Ice Island (11 page)

Will this ever end?
she wondered, losing all track of time.

Bandit stayed on Cole’s heels where the snow was smoother. She looked cold and miserable too, bracing against the sudden gusts. “Hang in there,” Tatum cooed to her.

Bandit wagged her tail halfheartedly.

A wind blowing forty miles an hour could batter everything in its path, Tatum knew from a bizarre math teaser. Especially dogs trying to keep a sled straight. At zero degrees a dog could stand in one place, get slammed with a chill factor of minus seventy degrees, and still survive.

She could see for herself that wind had created impassable drifts in places that should have been easy going. It blew so hard the dry snow on top disappeared.

It’s like a white Dust Bowl
, Tatum thought.
We’re in some freaky race against the weather
.

The third morning fell away in steep bends and unrelenting wind. More drifts piled up.

They kept on.

Hours slipped by.

Gusts hit sixty miles per hour. At least, that was her guess.

Bandit crept along, her tail down.

It’s okay, girl
, Tatum willed through the lines.

It was impossible to prepare for this kind of wind. Every mile was agony. Tatum felt like a five-foot-tall snowball being blown down the trail. Worry nudged her; she knew the dogs were losing moisture with every breath.

Cole stopped and set his hook. He rushed back to make sure everything on her sled was tied down.

“We’re losing time!” she shouted.

He couldn’t hear her.

She reached out and caught her loose mitten as it flew past.

Cole hurried back to his team and kept going.

He missed a turn that jagged abruptly to the right. His sled whipped around, out of control and spinning like a kicked bottle.

“Cole!” She watched him stumble over the bank. He landed face-first in a tangle of dogs.

Tatum didn’t wait to set her hook. She rushed down the slope, sinking knee-deep in snow. She fought to keep her boots from being sucked off her feet. “Are you okay?”

Cole’s cheek was badly scraped and bleeding. Hoarfrost glazed his eyebrows. He scooped snow and pressed it against his face. He looked completely beaten down.

“I’ll untangle the dogs,” she said.

Tatum did the best she could to straighten out Cole’s team, then got to work on his sled. The weight of his gear
had pushed it deep into the snow. She needed the shovel, but it had sunk with everything else. She dug with her hands, her shoulders aching.

The wind died, but the sky was clear and cold. Silence grew into a sound of its own, settling over them like a slab of rock. The dogs napped, sprawled in their harnesses. Except Wolf, who watched Tatum intently, looking hungry enough to swallow her in one bite.
Why doesn’t he like me?

Cole helped pull his sled the rest of the way out. He frowned at a wide crack in the runner. “Can’t go far on that,” he said, shaking his head miserably. His cheek looked nasty.

Tatum watched him tape a snowshoe to the runner like a splint. When everything was lashed down, he jerked on the gangline. Only two of his dogs got up; Wrangell and Chugach held back. Cole didn’t try coaxing them. He put Wrangell inside his sled, Chugach inside Tatum’s.

Bandit looked over her shoulder, tail drooping, as if thinking,
Another fifty pounds?

“Sorry, girl.” Tatum wished there was another way.

Bandit couldn’t find her usual rhythm. She strained, lunging in heaving steps over the next ridge. First Wolf, then Wrangell and Chugach. Tatum kept an eye on Bandit, afraid she’d be next. Sometimes it seemed like adrenaline pumped nothing but fear through her body.

Another ridge, and she dragged the brake. She swapped Bandit with Alyeska. It took longer than usual, nearly ten minutes. The dogs barked the whole time, begging for a snack. Cole divided the last of the frozen turkey skin. Bandit left her piece between her paws.

Tatum tried coaxing her. “Come on, girl. You have to eat.”

Bandit moved it around with her nose.

“Maybe I should heat it?” she asked Cole.

He shrugged, which meant
Forget it
.

Suddenly, Denali bristled. In one leap he was on Bandit. Tatum screamed, “Hey!”

Cole grabbed Denali before the other dogs could get into the mix. Bandit cowered, rolling on her back, pawing the air. Tatum kneeled beside her, light-headed. “It’s okay,” she said, stroking her.

But it wasn’t okay. Denali had stolen Bandit’s snack. The turkey skin was gone; so was all the blubber. All they had left was a small bag of dry food. For eight dogs? No way.

Denali was usually so mellow. Now he was willing to attack for a measly scrap of skin. The other dogs would have joined in. Tatum tried to make sense of it. Instinct, like a pack of wolves smelling the kill. That was how insane it was getting out here.

Food
.

No fish. No birds. No eggs.

Not even a lemming. As kids, Tatum’s dad and his friends had trapped the small, mouselike rodents. “When food is scarce,” he’d told her, “they migrate in furry masses. After reaching the sea, they swim a short distance and drown. What a sad sight.”

Tatum had to remember where she was. She had to stay attuned to the dogs—all the dogs. Poor Bandit. She wrapped her arms around Bandit’s neck. Bandit nibbled her face
mask. Thoughts of what might have happened if all the dogs had attacked filled every space in Tatum’s body.

Back on the trail, she felt the extra weight in her sled every time they turned a corner. It tipped twice, almost going over. Chugach whined constantly. Wrangell chewed through another bootie. Bandit ran with her head down, nipping snow, her tail swishing.

The snowshoe taped to Cole’s sled made it look like it was limping. Under different circumstances Tatum would have thought it was funny. Another hour passed.

Cole let his claw brake drag. “Better rest awhile,” he said.

Tatum nodded, throwing down her hook. A young caribou stood on a slope not far away. His ribs and hips stuck out and his thick coat was matted. He raised and lowered his head awkwardly, obviously sick. The dogs sniffed the wind.

Tatum unhooked Bandit, holding on to the harness. She was about to put her behind Denali, when Bandit jerked away and charged the caribou. “No!” Tatum cried, her stomach clenching. “Come back!”

Cole grabbed her sleeve. “Let her go.”

Shaking free, Tatum slipped into an unreal movie. Bandit floated through the air as some ancient impulse took over. The yearling stared, eyes bulging, fear-struck. Bandit sank her teeth into his scrawny neck. The caribou barely struggled before going down. Bandit held on. Then it was over.

Tatum sank inside herself, unable to move. Her throat closed. Even sick, the caribou had been beautiful. His eyes were still open, staring. His white tail looked like a flag of
surrender. The other dogs were going crazy, slamming against their harnesses. They chomped at the air, dying for a taste of blood.

They’re starving
, she thought.
Bandit’s starving
. Cole was right. It was nature’s way. The yearling would have died on his own, and the meat would have been wasted.

Tatum closed her eyes to the terrible sight.

I will not cry
.

Cole pulled his ulu from its leather sheath, making it impossible not to acknowledge the caribou’s death. What had happened was not some kind of bizarre dream. With the knife’s curved blade glinting, Cole slit the hide from the neck, down the chest, and over the belly. He started peeling it back, a few inches at a time.

“Sick animals understand why they’re taken,” he said, working slowly. “They know they’re going to a greater good.”

Tatum looked away, worrying about the dogs. She wondered if they could get sick from eating a sick animal.

Then she turned back, forcing herself to watch. Otherwise she’d never be at home in the wild.

Her stomach turned while Cole pushed, pulled, lifted, skinned, and twisted joints. He ignored the blood. Bandit paced around the carcass. Wrangell and Chugach had jumped from the sleds. But they stayed back, away from the
kill. The tethered dogs howled, impatient for their share. Wolf’s ears were forward, waiting.

“Nothing is wasted—not the heart, lungs, tongue.” Cole leaned over the belly and pulled out steaming guts. “The elders teach us to treat animals with respect when we butcher them so their spirits will return for a future harvest.”

Cole sliced off a chunk of yellowish fat and cut it into smaller pieces. He threw Bandit the first fistful and tossed the rest to the other dogs. They growled, snatching it up hungrily. Wolf ate it so fast, he threw up, then ate it again.

Tatum wrapped her arms around herself. She couldn’t ignore what was happening. There was so much blood, so much meat. She couldn’t imagine how much there would have been if the yearling had been healthy and full-grown.

“He died quietly, without the roar of a rifle,” Cole said. He cut strips of red meat and bigger hunks that looked like roasts. “I bet you think the old ways are strange.”

“No,” she said. “Not strange.”

“Grandfather eats the eyes. I don’t like them, though. Too rubbery.”

She shook her head. “Think I’ll pass too.”

Tatum watched Cole dig a pit in the snow, taking in what he was saying and how he was saying it. Then he started singing. She liked the melody and the sound of the words, and wished she knew what they meant.

Bandit yipped a song of her own, rising and falling. The others chimed in. A doggy symphony.

Tatum stood up and took a cautious step forward. The ground felt unsteady. Step by step, she focused on the twisted
shape lying on the ground. It wasn’t fair to let Cole do all the work.

Slowly, she gripped a leg. It felt solid in her hands, warm and damp through her gloves. She dragged it to the pit. Blood streaked the snow. Her breath worked its way under her goggles. They fogged up. She started to wipe them with her gloves, but those were soaked too.

Cole butchered a carload of meat, constantly tossing chunks to the dogs. They ate and ate and ate. Then they slept, worn out from so much food. He chopped a steak off a hind leg and added it to the hot water in the cooker.

“Thank you for the meat, caribou,” he said quietly. The smell of cooking meat swirled around them. “You saved our lives.”

Tatum lowered her head, grateful for solid food. Their conversations were shorter now. She chewed and choked down the stringy meat. The juice was both sweet and salty. She tried not to think about where it came from.

A Styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic
, she told herself. Like chicken breasts and pork chops from the market in Nome.

They put the butchered meat inside the canvas tarp. Cole added the head; the eyes were still open.

By then the soup had cooled. Cole skimmed off the fat for the dogs and poured it into a container for later. Tatum forced herself to eat until the hollow feeling in her stomach disappeared. She hated the taste in her mouth.
What I’d give for a toothbrush!

Cole shoveled snow over the pit, marking the temporary
freezer with his ski pole. Then he showed Tatum how to glaze her runners with ice. “A glassy surface slides best on this kind of snow,” he explained.

Tatum glanced from dog to dog. With full bellies all were eager to run, all except … Where was Bandit? She shaded her eyes and shouted, “Bandit!”

“She probably dragged off a bone,” Cole said.

Tatum looked around, unsettled. “I shouldn’t have left her loose.”

She walked toward the wind-blasted plateau, shouting until her throat ached. “Bandit!” She stopped, slowly turning a circle. Everything was quiet. She searched on, her boots barely skimming the snow. Why would Bandit run off like this? Unless … Had she gotten sick from eating the caribou?

Cole shouted after her. “Tatum! It isn’t safe to take off on your own!”

“I have to find Bandit!” she shouted back.

Cole took a few steps, then turned back to his dogs.

She felt faint, unable to shake the feeling that something terrible had happened. “Bandit!” She wasn’t focused on anything but finding her dog. “Where are you!”

Tatum knew she needed to calm down. She stumbled onto a ledge that cut straight down to the riverbank and dropped to her knees. Below she saw a speck of black and cinnamon. “Bandit!”

Wind swept her words away.

Just as suddenly the vision disappeared. A chill shot through her, and she slipped into some dark hole. Then back out of it. She tried desperately to think, pulling herself
to her feet. She pictured the way Bandit looked at her, the way she reached up and licked her face.

She trudged to the edge of a ravine and a low-hanging shelf of ice. Underneath, dug into the bank, something moved.

Suddenly the air filled with a short, piercing yelp. It was the worst sound she’d ever heard, like someone being ripped in two. She cut down the slope, light-headed with adrenaline. Her heart pounded. She saw a thin line of blood splattered in the snow. “Bandit!”

Bandit peeked out from a shallow bed dug into the shelf. She was stone-still, out of the wind, trying to blend in. Tatum gulped for air and stumbled on. Bandit raised her head, quivering and breathing in short gasps. She was shaking all over.

Tatum knelt down, staring into her dog’s tired eyes. “What’s wrong, girl?” she cooed in a whisper. “What’s the matter? Are you sick?”

Bandit looked different. Smaller somehow, weak. She raised her head and shook frost from her whiskers. Tatum stroked her head over and over. “It’ll be okay,” she repeated, wanting to believe it. Then she saw a tiny black ball. And another one, wet and shiny. Three in all, clamped to Bandit’s teats.

Puppies?

The word
puppies
kept rattling in her head.

Puppies!

Bandit nuzzled her new family.

“They look like crushed velvet,” Tatum said softly to herself.

She remembered Beryl’s words: “Bandit hasn’t been herself lately.”

Wait until she hears about this!