Why don’t we do this, Dad finally said. You stick around this afternoon, give me a hand. Then we’ll see about the long term. How’s that sound?
Fair enough, the stranger said.
Dad put out his hand. Well, what do I call you?
Jesse Goodwin.
Goodwin’s hand was as small as the rest of him. He give Dad a shake, but when he went to pull away, Dad held on.
You don’t mind me asking, how old are you, son?
For the second time, Goodwin’s eyes fell on me. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Seventeen, he said.
All right, Dad said and let go. Let me show you the kennel.
Ain’t you going to help me unload the kibble? I called after him.
He looked back over his shoulder. Leave it, he said. Do me a favor, take an armload of wood inside. Then you can do as you please, long as you’re home for dinner.
The two of them cut through the dog yard. Goodwin put out a hand as he walked, let the dogs sniff his fingers. Dad was talking, gesturing, and Goodwin nodded. He was what you call slight, he looked like a strong wind might blow him away. In that way, we was not alike. But as he fell into step with my dad, watching him from behind I could almost imagine I was watching myself.
Old Su trotted away from me and caught up to him, her nose in his pocket again.
I frowned. Back when Mom trained dogs, she would reward them with treats tossed from a supply in the pockets of her coat. After the dogs she was training had spent enough time with her, they got into the habit of greeting her by sticking their noses in her pocket, searching for the treats they knew was there. It had been ages since Old Su had been trained. She was near retirement, almost as old as Homer and Canyon. And she was smart enough to know only Mom ever carried treats in her pockets. Me and Scott and Dad, we just fetched them from the big bin in the kennel. There hadn’t been no treats to speak of for a good while, neither.
The last several days begun to connect themselves like dots in a puzzle book. The ruckus we’d heard in the kennel linked up to the footprints outside, to the trap I’d come upon, missing its kill but surrounded by the same set of prints. Prints that belonged to a foot only a little larger than mine. It was possible Tom Hatch was a big man with dainty feet, I hadn’t took particular note of his shoes the day I stabbed him. But it was more likely that small feet belonged to a small person. A person who’d maybe spent too long in the woods, who was desperate enough to steal the catch from someone else’s trap. A person who didn’t mind breaking into a kennel or using treats to bribe the dogs to be quiet when he done so. A person who would walk right into someone else’s home, fall asleep in front of the warm fire. Jim Lerner wasn’t a musher, but he had two big malamutes, and I would of bet all the money in Tom Hatch’s pack that whatever treats Jim kept on hand had gone missing that same day.
Tom Hatch wasn’t haunting our woods and searching for the pack he’d left behind. He was up in Fairbanks, in a hospital bed. Or maybe on a train or an airplane, on his way back to Kansas or Oklahoma, resigned to the thought of losing a little money and a book he loved. The stranger I’d been worried about was exactly that, a stranger. Some kid barely older than me, a runaway. Or a person who come up to Alaska like Kleinhaus, thinking he could make a go of it in the wilderness till a harsh enough spell of weather taught him otherwise.
A sound tumbled out of me, like a cough. Not loud enough to make Dad turn round before he stepped inside the kennel. His voice faint, then muffled when he shut the door and went on giving Jesse Goodwin the lay of our land. Which I suspected Goodwin was plenty familiar with.
I headed back toward the woodshed, glancing over my shoulder as I walked. I couldn’t tell Dad my suspicions without telling him about my trap, and that meant explaining what I was doing out in the middle of the night, staring at a set of footprints, when I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the woods, much less on a dogsled.
In the woods, when you set a snare near a critter’s den, it could be hours before that critter come back, and even then it might catch your scent and approach careful, long minutes of watching your prey turn its ears and sniff the air. In those moments, you want to lunge, grab at the animal before it decides to turn tail and run. But that is the wrong move. If you can be patient, keep your eyes open and wait for your prey to come near, you can catch it before it even knows you was watching it.
I could be patient.
I collected an armful of wood and stacked it inside, next to the woodstove in the kitchen. Stood up, and my head went fuzzy. I stumbled back and dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, lightheaded, my hands shaking. Bent double, my head on my knees, till it passed. Canyon walked over and sniffed at me, his tail wagging. Dog breath in my face, his cold nose on my cheek till I lifted my head and petted him. I was hungry, but relieved, too. The days I’d spent worrying over Tom Hatch had took a toll. I might have to worry over Jesse Goodwin, but he was here in plain sight, where I could keep an eye on him, no longer sneaking round in our woods, invisible to me.
I did go into the woods then. No dogs, just me and my knife. The traps I found triggered still had their catch. As I field-dressed a couple of minks I wondered how long Jesse Goodwin had wandered our woods before he showed up in the yard. At least a few days, I reckoned. I wiped the blade of my knife clean.
I made it back home in time for dinner, like Dad had asked. Found him stirring a pot of leftover beans while I knocked the snow off my boots in the mudroom.
Any luck? he asked.
Got you a couple furs, I told him.
He set the table with spoons and bowls, then bustled over to the oven and took out a loaf of warm bread. Whistling.
I washed my hands at the sink. Through the window I could see Jesse Goodwin making himself at home in our shed. He’d left the door open and lit the woodstove and the little oil lamp, and his shadow danced over the walls as he moved about.
So I guess he’s staying, I said. Even though he can’t pay rent.
The whistling stopped. He’s a real good worker, Dad said. You should’ve seen what a quick job he made of cleaning the dog yard. He’s good with mechanics, too. Thinks he can figure out whatever’s making that noise in the truck. And you heard him say he worked down in Ketchikan? He was on a boat. He’ll be a real hand come summer if I can get out to fish camp with Steve. Probably clean salmon in half the time I can.
He smiled at me. That’s something you won’t even do, Trace.
He was right. I do not see the point in fish at all, they are cold and slimy and you don’t get no satisfaction from them, the most they are good for, far as I’m concerned, is mixing with kibble and a little rice to feed your dogs.
Dad was back at the counter, slicing the bread. Whistling again. His sleeves rolled up, his arms and face chapped from working outdoors in the cold. There was still circles under his eyes and he needed to put on about ten pounds to look like his old self. But he sailed across the room, back over to the pot, then to the table. It should of made me glad to see him so clearly happy. I shouldn’t of begrudged him a little joy. But he didn’t know what I knew.
Supper’s about ready, he said. Can you run out and let Jesse know?
It wasn’t that he asked me. He was always asking me to do all kinds of things, and half the time it wasn’t asking but telling. It was the way the question fell out of his mouth, casual like. Like the way you say, Would you hand me that hammer? or Don’t forget to do your homework. The kinds of sentences that come out with barely any thought, you’ve said them so many times before. He said Jesse’s name, and it come out like it tasted familiar to him.
I hung the towel I’d used to dry my hands. What’d he say? I asked.
What’d who say? Dad said.
When you told him Gerald Vetch died about a year before Mom did, I said. What’d Jesse have to say then?
Dad turned the burner off. When he frowned, you could see the circles under his eyes, darker than ever.
Go on upstairs and get you
r brother, he said.
He went out to get Jesse himself.
7
Between the time Mom come on that first hunt with me and when she stopped leaving the house altogether, there was a long spell when we would run together down the trail, me at her heels, till the day I finally caught up with her, run alongside her, then pulled ahead. I thought she let me, that the next time we run, she would outpace me again. But after that, she never beat me. I always left her behind.
I would hunt or check traps while she only watched. Sometimes I would ask her for advice. But she was only interested in teaching me about plants and roots, or sometimes we would pick out a set of tracks and follow them far as we could.
When I drunk, I drunk alone.
She was full of information about what to forage, and the woods filled with her voice when we walked together. But she skirted round the things I really wanted to know. We dug into the snow to unearth greens, clover and lamb’s-quarters and rose hips, wilted but still edible. Our fingers touching as she explained what was good to eat and what was poison. When what I wanted her to explain was how she’d managed to stop hunting. Or what made her take her first drink. How she knew people was different from animals, had she bit the boy she’d told me about, the one that had got lost when she was a girl? We huddled close over the hole, shoulder to shoulder, and she spoke in her easy, patient way. Every question I wanted to ask would be an interruption. Her face would cloud over and her mouth would close, and the day would be finished, whether we’d spent an afternoon or only an hour together.
We brushed the snow from our knees when we stood. I put my foot down in her footprints as we walked, tucked my questions away to be asked some other time.
By the first week of November, Jesse Goodwin had got the old truck running, the one that had been up on blocks since before Mom died. He sat in the cab one evening after dinner, put the key in the ignition, and the engine complained for a handful of seconds then finally turned over. The sound traveled across the yard, up the shoveled path to the back stoop, which didn’t sag no more, through the back door, oiled so the hinges didn’t whine every time you come in or out. Into the mudroom, all the coats hanging on a new rack instead of a row of raw nails pounded into the wall. Into the kitchen, sink empty and that night’s dishes drying, past the laundry room, no more piles of dirty clothes that waited weeks to get clean. Up the stairs and down the hall to my room, where I sharpened my knife and readied myself for a day in the woods.
It’s funny how quick you can get used to something long as it’s consistent, even if it don’t sit well with you. In just a handful of days, really, I had got used to finding Jesse knocking snow off his boots in the mudroom. Jesse warming his hands over the burn barrel. Jesse in the kennel, Jesse at the kitchen table.
Or he’d be holed up in the shed. What time he spent not working or taking his meals with us he spent there, a sliver of him visible through the gap in the curtain, sitting at the small table he’d built from wood scraps, writing in his notebook, or laid on top of the quilt on his cot, turning the pages of some novel he’d borrowed from our shelves.
Tracy, come away from there, Dad said. Give the man some privacy.
I done just that. I steered clear of him best I could, and when the two of us ended up doing the same chore, both of us feeding the dogs or shoveling snow, I give him a wide berth. But I kept my eyes on him. Dad might of trusted Jesse. I knew better.
Jesse glanced up, caught me watching him. I lowered my gaze quick, but not before I seen him give a small, shy smile.
Early November, Dad picked up a job in the village. He spent a couple days a week at the clinic mopping floors and being the handyman. It was just part-time is what he said, and temporary, he only wanted to get ahead on some bills, and now that he had a hand at home, he could take on steady work.
Being a musher is work enough, I wanted to tell him. Except he seemed to of forgot all about that.
I hadn’t. Dad took to staying up later than normal after Jesse first arrived, or else he would turn in and I would creep down the stairs an hour or so later only to find the lamp lit in Jesse’s shed. I couldn’t know how deeply Jesse slept or whether the dogs would wake him with their excitement when they seen the sled, but I could wait and see. Once Dad took the job at the clinic, he started turning in early again, and I took that as my chance.
I drug the sled out of the kennel round midnight to the dogs’ barks and howls. Glanced at the dark shed, certain that Jesse would pop his head out and ask what was all the ruckus. Then probably remark to Dad the next morning how odd it was I run at night instead of the day. I darted back inside the kennel, come out again with handfuls of snacks, and soon every dog was too busy gnawing at little chunks of frozen rabbit or squirrel to bother yapping and waking Jesse up. I felt more at ease, even though I kept one eye on the shed as I got four dogs on the line.
We run fast that night, gobbling up more miles than I’d managed on the rest of my runs that winter, and when we come back, me sweaty and the dogs panting, it was nearly time for Dad to get up. I threw out the snow hook and brought my team to a stop. Took Flash off the line and led her to her house. I’d been inclined to make Flash my lead once race time come round, and that night had settled it, she was calm and focused and even now as I got her settled she watched me with alert eyes. At least till her attention pulled away from me and landed on Jesse, already dressed for the day, unclipping Zip’s harness. I hadn’t even heard him cross the yard.
Zip lunged and jumped, not trying to get away but still feeling playful after our run. Jesse struggled to keep hold of her.
A queasy feeling rose in my gut, but all I said was, Keep a firm grip on her harness. But don’t pull her to where you want to go. Kneel down and give her a good scratch.
Jesse squatted and held on to Zip with one hand while he stroked her fur with the other. Murmured to her, Good girl, that’s right, his voice and his touch calming her till she sat with her tongue out and her ears soft.
She’ll mind you now, I said. You can lead her to her house.
He walked her over to her spot, then fished some treats from his pocket. Let her lick his face after, then wrestled with her a little. I watched the two of them while I fed the dogs who’d run that night.
Zip always wants to play, I told Jesse as I filled Zip’s bowl. Sometimes you just got to let her know it’s quiet time. All that energy’s what makes her a good racing dog, though.
You’ve got a real way with them, Jesse said.
That’s what Dad always tells me.
He followed me over to the sled. I started winding the rigging up so it wouldn’t tangle.
I’m not going to say anything, he offered.
About what?
I don’t imagine you’re out here in the middle of the night because you prefer to mush at four a.m., he said. When I didn’t reply, he said, Your dad told me you’re mad because you can’t train. But I guess you found a way.
The two of them, chattering like squirrels together. Dad couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut round Jesse.
He don’t got any business telling you anything about me, I said.
Jesse returned to Zip, begun massaging her feet. After I drug the sled inside, I come back out and found he had moved on to Hazel. She rolled onto her back and let him rub her belly.
You’re pretty good with them, too, I heard myself say. You have your own dogs?
He didn’t answer right away. Shook his head, then said, Well, yeah, at my grandpa’s place. I pretty much grew up there after my parents died. Up in Maine. Grandpa had about thirty dogs, and I was practically one of the pack. He blushed under the light in the dog yard. That probably sounds silly.
No, I said. Sounds familiar.
He fished a treat from his pocket, offered it to Hazel.
I thought you said you was from Montana, I said.
He glanced up. Not from there, he said. Just passed through before I headed up this way.
So you lived in
Maine?
He nodded.
With your grandparents.
Right, he said.
They was mushers?
Not really, he said. Mostly just used dogs as transportation or to haul stuff. My grandpa didn’t start mushing till he retired.
Retired from what?
He was a schoolteacher. Then Jesse laughed. Said, He might have been the only musher who would recite Shakespeare from the back of his sled.
He stood up then, so I stood up, too. We was close enough, I could see the spray of freckles on his cheeks and the smoothness of his skin. I was nearly tall as he was, which wasn’t very, and I was broader across. It occurred to me that if we was ever to get into a scuffle, the odds of me coming out on top was pretty certain.
Seventeen’s awful young to come all that way, I said.
What do you mean?
I hesitated. He knew I wasn’t supposed to be training, but he’d agreed not to rat on me without me even asking. Then again, that meant he had something on me. Wouldn’t hurt to let him know I had something on him, too.
I don’t know, I said. Just, you said you was seventeen. And you come clear across the country, up to Alaska. That’s a lot of time on your own. A lot of time wandering round in the woods.
His eyes was gray, almost colorless in the light of the lamp in the dog yard, and his face placid as a lake on a calm day.
You ever do much trapping? I asked.
His face didn’t change as he said, It’s nearly morning. I should put some coffee on. He turned away from me, back toward the house. Stopped just outside the circle of light cast by the lamp, the shape of him visible but the expression on his face lost in shadow. You’re seventeen yourself, aren’t you? he said. Your dad told me you’ve got a birthday coming in March.
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