Snowhook by Jo Storm

Hannah picked up Rudy’s paw to inspect the tear that she and her father had looked at earlier. It seemed like a year ago that the two of them had crouched, bellies full of lunch, to inspect the doghouses. Rudy’s feet were thickly furred; she combed through the fur to see that the cut was still sealed and his feet looked okay. His toenails were shortened from scratching the packed-down area around his kennel; this helped on the trail, as the short nails did not push up against his toes and cause sores to develop.

Hannah snuck a few looks at Peter as she moved on to Nook. He had removed his coat so as to better move his arms. She could make out muscles even through his thick wool sweater, and his torso was wide and thick, but stocky. He was wearing a utility sweater, like hers, but his had a layer of smooth material sewn onto the tops of the shoulders to prevent the wool there from wearing off too quickly.

He was wrapping up everything in quick, economical motions — the pots inside each other, the utensils in the pots, then the pots in a bag tied up neatly. He was doing a good job, but she didn’t want to say as much in case he took it the wrong way, like she was confirming that she wasn’t as experienced as he was. It was nice to have someone along who had camped before and who knew all kinds of little things from years of experience: where to set up a fire, how to pack for hiking, which socks to wear. She did feel cold and miserable and was barely able to stand, but it could have been much, much worse. If Peter hadn’t been there to bully her into drinking water, she didn’t know how long it would have taken for her to remember herself.

She went back to attending to the dogs. Nook’s feet were clean and problem-free, too, but she did have a heat sore under her left front leg from where her harness swept down her chest and up her back. The area was rubbed raw because, Hannah realized, she had put the wrong harness on Nook. The two sled dogs’ harnesses were the same colour, but each was tailored to the individual dog. On the chest piece of Rudy’s was the letter R then ND in marker, faded but still legible. The R was for Rudy, and the ND meant that he was one of Nook’s puppies.

“Hey, Peter, I need to change their harnesses,” she said. “Can you hold Nook while I get Rudy?”

Peter was zipping up the supply bag and putting it in the basket. “No.”

“They’re not going to do anything to you.”

“No,” he said again. “I’ll take down the tent.”

“Don’t be such a wuss, Peter.”

He ignored her, going to the tent and pulling the vestibule back. He righted her bag of clothing and roughly stuffed anything that had spilled out of it back in. She had wanted to change her clothes, but he was packing up already and she had her hands full of dogs, so she let it go and promised herself she’d change when they stopped next. Hopefully, it would be somewhere warmer.

Hannah got some salve and the tie-out line out from the black pack and rubbed it on Nook’s heat sore. Then, with the tie-out line, she staked Nook to a tree and removed the harness. Nook shook herself and sat, looking up the trail.

Hannah did the same with Rudy, untying him from the gangline and tying him off to a tree to remove his harness and check for sores. Finally, she switched harnesses so that each dog was wearing the right one. As she worked, Sencha and Bogey watched curiously. Hannah thought about the four of them. Sencha had incredible stamina; they had gotten her from a farm that specialized in making old-fashioned carriages, and all the Dalmatians on the farm ran with horses in parades or in competitions. Bogey’s thick body was very powerful — he had once dragged a small tree trunk to Kelli when she couldn’t find a suitable stick to throw. But all their lives, the house dogs had depended on the Williamses as their source for everything: food, fun, and rules.

Nook looked at her in a different way than Sencha and Bogey, even than Rudy. Sencha was like Kelli in some ways — a pest and a nuisance, but someone who made life a bit more interesting when she was around. Bogey was omnipresent, trying to be everyone’s best friend. Nook, meanwhile, did not want to be her friend at all. But Nook did want to work, and if they could work together — if Nook could run — then she would do it, and they would get along. It was a pact one made with Nook, one whose weight Hannah could feel. Rudy was similar, but for him, everything went through Nook. He looked at Nook before lifting a paw for Hannah’s inspection or before eating. Whatever Nook did, Rudy would do, too, because Nook usually got to run, and that was what Rudy lived for.

With the two sled dogs sorted out and back on the gangline, Hannah turned her attention to the house dogs. Bogey had finished his ablutions, so Hannah started checking him over. As she did so, she thought about her plan of action.

Her ballet teacher was always telling her that she could jump higher if she wanted to. When Hannah disagreed, her teacher said, “That’s because you aren’t practising it in your head. If you see yourself jumping higher in your head, you’ll jump higher here” — and the teacher tapped Hannah’s legs.

So that was what she would do. She visualized getting to Jonny Swede’s house and his snowmobile and his car, and she visualized him taking her to Timmins. She was visualizing so astutely that only Bogey licking her hand reminded her of where she was.

“Healthy as a horse,” she said, slapping his furry flanks. Bogey wagged his tail and licked her hands and tried to get at her face while she hooked him back to the line.

Sencha also came more willingly than usual. As Hannah put the harness on, she ran her hands over the Dal’s flanks. Her belly was raw in some areas, so salve went onto those spots. More troubling was that her nose was dry and warm.

Hannah paused and looked over to where Peter was packing the tent down. He had collapsed it, but the tent poles were giving him some trouble. “Need help?” she asked.

“I got it,” he snapped.

“Hey, how much do you weigh?”

He stopped wrestling the poles and looked up. “What?”

“How much do you weigh?”

“Why?”

She waved at the sled. “They can only pull so much weight.”

“Hundred and forty,” he said.

“Pounds?”

“No, feathers. Of course pounds, doofus.”

She glared at him across their impromptu campsite. “What are you, five years old? No one says doofus.”

“Oh, sorry. Witch,” said Peter, and he picked up the poles again.