Snowhook

by Jo Storm

  She began to call out the types in her mind to see if she could anticipate where Nook would go when faced with skinny over-the-rocks snow, with fat snow on the windward side of the trail, with mushy, out-in-the-weather snow, or with a section of ice with a thin layer of snow over it. Hannah got better at it as she went along.

  “There!” shouted Peter, pointing.

  Hannah had already placed her foot on the drag mat before he’d even said anything, and she realized it was because she’d reacted to him lifting his hand to point. It felt good to be able to do something right. She had watched the dogs and the snow and their surroundings, and when something had changed, she hadn’t panicked, but merely acted cautiously.

  I can learn this, I can learn, she thought.

  The sled stopped. She set the snowhook firmly, and they walked back to where he had pointed. Once again, the dogs lay down immediately to sleep.

  At first Hannah saw nothing, but then she noticed a tree that looked like it had been nicked by something — the bumper of a snowmobile or perhaps one of the sleds that they sometimes pulled. Maybe an ATV in the summer had stripped the bark off, although the nick was a little high to have been made by the bumper of a recreational vehicle.

  “What?” she said. “That tree?”

  “It’s a blaze.”

  “A what?”

  “A blaze,” he said again, more slowly. “It’s how loggers and surveyors mark trails.”

  She thought about the boundaries of the property at their cabin and how her father sometimes used a chainsaw to clear any obstructions around the edges of the property line. “No, they don’t, they use that orange marker tape.”

  Peter shook his head. “Not the old-timers. They use an axe. Like this.” He mimed swinging an axe one-handed —

  down, then upward on an angle. “They cut down the underbrush, then they notch a tree when it’s young,” he continued, placing his hand palm down just above his knee, “and it grows up and the mark gets higher and easier to see when the underbrush grows back.” He raised his hand to the level of the mark on the tree they were standing in front of.

  “That’s still not a trail; it’s just a tree,” Hannah replied.

  Peter grinned at her. “Oh, yeah? Watch this.”

  He took her arm and moved Hannah so that she stood in front of him.

  “See it?” he asked, pointing over her shoulder toward the notched tree.

  “No. What am I supposed to be seeing besides trees?”

  “The trail.” He squinted over her shoulder and angled her so she faced a bit more toward the way they had come.

  “There. See it?”

  “Like, another tree with a notch? Yeah, I see that. Oh, okay, there’s another …” She trailed off and instinctively moved just a hair to the left. Suddenly, it was like the forest had welcomed her in on a secret.

  One tree notch; then another a bit farther along to its right; then another to the left; another to the right, on and on. They were all the same kind of axed notch, at the same height, on the same type of tree — medium-size birches scattered among the tamarack and pine. It was a secret, glorious trail.

  “Wow.” It looked so effortless, as though the trees had always been meant to stand that way, pointing to each other like families going through photo albums, seeing people they knew and places they belonged to.

  “Yeah,” said Peter. “Those old-timers, they knew what they were doing. See, they used the spruce like a hedge to keep back the undergrowth; spruce trees grow higher and other trees won’t grow around them, so they wouldn’t lose the blaze. Fifty bucks says Jonny’s just using their old blazes from back when they were parcelling out this piece for the government. Sounds like something he’d do.”

  Hannah stared at the tiny white ribbon of unbroken snow before her, shouldered on either side by the marked trees and the green fringes of spruce boughs. Her wrists ached from holding on to the sled, her legs alternated between numbness and burning from the poling, her feet were sore from wearing heavy boots, and her back stung from staying upright against the constant movement of the sled. Winking just at the end of her sight, wavering in and out at the end of a shallow incline, she saw the white blob of the other trail.

  “It’ll work. It’s wide enough for the sled,” said Peter. “It’ll save a lot of time.”

  She nodded. It would work, but she was scared. The snowmobile trail may have been deserted, ungroomed, and slow, but it was clear, it led somewhere, and if worst came to worst, she could turn around and go back. This path, even with the trees marked, was thin, dark, and worst of all, unpacked. She had no idea what lay under the snow, nor even how deep it was. She had no idea if this path was the right one. She had no idea if she’d be able to find it again, if she had to.

  Stop thinking, Hannah. Just breathe and go.

  “You’ll have to carry some stuff,” she said. “Me, too.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ll have to break trail, and it’s too deep for them to do that and carry all our stuff.”

  He looked around, considering. “Okay, I’ll take my sleeping bag.”

  “And the tent.” Next to the sleeping bags, the tent was the heaviest single item that was easy to carry.

  “Whatever.”

  She felt herself flush and wished she hadn’t blurted it out, like an order, but it was too late now. She was just scared.

  They went back to the sled. Peter stood on the runners while Hannah clipped a line on Nook to lead her and the team in a short, sharp arc, turning the sled to point at the blaze trail. They would not be able to turn once on the trail; then there would only be forward.

  They pulled the sled until it was almost at the start of the blaze, with the dogs loosely assembled in front of it. They’re tired now, or content, or maybe both, thought Hannah, and even Sencha did not mind the jostling and rubbing of trying to squeeze the sled and the dogs sideways on the trail.

  Peter had put his snowshoes on. He slung the tent bag over one shoulder and hefted his sleeping bag onto the other.

  “I’ll break trail,” he said, and started out. Hannah set Nook to following him, walking between the blaze marks and further packing down Peter’s wide tracks, leaving a trail that the sled would just fit on, with Hannah at the back on the runners, poling.

  It was torturous, but it worked. They stuck mostly to the line of tamarack, but twice Nook had to make sharp turns that caught the sled so it wouldn’t be able to move without tipping over. Hannah called for a stop and wrestled the sled back into position before huphuping the team again.

  Finally, there were no more blaze cuts, and the trail was visible ahead of them. Nook paused, lifting her head.

  “What’s his name?” asked Peter, who was standing on the trail.

  “It’s a her. Her name is Nook.”

  “Nook?” Peter dropped his hands to his knees and awkwardly patted them.

  “C’mon, Nook, c’mon girl, here, Nook.”

  Completely ignoring Peter, Nook angled away from him and again leaned into her traces, this time with a strong heave that Hannah knew meant a short burst of speed was coming.

  “Let’s go, guys, get up get up!” she called as loudly and enthusiastically as she could. They travelled the last thirty metres in a messy rush, with anything but team spirit. Sencha gained dry land first, as she hated having wet feet, then Nook, then Rudy, and finally Bogey, who lingered, panting, in the last bit of muddy, churned-up earth.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “We have to keep going,” Peter said. He still had the tent and his sleeping bag was sitting at his feet.

  Hannah flicked her eyes over at the dogs. “It’s too late. The dogs are exhausted, and so am I.”

  Peter shifted his feet, nudging the bags. “I could go.”

  “Fine, but it’s my tent.”

  They glared at each other. Hannah knew they were fighting in part because they were so tired; tiredness was as much an enemy as anything else. When you were tired, you made bad de
cisions. She had to focus on the next thing, and the next. Her body told her what was needed; she just had to listen.

  “It’s late,” she said. “It’s snowing. I’m starving. So are you. What time do you think it is?”

  He looked at her like she was crazy. “You have the watch.”

  “It broke.” She showed him the cracked front. “Anyway, it takes forever to set up camp. Plus …”

  “Plus what?”

  If she could not be a hero, she could at least be a good leader. Hannah took a deep breath and stood up as squarely as her aching legs would allow.

  “Plus, you’re better at making a fire than I am.”

  She’d thought that he would crow at this and say he knew he was right and she was wrong — but he didn’t. Instead, he blushed suddenly, red creeping up his neck, and looked pleased.

  “I don’t think this would be a good place, though,” she said. “It’s too low.” The air, though thick with falling snow, was dank and smelled like stillness and rot.

  “No,” Peter agreed. “We need to get up a bit.” He looked at the sky, straight up into the falling snow, then back down, blinking away the flakes from his eyes.

  “I figure late afternoon,” he said.

  “Okay, then let’s get out of this swamp and set up.”

  Peter nodded. They lashed the packs back onto the sled and set out, both of them trudging on their snowshoes, with Peter in front and Hannah near Nook’s shoulder. The dogs pulled without enthusiasm, but Hannah knew that pulling would warm them up and dry them off. It was tough, but it was the best thing to do.

  Up out of the marsh the trail went. The snow got crisper as they moved out of the lowlands, and snowshoeing was no longer like walking in corn syrup. The dogs started to dry off — steam was rising from Bogey — and they had their heads low, looking at nothing, following Nook more from instinct than any outward sense. The old husky kept her head level with her shoulders, flicking an ear now and then toward Hannah. It seemed that Nook was listening to the woods, the trail, the team. Hannah tried to do the same.

  The trail wound upward still, although so gradually that it didn’t prove too hard for the group. The snow did not stop, flying thickly, obscuring everything except the edges of the forest on either side of the trail visible.

  Hannah’s tiredness was so constant and present that it was like a second her, a ghost trailing behind her that she had to drag along. Her legs had gone from lead to heavy iron. She drank whenever she remembered to, keeping the bottle in her inside pocket so that it didn’t freeze.

  With no wind, the snow piled up on her shoulders, on Peter’s toque, on the backs of the slow-moving dogs, and in the basket of the sled.

  Finally, they came around a long, sloping corner, and Hannah had a dislocating sense of déjà vu. To her left was a tall rocky wall, its red-orange metamorphic layers jutting out showily from under its snowy mantle. Rivulets of water ran down the rock face, a weeping wall with a pool of ice at the bottom where the water collected and froze. Above them, the top of the hill looked down on them, and she realized why this place looked so familiar.

  “We were up there, right?” she said.

  Peter turned, squinted up through the snow, and nodded.

  She dropped her hand and they continued silently, Peter stopping now and then to pick up various-size branches. She felt both relief that their plan had worked and disappointment that after all that, they were back where they had been so many hours ago, just thirty feet lower.

  They skirted the icy patches and wound around the outcrop, coming closer and closer to the lake until they were following the contours of it, glimpsing the vast whiteness of the lake through the thin scrub that separated them from it. The lake wound in a big W, in close to the rock face and out again. The first V was a mess, with rocks piled up and jutting every which way, but the second V was deeper, recessed deeper into the rock face, and there were trees, as well, that sheltered it from the wind.

  “Peter.”

  He lifted his head and turned. He didn’t seem to have been thinking of anything besides putting one foot in front of the other and picking up branches. His arms were stuffed with wood. It was time to stop.

  “Here, I think. This is a good spot,” she said. He nodded. “Can you make the fire?” she asked.

  He nodded again, shifting the wood and feeling in his pocket for matches. Stepping back, he took in the roughly enclosed circle of their temporary home and selected a good spot for the fire: away from the trees, near a medium-size boulder with a sheer face on one side. He stamped down a square patch, then took his snowshoes off and used one to dig out a hollow for the fire.

  While he was doing that, Hannah got the tent bag out and placed it between the trees and the firepit, facing the lake. Then she went back to the sled and got out eight portions of dog food and unwrapped them.

  She approached the dogs. They were all lying down again, Bogey already asleep, curled on his side with his tail tucked over his feet. Rudy and Nook, who were used to being fed at the end of the day like this, lay on their elbows, waiting patiently. Rudy licked his chops as she approached. Only Sencha stood, tail wagging, whining softly the way she did when she was very hungry.

  Hannah stood looking at the team, waiting. Eventually, Nook looked at her, eye to eye, and when she did that, Hannah went over to the husky. Again, she stood there, waiting for Nook to meet her eyes. She looked at the lead dog a long time. At first the husky’s brilliant blue eyes looked back at her stolidly, but after a little while, her nose flared and her head dipped, and she looked away. When this happened, Hannah dropped the two portions of dog food in front of her, and Nook immediately lay down and began eating.

  Nook would not run away now. The muzzle dip, the flaring of her nose, and the breaking of Hannah’s gaze meant that Nook had acquiesced to Hannah as the leader, and from now on, the sled dog would defer to her. Hannah unfastened Nook’s tugline and neckline, leaving her free. She would not leave, and neither would Rudy, because Hannah had already had that conversation with him after the fight.

  Hannah fed Bogey next, unclipping him from the gangline and dropping his dinner at his feet. The Lab didn’t even try to lick her hands, he was so hungry; he dropped down and immediately began tearing at his dinner.

  Next was Rudy, and finally Sencha. With each dog she repeated the contest of wills she’d had with Nook. Rudy dipped his head immediately, clearly granting her authority, and his reward was dropped at his feet. Only Sencha was left. She was still whining, and as Hannah approached her, the Dalmatian began to pace.

  Hannah’s family had a tendency to quickly give in to Sencha’s quirks and manipulations, and holding still was excruciating — Hannah was so tired. But she stood with the food in her hands at waist height while Sencha lifted her paws and put her bum on the ground only to spring up again right away, all the time staring at the food and not at Hannah. Finally, she sat, then lay down on her elbows, still staring at the food. Hannah waited.

  Slowly, millimetre by millimetre, Sencha’s eyes rose, returning often to Hannah’s waist, but eventually, agonizingly, making contact with Hannah’s eyes. It was even longer before Sencha showed any submission, but finally she reached out her neck and sniffed, then placed her head on her paws, relaxing her body. It was not perfect, but something in Hannah told her it was enough, so she knelt and put the food in front of Sencha, patting her flanks.

  Now that she’d fed the dogs, Hannah turned her attention to putting up the tent. The ground sheet, the poles, the tent, and the vestibule — one thing and then the next.

  By the time the tent was up, the dogs had finished eating. Rudy, Nook, and Bogey were curled up, the sled dogs’ tails over their noses and Bogey’s over his feet, as before. They were all asleep.

  From her spot, still lying down, Sencha watched Hannah. When she saw Hannah looking at her, she wagged her tail.

  “C’mere, Little Jane Austen,” said Hannah. She got her packsack from the sled basket, took out some
clean clothes, then laid it sideways as she had the night before. Sencha burrowed in without a backward glance and was asleep in seconds.

  Hannah pulled the rest of the sleeping gear into the tent. She pulled off her parka, took her almost-empty water bottle out of the pocket, and gritted her teeth. She needed to clean off the sweat of two days, or risk getting sick from her body being overrun by bacteria or being unable to regulate its own temperature.

  She wet her dirty shirt with the water left in the bottle and sponged herself off, trying not to shout when the freezing water hit her skin. It made her teeth ache and her jaw clench, and wherever she sponged, the sore muscles underneath the skin contracted in miserable rebellion. The sensation was like burning, or stinging ants, or the time she’d spilled rubbing alcohol on her shoulder: a white-hot cold.

  She dried herself with the small camp towel in the emergency kit and put on the fresh clothes she’d dug out: a sports bra and an undershirt, a long-sleeved undershirt over that, a turtleneck and a sweater, a vest over that, and finally her parka.

  She sponged her cold feet and inspected her toes in case they, too, had gone white, but they were fine, as poling all day drove blood to her feet, and for most of the time she’d been awake today, she had been hot, not cold. She put on new socks. She couldn’t bring herself to change her pants. It was already hard enough to pee during the day, when she had to spread her parka around her while squatting to keep out the worst of the cold; there was no way she was fully removing them. Half-clean would have to be better than all dirty. Through the tent wall she saw the faint glow of a fire, and she was suddenly ravenous. She stuffed her discarded clothing around the Dalmatian, still out cold, checked her nose to make sure it wasn’t warm, then went out.

  Her teeth were chattering by the time she got to the fire. Peter stood up when he saw her, the bent camp stove tines peeking through his fingers.

  “You think it’ll still work?” he said, lifting his hand to indicate the stove.

  “Let me see,” she said.

  He already had a pot of snow melting on the side of the fire. He had built the fire several feet from the sheared-off boulder face, scooping most of the snow so that it built a bank on the other side, toward the lake. The glow of the campfire on the rock illuminated their faces with reddish light. The rock was absorbing the fire’s warmth, but soon it would start radiating heat back, which was why Peter had built the fire several feet away from it: they could sit between the fire and the rock, getting warmth from both sides. The snow, still falling, sputtered on the branches in the fire and wetted their ends, but only for a few moments, as the heat of the fire dried them out.