Hannah gathered up the few things that were still out and placed them in the packsack in the basket of the sled. She zipped the pack shut and tied it down firmly.
“No,” she said, pulling on her gloves. “You go ahead. We’ll follow.”
He nodded hesitantly with that same strange expression in his face that she suddenly realized was respect and moved off to his own sled, starting it up with the press of a button. The sound was hollow and odd after so many days of hearing only runners and dogs and herself and Peter.
She dug the snowhook out and called the dogs up, and they stood. She ran her eye over each of them and saw that everyone was calm — no shoulders shifting uncomfortably, no paws being favoured. It didn’t matter that it was nighttime or that they had run all day. Every ear was up and canted forward, ready; they were eager to work again. She waved to the man, who had turned to watch her, making sure she was with him. He raised a hand and turned back to the lakeside trail, thumbing the throttle of the snowmobile and pulling away, leaving the smell of gasoline and oil.
He went slowly, but he didn’t need to; she knew they would keep up. They would follow the freshly groomed trail and the winking red tail light back around the lake to warmth and strangers with no trouble. She was strong, and her team was strong: they could keep up with anything.
EPILOGUE
As promised, Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard drove Hannah and Peter into Timmins that same night. They took Peter to the hospital emergency room. He still had a fever, and his wound was ugly, but Hannah had done a good job keeping it clean.
Driving past the local coffee shop, Mr. Hubbard saw the dull green Forces trucks. He drove over and inquired, and personnel directed him to the right spot, and Hannah and her dad were reunited. Mr. Hubbard told her father the story of how he had found Hannah and Peter — but he was careful to make it sound as though they had everything under control, perhaps to save her from getting in trouble.
She watched her father’s face change and change again as he heard about the ice and the lake and Bogey, about the dog food feast and the fire and Peter’s injury. He hugged her hard, and went in search of Scott, to tell him his son was at the nearby hospital, as well as to find an officer, to let them know about Jeb.
Mr. Hubbard offered to lend them a snow
machine to get home, for the back roads had still not been cleared, and would not be cleared for days or weeks still. The crews would start in town, repairing downed lines and removing trees, before moving on to the outer areas. He had a wood sledge with high sides as well, and they put the four dogs into it.
The cabin looked the way it always had, squat and dark on the north side, the outhouse, the tarped-over snowmobile, the verandah neatly shovelled. They came down the driveway slowly, and the door opened. Kelli stepped onto the porch, then Hannah’s mom, and then everything was okay and Hannah felt the breath she had been holding since they had seen the cabin let go. She was suddenly so tired she could barely stand.
Hannah got off the sled, unzipped her jacket, and handed over the box that held the new vials of insulin before apologizing. She had to hitch her snow pants up with one hand when she got off. Her mother, too, had lost weight, and for the first time that Hannah had ever seen, Mina began crying.
Hannah found that everyone listened to what she had to say more carefully, now; her parents and Scott, even Jeb. She had earned their respect, and she tried to keep it; she was more careful when she spoke, and she let silence speak as well, the way Peter had at night by the fire.
In the end, Hannah and her team had mushed almost one hundred kilometres in four days, forty of them through unbroken snow almost two feet deep. She knew because the next summer, Hannah and her mom retraced her journey, this time on an ATV, all in one day.
And every winter, for many years after, Hannah raced dogsleds, at first with Sencha and Bogey, and later with other dogs. She did short races and long ones, and the snow swirled behind her as she slipped over it, and she named it skirting snow. She won some races, but mostly she just loved being outside again, in the cold, feeling winter, returning to one thing, and then the next — and to find the kernel. She understood now that it was a skill, this kernel, and that was why she raced, to keep the skill in use … she owed herself that.