Snowhook by Jo Storm

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nbsp; Hannah walked around the sled, observing the dogs and noticing what each one was doing. Sencha watched her eagerly, moving a bit in the traces to follow her left, right, forward as Hannah circled. That was not good; even though Sencha was eager to please, the energetic Dal was better being told what to do and following those instructions. She would have been good at disciplining, as she liked to be the boss of every situation, but neither Rudy nor Bogey was prone to making mistakes or mischief.

Off in the distance, the snapping bark of a poplar tree popping in the cold made Sencha jump and look around, completely losing focus on Hannah as she twisted wildly, trying to find the source of the sound.

Well, that settled it. Sencha would not be the lead dog.

Hannah circled the sled again, watching Bogey and Rudy. Rudy felt duller than Bogey somehow, almost passive, even though she knew that of all the dogs, Rudy knew the job the best and had the most stamina. Rudy would be a passable lead dog, but he wouldn’t be the best at making decisions, because he had always followed.

Bogey turned his wide brown head to watch her, but then he looked back up the trail. Bogey would be the best of the bunch. He wasn’t ever startled off the trail by popping up, and he was beginning to get the itch — not just to run and pull, but also to quest out where they were going. He was big and strong and he led by example. He didn’t back down in a fight, but he wasn’t mean or a bully.

She would leave Sencha where she was: at the front, beside the lead dog. Supported by Sencha’s enthusiasm to just do things and Rudy’s work ethic as the wheel dog, Bogey would have the best chance of leading. Nook would run behind Bogey, still on the team, but without all the responsibilities.

So she unhooked Bogey’s neckline and snapped him into the lead, moving Nook back into the gangline, but now beside Rudy. Then she lined out her new team. Bogey looked up the trail, his head up, sniffing the air. She checked one more time to make sure that the packs were as secure as she could make them. Then she stepped on the runners and yelled, “Get up!”

And chaos happened. Nook lifted her head but didn’t move. Rudy heaved once, saw that no one else was doing it, and quit. Sencha rabbited into the side of Bogey, confused by the change in leadership, and her spooked cry startled the Lab, who shied sideways, then began to back up, tail down. In the space of three heartbeats, the whole gangline was a tangled mess.

Dogs, Hannah reminded herself as she hauled the recalcitrant Dalmatian back into line and coaxed Bogey forward to a lined-out position so she could untangle them, are not humans. So, while in her mind Bogey was the best fit, he obviously couldn’t read her mind or discuss being the lead dog with her. He would need some help.

She thought about it. The Lab was unsure of how to start, but Hannah was fairly confident that once he got going, he would be okay; just the act of running itself solved many problems, she was beginning to understand. When in doubt, you did something physical, just like her personal mantra, the next thing.

Until now, the sound of Hannah’s voice, coupled with the jerk of the harness as Nook pulled him forward, was what got Bogey going. She would try replicating that. She went back to the packsack, grabbed a lead, and snapped it to Bogey’s collar. She lined out ahead of the Lab and yelled, “Get up!” This time she started to run. Her timing was off and there was another muddle, and she had to stop and untangle everyone. Twice more she lined them out and started the team as though she were the lead dog. Each time, they got a bit smoother, but they’d also eventually cue wrong off each other, and in their confusion, get hopelessly tangled up. In a way, it was a small miracle they had gotten through all they had so far without something like this happening. Nook, Hannah was learning, was despite her age a very, very valuable dog.

Yelling wouldn’t solve anything. This many days into the running, Hannah could predict what would happen: Sencha would cower and become stubborn, Rudy would ignore it and continue to do what the pack leader said, and Bogey would shut down and refuse to do anything. So Hannah wrestled with her frustration and with the nagging fear they were losing too much time on the trail, and she lined out the team and tried again.

Three more starts — each one minutely better than the last. Hannah was hot and tired, but didn’t dare take her coat off in case they got going. On the second-to-last try, she turned to see Bogey put his head down as he pulled — just before they got hopelessly tangled up again — and she knew it was a good sign. It meant he was relaxing and just doing the work. They had only gotten tangled because she had stopped and turned, breaking his concentration.

She gave herself a few moments to catch her breath. Kneeling down by Bogey’s side, Hannah grabbed his jowls playfully and rubbed his ears. He licked her face, not overly concerned that he was failing miserably as their new lead dog. She put her forehead to his. “You’re going to do it this time, Bogey. We have to get going, okay? The faster we get there, the faster you get to lie down by a fire somewhere with a big disgusting bone.” She stood up and ruffled Bogey’s head one more time. He shook himself, and she lined out the dogs, but this time, instead of standing in front of Bogey, she stood beside him.

“Okay, let’s go, get up!” she cried again, and they all began to pull. She laboured beside the Labrador for a few moments, and then, as she slowed, called out, “On by! On by!” as though she were a mere distraction, and they should just ignore her and keep going. Bogey hesitated.

“Get up, Bogey! Get up!” The Lab swung his head back toward the trail, and the line straightened. He glanced once more at her, then pulled back to the centre of the trail and kept running. Sencha went by, then Rudy. Their heads were lifted, but they followed their lead dog. Nook’s head was low, her body relaxed, just pulling.

“Good boy, Bogey! Hike! Hike!” Hannah began running again and caught the bow handle as it went by, jumping with one foot onto the runners and poling hard with the other to keep the sled feeling light and easy to pull. Rudy’s tail dropped, then Sencha’s, and the sled shushed on.

“I think he’s got it this time,” said Peter.

“Good guys, good guys!” she hollered. “Let’s go!”

The sled moved a little slower, and she knew she would have to rest a bit more often, but she let those worries lie dormant. They were moving in the right direction, and once again, it seemed everything was possible. Her empty stomach, the aches and pains, Peter’s surliness — all of that faded.

“Did you see that?” she shouted at the trees. “We’re doing it! Woooo-hoooo!” she shouted. “Good guys, good guys! Get up!”

They ran. The bush was thinner here; the quarry had been located up high in the side of a large rocky hill. These were old, old mountains now worn down to nubs, their tops clear of snow and a steady ochre that warmed to the winter sun. The team rushed over the cobbled skeleton of the Canadian Shield, leaving the thicker, darker bush a gloomy cloud below them. She saw more hares, their white bodies startlingly big, explode to the left and right. She saw them before the dogs this time because she was actively looking for them. She watched the trail and the dogs and the hares; if the hares were blindside to the dogs, she said nothing, but if they were somewhere she thought the dogs might see them, she would call out, “On by! On by!” again.

Neither Sencha nor Bogey really knew what that command meant, but Bogey took his cue from her encouraging let’s run voice, and Sencha reacted to that now, instead of to her instincts. Even if she paused, her predator’s nose or ears or eyes taking over for a moment, she would be pulled along in the traces and recover.

As the sled flexed and bounded forward, Hannah looked at Bogey. His head was rising — so were the other dogs’ heads, even Nook’s. Unease grew in her belly, and she flipped down the drag mat, pressing lightly to let the dogs know she was listening.

The trail had been following a series of small hills with short plateaus, but now it turned, and they ran downhill alongside an unnaturally wide swath of snow. On their left, the bush continued, an endless thicket of poplar and willow and smaller

leggy conifers — forest that had been cut down, but was growing back now. Hannah’s father called it scrub bush.

On their right, yellow plastic poles stuck up out of the cleared ground, and in other places, there were long metals rods taller than Hannah painted blue with CAUTION symbols painted on them.

But that wasn’t what was disturbing the dogs. What interested them was about a hundred metres ahead, loping in the same direction they were. Hannah felt as though the world had moved sideways a step. A dog? Out here? Strange instincts rose in her mind. She could use that dog — catch it and use it.

Then the dog turned its head to look behind it, and Hannah’s instincts were drowned out by another, even older instinct; it didn’t come from her thoughts, but originated in her whole body, twisting her wrists outward and locking her elbows and making her stamp hard on the drag mat.