by Wesley Banks
Kyle took another bite of his burger and fell back into the silence that defined him.
Katie watched the dogs as they ate, with an awareness she hadn’t known before. She was attentive to every shift in their stance, every twitching ear. The softness of their eyes.
Kyle sat near enough that she could feel his warmth, though they didn’t touch. She found it enough, somehow, just to sit with him.
Kyle waited for her to finish and gathered everything except the towel Katie was still sitting on and placed it back in the basket.
Kyle looked down at King still lying there. “Let me just run this inside and we’ll walk you back to the cottage.”
As Kyle walked out of the barn she watched him the same way the dogs had watched her. She noticed the lightness in his steps, how the back left of his shirt was tucked slightly into his jeans, and the tightness of his shirt around his shoulders. She couldn’t help but wonder if he always looked at her that way.
Chapter 17
When Katie finally reached the cottage that night, she didn't even make it to the bedroom. Instead, she sat down at the first chair she reached. She was exhausted. Completely drained from the hours spent with Belle and the newborn puppies.
But her mind was also racing from Kyle’s words.
Contrary to what most people think, Katie had learned that the majority of the time when a writer sits down to write, it’s systematic, not inspirational. She’d learned this from her father at an early age— writing was a routine, and in that routine she could open a door that led to a journey she’d never expect.
As Katie sat there staring at the pad and pencil on the kitchen counter, she knew her experience today could be the key to one of those doors.
She wrote like she needed to write, and as her fingers pressed against the cool keyboard she recalled a poem by Richard Wilbur that her father used to love.
In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story…
And so Katie wrote like the young girl at the typewriter, as if it was a matter of life and death. With moments of inspiration and frustration. But never ceasing. Her light on all night long. The words spilled onto the page as if they had been bottled up for too long and needed to get out. Until finally, she collapsed in sheer exhaustion at the table.
* * *
A loud chirping noise woke Katie from her sleep. It was a noise she hadn't heard in nearly a week.
She looked down at the phone buzzing next to her computer and quickly tried to rub the sleep from her eyes.
"Why are you calling me so early?" Katie grumbled into the phone.
"Please tell me you have something," Sam pleaded.
Katie opened her laptop, which she’d used as a pillow most of the night, and stared at the words in front of her.
She let out a sigh of relief. "I do," she said, half-smiling, half-squinting as the morning light poured into the cottage.
"You do?" Sam asked again, incredulous.
"I do."
"Well, it's about time. And by the way, what do you mean by early? It's almost noon where you are."
It took a moment for those words to set in. It’s almost noon. “Shoot, I've gotta run. I'll send you the draft as soon as I can.”
Before Sam could say bye Katie ended the call, set the phone on the table, and took off towards the shower.
Noon! How could it possibly be that late! How late did I stay up writing?
She was glad to have written enough to keep her agent satisfied, but she still needed to spend actual time with Kyle and the dogs. She had a story, but she still needed the magic behind it.
After a quick shower, she threw on a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, and grabbed her backpack with her laptop and a sweater stuffed inside.
But as she stepped out the front door, she couldn't help but shake the feeling that she was missing something. Then it hit her. For the second day in a row there was no note on the door.
Was something wrong again? Was Belle okay?
She couldn’t help but think something terrible had happened overnight. She knew she shouldn't have listened to Kyle and returned to the cottage—she should have stayed with Belle.
When she reached the house, she found Kyle and Doc on the front porch sipping coffee. Biscuit lay at Doc's feet while her litter roughhoused with each other in the dirt at the bottom of the steps. They were all there: Saint, Solomon, Samson, Rev, and Angel.
Katie surprised herself with how easily she recalled their names. She could picture the hand-carved wooden boards hanging from their pen.
She jogged up the steps, past the dogs, and walked directly over to Kyle.
"You scared me half to death!" she scolded him.
Appearing confused and a little surprised at her tone, Kyle didn't say a word.
"This is the second day in a row that you didn't leave a note. And after what happened last night, I thought something was wrong. Which, obviously it's not."
"Didn't you tell me the night before that you hate those notes?"
"I did. I do, but..."
From the corner of her eye she could see a smile spread across Doc's face as he took another sip of his coffee.
"This is not funny," Katie said as she turned to Doc.
But she couldn't help but smile as Doc started to laugh.
"It's not funny!" she tried to force a serious tone.
"Okay, okay. Kyle, you owe Miss Price an apology."
Kyle looked at Doc with a blank expression and then got up and walked right past Katie, down the front steps, and towards the barn.
Before Katie could react, Kyle stopped and looked over his shoulder. "I thought you wanted to spend some time with the dogs?"
Katie tried to feign a serious expression, but her face lit up. “This better not be some ploy where I walk into the barn and you hand me another shovel and a bucket.”
“That’s a risk you’ll just have to take.”
Katie looked back at Kyle as he stood there waiting for her response. He was wearing a long-sleeved crewneck shirt the color of beach sand. The end of his sleeves were frayed and there were several small holes around the hem of his collar. She couldn’t think of anything except how the fabric of his shirt was tighter around his chest.
“You could always stay with Doc. I think he’s making some homemade dog manure for his tomatoes.”
“Don’t you go putting me in the middle of this,” Doc said between sips of coffee.
Of course she wanted to go, but the phone call with her agent that morning tugged at her.
“Of all days, you had to pick today.”
Kyle looked up towards the cloudless sky. “Today looks like a good day to me.”
Katie agreed. It was a gorgeous day. She looked down at her backpack, where her laptop lay in wait. “I need to run into town to send something to my agent. Unless," Katie turned back to Doc," you have access to the internet here?"
Doc shook his said. "Sorry, milady, we do not. But, I believe Kyle can help you out with that."
Katie was a little confused. "You have internet...in...the…barn?"
Kyle gave a slight grin and shook his head. "No, but I know a place that does."
Chapter 18
Kyle politely asked Katie to wait outside the barn as he got the dogs ready. She had seen all the dogs a lot over the past few days, but her only real interaction had been with King and Belle, other than the puppies. She thought Kyle might still be worried about how the dogs would react to her.
"Miss Price," he called from the cover of the barn, gesturing her inside with a nod of his head.
I thought we were finally over this Miss Price thing…
Katie took several steps forward, into the shadow of the barn.
Sitting perfectly still in front of their pens were fourteen dogs. As she looked around, Katie realized that each of the dogs were mostly paired together—one older dog and one pup a
round eight months old, from the previous litter.
Directly in front of her was some type of makeshift wooden wagon, except on the backside was a hollow steel handle that rose about four feet above the base. There were four spoke wheels, and what looked like two small pedestals or footholds in the back, as well.
What was most odd wasn't the vehicle itself, but the harnesses that were attached to the front. There were fifteen individual harnesses, fourteen of which were paired together, with a single harness at the lead.
That's when Katie realized this wasn't a wagon at all, but a sled.
"Coming, Miss Price?” Kyle said with a hint of a smile.
Katie thought back to the first day she’d been at the farm, watching Kyle train the dogs in pairs. He had been training them to work as a team.
All this time he had been training them to become…sled dogs? Who trained sled dogs in South Carolina?
“I don’t understand,” Katie said.
Kyle walked over to Katie and held out his hand, palm up, as if he were a chauffeur. She took it and he helped her step up onto the sled, which was nothing more than a piece of plywood about two feet wide and four feet long, with one-inch-by-six-inch timbers lining the sides. It was more or less a box on wheels.
Katie stepped in and sat cross-legged with her bag in her lap as Kyle began to check all lines attached to the sled.
“I still don’t understand,” she said again. “You train sled dogs?”
Kyle walked to the front of the sled and tugged lightly on the center line that was attached to the sled. He didn’t answer her question, but began explaining instead.
“There are four lines, all of which are referred to as rigging,” he began, grasping the center line and holding it off the ground. “You should be familiar; you’ve been cleaning and sorting it for the past few days,” he said with a grin.
Katie looked down at the nylon lines. He was right. She had just assumed they were used for some type of training.
How did I not see this sooner?
“This is the tow line, and it connects to the bridle,” he said, pointing to two short lines connected to the front left and front right of the sled. “It also connects to this safety line or shock line. It’s more or less a backup line in case the tow line was to snap.”
Katie unzipped her bag as slowly and quietly as possible, pulling out her notepad and pencil as Kyle continued.
He spoke in such great detail, explaining the intricacies of each line all the way down to the different types of threads. She had no clue what he was talking about half the time, but she kept writing anyway. She was just grateful he was talking to her at all considering the rough start they'd had, let alone carving out the details of the story she had been trying to capture for almost a week.
Kyle stopped examining the rigging and stood tall next to the front of the sled. “Colossus. Come.”
Katie looked up from writing. In the field and the barn, Kyle communicated with the dogs mostly with hand gestures. This was only the second time she’d ever heard him speak to the dogs. His tone was different with the dogs than with her. There was no hesitation.
Katie turned her eyes from Kyle and towards the black and tan dog that moved towards him. Colossus was one of the first dogs she could recall seeing that day in the field. He was huge—the only dog she’d seen that was larger than King. As he trotted over this time, she noticed his tail was more downturned than the other dogs, and his hind legs were thick and powerful.
Kyle slipped a harness on Colossus, buckling it over the top of his back, and connected two lines to him: one to his collar—the neck line—and one to his harness—the tug line. When he was finished, Kyle called the next dog.
“Olympia. Come.”
Olympia was in direct contrast to Colossus. Her coat was entirely ginger and she glided gracefully over to Kyle. She was large, but she wasn’t quite the size of Colossus.
Kyle hooked her into the lines the same way he had Colossus. Both dogs stood side by side, directly in front of the sled.
“All the dogs out here are very strong. But Colossus and Olympia are wheel dogs—they’re not only responsible for the initial weight of the sled, but they’re also two of the most even-tempered dogs. Which is necessary when we take steep hills or declines and the sled is constantly slamming against the ground. While some dogs may be distracted or unnerved by this, good wheel dogs aren’t.”
Kyle turned back to the remaining twelve dogs and continued.
Giza and Gardens were next, followed by Artemis, Alexandria, Hali, Sunshine, Boone, Wyatt, Raley, and Raggles.
Giza and Gardens looked similar to Colossus in color, but were both female. They walked with ease and grace when Kyle called them. Artemis was one of the oldest dogs in the pack at twelve years, while Alexandria was just shy of one. Hali was a dark rich black, while Sunshine was mostly white with black spots that looked like clouds. Boone and Wyatt were the other two ginger coats on the team. For some reason the fur on top of Boone’s head was always puffed up, and Katie couldn’t help but smile. Raley and Raggles were of similar age, though Raley must have been sneaking extra treats because he looked to be ten pounds heavier than Raggles.
Kyle paused after he had hooked them in, and Katie was surprised at how much she had remembered about each of the dogs. “These are the team dogs. They’re the fuel of the sled. Colossus and Olympia may get them going, but the team keeps them going.”
Only two dogs remained.
“Story. Link. Come.”
These were the only two dogs that Kyle had called together. They were also the only two that shared a pen, and the same two that Katie remembered Kyle with in the field. While Colossus and Olympia were a contrast in appearance, Story and Link were a complete contrast in personality. Link was several years older than Story, and his demeanor mirrored that. His stride was slow and his eyes were calm. Story, on the other hand, was the picture of energy and exuberance. From the moment Kyle spoke her name she jolted into action, playfully growling as she literally ran into Link’s side, eliciting laughs from both Katie and Kyle.
Kyle took a second to calm Story and said, “These are the swing dogs. When the team turns together, it’s because of them. They have to be more alert and aware than the team and wheel dogs. They must be incredibly quick, not only with their feet, but with their minds as well.”
All fourteen dogs stood patiently in front of the sled—except Story, who was nipping at Link’s feet. If Link was bothered, he didn’t show it. Instead, his eyes followed the erratic path of a horsefly buzzing around the barn.
Katie closed her notebook and slid her pencil between the spiral binding. She massaged her hand, now aching from furiously taking notes, and looked down at the dogs in front of her.
Was she really sitting in a makeshift sled—or a “basket,” as Kyle had explained was the proper name—in the middle of South Carolina, harnessed to fourteen dogs? It almost didn’t seem real.
She looked back at some of the other dogs still sitting in their pens. Dixie, Jade, Maynard, Mingo, Shyanne, and Spirit looked back at her. Belle and her pups were resting peacefully, but the other dogs looked disappointed that they hadn’t been chosen.
Her eyes turned to follow Kyle as he made his way from dog to dog, checking each rigging line and connection for any faults. A light gust of wind swept through the barn and moved something that caught her attention. She looked towards the front of the sled, where one harness lay empty on the ground.
Katie’s knowledge of dog sledding only stretched as far as the explanations Kyle had been giving for the past ten minutes. But it only took a little bit of common sense to understand the lead dog was missing.
“Are you missing one dog still?” Katie asked.
Kyle didn’t respond, which Katie was used to. She was beginning to think he did it on purpose, just to bother her. Instead, he walked towards the front of the team and placed both of his pinky fingers in his mouth. It was a series of high-low-high whistles that
he repeated several times, the tone floating across the barn and over the land. Kyle knelt down near the lead harness after a few seconds, but nothing happened.
Several of the dogs’ ears began to press down against their necks. Their tails flattened. Story’s demeanor changed entirely, as she went from biting at Link’s feet to standing alert. She sniffed the air around her as her ears moved independently, locating the sound she heard making its way towards them.
A split second later, King broke Katie’s line of sight. He entered at the far end of the barn, mouth closed, ears standing straight up, and tail curled over his back. He moved towards Kyle with a steady gait, but Katie felt as if he never took his eyes off her.
As Kyle placed the harness around King, Katie was surprised that he would be the lead dog. He spent no time training with the others. In fact, since she had been here he had spent a considerable portion of his time just watching her.
Kyle whispered something to King before he stood, and walked to the back of the sled. He stepped up onto the footboards directly behind Katie. “Line out!”
Kyle’s voice startled her as it carried through the barn.
King reacted immediately. He took several steps forward, pulling the tow line taut.
Katie turned around slightly and looked up towards Kyle. "I appreciate everything you've done. Really. But, I have to get something sent to my agent by noon. And I need internet access to do that."
"Yes, you mentioned that about ten minutes ago."
"Okay. So you have internet somewhere on the farm?" Katie asked, somewhat confused.
"No."
"But..." she offered, hoping he was going to complete that thought.
"I'm not taking you somewhere on the farm."
"Then where are we going?"
"Friday is food day. We're going to town."
"On a sled?"
Kyle didn’t respond.
"Wait. I thought you and Doc told me the closest town was Camden or Florence, which is almost an hour away."
"No. Doc told you the closest city was Camden or Florence. The closest town is the one we're on the outskirts of right now. And it's about a half-hour away. That is, if we ever actually leave."