Snowhook by Jo Storm

Hannah loosened her pressure on Nook’s collar, and immediately the husky relaxed. She had to find a way to communicate that being in the vestibule was better than being outside in the blizzard.

The kernel tugged again. Hannah stared at the tent, willing whatever memory it was to come forward, but it didn’t. I am in the middle of a blizzard and I do not have time to wait! she yelled inside her head.

The wind howled, filling itself with snow and throwing it at her. The tent was dark and silent. She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and slowly pushed her breath out in a steady stream. At the end of the breath, she opened her eyes again. The vestibule was the same yellow as the plastic they used to cover the doors of the kennels in the winter. It flapped again in a quick upward motion, like when Nook poked her head out of her kennel in the mornings when someone came outside for the first time.

Kennel.

None of the sled dogs knew obedience commands like sit, stay, come, heel. But they knew gee, haw, line out … and they knew “kennel up” meant to go into the doghouse, whether it was their own, or the beige plastic crate for the vet, or the specially designed dog truck with two rows of dog boxes for transporting them to races.

Was that right? She ran through her thoughts and felt the kernel there.

Yes.

“Nook, kennel,” she said.

Nook nosed forward, then paused.

“Kennel up, Nook, let’s go.” Hannah used the everyday musher voice that said everything was fine.

The husky nosed forward again, looked back, then went into the vestibule. Hannah turned to the remaining sled dog.

“Rudy, kennel up.”

The poor wheel dog looked around in confusion; sled dogs each had their own kennel, or else they slept outside. Now it seemed Nook was in the only kennel there. She could almost see him thinking, Where do I go?

She grabbed his collar and backed into the tent, calling, “Kennel up, Rudy, let’s go, kennel,” and slowly he was coaxed into the shelter. Nook had claimed the most protected spot, between the supply pack and the shelf wall, but Rudy didn’t seem to care. He lay down by the vestibule entrance, and after Hannah zipped it down, he curled up with his nose sticking out so that he didn’t miss anything.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Hannah woke up sweating and cramped, with her head crammed under a very heavy pillow and her legs jammed up against something soft but unyielding. She tried to lift her head free of the pillow, but couldn’t. Instead, it became heavier, pushing down on her head, suffocating her.

She ducked her head down, sliding it out from underneath the pillow, and tried to sit up, gasping. She had awful vertigo. It was dark, and the air was warm and moist — was she in some sort of low cave? Her head banged on something hard as she sat up, making her yelp with pain and surprise. Then her sleeping bag rustled and Sencha’s brown nose came into view. She had been lying across one of Hannah’s legs, and now that she had moved, the feeling came back painfully. Hannah lay back, trying to bring her knee up to her chest as she rubbed it. The Dalmatian immediately flopped down again, half on top of her, grumbling.

Hannah’s eyes adjusted to the dark, and the vertigo ebbed away, no doubt helped by the pins and needles in her foot and calf. Her mind whirled with thoughts: Tent. Dogs. Peter. Snow. Jeb. Flooded trail. Dog fight. Bus outhouse. Sawdust for dinner.

What she had thought was a pillow was actually snow load; the tent had half collapsed under the weight of it. Bogey had been forced to move and was wedged into a tiny space on the door side of the tent.

Hannah’s rubbing elbow bumped against Peter in his sleeping bag.

“What the …” he said sleepily. “Why is it so hot in here?”

It was hot. There were four dogs and two humans, and they were half-buried in the snow; their tent had become a hot, humid, uncomfortable winter dwelling.

“The dogs,” she said, still grimacing.

“Dogs?” he said, still groggy. She was close enough that she could smell his breath, and it was terrible. Her own was probably just as gross. She turned her head and inched down in the sleeping bag.

The pain in her leg had dulled to an irritating throb, and she pulled out the two pairs of socks she had rescued from the packsack before lugging it outside. “Here,” she said, tossing a pair at Peter. She pulled up her long underwear and pulled off her own socks, checking her feet. She used the tops of the dirty socks to dry them, carefully sponging between her toes to wick away the moisture. She checked them for the telltale white spots that meant frostbite, but they looked fine. There are advantages to having a Dalmatian foot warmer, she thought.

She put the new socks on and turned to Peter. He was awake now, warily watching the dogs.

“It stinks in here,” he said.

“It’s probably you,” she said. “Let’s see your leg.”

He unzipped his sleeping bag and rolled it back, exposing the wounded leg. They had slit his long johns up to his knee so that they didn’t press on the wound, but would still provide some warmth to the back of his leg. She carefully moved the fabric out of the way. The dressing on the wound had a patch of dried blood on it, and some spots here and there. She would have to change the bandage. She rolled off his sock.

Peter looked down, grimacing.