by Jo Storm
And no one could get to them, either.
From his kennel, Rudy whined, eager to work, eager to run. Hannah walked over to him, and with each step the feeling of doing something, anything, became stronger. She thought of the dogsleds at the back, ready to go. Rudy quieted under her hand as Hannah stroked his ear, pressing against her legs. Both of them were quivering.
“All right,” said Hannah. “We’ll fix this mess. We’re leaving tonight.”
CHAPTER SIX
The snow continued to fall in great white sheets. Hannah’s first thought was that she would go to town. But Timmins was far away, too far for a trip that wouldn’t get her into trouble. But what else could she do? She needed to get to a phone or a person with a snowmobile.
That meant Jeb’s place. Jeb was the closest — scratch that, the only other — person nearby, and even she was a long way away, five clicks down the road by car, probably twice that on the twisty back trails. So she would take the dogsled to Jeb’s, and then Jeb would take her to Timmins on the snowmobile to get more insulin.
She would be a hero.
“I’m a fairy,” Kelli said, coming into the living area that made up most of the front of the cabin. She was bulky and tottering, wearing at least four layers of clothing. “I’m metamorphosing, like a cocoon. Soon I’ll be a real fairy! Then I can fly away to get Dad and bring him back!” She unpeeled a layer and dumped it on the floor.
“Kelli, don’t just leave that there, put it away,” said their mom from where she was standing at the kitchen window. She was pulling the hand crank on an emergency radio, even though it’s probably fully charged, thought Hannah.
That was her mom, over-prepared. Hannah tried to see if there were any telltale signs of low blood sugar setting in — shaky hands, or being hyper. After her mom had first started insulin, she had taken too much by accident and had a severe episode of low blood sugar. Hannah had been very young, only about eight, but she remembered how scared she had been, how her mother had seemed both there and not there. How the doctor had spoken to her father only — ignoring Hannah completely — using terrible words like seizure and coma, and making Hannah cry right there in the hospital in front of everyone.
“I’ll do it,” responded Hannah quickly. She scooped up the thermal sweater that her sister had dropped and carried it to their bedroom. She stuffed it into her own packsack that was stowed over her bed. Their room was like an airplane cabin, or like the train cabin they had been in once when they travelled from Toronto to Timmins in a sleeping compartment: thin and long, with dark plywood on the walls, and all the cupboards had latches and were raised off the ground.
She heard the faint static of CBC Radio coming from the living room and hurried back out. If she was going to leave, she reasoned, she’d better know what the weather was going to be.
“Accumulations of twenty-six inches or sixty-six centimetres of snow and ice buildup have been reported in the last twenty-four hours. Hydro One says it may take up to three weeks to restore power in some areas. Most roads in the Cochrane District are closed, including Highway 11. Both the premier and the prime minister have officially declared the region a disaster area. Stay tuned for more updates.”
Kelli still thought it was all a game. She wanted to have points for being the best prepared, and the person with the most points won a prize.
“Should we check the emergency kit?” she asked. It had everything four people would need for three days, all in one bag that was only a little larger than a school bag. It was on Hannah’s list of things to get.
“We checked it when we got here,” Hannah said quickly. If they dragged it out in the open now, she’d never be able to get it into her packsack without one of them noticing.
“But maybe mice got into it!” said Kelli. “Oooh, or maybe a … maybe a wolverine!”
Hannah made a disgusted sound.
“We have lots of food and water and wood,” said their mother. “We could probably stay here until spring and be fine, especially since your father isn’t around to eat us out of house and home.”
She was saying things in the joking way she had when she was worried. Kelli hadn’t noticed it yet, but Hannah had. Her mom would make things very fun and easy for them to keep their eyes away from real problems. She also wanted to keep everyone busy, so she took Kelli outside to dig out around the woodpile while Hannah cleaned the breakfast dishes and heated water on the wood stove in a big cauldron. As soon as they had gone, Hannah went into the living room and took out a toque and three pairs of gloves from the big communal glove box.
There were at least a dozen pairs to choose from. She chose quickly but carefully. The big difference between mittens and gloves was that mittens housed your fingers together, which was good for keeping your hands warm. When she went ice fishing, she wore mittens. When she went cross-country skiing, she wore gloves. When they had gone winter camping for her mom’s birthday, she had worn mitts, even to bed. When she told that story back home, her friends laughed, Brittany especially. Brittany didn’t care about the difference between gloves and mitts; she didn’t wear either, not even on very cold days. It made getting change for the bus too hard, and it was impossible to use your phone.
Next was the emergency kit. It was on top of the closet in her parents’ room. It had a first-aid kit, emergency blankets, and two flashlights, among other things. Then she opened the side of the dresser that her dad kept his things in and took two pairs of warm socks and the extra utility knife that he kept there. Along with a locking blade, it had a detachable hook, little screwdrivers, even a saw. She unzipped the emergency bag and threw in the knife and the socks as she left the room.
She was walking back into her own room when she saw the two dark blobs of Sencha and Bogey, then Kelli and her mother looming through the living room window, scaring her so much she almost dropped the emergency kit, still half-open. They came in the porch area and stamped their feet to get rid of the snow. The dogs padded around them, waiting for the front door to open. Hannah quickly tossed the emergency kit under her bed, closed her own packsack and stuffed that under the bed as well. She started lacing up her boots as the other two unlaced theirs.
“What are you doing?” asked Kelli.
“I’ll go clear off the tack room,” she volunteered.
Her mom looked surprised. “You will?”
She nodded. “In case it snows again. It’s piling up a lot. I know we were going to put Rudy and Nook inside because of the storm, but I was thinking we could put them in there instead? I think they would be more comfortable.”
“That’s a good idea, Hannah. Very well.”
Hannah got her coat and boots and hat and mitts on, took the shovel, and went around the cabin to the back porch. She shovelled out the bottom of the tack room and untied one edge of the thick oiled burlap that covered the sled she would take. The sled was almost three times as long as Hannah was, but most of that was the long runners that extended for the length of a ski behind the square, open area called the basket. The front of the runners curved up, also like a pair of skis, but they connected at the front, forming a bow that pushed past brush and over snowbanks. The brushbow had a hitch on it called a bridle, which was used to attach the sled to the gangline, the main line that the dogs were attached to. In the basket of the sled was a sealed container full of the dog food they used when sledding — a special mixture of meat and vegetables that Hannah’s father cooked in Toronto, froze in brick shapes, and wrapped up airtight.
Hannah took out the line she would need and hooked it to the brushbow, ready to be hooked to the dogs. She placed an extra gangline in the basket, and two harnesses, and finally, a snowhook. She was so busy that she didn’t notice Kelli until her sister spoke.
“We’re going to the Moss Garden!” said Kelli from below.
“Crap! You scared me to death!”
“Why?” said her sister, leaning into the doorway. “What are you doing?”
Hannah debated telling he
r sister what she was planning, maybe even asking her to go along. The knowledge of her adventure burned in her, and she wanted to share it with someone so they could get as excited as she was. But Kelli would never be able to keep the secret, so Hannah couldn’t tell her, and her sister was too young to go on an adventure like this, even if it was only for a day. “Nothing,” Hannah said. “Where’s mom?”
“Getting her boots on.”
Hannah heard the crunch of snow as her mom stepped outside. She was wearing snowshoes and carrying Kelli’s, which she handed to her.
“Okay,” she said to Kelli. “Let’s see what we can find today.”
Hannah waited until they had become blurs in the forest before hurrying inside to grab both her clothing bag and the emergency bag. On her way out of the cabin, she opened the small cupboard over the stove and grabbed a handful of energy bars, too, stuffing them into the clothing bag, and finally, a closed tin of leftovers that sat in the back of the propane fridge: leftover spaghetti.
She placed the bags in the cavity inside the sled, a small three-by-three-foot space with slats at the bottom instead of a solid seat so it would weigh less. Finally, she put in a camp stove and canisters of fuel, placing them in their own small canvas bag at the top of the emergency bag. She covered the sled with burlap and then stood in front of it, looking for any suspicious bumps that might give away her plan — but there were none. She slapped her hands together the way her mom did after a hard day’s work. She was ready to go and had everything she needed. She would be back and a hero before anyone even knew it. There was no way she could get into trouble.
Dinner was silent and quick. While Kelli and their mom were doing the dishes, Hannah grabbed the back-roads map and wrote the number of the pharmacy in Timmins on it. Everyone went to bed early.
Hannah waited in the dark that night after dinner until the cabin grew quiet with the sound of sleep and snow. She had volunteered to take the dogs out last thing and check on Nook and Rudy in the kennels. It gave her a chance to put collars on everyone, pull the sled off its hooks, and do a last check of the two big packsacks — the blue clothing bag and the black supply bag. The snow was falling thick and fast. On any other night she might have stopped to enjoy it, but tonight it was merely something she had to see through.
As she lay in the bed waiting for everyone to fall asleep, she went through a mental list of her equipment: the dogsled gear, her clothing, the first-aid kit, the knife, the camp stove and its fuel. She had everything she could possibly need.
Leaving the cabin was the easiest part. She crept to the door with her boots in hand, mitts and hat tucked in them already. Sencha, always curious, followed her, and Hannah opened the door and scooted the Dalmatian out, hoping she wouldn’t start whining before Hannah was outside, too. Bogey quietly followed her, his Labrador instinct to stick with the group kicking in. Hannah tucked her long underwear into her boots and slipped a folded note on the counter right beside the radio, where one of them was sure to see it. It said simply, “Back with a snowmobile soon.” She wanted it to be mysterious, although only Jeb’s place was close enough to get to in a short amount of time, so they’d be able to guess where she’d gone.
The only problem would be noise: as soon as the sled dogs saw a sled, they’d get tremendously excited, barking and jumping. Heart in throat, Hannah approached Nook and laid her hand across the old dog’s muzzle. “Quiet, now,” she commanded, then led Nook to the perimeter of the clearing, tying her off to a tree near the buried car. Then she went back and did the same with Rudy. Leaving the two dogs tied and the other two roaming, she crept to the back of the cabin and grabbed the sled, looping the gangline across her shoulders and pulling it as silently as she could across the clearing to where Nook and Rudy waited. The thick snow, still falling like a heavy sweater over everything, muffled most of the noise.
Hannah was surprised to find that neither Nook nor Rudy began barking when they saw the sled. Perhaps they were thrown by the odd sequence of events, as they were in the dark and not wearing their harnesses.
This part she had planned carefully while lying in bed. She did not put on the harnesses, but merely transferred the sled dogs’ leashes to the gangline so they would not run away. Then they all started out toward the road, Hannah balancing being pulled by the dogs with pulling the sled in a slow, measured way.
The driveway was buried in new snow up to her knees, and when they reached the road, Hannah was shocked at how the shape of it had almost totally disappeared; only a thin, treeless ribbon of white stretching out gave any indication that people travelled here. It looked like no one had been there in years, though it had only been a day.
At the end of the driveway, she stopped and set the brake by pressing it firmly into the packed snow and jumping up and down on it to make sure it would hold tight. As she sorted through the equipment, she ran through the sequence in her head. Nook and Rudy were her lead dogs; they would stand at the front of the line, before the wheel dogs, Sencha and Bogey. All four would be connected to the gangline, which ran straight from the middle of the front of the sled to the lead dogs. Each dog would be connected to the gangline by a tugline that ran from their harness to a clip on the main line. While Sencha and Bogey would also sport a neckline that attached each of their collars to the gangline, the lead dogs were attached to one another by a neckline that ran between the two dogs.
Hannah took a deep breath and laid out the gangline, put the harnesses on Nook and Rudy, and hooked them on. They stood still, used to it, but Bogey and Sencha were another matter. She got Bogey’s harness on, but it took a little while, as he didn’t know as well as the other dogs what to do. Finally, he was on the gangline. Then Hannah approached Sencha. The Dal slipped sideways, sensing the excitement that Hannah had been trying to keep down inside herself. The other dogs caught it as well, and Rudy began pacing — two steps left, whine, two steps right — tugging the gangline and the other dogs.
Hannah refused to be thwarted this close to the beginning of the trip, so she abandoned her effort to get Sencha into the harness, tossed it into the basket, and moved to the head of the sled. Sencha dodged in and out of the line, trying to get Bogey to play with her until Hannah’s go away motions made her scamper off to a snowbank.
“Line out!” Hannah whispered, and Nook and Rudy pulled to the end of the gangline, lifting it out of the snow so that it was taut, the sled and the dogs held by the brake digging into the snow. Bogey was pulled haphazardly into place by their movements. He and Sencha had pulled the sled several times before, but this was the first time they’d gotten out to the cabin this winter, and he wasn’t sure. He stood and half turned toward Hannah, his thick tongue hanging out of his mouth the way it did when he was thinking. Hannah pulled the snowhook out from the snow, stored it back on the sled, and then they started out, pulling slowly across the snow in the wan moonlight. Sencha’s spots were a bobbing beacon in front of them as she raced ahead down the road, queen of their rebellion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hannah guessed that she would get to Jeb’s cabin by midmorning, lunch at the latest. She followed the thin ribbon of the empty back road until just past a tiny crooked bridge that was bookended by big, bulky shelves of snow with no trees. The rocky mantle of the Canadian Shield lay under everything like shin guards under socks; once the thin layer of soil had been scraped off, it shone hard and unyielding, no matter what the light was. The bush on either side had been trimmed back by surveyors who had come recently to see if there was any reason to mine the land, but still Hannah and the dogs had to skirt around downed trees across the road, thick with ice and leaving ugly, jagged stumps like broken fingernails at the forest edge.
Hannah stopped the team where the path was intersected by another, even thinner trail across the road — the bush trail for snowmobiles and ATVs. All the trails this far from Timmins had been made by locals, trappers and teenage boys who used them as a way to get into Timmins to get to work or the grocery store o
r the bar.
It was still dark. Hannah looked at her watch: 4:30 a.m. It would be several hours yet until her mother and sister found her note. She was tired, unused to being awake at this hour. It made her body feel odd, like it was floating. The snow fell on everything, so thick and heavy that it obscured the trail only a little past where the brush had been trimmed back. Hannah stood at the end of the bridge for a minute, allowing the last pieces of nervousness to wiggle around in her mind before gathering up Sencha’s harness from the basket.
“Sennnnncha!” she called.
The Dal approached, head down and tail wagging furiously. Sencha was always torn between being in the centre of things with the other dogs and doing her own thing. Hannah started putting her harness on, getting her front paws through easily, but having difficulty stretching the long X down the length of her spine, as Sencha was a serious wiggler. Finally, she got it on. The Dalmatian pulled away and twirled, trying to see what was weighted on her back, then sat in the snow to see if she could pull or scratch it off with her hind foot.
Hannah knew that of all the dogs, Sencha would be the most trouble. She had the least experience as she had only been on a gangline once, last year, and though she loved running, she had only run while pulling once.
Hannah rearranged her team, leaving Nook at the front and putting Sencha beside her, then placing Rudy behind Sencha as the wheel dog, with Bogey’s rough brown flanks and lolling tongue beside him. Rudy was like a larger version of Nook. He looked lean and lanky, but his chest was very long and tucked up sharply into a tapered belly and waist. His rounded breastbone reminded Hannah of an ice cream scoop.
Rudy lived for one thing: running. He would run all day, lie down, and get up and do it again, every day of the year. He and Nook still worked part-time on Pierre’s sled. Pierre was a trapper, and he used the sled to get to places that a snowmobile couldn’t — or to get there without a lot of noise — in Temagami. Her dad called Rudy and Nook “soft southern dogs,” as a joke, because Temagami was south of Timmins, even though it was still far to the north of Toronto.