Snowhook by Jo Storm

“Good. Now I don’t have to stare at that pimple on your chin anymore.”

She turned and went back out to the vestibule. At the door, she couldn’t resist turning back to the dimness of the tent. “You’ve had a piece of dried snot on your cheek since yesterday morning,” she said, then turned and called the dogs out into the sunlight.

Now that she was no longer blinded by the light and the reflection off the quarry floor, she could see that the blizzard winds had swept most of the snow off the trail they were on, rushing it past the top lip and down into the quarry.

The dogs wandered around while Hannah trudged over to right the sled. They hadn’t had any meat the night before and must be starving. They needed to be fed before anything else, so that the food was digested enough to allow them to pull. It might delay their departure, but they needed to eat.

The sled was almost totally buried, with only the top runner and a hand width of the basket sticking out of the snowdrift. Hannah had to dig for a long time until she could tip the sled back upright. She opened the container of dog food. There were still more than a dozen portions left. She could give the dogs twice, even three times their normal amount and still be okay for a few days. But for now, they just needed enough to keep going. Maybe tonight they would get extra. She pulled out four portions and opened them and distributed them among the dogs, Nook first.

While the dogs ate, she ducked back into the tent and opened the supply pack to get out the first-aid kit.

“About time,” said Peter. He had stuffed the sleeping bags into their stuff sacks. They were getting to be very efficient. On the other hand, besides the sleeping bags and the packsack in the vestibule, there was nothing else to pack but their water bottles.

Hannah wondered where Peter had put the dirty socks. Her scalp itched, and she scratched it through her toque. What she wouldn’t have given for a bath or a shower right now.

Peter had managed to get his pants on and put a sock on his good foot. He sat waiting with the ends of his bandage unwrapped. Hannah opened the first-aid kit and took out the last of the gauze and bandages. Together, they peeled back the old bandage, exposing the skin to the air and making Peter hiss again. This time he was sitting up and could clearly see what was happening.

Hannah pulled away the bandages and placed them to the side. The skin looked angry and swollen, puffy at the bottom where the shearing pin had initially dug in, and again in the middle from when his weight had shifted, driving the pin more deeply into the muscle. Peter leaned over to get a better look, and his foot flexed. Hannah saw the muscle move in the wound and her gut roiled.

“Damn it, that hurts,” he said.

“The muscle is cut.”

“Looks like it. Flexing hurts a lot.” He examined the wound. “Should we let it air out a bit?”

“I don’t know.”

He lifted his eyebrows, making his glasses bob up. “Is it possible?”

“Shut up,” she said, but she was starting to understand that Peter’s way of talking was different than hers, and that he was teasing her because he was worried. He wasn’t trying to make her angry, so she’d said shut up without any heat, the same way she would have said it to Kelli, like she knew that he never would shut up, but still.

She used parts of the old bandage to wipe up what she could, then applied antibacterial ointment from the first-aid kit. Peter wiped his hands with snow and then helped to spread ointment over the wound, biting his tongue or gasping whenever he hit a tender spot. Hannah bound it up with the last of their bandages.

“Can we pull the sock over it today?” she asked.

“I guess we can try. It’s starting to itch already,” he said. “Driving me crazy.”

They rolled the sock up carefully, letting the elastic hold the bandages close against his skin.

She watched him roll his long johns back down, and his pant leg, and then she handed him an energy bar.

“I have one,” he said, patting his pocket.

“I know. I found these yesterday. Two extra.”

“Sweet,” he said, tearing it open and eating it in three bites.

“Wait here and I’ll bring the sled,” she said.

“Knock it off, Hannah, I’m feeling better this morning. I can help.”

She gestured to her steel and plastic snowshoes. “You don’t have any snowshoes.”

She turned away from his frustrated face and went out to pull the sled over to the tent opening.

“Get the other bag,” he said, pulling the battered emergency blanket from his pocket. “I’ll put this stuff in. Do we need water?”

She shook her bottle. “I have more than half a bottle.”