Snowhook by Jo Storm

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