by Jo Storm
Thankfully, neither Rudy nor Bogey was seriously injured. One of Bogey’s ears had a few teeth marks in it and a piece of the edge was torn, and Rudy had a few bumps on his chest where Bogey had gotten hold of him, but most of the blood was actually from their own mouths, their gums having gotten cut up when they met mouth-to-mouth during the fight. Hannah washed all their injured areas with snow. Only a couple of the wounds were still bleeding.
Hannah pulled off her gloves, which were soaking wet. One of them had gotten caught in the snowhook, and there was a long tear across the palm. She held her fingers up, flexing them. Her left pinky was white. She hadn’t even noticed it was cold. Not good, because it could be the beginning of frostbite. She massaged it until a pink flush started to appear, along with a twinge of pain as her feeling returned. She checked her other hand — it was fine. She looked up to where Peter was still sitting, now with his arms looped around his knees.
“How are your fingers?” she asked. She held up her bare hand. “I had a white one. You all right?”
“Fine,” he answered. “Just dandy.”
“Okay, well, I need a hand down here.”
“With what?”
With what? Is he nuts?
“Uh, with everything.”
Peter stood up, promptly delving knee-deep into the snow. “My snowshoes are down there, and I’m not coming to get them. I just got up here.”
Hannah heard that same angry tone in his voice that made it sound like everything she said was wrong and stupid. But beneath that now, she could hear it: the fear. Like she and Rudy had felt a few minutes ago. Don’t make me touch the dogs, it said.
If she could lead the dogs, then she could lead herself — and Peter. Starting now. Don’t think, just act and react to what happens.
“I’ll throw them up to you.”
“Then what?”
“Then … then you come around to the trail and pull the sled up.”
“With what?”
She looked around at the littered ground. “A piece of rope.”
“Yeah, all right,” he said. “They’re over there, by the pack.”
She went and located his snowshoes, under the black packsack and wedged against a rock. They were the old kind, not metal like Hannah’s, but made from wood and rawhide and sinew, except for the crampons — the claws that sat under his feet. These were made of sharp, serrated metal and woven into the frame with more webbing. The snowshoes reeked of engine oil or gas, and even after she threw them to Peter, the smell remained.
The packsack had become unzipped in its travels, so she zipped it back up and lugged it to the sled. The sled was turned completely upside down. She inspected all the parts she could see before trying to right it. The white plastic runners that sat on the snow were scratched but intact, and as far as she could tell, none of the sled’s main parts had broken. She righted it with some difficulty, then set the packsack inside to stabilize it. Thankfully, her snowshoes were still secured to the side of the sled. She unhooked the gangline from the bridle and tied it around her waist. She didn’t think any of the dogs would try to run off, but this way, if they did, she’d know sooner rather than later.
She then set about gathering up all the gear that had fallen out and putting it back in the basket while Peter put his snowshoes on and traced a route through the unbroken snow along the lip of the bowl, back to the hard-packed trail.
Rudy and Bogey lay in the snow, panting. Nook was sitting as far away from them as possible. Only Sencha moved, still sniffing out food packages in the snow. Hannah followed her, unearthing buried packages and saying, “Good girl!” to the Dal whenever she found one. Sencha loved the new game and started locating them quickly. By the time Hannah had gathered what seemed like all of the food packages, Peter was at the lip above the sled.
Hannah saw the snowhook lying near the sled where she had left it. It was fastened to the back of the sled, at the side, by a long twenty-foot line. She picked it up.
“This’ll work,” she said.
Peter came to the edge and looked down. “Well, be careful where you throw it,” he said. “I don’t want prongs in my face.”
She nodded, aimed at the side of where he stood, and threw. It was like throwing a piece of kindling; the snowhook looked awkward and lumpy as it sailed out of the bowl. But it landed at the top, and that was all that mattered.
“You ready?” Peter called.
“Yeah, ready.”
As Peter tugged, Hannah pushed on the brushbow, steadying it so the sled did not tip over as he pulled. The sled slowly turned until it was pointing uphill. Hannah grabbed a few more pieces of gear that had lodged beneath the sled and tossed them into the basket. She could just see Peter as he pulled hand over hand, leaning back to gain traction and using his weight to steady himself. The sled rose slowly out of the bowl, sliding across the trampled snow and out over the lip, out of her line of sight, along with Peter.
She unhooked Sencha and Bogey and untangled the lines. There was very little sound above her, and she wondered what Peter was doing up there on the trail. But that was thinking again — she stopped. She started up the hill, and the dogs followed, ranging around her.
When she reached the top, she stopped a minute to catch her breath. The trees sat silent and the snow drifted down ceaselessly. Peter stood a little way down the trail. He had pulled the supply bag out of the basket and was looking down at it. When he saw her, he lifted his head and pushed back his hood.
“Hannah,” he said.
Sencha saw Peter and started off toward him. Peter’s face changed abruptly and he quickly turned away from the Dal, showing his back. But now Hannah saw that Peter turning his back was not cowardly, but almost exactly what Bogey had done down in the bowl. Peter was telling Sencha he didn’t want to interact with her. However, Sencha was a Dalmatian, and she was not used to humans ignoring her. She was beautiful, and people always wanted to pet her. Whenever people saw her, the first thing they said was, “A Dalmatian!” As soon as Sencha heard that word, she knew that much petting and loving would be coming.
“Sencha, come!” commanded Hannah. The Dal slowed and Hannah said it again, this time using the same tone she had used with Rudy. Sencha turned and came back. Hannah snapped her back onto the gangline, and then Bogey, too. She took one of the short pieces of rope from her pocket and tied the gangline to a mid-size maple close to the trail.
“Stay,” she said to the house dogs before going to the sled.
Peter knelt by the packs as she approached. The smell of gas grew stronger. She saw him taking things out of the bag and sorting them into two piles.
Then he pulled out the camp stove, and her mouth tightened. When he had shoved the stove back in the bag, he hadn’t been paying attention, and she could see as she got nearer that the fuel canister had broken; the neck of the fuel can was gaping open. So that was where the smell of fuel had been coming from. The can had broken, and fuel had spilled onto his snowshoes during the crash, when the bag had flown open.
She knelt down beside him. He was methodically sorting through the contents of the bag: the first-aid kit, the packages of food. The hatchet and flint and waterproof matches all went into the pile with the first-aid kit. Then there was the spare water bottle and some of the grey ready-to-eat meal packets. They went in the second pile. Some of the food packets went into the first pile, but most were going into the second. She picked up the stove and looked at it. The neck had indeed been punctured, the tines of the stove were bent, and the fuel line had snapped at its base. The stove was flimsy and could easily have been broken in the fall, but the steel on the canister was thick; it could not have been punctured by any of the branches that the sled had landed on. She hadn’t seen any rocks jutting out, either.
Her eyes strayed to Peter’s snowshoes lying claws-up in the snow, their serrated metal edges like rows of teeth. Peter followed her glance.
“The whole sled fell on them.”
Hannah looked at t
he top of the bag, and sure enough, there were puncture marks through the material. The material was waterproof, but still thin, so the crampons had punctured it like tissue. She lifted the camping stove and shook the canister. It was almost completely empty. They had only used it twice; there should have been lots of fuel left.
She looked back at the piles. “What are you doing?”
“These are fine,” he said, pointing to the pile with the first-aid kit and the hatchet. “We can wash them off, and the matches are waterproof, anyway. But these ones …”
He pointed at the other pile, where most of the food packets were.
Hannah reached out slowly and picked up a “Ham ‘N’ Eggz” packet. It was coated in fuel oil, and when she turned it over, she saw puncture marks.
“It’s not my fault,” said Peter. He sat on his haunches, looking down between his legs at the ground.
“I know,” she said.
Then both continued, almost exactly at the same time, “You always pack food at the top.”
No, it wasn’t Peter’s fault. You packed food at the top of the supplies, so it was easy to get to and put up out of the way of predators. Dealing with food was always one of the first things you did when camping, after setting up the tent.
The tent. Hannah scrambled over to the sled. The tent bag was one of the items that she had picked up out of the snow. If it was covered in fuel, they wouldn’t be able to use it, and then they’d be in real trouble.
But it was probably okay, because it had been thrown clear of the bag when the sled tipped. A small thing, an important thing. But still, it felt like ever since she had seen that rabbit, she was living in a nightmare.
“I thought rabbits were supposed to be lucky,” she said, staring at their ruined supplies.
More than half of their food supply had been punctured in the fall, then poisoned with the stove fuel, making it useless. She had started out with a king’s ransom of food, and now there was only enough for one more day for the two of them, plus the leftovers she had grabbed from the fridge and a few energy bars that had been packed in the other bag and thus escaped contamination.
The camping stove and food packets had been inside their own smaller bag within the big black packsack, which might have limited the disaster somewhat. Hannah’s extra gloves were still usable, but the last-minute items she had pushed into the pack — including the wool sweater she’d used to keep Sencha warm overnight — were soaked. So, too, was the bag holding the utensils, pots, and stove. For such a small canister, the smell was strong, and Hannah’s head began to pound after a while. She drank more water.
“We could probably keep this,” said Peter. He held up a packet with only tiny pinpricks in it.
“No,” said Hannah. She was using snow and the tiny bottle of camp soap to clean what could be reused. “It’s no good.”
“You don’t have to eat it, I will,” said Peter.
She shoved the empty fuel canister in front of his glasses. “See the big red warning label? Poison.” She grabbed the packet and tossed it with the others. They tied all the spoiled gear together and hung it from a nearby tree branch so it wouldn’t poison any animals, then packed the sled again.
“Isn’t there a thing that covers all this stuff?” he asked as Hannah looped pieces of rope over and across the frame.
“Yeah, it’s called a sled bag. It fits over the sled and has a zipper so stuff can’t fall out.”
“Why don’t you have one?” he asked.
The rope under her fingers was climbing rope, thick and slightly spongy. It tied easily, and Hannah concentrated on making sure the slipknots she made would allow easy access later, when she wanted to undo them. She didn’t say anything.
“You forgot it,” he said.
She finished and looked up at him. She thought about the snow goggles, and the sound of her mom’s insulin ampoules skittering across the counter like angry spiders. She remembered the sudden look of fear that had crossed her mother’s face as they looked down at the broken pieces.
“I didn’t think I’d need it,” she said.
“Nuh-uh, you forgot it.”
Her mother hadn’t gotten angry at her for making that mistake, and yet here she was lying about it, doing exactly what she hated other people to do. She sighed, feeling sadness creep past her shame.
“Yeah. I forgot it.” She put her hands on the basket and pushed herself up to standing. She remembered the extra blankets, the headlamp, tissues. “I forgot a lot of things.”
“Okay.” Peter shrugged, took his toque out of his pocket, and put it on. He made a fist, leaned over, and bopped her shoulder. “Let’s get to Jonny’s place. I’m starving.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They had just gained the first hill leading them out of the maple bush when Hannah spied another trail off to their right, at the bottom of the rocky outcrop they had just topped. Beyond the tantalizing stick-straight section, she saw another layer of forest, and then an empty white space with curved edges. A lake.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing down toward the base of the rocks. “Is that the trail?”
She put her foot on the drag mat and slowed the team to a stop. It had stopped snowing. Now, without the snow’s hindrance, it felt like she was seeing every single leaf and branch and bird. She was starting to notice not the sameness of the forest, but all the differences: the snow load falling off a tree from its own weight, the red berries of a wintergreen bush by a low pond, the barred brown back of an owl ghosting so close to her head that the side of her hood ruffled, flying so silently that the dogs didn’t even notice it.
And so, her eye was caught by an impossibly straight line. Nothing in the bush was straight for too long; it must be something man-made.
Peter got out of the sled, and they stood staring down at it. All four dogs immediately lay down, Bogey and Rudy back to back like they hadn’t been trying to maul each other just a few hours earlier.
“The trail splits up ahead,” he said. “It splits three ways: to our place, Jonny’s, and way back to a trapline they run back there.” He looked at her and pointed down at the trail. “That’s the one that goes to Jonny’s.”
Hannah felt excitement for the first time since she’d eaten breakfast. “So we’re close?”
Peter squatted, peering at the trail. “I don’t really remember,” he said. “I think we have to go a ways before we switch back.”
“You said we were halfway this morning.”
“I don’t remember how far it is, Hannah. I’ve only been there maybe five times with my dad. Usually we take the highway.”
Hannah closed her eyes. She was tired. She had no idea what time it was because her watch had broken when the snowhook hit it on the way down to the bowl.
Every time she thought she couldn’t feel more tired, another part of her body decided to tell her how tired it was — her elbows, her neck, her hips. This is the worst kind of thinking, came a voice in her head. She couldn’t afford to give in to this kind of negative thinking at all.
“Do you think we could get down there?” she asked.
Peter looked up at her from where he was squatting. “What, to the other trail?”
“Yeah. Maybe not here,” she said, gesturing to the sharp rocks. There was no way they could get down those with the sled. “But farther up.”
“Maybe,” he said, standing. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
He got back on the sled, Hannah called the dogs up, and they started. There was no pushing or shoving from Sencha now. The Dal started when the team started, her neckline loose and the gangline taut, so Hannah knew that she was pulling, as well as keeping pace.
They descended the hill, Hannah riding the drag mat lightly, and then the trail flattened out to the usual rolls and wide turns designed for the more cumbersome width and turning radius of snowmobiles.
The sled swayed from side to side, and instead of just looking ahead to the next portion of the trail, Hannah began to clos
ely watch what Nook was doing. The veteran sled dog would often run very close to the side of the trail instead of in the middle, and as she swept past one such spot, Hannah saw that the middle of the trail, which outer dogs Sencha and Rudy ran over, was softer; the right-side runner slid slightly deeper into the snowpack. After they’d passed a section like that, Nook would swing back to the middle, and the sled, already shifting that way from the softer snow, followed easily.
If Nook ran all the dogs through the middle, it would be harder to pull, Hannah realized, so she was making them take turns at doing the hardest work. Sometimes Nook and Bogey, who was behind her, delved through the softer snow, and sometimes the other two did. Just like Canada geese taking turns dealing with the most turbulence at the front of the migration V until a different bird took the lead.
Okay, she thought, that’s enough. She had allowed herself that tiny thought, but now she yanked her attention back to the task at hand. She tried to see the different types of snow, the small bumps that signalled the presence of rocks or sometimes branches, the blue-coloured snow that hid water beneath it, the shallow depressions of old summer ATV ruts. She identified kinds of snow: the snow that lay like a skin on rocks and was hard to travel over, the fat snow that lay heavy on thinly populated parts of the wilderness that were probably marsh. The snow at the bottom of the bowl where Rudy and Bogey fought had been fat snow, waist-deep and clingy like a cold, deep leaf pile.
There was crisp snow on the sides of the trail that lay deep in the shade of the trees almost all the time, and then there was what she thought of as summer snow in the middle of the trail. It was usually the most packed-down and the easiest to travel over, but it also got the most kinds of weather, so it could be mushy from sun or rain or pitted from uneven freezing. She felt the awesome grandeur of snow: all of it was snow, but each kind was distinct, with its own life cycle.