside, the dogs erupt into a frenzy of high-pitched screams and barks. I feel like a rock star with sixteen adoring fans.

  Bean studies me while I pack the sled bag. It’s a dark blue, thick canvas bag that’s fitted to the dimensions of the sled. The plastic sled bottom makes up the floor, and the sides reach up to attach to lines going from the handlebar down to the brush bow. The top flap is sealed shut with Velcro and keeps most of the snow and ice off the gear inside. I give Mr. Minky a squeeze hello.

  “Hey, Bean, want to go on an adventure?”

  He stares at me with expressive, ice-blue eyes. His tail wags slowly.

  Straddling the dog, I slip a harness over his head and he punches his legs through the openings. His coarse reddish-brown fur quivers in the places it sticks up over his shoulders and ruff. We lurch over to the sled and I hook him in lead. He leans into his tugline, holding the gangline tight behind him, and barks down the trail.

  I hook up Blue, Whistler, Dorset, Drift, and Gazoo, each dog adding a decibel to the frantic barking. Hookups are always wild. The dogs are so jazzed to run; their mouths foam, their eyes sparkle, the air vibrates with an intensity that raises the hairs on my neck.

  I yank the snub rope that’s tied to the spruce beside me and pull the snow hook. The sled takes off as if I’ve just punched the hyperdrive button. Each dog in the team instantly stops barking and starts pulling, focused on the trail ahead. The noise behind me from the dogs I didn’t take fades fast as we whip through the trees.

  4

  I GRIP THE HANDLEBAR AS I LEAN into a turn. We skid sideways with a fan of snow. The dogs’ feet kick up tufts of ice crystals as they dig, and the cold wind on my face energizes me. I let out a whoop, feeling savage. Watching them run gives me such a visceral sense of belonging, I can’t imagine being anywhere else. Bean swivels his ears back toward me but keeps running straight down the trail.

  “It’s all right, Beanie. Keep ahead, that a boy!”

  I wish I could talk Sarah into coming along. It would let me spend more time with her, and I’d get to show her how am
azing my dogs are. Why wouldn’t everyone in my class want to see this? Uncle Leonard says dogsledding is a dying art. That it’s too much work for most kids and I’ll soon see it isn’t the popular kids from school that end up worth anything, but the ones who are brave enough to be different. He has to say that, being Dad’s twin brother.

  We follow our own trail until we arrive at the fork where it veers into the main snowmobile track. The trail is lined with shrubby willows and spruce. Crystallized snow piled on the branches contrasts with the sea of pale and dark greens.

  The Cooks, Mr. Oleson, and I all use this trail sometimes to run our teams together so we can practice passing and leading. Mr. Oleson is our closest neighbor; he lives a subsistence lifestyle in the bush with his dogs, his garden, and his gun. He doesn’t race, but he likes to run with other mushers. Sometimes he used our yurt. Most mushers around here use these portable, round tents for base camps. But our yurt has been taken down. My hands clench the handlebar when I think of Mom selling it to Cook.

  “Vicky, you can’t set up a yurt yourself. And I don’t know how to set it up. It may as well be used by someone who needs it.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, but it still felt like selling off a piece of Dad.

  Running with Cook’s dogs is how I know they’re stars. I press my lips together as I think of all the years Dad raced, and not once did he come in first. He said he probably never would with trapline dogs. Why didn’t he get a couple sleek racers then? Well, now I have that opportunity, so I have to do it for him. The need to do something for him burns behind my eyes.

  After an hour of solid running, we arrive at another fork.

  “Gee, Bean . . . that’s it, Blue! Good boys!” We veer right. Good command leaders like Bean know their right—gee, from their left—haw. The dogs charge down the trail. We don’t usually run this way and they love exploring.

  I glance up and notice the darkening sky. There’s a hazy ring around the sun—a sun dog. If I look for it, I can see the little prisms of color. There’s snow on the way and I forgot to check the forecast before I left. Crap.

  Hopefully we’ll be back home by the time it gets too thick. But first, we should take a break. To slow the team down, I step on the strip of snowmobile track that’s hanging between the runners. It bites into the snow.

  “Whoa, whoa . . . good dogs.” I throw the snow hook down and stomp on it.

  Gazoo dives into the deep snow on the side of the trail and chomps mouthfuls of fluff. I dab at the base of my cold nose with the back of my glove. After many chapped lips, I’ve learned to stop licking away the salty runoff. I walk up the line, patting each dog.

  Bean rolls on the trail scratching his back, all four feet waving in the air. In the quiet of being far away from anywhere, the only sounds are the grunts and soft snufflings of the dogs. I take a moment to close my eyes and listen to the world around me.

  Savor it.

  The trees are still with hardly a breeze. We’re beside a stand of tamaracks, my favorite trees. Their needles, soft green in summer, burst with vivid yellows in fall, and then drop off leaving them to stand naked in winter. An evergreen that isn’t always green. A tree that’s different.

  A gray jay’s sharp trill makes me jump and open my eyes. I pull out the map from the pocket of my anorak. Our route will take us along this trail several more miles before we cut across to the trapper’s trail.

  “You up for a little cross-country, Blue?”

  He looks up at me with his mismatched eyes. One soft brown, the other frenetic blue. I like to imagine this makes him able to see the world in two ways. Maybe see both sides of an argument. He certainly seems to switch easily from goofy to serious. His wide-mouthed grin is fringed in an icy rime.

  “Deep snow will make extra work,” I say.

  He pokes his nose between my legs and pushes until his head is wedged under my butt. I laugh at his favorite game and scratch his back. He leans into my hands until he nearly topples over.

  When I head back to the sled, the dogs stand and watch me behind them. I climb onto the runners and bend to the hook.

  “Ready?” My foot presses on the snowmobile track as I hang the snow hook in front of me. The dogs scream and jump in the air. “All right!”

  They leap forward in unison and we take off again running flat out down the trail. Then they settle into a ground-eating trot. I reach into the sled bag and pull out the insulated water bottle, take a sip, and put it back. It’s so easy to get dehydrated out here.

  The willow thickets lining the trail along this stretch all look the same. It’s hard to tell where we should try to cut across to the other trail. So finally, I just call haw and we veer left and stop at the tree line. My stomach flutters a little with the excitement at doing something new. I have to make sure that I don’t make any mistakes out here. I pull out my round bear-paw snowshoes, the kind without tails so it’s easier to back up or turn around, and then take a bearing with my compass.

  “Okay, guys, you can follow me now.”

  The snowshoes punch through deep drifts as I head into the trees. I glance over my shoulder and see the dogs jumping behind me like marten through the snow. The lower tree branches droop beneath the weight of their loads. Everywhere I look is white powdery freshness.

  Each movement is deliberate with my large shoes. My feet sink down a little as I step, and I flick my ankles to knock the snow from the webbing. Bean continuously jumps on the backs of them.

  “Get back, you little turds.” I rub Bean’s head affectionately.

  After about half an hour I stop and peel off my hat to keep from over heating. The sun has disappeared now behind a dull gray and the air is suddenly choked with snow. I thought I had much more time before it started. A tendril of worry snakes into my gut.

  I take out the map again while the dogs mill around me, and brush off the fat flakes that immediately cover it.

  “We should be there by now,” I say, trying not to sound concerned. The last thing a sled dog wants to hear is hesitation from his leader.

  While I’m studying the map I notice I’m holding my breath, and let it out in a rush. The frozen cloud hangs in front of my face. I glance up with eyes half closed to shield them from the snow floating down and melting on my face.

  Where is the trail? I check my compass again and take a bearing on the tallest spruce ahead.

  When I take another step forward, I pitch into the snow. “Oof! Bean! Get off my snowshoe!”

  Bean and Blue jump me while I’m down and the snowshoes flail in the air as I roll around pushing at furry dog legs. I feel as if I’m trying to surface in a pool of quicksand as I sink in the soft, deep snow. An icy trail of snow trickles down my neck. Bean offers to help by cleaning out my ear.

  When I finally roll to my feet, I keep my voice light for them. “Let’s go find that trail.”

  We plod onward. Finally, I see a break in the trees ahead. The trail!

  I whoop and punch my fist in the air. Just as we’re about to reach it, a lime green object shines in the trees. What is that?

  Creeping closer, I finally recognize what it is—a snowmobile. And it’s pretty thoroughly wrapped itself around a birch. There’s no one around and no footprints in the snow. I stomp onto the trail and take off my snowshoes. Once I string the dogs out straight, I set the snow hook.

  Where the heck did the snowmobile come from? Who drove it here and left it? How did they leave without footprints? I wander behind the sled and scan the woods.

  “Hello?” I call. Then louder, “Anyone here?”

  The dogs watch me with intent eyes, heads tilting. The falling snow mutes any sounds and closes in on me as if I’m in a padded room. It feels as if it’s just me and the dogs in all the world. Except for whoever was on that snowmobile. My traitorous mind suddenly envisions a psycho creeping up behind me in the silence, and I spin around with my heart pounding.

  “Stupid! Get a grip.” I scan the ground, but the fat flakes are laying a
cover over everything so perhaps the footprints have been hidden.

  Blue lets out a bark, and that’s when I whip around and finally see him.

  Crumpled in a heap several yards from the sled is a man lying face down. I stumble past a black helmet that’s been smashed in the visor. It’s not until I kneel beside him that I see all the blood.

  “Oh! Not good, not good, not good.”

  Now that I’m closer, I see he’s not a man, but a boy about my age. I stare at all the blood starkly red against the snow, and my mind freezes for a moment. I wish Dad were here to tell me what to do. But I’m the only one around.

  Bean croons at me long and low. When my focus snaps toward him, my head clears, kicking into gear. I set my mouth in a determined line and take a deep breath.

  5

  BLOOD COVERS MOST OF HIS FACE but I can still tell I’ve never seen him before. I move to turn him over, then stop, thinking about first-aid classes and not moving someone with a suspected head injury. I bend closer and feel for a pulse along his neck. A soft breath warms my cheek and I let out my own with relief.

  I lurch back to the sled and brush off the layer of snow that has built up on the bag. Tearing open the Velcro, I dive into the gear, searching for the first-aid kit.

  What to do? Think, think, think.

  Snow continues to build in the air and falls in thick sheets, turning my whole world white. In fact, I can hardly see the snowmobile’s tracks. Which way did he come? Should I leave him here and go get help? No, he’ll freeze. But I can’t move him to put him in the sled bag.

  I kneel down beside him again and use a handful of snow to wipe the blood from his face. More blood seeps from a gash above his right eyebrow, contrasting with the chalky white of his face. I’d probably freak out with all the blood if I hadn’t helped Dad on his trapline since I could walk.

  I wipe the new blood away to inspect the gash. He’s wearing a ski jacket and blue jeans. Jeans? Obviously he doesn’t get out much. They’re thoroughly soaked, and now will only make things worse for him. He’s going to freeze for sure.