The one exception to the busiest three months of the year is late December. Before Christmas, you take your dogs on slow runs and you look over your lists and plans, what you’ll need for your drop bags. After, there’s a mountain of work that’ll need doing. But for a few days right round Christmas, there’s a lull. Things go quiet, and you just enjoy the run.
That Christmas week, things was even quieter than normal. Old Su had barely ate anything that week, and when she come along on walks she seemed to tire out quick. Christmas Day, she barely moved from her spot in front of the woodstove, even when we filled her bowl with kibble mixed with some cooked hamburger, a treat for the holiday.
Next day, the vet come out. He listened to her heart, shone a light in her eyes and ears. Stroked her side as he explained there was blood tests he could do if we wanted to bring her to the village, but to be honest he suspected there wasn’t nothing wrong, just old age.
The kitchen walls had moved closer together, the room too crowded with me and Dad and Scott plus the vet, plus Helen and Jesse, not to mention both retired dogs, perfectly healthy and lounging under the table.
Homer’s a lot older than Su, I pointed out.
The vet nodded. I couldn’t stand the look on his face.
What can we do? Dad asked.
Make her comfortable, the vet said. Give her a quiet space, keep the other dogs from bothering her. You can offer her food, but it’s likely she won’t want it.
Canyon, too, I spoke up. Su’s practically a pup compared to him.
Dad put his hand on my shoulder, and I shrugged it off. I wasn’t acting my age, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I felt Helen’s eyes on me, and Jesse’s. Brushed past the vet to sit next to Su, pressed my hot face into her fur.
I slept downstairs that night, curled next to Su where we’d moved her bed to the den in front of the fireplace. The next night, Scott joined us, all three of us snoring while the fire faded, till either him or me woke and added another log. We took turns helping her stand as she drunk from her water bowl. We brushed her fur and rubbed her belly. She didn’t make no sound, just watched us with soft brown eyes.
The third day, she wouldn’t stand up, not even with help.
I’m going to take her on a run, I told Dad.
He give me a long look. Then nodded.
Outside, I hitched a small team to the rig, then put some blankets and straw in the basket. When I come back in for Su, Dad was petting her and talking in a quiet voice. I backed out of the room, waited by the sled.
Dad come out after a few minutes, carrying Su. Together we clipped her into the basket, though she wasn’t likely to try and jump out. I whistled, and the team pulled us into the woods.
All round, the trees wearing snow like robes, trunks furred with it, limbs coated. It was a wet, sticky snow, and we went slow, breaking trail. Tiny crystals of snow hovered in the air, never seeming to land. I hopped off the runners and jogged alongside the sled, traveling in a cloud of my own breath, it crusted on my eyelashes and the ends of my hair.
When we got to the lake, I was shocked to find it still hadn’t froze over.
I slowed the team and threw out the snow hook. I had to pee.
After, I walked out onto the shelf of ice that edged the lake, a plate solid enough to hold me for about ten feet, then the ice thinned. The rest of the lake held a collection of little floes. I plucked a small rock from my pocket and tossed it at one. The rock hit the surface then slid into the water. The surrounding floes bobbed from the ripples, then stilled, the lake once again calm and anonymous.
Back on the sled, I passed by the place where the river made a waterfall as it emptied into the lake, the spot that never seemed to freeze over no matter how cold it got. We begun to climb, till we reached a wide shelf of land that overlooked the lake. We’d buried a number of dogs in that spot over the years, their graves marked with cairns made of stones.
I tied the sled to a tree and give the dogs on the line a treat. Unclipped Su and lifted her out of the basket. Carried her to the spot where the land ended and looked over the lake. She wouldn’t sit, so I laid her on her side, then curled myself round her.
The water coursed south from the lake to the river. The sun drifted across the sky.
The seconds between Su’s breaths grew longer.
Somewhere round twilight I sat up and wiped my eyes. I watched Su in the rapidly growing dark, looked for her flank to rise. It did, just barely. I said her name, but her eyes stayed closed.
I made the cut small. I didn’t want to hurt her, even if she was nearly gone.
I drunk. I took Su in and bounded down the snowy trail, and the delight that flooded my body was complete and overwhelming, pure, undiluted happiness. I felt the tug of the harness and saw no other dogs in front of me, felt the whole team watching as I led. I bolted my food, barely tasting it, and I scratched at my own ears, and I napped in front of the woodstove and in piles of my brothers and sisters and teammates. I watched white snow fall across the black-and-gray world and the frigid air sent a shot of electricity through me, and I howled, the only way to give voice to my want.
After, I wrapped Su in one of the blankets from the basket. Most winters, we would of let the body freeze then buried it come spring, when the ground thawed, but this season had been warm enough, I had little trouble digging a hole big enough.
She run with me all the way back home, and when we spilled into the yard Jesse was there, busying himself with the new dog wheel. He looked up when I slid past him, and our eyes met. Up at the house, Helen was at the window, and inside Dad and Scott would be rustling up dinner. I threw out the brake. Behind me, I could hear Jesse jogging over to help take the dogs off the line.
If I could stop when I wanted and not tell the rest, this is where I’d choose to end. I’d conjure up the hard freeze that was on its way, let the ice and snow set us just as we was that day, when a quiet happiness shot through me, something more like rightness, and I couldn’t tell if it was my own feeling, or Su’s, or Jesse’s. A recognition of coming back to a place where you know you belong. Where you know you are wanted and loved.
13
There’s some things you just don’t talk about, except to talk round them. Mom never told me that in plain words but she taught it to me.
Like when I wanted to know why I heard her in my head, even when she wasn’t nowhere nearby. Because you know me, she said.
I don’t, I said.
Her breath plumed and hung in the air between us. Then it was gone.
When you were born, she said, it was in the open doorway of the barn, with twenty-two pairs of canine eyes watching. You came out big and heavy. And always hungry. Some women have trouble getting their babies to take the breast, but that was never a problem with you. You were voracious. I fed you till I ran dry.
She looked in my eyes.
Then I fed you more.
My heart loud enough in my chest I wondered if she could hear it. Is that how come I’m like you? I asked her.
She looked up at the clouds. The air was brittle and made her eyes water. I don’t know, she said.
What about Scott?
He was never as hungry as you were.
I stared at the ground. Our footprints in the snow nearly identical, if someone come along they wouldn’t be able to tell one set from the other. But I wasn’t done growing yet, I might of got taller, my feet could of grown longer. I could of turned out nothing like her.
You told me it was wrong to make a person bleed, I said.
She nodded. That’s right, she said. But you didn’t make me. I gave it to you. She took my hand. She’d forgot her gloves, my hand warmed hers. Sometimes I’m sorry I did it, she said. Sometimes I think if I hadn’t, you might not be like you are. She give my hand a squeeze. But sometimes I’m not sorry at all.
Because it means we’re the same? I asked.
We had come off the trail already, crossed the yard, and now we was back at the house. Standing at the
edge of the driveway together.
Because, she said, it means I’ll always be with you.
14
In the days before the Junior, I vibrated with nervous energy. I had packed and shipped my drop bags full of food and extra gear for the big race, attended the Iditarod rookies’ meeting, argued with Dad over the things he suggested I ought to pack that I thought I wouldn’t need. I had worked my team hard but smart over the last few weeks and now it was time for them to rest, we only went on the shortest, slowest runs in the last week before the Junior.
I had run the Junior twice before, it was familiar, and so with the big race still a week away I tried to focus on what was right in front of me. Seventy-five miles one way from Knik Lake to Yentna Station for a mandatory ten-hour layover, then back the way I come for a total of one hundred fifty miles. Four days after I finished, I would celebrate my eighteenth birthday. That’s when I would let myself start worrying about the Iditarod, I decided.
Day before the Junior start, the weather was clear and cool, twenty degrees. Over the course of January and February it had finally started to seem like real winter. We’d got a couple decent snowfalls, but now the snow had settled, the trail I’d been running was nicely packed. Everything set for a perfect race.
I spent the morning double-checking my sled bag and the gear I meant to take. The dogs could tell something was going on, they barked and jumped and play-bowed as I walked up and down the rows greeting them and handing out treats.
Jesse found me in the kennel afterward. Nervous? he asked.
Not about this one, I told him. But next week— I shook my head. I don’t know what’s in store.
But Bill’s told you all about the race, Jesse pointed out.
Yeah. He also told me no two mushers ever run the same race.
He frowned. What does that mean?
I think it means I’m fucked.
Surprise made his face completely naked for a second. I understood that he usually hid himself from most folks because he had to, but in that moment I realized he was choosing what to reveal even when he was with me. Long as I couldn’t drink. Over the course of a few weeks he had told me about himself, narrated his own life like it was a series of adventures, funny stories full of interesting characters that glossed over the shadows I’d seen in the brief tastes I’d got from him. His time on a commercial fishing boat down in Ketchikan turned out to be true, also the month he’d spent working in a seafood plant in Homer. He told me about growing up on a dairy farm and tagging along after his father, pestering after him to learn how to milk a cow or replace the spark plugs on the tractor. How he’d hoped one day he would inherit his dad’s land so he could keep the farm going. He might of, too, he didn’t have no brothers or sisters.
But once he started living the way he was meant to live, things changed. He didn’t have to explain to me how he’d knew words like girl and she and her didn’t fit him, no matter what other people said, or why giving himself a buzz cut at thirteen felt so good. You’ll look ridiculous in your Easter dress, his mother had said, and I felt the sting of her words, all the lightness and joy gone out of him when he seen the disappointment on her face.
I had learned more about him than I ever thought I could without his blood, it was enough to make me feel like I knew nearly everything.
His surprise at what I’d said wore off and he laughed. When he stopped, he was himself again. The self he wanted me to see.
Trace! my dad hollered from outside. You ’bout ready to go?
I’d said I wasn’t nervous, but my belly done a flip. I grimaced.
Jesse glanced out the kennel door, then stepped closer, give me a quick kiss. Good luck, Tracy Sue.
He hung back as I made my way across the yard, and when he come out to help load the dogs into the truck, I noticed he’d left by the kennel’s back door so it would seem like maybe he come from the training wheel or the woods.
Once we’d loaded the dogs and tied the sled to the roof, we was off. Dad steered us down the drive and I watched out the side-view mirror, Scott and Helen and Jesse waving to us. They would come down to Anchorage for the Iditarod ceremonial start but I had told them I would be less keyed up if it was just me and Dad at the Junior start. They waved and waved, till we rounded the corner in the drive and they fell out of sight.
We rolled into Wasilla for the final vet check, and then that evening we went to the mushers’ meeting, a roomful of kids and their families, there was fifteen of us signed up for the race. I recognized a couple faces from previous Juniors. There was pizza, then a talk from Dr. Jayne about proper care for dogs on the trail. There was older, seasoned mushers who spoke on speed and sled care and the right clothes to wear. Then, finally, the bib draw. Since I had got signed up for the race late, I didn’t get to draw at all, just got the bib that was left when every other racer had gone. I got number 3, and that meant I would be the third racer to leave from the start.
Lucky number three, Dad said to me later that night, after the meeting. We’d made camp and got the dogs bedded down, then rustled up dinner and sat by the fire with cups of hot cocoa from the thermos. Talked about the kinds of things you talk about when it’s dark all round, the fire crackling and your dogs sighing in their sleep. The sort of stuff you don’t remember later except to recall the feeling of it, and the sound, two low voices in the glow of the fire.
After we turned in, when the fire was embers and the two of us warm in our sleeping bags, that’s the conversation I remember.
His voice come to me out of the dark.
Trace?
Yeah.
About Helen. He paused. I didn’t go looking for someone who—what I mean is, I don’t want you to think— He fell quiet again.
I don’t, I told him after a while.
Don’t what?
I sighed and stared up into the night. No wind or even a breeze that night. Not a cloud over us, the sky empty except for all the stars shining down, each one pinned to its lonely spot. I had spent more than a dozen nights at Jesse’s side over the course of two months, had met him out on the trail, him coming and me going, us timing it so we’d find each other in the woods. More than once I’d woke up forgetting he was next to me, I’d freeze, heart pounding, hand already groping for my knife, till I realized it was him, and he was only there because I’d said he could be. Just as often, though, I woke to the warmth of him beside me and found myself nestling closer, the way our dogs would curl round each other in their sleep.
All critters like warmth. And if you spend years waking up to a warm body next to your own, seemed to me when that spot went cold, you’d long for a way to make it warm again.
I don’t think you meant to find someone to take Mom’s place, I said.
One of the dogs huffed in its sleep. Another stood, circled on its bed, then laid down again.
I like Helen, I told Dad.
Me too, he said. I could hear the smile in his voice.
How come? I asked.
He shifted in his sleeping bag. She’s got a way about her, he said. Makes you feel at ease. And she’s open. Always interested in trying new things, always willing to be up front about what she’s thinking. I like that.
Is it the same way you felt with Mom? I asked.
He cleared his throat. Your mom was a lot of things. But she wasn’t exactly open. Specially the months before she died. She got quiet. Secretive. Used to be, we was always pretty honest with each other, but it got so I knew she was keeping something from me. You know she used to go walking at night? Not just the one time, but almost every night, for a while.
I remembered standing in the hallway. Watching her bundled in her coat at the mouth of the driveway. Old Su nearby.
She thought I didn’t know, Dad said.
It made you mad. Her going off like that.
Not mad, he said. Well, maybe a little. Worried, mostly.
I thought of him rolling over in his bed, her side cold. Of him staying up, waiting for her to com
e back. Wondering if she wouldn’t. When she did, when she eased the back door closed behind her and crept up the stairs, did he want to holler at her the way he done when I run away? It never occurred to me before that the reason he was so scared then was because he’d gone through the same thing with her.
That’s not to say I like Helen better than your mom, he told me. Or that Helen’s supposed to be some kind of replacement. I still love your mom. I still miss her. You understand, kiddo?
I nodded then realized he couldn’t see me. But my throat was thick and my tongue stuck, the whole of me heavy with worry. I hadn’t never taken anything from Dad, not a drop, but at that moment, I knew him. Felt him in my bones. Wrapped in my sleeping bag, I was also hunched over the kitchen table, my eyes burning with sleeplessness, my head snapping up at every sound the house made. My whole self weighted down with dread and fear. I should of said then how sorry I was. How I never meant to do that to him.
Instead, I rolled over, curled myself round the feeling like a small boulder I would carry with me.
Heard Dad say to me, Night, Trace.
The race didn’t start till ten, but I woke early, made a fire right away and started the dogs’ breakfast. Dad woke while I fed the dogs, and he rustled up breakfast for us humans. We ate in silence, watching the stars fade. Another clear, crisp morning, about fifteen degrees. Good day for a run.
The Junior starting line ain’t near as chaotic as the Iditarod start. For one thing, there’s fewer mushers, just fifteen of us that year compared to the fifty or sixty mushers that usually run the big race. Still, fifteen mushers with as many as ten dogs each, plus the parents and handlers and volunteers and spectators, it makes for a decent crowd.
I shut it all out as best I could. Focused on my dogs as I bootied them, then took hold of their harnesses and led them one by one to the gangline. The Junior requires at least seven dogs to start the race, you could have as many as ten on a team, and it was a good idea to bring the maximum in case you had to drop a couple dogs over the course of the run. But in just a week I was going to be running most of the same dogs in the big race, and I wanted as many fresh dogs as I could get for the Iditarod. So I’d brung a team of only seven to the Junior. Chug and Boomer in the wheel position, and just ahead of them, Grizz and Marcey as my swing dogs. I had learned over the last couple weeks that Stella and Zip run well together, so I’d paired them right behind Peanut on the lead.
The Wild Inside Page 17