Tag: Anchu

Caravan Draft Chapter Twelve

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Dark Horizon

Sasha and the caravan moved for an immeasurable period of time, ever eastward. Her life became a routine of rising, hitching up, and pulling Tun’s sled as the village-sized entourage followed, at the speed of reindeer, the great herds with which they traveled. They would trek through the shortening day and lengthening night when weather was fair, with few breaks for rest or water. When stopped, camps would be assembled hastily and modestly, with an eye toward preparedness to strike them and resume the march.

With hundreds of dogs in the group, they were invariably kept leashed to maintain order. This eliminated any possibilities for Sasha to search through the great camp for her loved ones. She kept their faces and voices in her mind’s eye through the monotonous journey. Those of Mother and Jiak, Bek and Nina, and of her lifelong friend Kotka. The latter’s absence weighed heavily on the little girl dog’s heart. She had lost track of him in the tumult of exodus, and he vanished during the most fearful and deadly time of their odyssey. She vowed she would see all of her loved ones again, inquired after them of every dog they passed. She counted their love daily as the thing for which she was the most grateful. Occasionally, during the long, dark, plodding night, heavy thoughts would enter in. Suppose she might never see any of them again? Suppose they are all dead already, from the soldiers or The Ice Queen, or perhaps simply from the heartbreak of being lost each from the other?
“No!” she would call out into the bitter darkness, “I will never give up. Not until the day I die.”, as she battled these demons across the stark plains of ice and snow. All of her working hours were spent walking, pulling the sled, and her brief rests were spent sleeping deeply, drugged with exhaustion. There was little by way of conversation among the teammates in the time spent together eating or bedding down. Each day brought the same dark nothingness of which to speak, and sleep soon overwhelmed each rapidly when they retired.

On an otherwise unremarkable passage through the endless night, beneath a pitch black sky studded with a million brilliant beacons, Sasha came to a sudden realization that shook her from her doldrums. Immediately she called out to Dak ahead of her on the tandem line, her voice cracking with drought and breathlessness.
“This is the night without day, isn’t it? I haven’t seen the sun in a long time.”
Dak turned his head in a slow, odd rotating motion, like an owl, swiveling at the neck. He looked her right in the eye but made no sign of acknowledgement or recognition. Indeed, his eyes looked as if he were asleep or wild with the lockjaw, and this startled Sasha. Dak turned his head back to face forward without any hint of reaction or response. Sasha felt confused and overwhelmed by the shock of the moment, and seemed to sense she was not thinking clearly. She could not seem to understand how to address the situation.

Before she could collect her thoughts, the still night air began to stir. A backward wind, reversing from the tailwind that had ushered the group along, sometimes with harsh insistence. This was a new wind, and unlike that which blew from the polar ice cap smelling of ice and snow. This wind was filled with an aroma of teeming life. It was an earthy-salty smell, rich with newfound variety, and all the dogs lifted their snouts at its arrival.
“The sea. I smell the sea.” Sasha heard Stone’s thoughts spoken aloud.
Her nostrils filled with the scents on the breeze which seemed warmer than the Arctic night they were leaving behind them. She recalled many tales told by Kotka and Stone, Spring and Lema, of their sojourns to the sea.

The stories seemed like fantasies and imagined things: animals that look like otters but are as big as three reindeer, called walruses; and some bigger than a dog, called seals. There were people of the seacoast who called themselves An’kalyn, and lived strange lives without yarangas, without reindeer herds or traplines. They paddled giant canoes they called baidarkas, big enough for six men, and hunted after the giant otters for meat and oil and bones. The sea itself was unique. It was like water, yet different. It was laden with salt and had a smell that was indescribably vibrant and rich. It was the largest lake one would ever see in a lifetime. So large, its edges stretched to the end of the Earth where they fall off into the sky.

The breeze and the recollections and the smell of the ocean awoke Sasha from the mind and body-numbing trot at which she’d been moving for longer than a moon phase. A hundred questions were rising within her at the prospect of seeing this incredible, mysterious, magical place she had only half-believed in. She wished it was summer, and daylight, so she could see all of these amazing things upon her arrival. Who knows how distant it may be? Perhaps there will be light.

“It’s been a while.” brother Anchu called out from behind her. “The darkness.”
His voice shattered the night, silent but for the sounds of the caravan walking across the top of the world. Sasha realized again how deep was the black of the space above them, how empty her entire world seemed out here, past the end of nowhere on the darkest and coldest night of her short life.
“This is the time into which I was born.” she spoke casually into the ether, as if sitting on the porch of the Dogs’ House at the Lodge, lingering over jukkola. “I see it now. Then will come the time when the sun returns, and I will be getting older.”
She gazed up at the starfield that pierced the black veil, the shining lights of all the spirits gone before. Their whispered calls entered Sasha’s mind; “We are all of us a pack.”
“And a pack is a forever love.” she called back to the frigid sky.

Dak turned at this and stopped, stock still in his traces. Sasha’s chest and harness slammed into his backside and she folded up behind him. Anchu was stepping over her with nowhere to go when his neck line pulled him down onto his sister. Tun awoke with a start from the mindless stupor of night travel, and jammed both feet on the claw brake as Stone, in a rotation behind Anchu, added to the pile at Dak’s feet.

Dak stood like a statue, unmoved by the calamity he had caused. He looked at Sasha. Rather, he seemed to look inside of her, as if her eyes were portals to another time, another world, another life. A smile came to him briefly as he muttered a single word: “Mother?”.
His gaze lost focus. His eyelids looked as if they were frozen open.

Then he fell to the ice.

Caravan Draft Chapter Eleven

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Chapter Eleven
Night Vision

Dorik and Keru allowed a few hours’ sleep for Tun and Rol, then woke them to serve hot tea. This revived them a bit, and they reaffirmed their gratitude and good fortune at the caring friends coming to their aid. The four got underway riding Dorik’s sledge, towing the loaded sleds behind them, and the animal community of the camp following along. The sun, blocked by the blanketing storm, sank below the horizon as the entourage arrived back at the main caravan. As darkness fell, the winds subsided further, the air eventually becoming nearly still.
The pack of thirty dogs in Tun’s group, which included Sasha and the team, joined the assemblage of refugees, and now the total number of dogs in the camp rose over one hundred fifty. All the dogs that had been rescued were treated to warm water and hot chow. They had all been desperately hungry, and some ate ravenously, occasionally over-indulging, resulting in vomiting. They would return for more when their stomachs settled, which took no time at all. Many of the unnamed and unknown tagalongs were thrilled to find their packmates or human friends in the great camp. Joyous greetings, laughter, and cries of surprise bore witness to such happy reunions.
Sasha was eager to look for her mother and her human family from the homestead. Also, she had not seen Kotka for two days now, and this worry simmered in the back of her mind. She was exhausted from all the events hitherto, and sought comfort with her brother, her packmates, and their loyal human friends. She could eat little before her stomach ached, and needed to rest before she could take up the task of searching the massive camp for those she longed to see. She curled at the door of the yaranga in which Tun and Rol now resided, continuing their own recoveries.
An excited chatter of voices came from nearby. Larik and Anchu and a fairly large crowd of new-found friends. It was melodious and animated conversation, punctuated with the Oo!s and Ah!s of the enthralled listeners. A wave of laughter would erupt, and rise like a swell, giggles drifting off like dry leaves on the wind. It was a comforting sound, and a welcome lullaby to Sasha, and she closed her eyes.
Her sleeping thoughts were a rapidly-changing mix of dreams, glorious visions and chilling nightmares. Mother first trotted into her mind, pulling a sled with her first team; Spring and Nib, Lema their pack mother, Yura and Vasa. Aboard was her entire family from her home in the moraine; Bek, Nina and Jiak. They waved cheerily, and Sasha ran to them. Each would reach out and pet her head, but before the sled came to a stop the vision faded.
Dancing through her sleep came a fearful scene, a long string of dogs with Dak at the lead, cresting a blind hill and falling from a precipice into a bottomless blackness. Sasha was third in line, and was pulled by the falling dogs ahead. As each fell, its weight added to the acceleration of the remaining dogs and a sled, driven by Tun. From an omniscient perspective, she watched the team, herself, the sled and Tun disappear into the pit of darkness below, the terrorized screams of man and dog fading away to silence.
From the blackness, faint stars began to emerge, and as they became brighter, the great luminous sweeping fingers of the Spirit Lights joined them in the crystal clear winter sky. Slowly then quickly they move and shift. Red and green then red again then green again. Not far off in the deep night, a pack of wolves sang forth their wailing cries to the waning moon. First one, then two. Then too many to count. The sun began to rise, and as it did, it lit the wolves, and they could be seen to be feeding on carcasses. Beside them were two sleds and a hastily-fabricated skin shelter. Before any more horrific details could reveal themselves, this scene, too, faded.
Sasha found herself sitting on the porch of the Dogs’ House, at the home she’d just left, Tun’s mountaintop Lodge. Next to her was her oldest and dearest friend, her mentor and confidante, Kotka.
“’Kotka The Brave’ we should call you.” She said, staring admiringly at his thick coat and full mane.
“Brave?” he responded with surprise.
“Sure! Bouncing back from all those years with the bad man, before you came to Bek’s. Left alone when the strangers raided the homestead. And still here you are, sticking with the pack under such hardship, still seeking out…”
A clanging reindeer bell shattered this dream, and now Sasha was huddled in the dog pile during the worst of the debilitating gale. She was shivering and her feet hurt. The bell kept ringing, but nothing was happening. No movement. No change. Just freezing to death and the bell ringing over and over.
In a flash, the scene changed again. Now Larik was dancing before a crowd of cheering onlookers. He stood upright and held a polar bear cape over himself like a robe.
“Got this one last year up in the mountains!”
Anchu approached carrying another skin, like a performer’s assistant, and he handed it to Larik, taking the robe from him.
Out of nowhere, the wind suddenly swept past as if a great window had been opened in the face of a hurricane. Larik and the bearskin, Anchu and the robe, the onlookers and everything around them began to blow across the ice, followed by the tumbling sleds, then Tun and Rol, Dorik and Keru. Sasha viewed again from high above, and watched the wind gather up everything in its path like a broom. Yarangas and families, dog teams and reindeer teams, sleds and sledges. Whole herds were tossed like so much dried grass, leaving the bare ice spotless and gleaming. After a moment of unsettling silence, clicking and clacking of dog claws on ice could be heard approaching. In fact, super dogs, as now a pack of wolves, a dozen or more, raced after the rolling pile of the camp’s contents.
A wolf’s howl woke her, and Sasha found herself where she had coiled peacefully in the great camp, her pack and Tun within reach. Except for the ubiquitous noises of the reindeer herd shuffling and chuffing, the night was calm and quiet. She listened, and determined the wolf cry was only in her dream. Silence and stillness enshrouded the dark night, and it seemed she was the only one awake, reindeer notwithstanding.
Her memory took her back to a night long ago. She was camped on a riverbank with her old team and Jiak, when a small pack of wolves appeared on an opposite hill. They sat and sang to the moon, lingered briefly for a second act, and disappeared silently over the horizon, leaving the night as peaceful and undisturbed as it was this moment.
Sasha closed her eyes and fought to return to sleep. She remembered some parts of the disturbing visions her slumber had brought her, and this left her with an underlying uneasiness. She tried to take herself back to the place where she was greeting Mother and Jiak, but no concentrations on the subject were willing to engage the spirit of the imagination.
She wondered what the night visions had meant, if anything. She could find no corollary to the present.
Leastwise, not so within the few minutes allowed, before sleep reclaimed her weary mind.

Caravan Draft Chapter Ten

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Chapter Ten
Breath And Life

 

Long before the humans heard the ringing reindeer bell of Dorik’s team, the racing wind brought the scents to the dogs assembled in Tun’s desperate camp. Speeding past was a rich blend of smells; reindeer, people, leather, smoke and traces of food aromas. Mixed in were familiar signatures, dogs that belonged to this pack.

“Larik!” Alexei was first to respond, and began straightaway to sprint into the headwind to meet the approaching party.

Sasha smelled her brother. She cleared her nostrils of embedded scents and sniffed the air again in short, rapid whiffs. It was true. It was Anchu. Still reeling from the shock that he had ventured out into the deadly storm, a feeling haunted her that she could not yet be certain what might come next. Either her brother will have returned with an excuse, an explanation; or kind-hearted neighbors were returning his corpse to his driver.

The clanging bell now could be heard, and seemed quite near, but the wind-driven snow still obliterated any view of the yet-unseen travelers. Now the click-clack of the reindeers’ hooves could be heard, and the scraping, creaking, rattling noises that accompanied a wood-railed sled as it made its way over the solid ice. Then, Alexei could be heard to yip with excitement. The balance of the team, waiting breathlessly, felt some instant relief knowing Larik had been found. This raised Sasha’s hopes, but did not fully allay her fears.

The first visible thing to emerge from the blinding snow was Anchu, sprinting top speed even after all of his ordeals, and now with a tailwind. He streaked into camp and skidded to a stop. Despite the bone-chilling cold and rampaging wind, an ice-crusted smile stretched across his face, and beneath crystal-flocked eyebrows, his eyes gleamed with energy and enthusiasm.

Sasha instantly felt angry with Anchu. Seeing that he was clearly alive and well, her worries and fears were dismissed, and they vanished behind the curtain of her present emotions. Her brain lined up a dozen things to say to him; “Why would you do such a thing? Larik is much bigger, you shouldn’t have gone with him. You could have died out there! How do you think I would have felt if you died? I almost died from fright!” She was choosing which would be first.

“Sis!” Anchu yelled as soon as he laid eyes on her. He spoke in a fiery, staccato barrage of exclamations. “We’re back! I can’t believe we made it so fast, but this wind! Wow! It really helped on the backtrail.” He was wagging fast and sort of wiggling all over, ebullient, even glowing with excitement. He continued with another flurry of sentences.

“I was starting to get scared! I thought I was going to die! Wow! It is really freezing out there! Then I ran into a guard and almost got into a fight. But I didn’t know Larik followed me, and boy you should’ve seen them run when he showed up!”

Seeing his face, hearing his voice, watching the light in his eyes as he told his tales brought Sasha back from her state of anger. She realized just how much she loved him, and how much he has been and continues to be an integral piece of her life. She remembered her fears and heartache when she thought only moments ago that he might never return. Such a sickening feeling it was to think about life without Anchu. Now she was overwhelmed with the joy of having him back, snatched from the jaws of death, and she was immensely grateful. She ran to him and kissed his face, lavishing her affections on him, interrupting his effervescent narrative.

“I’m so glad to have you back.” She said. “I don’t know what I would have done…”

“And we brought help for the people.” Her brother continued, oblivious to any worries or concerns he may have caused the rest. Oblivious to the import and intent of his sister’s words. “Did you know Larik killed a bear and fought off six dogs at Umkat? Everybody knows Larik. ‘Larik The Bear Killer’ they call him. He’s the best!”

Just then, ‘The Bear Killer’ emerged from the oppressive storm, ambling at a casual trot and talking to a small fan club that trailed him.

“Larik!” Anchu ran off to greet him. They high-pawed one another like old sled-school buddies.

The other five members of the team looked on in astonishment. To be jovial and well accompanied, and enthusiastically friendly with Anchu, or anyone else, was entirely out of character for Larik. The sullen reprobate, unsociable Larik. Larik the rebel. Larik the loner. But Larik ‘The Bear Killer?’ What strange transformation must have taken place deep in the dark night, in the midst of the williwaw, out on the frozen black tundra?

These two, at the least, were laid in the lap of the Ice Queen, for her to do with them as she would. Yet instead of clutching them to her frozen bosom, and keeping them forever for herself, she returned them.

“Don’t you boys do such a thing again.” She would scold them, and the wailing winds now rose in camp, to remind them all of how truly fortunate they had been.

Dorik could hardly believe his eyes. When Keru, his youngest daughter, insisted the dog that woke them wanted help to follow him, he had some doubts. She was of keen insight with all living things, however, and he trusted her instincts in such matters more than he did his own. Indeed, it appeared the dog that materialized out of a deadly blizzard was calling them. Stepping west and stopping, calling again and returning. Larik was still wearing his racing harness, which he’d been in since quitting the team at Tunkan. The trademark color pattern was recognized to be Tun’s.

Now the dim morning light revealed to Dorik an eerie sight fading forth from the snowstorm as he neared the makeshift shelter. At first there was no movement at all, and an alarming feeling struck Dorik in the gut. Then a dog flashed up out of the snow and ran to those alongside the sledge. As the shelter came to be viewed more clearly, a few more dogs rose, and looked to identify and greet the newcomers. This brought hope that the conditions may have been survivable.

From the firepit of the yaranga, Keru had loaded burning dung coals in a cast iron kettle which was then slung from the bottom of the sledge. A rectangular litter covered the top, providing a small cabin. She now moved the coals to the inside of the litter, stoked the fire, and placed a bucket of chipped ice on it to melt.

Dorik proceeded hastily to the windbreak, and found the tiny tent. The hides were rendered solid and inflexible, and were frozen down to the ice. He pulled at the place where the two skins overlapped, and they noisily separated, making crunching sounds, bits of ice falling from them. It was dark inside, and the day itself was dull. It took a moment of staring into the space before Dorik’s eyes could sense and discern the shapes within. Two dogs stirred and scampered out, and what appeared to be several more remained coiled and crowded into the lair. Then a large mass covered with a thin layer of snow began to move. It startled Dorik at first, his nerves tense with anticipation of what he might discover. Sitting upright with a groan, the shape was clearly a man.

“Good morning, Dorik.” Called out a voice, or rather, a sound similar to that of dragging a large rock across hard ice.

“Is that Tun?” Dorik replied.

“Yes!” rasped the frozen giant, “It is Tun. How are you?”

“I’m well. Might I ask the same of you?”

“I’m glad to see you, old friend.” Tun’s throat tightened for a second. He paused to regain his voice. “I’m as best as can be under the circumstances, but my young friend Rol here is not holding up so well. Do you think you could assist me getting him up?” the grating voice faded in and out.

“Keru and I will help you both. Here, let me give you a hand.”

“Thank you, no, Dorik. Please, I must raise myself from this bed. Something I hadn’t expected to do.”

Keru joined Dorik, and they assisted Rol to his feet, then into the litter. Tun was next, gritting his teeth and wincing at the sharp pains in his back. The two laid beside the fire in a state of euphoria, partly induced by exposure, and partly so by this unexpected and miraculous salvation. They had each kept a brave face for one another, while lying down for what they thought would be their final sleep. And now – saved! Had they not been numb with cold and dumb with hypothermia, they would no doubt have danced and sung of their joy and happiness, their love of life, their elation at their return to it. Warmth, relief, rescue. Water. Safety. Caring friends. In a matter of moments, both were sleeping deeply, nearly comatose with exhaustion.

Keru and Dorik set about caring for the animals; their reindeer and Rol’s, and all the dogs. Huddling the three sleds together, and Dorik’s carrying the litter, much better shelter from the wind could be had, and all the animals crowded into this corral of sorts. All were given water in a long, slow process of melting ice one pail at a time. While it melted, a hatchet was used to chip the next bucketful from the rock hard tundra. The dogs and reindeer would go without feeding. The rescue team did not anticipate a congregation of thirty dogs would be encountered, and had aboard enough food for seven or so. It could be cut thinner and stretched to fifteen, but would provide little more than a teasing morsel, or fuel for argument, if split thirty ways.

Neither would the reindeer eat. Some sedge grass was brought expecting two hungry reindeer. Supply was good, but the wind was bad, and grass would be blown away the moment it left one’s hands. For now, the group would hunker down. The day would be spent chipping away at the endless ice, distributing life-saving water in sparing doses. Circle and repeat.

In the span of the next several hours, the frigid breath of the Ice Queen ebbed from its blustering blow, down to a steady wind. Dogs began to rise from their piles and move about, stretch, account for one another. Sasha was riding a joyful high; her brother returned, Larik too; rescue from their perilous situation; the storm waning and hope rising.

“Your brother is amazing.” Omok said, as Sasha suddenly noticed he was standing beside her.

“What?” Her brain was slow, almost reluctant, to shift from the wash of ecstasy in which she was now bathed, the beauty of life itself.

“Your breath and life.” she said.

“Pardon me? What did you say?” Omok asked.

“Oh. Nothing.” Sasha returned to the present. “Yes. Yes he is.”

Caravan Draft Chapter Eight

PazloLeave a comment

Cold Light Of Day

Sasha’s eyes opened. It seemed just a moment ago they had closed as she awaited the approaching dawn. Now she could see, through her tiny eye-sized portal to the outside world, the sun had risen above the storm, and it washed the dusty grey sky with a strange pink-orange radiance. She was eager to find her brother, and the rest of her pack, her family. Strife and danger always seem to elicit this response. A compelling need to seek out those we love and who love us. The trusted few. “We find that together we can face that which we could not face alone.” Mother had taught her.

Buried beneath a mountain of dogs, she began to worm her way up and out into the frigid Arctic world. She pressed against the bottom edge of the hide that formed their shelter but found it frozen fast to the ground. She pressed her snout along the surface until she found the place where two hides overlapped, and they parted. Bitter cold bit the end of her nose, and the brutal wind howled insatiably. She was alone in her movement. All the others seemed frozen solid. A mound of dogs were heaped against the hide tent and were covered with a dusting of snow like so much cordwood.

All around in every direction was a sense of vast emptiness. The sun’s light would brighten here or there, and wherever it did it revealed the same nothingness. Flat, windswept ice as far as one could see. It was a surreal scene, this one amassed pile of life a solitary island in a sea of frozen wasteland.

Sasha began to search for Anchu’s scent, or that of the other pack members. She sniffed at the ice and carefully stepped around the edges of two mounds of dogs. Umka was the first she found, curled at the outer edge of the first furball pile. He rose and looked to her, but said nothing as he came to stand by her side. She resumed the hunt, and now Umka joined her, their mission telepathically understood. Next they found Dak, who slowly crawled out of the pile to join his packmates, a noticeable limp in his step. He began right away to inquire as to which dogs Sasha and Umka had found, and how the two had fared in the night. The conversations attracted the attention of Stone, next to emerge from the huddled group. The oldest of the team, he moved slowly and stiffly, and his pains revealed themselves in his face and voice. He asked as Dak had, how many packmates had been accounted for, his speech raspy and weak. He curled again at the edge of the shelter, shivering a little.

The other three continued their quest until Alexei was found, still within the tiny tent. He immediately asked if the group had yet found Larik. He related how he’d seen Larik rise and walk out into the fierce storm, how he heard him speaking with someone, but had not seen him return from the black night. Now the group began to call his name as they continued to seek his scent. On hearing this, Omok scrambled his way out of the pile to address the others. They crowded close together to be heard above the relentless, cacophonous wind.

“Were you guys with Larik?” Omok asked.

“We’re his pack.” Sasha answered, and introduced herself and the other dogs.

“What do you mean ‘were with Larik’?” Dak barked hastily.

“He went out with the little guy and I haven’t seen them since.”

“Went out?” Sasha exclaimed.

“What?” Dak interjected, “When?”

“Went where?” Alexei was panicked by the news, “Which direction?”

Stone had slowly made his way to the percolating group.

“What’s all the excitement?” he asked.

“Larik’s gone!” Alexei responded, visibly shaken, “He left in the night.”

“The fool.” Stone replied as he shook his head. “Bound and determined to live in the wild, I guess. This is no place to set out on your own.” He shook his head again, looking at the ground, as if he knew already Larik’s fate.

“He went with someone else.” Alexei babbled with a certain numbness, as much from shock as the penetrating cold air, “Out into the storm.” He turned his head and looked outward onto the empty ice, and scanned his field of view as if he might miraculously find his brother standing a stone’s throw away. No such vision met his eyes, and he began to whimper.

“He’ll be okay.” Sasha soothed. “He’s one tough old brute.”

“Who could live out there in this?” Dak blurted out, somewhere between worry and anger. “Why would he do such a thing? Why now?” He turned from the group, seemingly fuming, and scanned the empty tundra as Alexei had.

“Shut up!” Alexei spun and pressed his face to Dak’s, “Shut up! He’s not dead!” A sudden quaking sob burst from him. “You’ve finally driven him away!” he continued through tears, an eruption of angry words. “Nothing he did was good enough for you. Every idea he had you had to kick to pieces. All his dreams and hopes of freedom and happiness, and you guys treated them like worthless scraps.” He turned his railing, crumpled face to each as he accused them of alienating his brother. “It wasn’t enough that he fought a bear for you. That he would rather have died to save Willow and Rika. It wasn’t enough that he invited you exclusively to join his wild dog pack. It was never enough. Nothing was ever good enough, was it? Now he’s gone!” Tears were freezing at the edges of Alexei’s eyes as he looked upon the remains of the pack. These who he loved and trusted, though now it seemed those bonds were to be tested. 

To love someone and be indefatigably angry with them at the same time was a complex, vexing and painful dichotomy. The thought raced into Alexei’s mind to yell out ‘I hate you!’, but his heart arrested this before it reached his tongue. No matter his rage, he knew this could never be true. He howled with heartache, and fell to his belly on the ice. “You killed him!” he sobbed. “You killed him! You killed him!”

“He killed himself!” Dak responded in the heat of the moment.

“Stop now!” Sasha raised her voice, “Stop. You don’t know what you’re saying. This is our own Larik we’re talking about.”

“Why don’t we go look for him?” Umka added.

Stone interrupted with the calming voice of the elder, though it croaked a bit. “Hey, hey. Calm down. No one knows Larik to be dead. Let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves. He may even be right here under the dog pile for all we know. Anyway, we won’t help anything by turning on one another.”

Dak reined in his emotions, still hurt by Alexei’s accusations, but more so empathetic to his troubles. “I’m sorry Lexi.” He said, shifting his weight between paws, “We’ll find Larik.”

“Sure we will!” Umka encouraged.

With this, Alexei’s sobbing subsided, and the others stood close, nudged him from time to time, until he could again feel their love. The love of a pack. It is a forever love. Omok held close to the group, and lent his own thoughts, “They’ll be okay.”

Sasha looked up from Alexei, and counted the faces in the circle of hope that surrounded him. An exhilarating rush of true joy raced through her veins, and she vowed to add this moment, this feeling, to her account of good things for which she was grateful. She counted again. She looked behind her, and suddenly her head was spinning like an owl’s. She began to walk, then trot, all around the windbreak and the reindeer and the tent and two heaping piles of freezing dogs.

Her heart sank and pounded against her rib cage. She could barely speak, and kept moving even as she started feeling dizzy and lightheaded. It took will to call out, fearing the answer, the telling silence that might follow.

“Anchu!” she barked, “Anchu!”

Caravan Draft Chapter Seven

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Chapter Seven
Legends And Spies

Anchu held closed his eyes, shielding them from the stinging, wind-driven ice crystals, as he pressed as quickly as he could into the raging blizzard. He was desperately cold even before he emerged from the impromptu shelter Tun had erected. Now the wind whisked away all the warmth it could steal, and called upon him to expend double the effort to overcome its immense power. It slowed him considerably from the top speed he was capable of, a fact not lost on Anchu. Striving to reach the caravan somewhere ahead in the void of the Arctic tundra night, his feet endured more pain with each passing minute. The muscles required to maintain this pace called for oxygen, and he sucked in the subfreezing air, chilling him from within, as his exhalations took with them still more of his body heat.

He’d been out here running at this gait for an interminable length of time, his spirit and focus driven by an all-consuming compulsion to save the lives of his loved ones; his sister, the pack, Tun and Rol. So, too, the many uprooted dogs that accompanied them.

“How far could it be?” he asked himself, and the answers that rushed into his brain were unwelcome. The first twinges of rational fear and doubt began to creep in, to drive out the adrenaline and adroitness. To claw at the calls for compassion and courage that propelled the young dog on his potentially suicidal mission.

Suddenly, he slammed face-first into a solid object, running full speed in the dark with his eyes closed. His snout was shoved down into his chest, and he heard a little cracking noise in his neck as the rest of his body weight pressed his wrenched head against the black wall until he crumpled to a heap on the ice.

Anchu looked up from where he lay, and saw the storm-filled predawn sky had taken on an umbrageous cobalt glow. Against it, he saw a dark silhouette, nearly imperceptible. It was a dog. A big one.

“Stop right there!” barked out an authoritative voice. “This is a private camp. Move on.”

Still a little dazed, Anchu was tremendously relieved his trial was over, and he had reached his destination without dying.

“My friends…” he began to explain breathlessly, “I’ve come to get help for my friends. They’re out…”

“There’s no help for you here.” the silhouette cut him off mid-sentence. Now the barely-perceptible silhouettes of two other dogs faded forth from the dark to stand just behind the first.

“Move on.” the voice said pointedly.

“Do you think he came from the invaders?” number two shadow asked of the first. Anchu had apparently run into a dawn patrol outside the caravan. A lieutenant and his platoon.

“It doesn’t matter. Keep moving!” the lieutenant shadow took a step toward Anchu.

“We’re all part of the same group!” Anchu offered excitedly, “We got left behind and now all the rest are stuck out on the tundra!”

“It’s a trick!” number three, a young corporal, barked as he mimicked the lieutenant’s step toward the intruder.

“I’m Anchu. Part of Bek’s team. I mean Tun’s.” he stammered as much from fright as the cold, “Tun and Rol are back there…”

“Tun sent you?” the lieutenant asked.

“I came by myself. To get help for the people. They’ll die if we don’t…”

“We can’t take on any more, little guy. You need to move on.”

“But I…”

With a snarling growl that would have shown teeth if it was light, the lieutenant lunged toward Anchu, “Beat it! Move on!”

As Anchu laid down on the ice in a gesture of surrender, a deep, gravelly voice rang from the darkness behind him.

“He’s with me.” Larik said confidently and boldly. Two corporals had now become three, and they bunched up just behind the lieutenant.

“Well, you can move on with him.” was the reply, “Hit the trail.”

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me.” Larik said in the same level and confident tone, as his shadow stepped over the prostrated Anchu and walked up to the lieutenant, nose to nose. “I said he’s with me.”

The lieutenant shadow puffed out his chest, tensed his muscles, held his tail out straight and still. In spite of his best efforts to stretch, Larik was still taller by a head.

“No one gets in this camp, I don’t care who you’re with.” the lieutenant growled, bravely standing his ground against the larger dog. He took his responsibility very seriously. And had backup.

“I’m Larik.”

Despite the howling wind, Larik’s utterance was apparently heard by the whole platoon. At the mention of his name, all three corporals snapped their ears flat, lowered their heads below their shoulders, held their tails down and close, and spun around to take two steps away before turning again to face the confrontation.

Hearing his name, the lieutenant’s ears fell back slightly, his swelled chest deflated, and he took half a step backwards.

“Oh!” the lieutenant said, as if this meant the end to conversations. Then, in a tone that sounded more curious if not flat-out conciliatory, he asked “What are you doing here?”

Anchu had made his way to his feet and stood slightly behind Larik.

“I’m here to support my brother Anchu on his mission. He’s going to the camp to fetch help for our pack.” Larik spoke matter-of-factly, as if he was now in charge. As if the lieutenant had had the misfortune to encounter and defy a general. “Right, Onch?” he finished, shortening Anchu to his pack nickname.

Anchu took a step forward, though still maintaining a comfortable distance from the lieutenant. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Then a squeak in his voice preceded his nervous reply.

“Yeah. Yeah, the camp.”

With this, the three corporals turned as if on command, and began a trot toward the encampment, still out of view in the half-light of dawn.

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Larik.” the lieutenant continued apologetically, “I didn’t know it was you!”

Larik spoke smoothly again, with conviction and authority, “You shouldn’t be denying shelter to any dog, or any other animal, in this weather.”

“Of course,” the lieutenant agreed readily, “it’s just that it’s been crazy the last few days. The war party and escaping to the tundra. We didn’t know if you were with the invaders.”

Larik seemed to ignore the lieutenant’s explanations, and brushed his shoulder against him as he walked past.

“Come on, Onch.” He looked behind him but saw no Anchu. Turning the other way, he found him snugged up against his side, keeping Larik between himself and the patrol.

Despite their exhaustion, Larik and Anchu trotted at a steady gait toward the camp, the lieutenant driveling on in apology to Larik. The corporals had disappeared into the darkness.

The low light of dawn tried to press through the storm clouds, though it was still too dark to see any distance, or objects in detail. Bit by bit they drew nearer, and sensed more than saw an encampment that appeared to grow larger with each passing step. Now large dark patches could be seen. The light of the ice beneath the sky’s dim glow was painted black by the occupants, and the reindeer herds spread out across a massive area. They could smell the smoke of dung fires burning within the yet unseen yarangas assembled in their midst.

“So who are you looking for?” the lieutenant asked Larik.

“Anyone who will help. Maybe someone we know. Tulaen? Evgenii?”

The lieutenant shook his head, recognizing neither name.

Larik searched his memory for the names of other people that would have accompanied Tun. “Evgy? Sarut? Dorik?”

“Dorik!” the lieutenant shouted. “I know where he is! Follow me!” He turned abruptly left and evaporated into a great herd of reindeer. Larik was gone right behind him, and Anchu hastened to keep up while finding his way through the thousands of reindeer legs. He lost track of Larik twice, but found him once again, just as they emerged from the herd in front of a large yaranga. It actually consisted of two such structures combined, with a doorway inside to pass between the two.

The sun cresting the horizon brought up the brightness of the grey-blue sky, and a dusky twilight revealed the vast reindeer herds circling the yaranga on all sides. There was barely enough room to accommodate a few dogs, and after their passing, the herd filled the gaps and squeezed closer. Larik was tracing the wall of the shelter, looking for the entrance. When he found it, he immediately launched into a barrage of “ATTENTION!” barks directed at the hide flaps of the door. He repeated them again and again, bouncing on forepaws, staring at the entry.

The herd parted slightly, and one of the corporals approached, accompanied by another half-dozen dogs. They crowded together some distance from Larik, and could be seen to be conversing closely. Just a moment later, another corporal emerged from the forest of legs, also followed by a small group. They stopped behind Anchu.

“Is it really Larik?” he heard one ask.

“He said he was. He’s big enough to be.” replied another, as they shifted laterally to get a better look, but ventured no closer.

Larik continued an unabated volley of barks, inches from the fur-covered door. Finally, it flipped open, and a person crawled out and quickly closed the flap behind him. The flap opened again and another person joined the first. Larik barked and turned westward, then barked again in the universal gesture of “Follow me!” He repeated the motions several times as the people approached to address him.

“You know Larik?” Anchu asked of whosoever was speaking behind him.

The group responded with a chorus of yeses and a “who doesn’t?”

“Everyone knows Larik, The Bear Killer.” one said.

“Did you see his face? His snout is half scars!” another observed with a shudder.

“You came here with Larik?” Anchu recognized the shadow and voice of the corporal.

“Well, yes. Actually, he followed me. We’re on the same team.”

An instant shift could be sensed and seen in the group crowding Anchu. It was as if some magic radiant light had begun pouring out of his eyes. Most took a quarter-step back and seemed to bow slightly in reverence. All eyes were fixed and wide, and a few mouths hung open briefly, before the bitter wind snapped them shut. There was absolute, awe-struck silence, broken only by Larik’s continued barks, and the barks being exchanged by the people.

“What do you mean ‘Larik the Bear Killer?’” Anchu asked the corporal.

“Everyone has heard of how he killed a bear to save his pack.”

Anchu snickered, “What?”

The corporal gave a questioning look at Anchu. “I thought you said you were on his team.”

“Well, actually it’s Tun’s team, but Larik and I are both on it.”

The corporal continued to eye Anchu suspiciously.

“So you’re the only dog on the peninsula that doesn’t know Larik, but you’re on the same team.” He posed the question as a statement. He stared intently, recalling the original suspicions this stranger had aroused, and moved closer to Anchu.

“Of course I know Larik!” Suddenly, Anchu felt threatened by the questions, the inquisitive looks of the corporal, the attention of the mob of dogs that surrounded him. A moment ago he was a hero, now he seemed a spy. “We just won the race at Festival together!” Anchu raised his voice insistently while trying to take a step back from the corporal, only to have his movement blocked by a wall of bodies.

“Everyone knows Larik’s team won at festival. That proves nothing. How about the Ukliat? Can you tell us how you did there?”

Unknown to Anchu, Tun and his team, with Larik, had attended the race at the village named. The story had already spread about a fight Larik had with a dog on an adjacent team. It actually amounted to little more than a scuffle at the starting gate, a place where dogs are crowded together, and anxious to start the race, nerves wound tightly. The fight only became elevated to noticeable when Larik inadvertently drew blood, a gash on the nose of his opponent, which forced the replacement of the injured dog on that team in order to continue the race. By the time the story was repeated from place to place, the legend had Larik sending an entire team of six dogs running off with their tails between their legs.

“I don’t know what you mean. We’ve only been together a couple of moons.” Anchu offered in defense.

“What did you say your name was?” the corporal now scowled, as he moved even closer, menacing.

“Anchu. I’m Anchu.”

“Don’t know it.” The corporal fanned his head symbolically at the mob, “Anybody ever heard of an Anju?”

The mob shook their heads in unison, and pressed ever closer.

“Anchu!” Larik bellowed across the space between them, “Let’s go!”

It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck the ice in front of them. The corporal spun quickly, tucked his tail, laid his ears flat. The entire mob expanded instantly, moving backward, moving away from Larik’s teammate, fearing they might meet their demise if their previous actions were observed by The Bear Killer.

Now emboldened by this testimony to his position, and feeling Larik, his body guard, was mere steps away, Anchu could not help but express his displeasure, his disdain for the corporal and the crowd’s treatment of him. He made a lunge, snapped at the air, and watched as the corporal threw himself to the ice, belly-up.

Anchu straightened and composed himself. He addressed the crowd in Larik’s level, confident tone.

“Let that be a lesson to you.”

Caravan Draft Chapter Six

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Chapter Six
Two Fools

 

When Rol stopped the sled, Anchu’s senses awoke. Hitherto, endless eyes-closed plodding into blackness had become hypnotic. One step after another, then another. Any change from the monotony was noticeable, and none more so than halting the sled.
He began to sense the troubles in the party. Tun approached with the reindeer-driven racing sled, while suddenly Rol was driving the dog team. Tun could barely move, walked with a frozen stiffness, and could not bend down. Then Anchu saw Rol collapse and fall to the ice in a heap. The night grew ever colder, and the team moved ever slower with each step, into the barrage of wind-driven snow and ice. Finally, Tun unhitched the team and pitched a tiny shelter in the midst of the frozen plain.
Dogs were whimpering, limping as they nearly crawled their way to the makeshift windbreak. Tongues and lips grew pale as the dogs’ thirst went unquenched, and brutal air constricted capillaries at the surface of the skin to conserve body heat.
When Rol remained unconscious and Tun curled beside him shivering, Anchu suddenly recognized the imminent danger. Thoughts flooded his senses with the clarity born of life and death circumstances. When an old dog knows his time has come, he would curl up the way Rol and Tun had, to close the circle, to face the end of the trail.
“We need a runner.” he thought. Someone to forge on to the caravan ahead, to fetch help for Tun’s beleaguered party. “I’m the fastest.” he concluded his thought, and began to rise through the dogs piled atop him. He breached the flap that held the vicious wind at bay, several dogs stirring at the disruption.    He sneaked his way out into the howling, sub-freezing night. The wind blew so hard it pushed him, caused him to stumble and misstep. He turned to take a long look at the group before leaving them behind, then turned seaward, smelling for the scent of the trail.
“What are you doing?” A voice called to him from the edge of the dog pile. It was Larik, who now took several steps into the raging blackness to stand beside Anchu.
“I’m going for help.” Anchu shouted, to be heard above the wailing storm, “To catch up to the rest and bring people to help us.”
“It’s deadly out there, little brother.” Larik spoke, his face nearly pressed to Anchu’s. “And we have no idea how far away they are. If you just start walking you could freeze to death and die without a pack to keep you warm.”
“If I stay here, we’ll freeze to death and die anyway.”
They both stood, facing away from the wind, and held a long gaze into one another’s eyes. There was an inescapable truth to both their statements. The choices seemed to be winnowed to two: stay here and die for certain, or strike out into the featureless black, an act which held their only hope, yet did not guarantee survival.
“I’ll go.” Larik said, as he faced seaward, staring into the darkness.
“I’m the fastest.” Anchu replied.
“But I’m rested.” Larik continued. “You’ve been hitched to the team and pulling the sled since the afternoon.”
“So have you.” Anchu answered, as he, too, now faced seaward, and took an extra step to be further from the shelter than Larik.
“I wasn’t on the team,” Larik shouted as he took two steps to be more seaward than the youngster, “I was at the rear. I’m fit and rested.”
“But I’m the fastest!” Anchu insisted.
“I don’t think you understand what you’re talking about. What is this, your first winter? Your second? You have no idea what awaits you out on the tundra. I’ve been there. I’m older.”
“But I’m faster.” Anchu repeated. “Watch.”
With that, he burst into his fastest sprint, and disappeared immediately.
“No! No! Wait! What will your sister do if you never come back? Come on! You have family…”
Only the growling wind answered Larik’s calls.
“Anchu!” he barked as loudly as he could, walking toward the place he’d last seen the young dog. “Anchu!”
The unrelenting wind and cold berated Larik, compelled him back to the relief of the shelter. He stood, blasted by ice shards, struggling to open his eyes to look for Anchu.
“Sure! Go kill yourself!” he shouted into the void, “Make your sister cry!” He listened for a response. “That should make him think.” He waited for Anchu to come back out of the nothingness, to defer to his elder teammate.
A strange feeling overcame Larik. A new and unfamiliar sense. His stomach turned, though not from hunger, and despite the onslaught of the storm he could not tear himself away from his watchful stance. It would be normal for Larik to leave someone to their own devices, to seek comfort for himself. To write off such a foolhardy plan and the fool who created it. But his mind kept a vision of Anchu, alone and far from his pack, as he lay freezing on the tundra ice.
“Anchu!” he called again into the dark, and felt a lump climb into his throat. “Anchu!”
Larik thought of the innocent young dog and his beautiful sister. How could a world take such youth and beauty when here he remained, healthy and strong? This embittered and cantankerous old dog, who so recently craved escape from all of this. The world of man, the pressures, duties and responsibilities of a pack member. The inescapable heartbreak, the price to be paid for letting someone into your life.
“Anchu!” he called again, with frightened desperation in his voice. The new and strange feeling gripped Larik. He could not will himself to return to the safety and comfort of the windbreak. He could not take his mind from the fact that Anchu was in peril, and his stomach flipped again thinking of it.
“I can’t go after him.” He thought to himself. “Only a fool follows a fool, I say.” He tried to remind himself how often he’d thought he’d be content living as one alone. “Besides, then we’d just have two dead bodies out on the ice instead of one.”
He then realized that, instead of pacing back and forth while his thoughts raced, he’d paced in a straight line; seaward.
“Well, I probably don’t want him to get too far.” He quickened his pace to a trot, ignoring the blinding spray of ice and shale against his face. “When I get hold of him…” he growled.
He broke into a brisk gallop.

Larik’s fragile heart shielded itself as best it could from pains. Keeping to one’s self was the simplest course. If something got too close, Heart would paint the scene with a disguise of selfish emotions.
Scene One was Ridicule, and had played out. The fool followed the fool off stage.
Scene Two, Selfish Logic, had also crossed the footlights.
“Return to the shelter!” said one character.
“Two bodies instead of one? Posh!” said another.
Scene Three, Annoyance, sang its coloratura to the tunes of sarcasm.
“What good is youth and beauty, wasted on the young and foolhardy?”
“There are old dogs, and there are bold dogs. But there are no old bold dogs.” Said the hardscrabble veteran of a decade on the Arctic Tundra.
Scene Four, Anger, was unfolding.
“This is just what we need. As if we don’t have troubles enough.”
“Why must he run so fast?”
Larik’s gait broke into the fastest sprint he could muster. The strong and hearty wheel dog, liberated from sled work for days now, dashed off stage as the curtain fell.
Scene Five opens. The stage is dark. The orchestra fills the air with the sound of Nature’s fury, gusting crescendos.
A tiny spot slowly fades up, centered in the air mid-stage. Fading in is an image of Larik. Time is slowed, and we watch the sleek animal stretch eager forelegs to their fullest. Rear feet plant, haunches tighten, we see the rippling muscles of this graceful and powerful being, as every ounce of energy and passion propel his flight, headlong into the roaring darkness.
The image and the light fade into blackness. We hear the clickety-clack of claws on ice.
“Anchu!” the call stretches and reverberates, competing with the shouting wind, it echoes off the distant mountains and fills the air. We hear the slightest quiver in the voice. “Here I am! Anchu!”
The voice repeats as it, the clickety-clack, and the orchestral wind fade, bringing down the curtain on Act One.
“Anchu!”

Caravan Draft Chapter Five

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Chapter Five
Good Things

 

   “And how many good things do you have?” Mother asked Sasha warmly, engaged in the rapt, attentive bathing of her sibling.
Brothers Anchu and Splotch had taken the bone she considered hers, despite her protests, and she now sought Mother’s intervention. Breathless from her frantic flight from the scene of the purloining, she repeated her testimony in anxious and clunky sentences, punctuated by frequent looks at the accused and the rapidly disappearing item in question.
“So I understand.” Mother answered, and repeated, “And how many good things do you have?”
“I don’t know. But my bone!”
Mother addressed her as a teacher would a student, a question to provoke thinking and a reasoned answer, “Don’t you have another bone somewhere?”
“But that was mine and they took it!” Sasha answered without looking to Mother, her eyes fixed on Splotch as he crunched down the last bit of evidence. He and Anchu trotted off between the dogs’ houses, looking for further opportunities this sunny late winter day.
Now, after six moons, Sasha and her litter mates were nearing full size. Alas, they were still very young, still learning to navigate in the context of a social world; elders, leaders, siblings, people, the cat. They had yet to witness babies, puppies, living beings newer than themselves. They had yet to encounter the Great Wide World, with rules of conduct and safety piled atop the rules of civility, and its own complex and fluid laws of territorial and property rights.
Sasha flopped to the ground, hopes extinguished, and heaved a huffy sigh.
“So,” Mother continued, “you say it belonged to you, and you are vexed that you don’t have it.” she restated the facts.
“And Splotch and Anch’ took it and that’s not fair!”
“Okay. So lastly we add injustice to your grievance. Or is it vengeance you desire?”
“No, no!” Sasha sat squarely and looked directly into Mother’s eyes. Despite the current squabble, Sasha’s heart was true, as were her siblings’. “They’re my brothers. I wouldn’t wish anything bad on them.”
Mother’s lips curled into the slightest smile at this, and she went on with her lesson. “So you think there was something the universe made just for you. Specifically and personally, like your teeth or your tail.”
Sasha felt she was in no mood for conversation. Certainly no mood for lessons. Her focus was on the fact that the bone was already gone. She felt a sense of loss. A sense there was something she could have had, and now can never regain. She answered Mother’s question without any thought about its meaning, or what the intent of the lesson might be. She drolled in a conciliatory tone of reluctant and indignant surrender. “I know the universe didn’t make the bone just for me.”
“Only your heart belongs to you, precious one,” Mother cooed, as she looked to her daughter with a warm, knowing smile, “and even that can be stolen from you.”
“What?!” Sasha leaped to her feet, wide-eyed, stricken with fear, “I’ll die!”
“No, no.” Mother calmed her, “That’s just a saying. It means we don’t really control who it is we love. Love happens on its own. It’s not something you can make up and decide for yourself.”
“How does that help me with the bone theft?”
“We don’t really own anything outside of our own bodies. Everything else is part of the world.”
“Then why is it called ‘mine’? What about my rag ball? It’s not mine?” Sasha whined, feeling like she was losing more things. Feeling like she was being compelled to let her siblings help themselves to things she’d become accustomed to, attached to. She whimpered, on the verge of tears.
“Now, now. We’ll call your ball ‘yours’, and you can keep it for yourself. Just because things are part of the world doesn’t mean they can’t be a part of our lives, and sources of joy or solace. But things pass into and out of our lives as easily as the wind.”
“My bone sure did.” Sasha replied. She watched Splotch and Anchu approach Kotka’s dish. He lunged toward them and blasted them with a deafening, growling bark. Both the youngsters yelped and spun, Anchu knocking down Splotch and running right over him in his haste to escape the huge Husky. Kotka turned to hide his face and chuckled. He caught Sasha’s eye and winked at her.

   Sasha giggled out loud, the sound decidedly foreign in the roaring, freezing, endless Arctic night. The dogs in the pile closest to her did not respond, did not want to risk any movement that might allow in the frigid air. There totaled about thirty dogs huddled behind Tun’s windbreak, some inside the tiny hide shelter, the rest mounded on and around it.
She was just inside the tent, beside Rol. From where she lay, a tiny gap opened onto the world outside. As small as her own eye, it revealed glimpses of horizontally-passing snowflakes and ice shards. An ear or a tail would shift into or out of view as the dogs continually sought respite from the storm in the heaping pile of fur balls.
“And how many good things do you have?” Mother’s voice repeated the question, like an echo that had taken so long to course its way up the canyon and back. Remembering this lesson was where this started. Frozen and scared and in pain, in the depth of the black gale, Sasha had begun to enumerate her woes. Her desperate thirst, her persistent hunger, the pain in her paws, the fierce cold, the biting wind.

“Okay.” Mother summed up the lesson as she released the sibling from bath duty, and moved on directly to Sasha. She started with the ears and face. “You can look around you any time and count the good things you have. Family and friends. A good home. Your heart and mind. Your body. Even your breath and your life.” She finished with the ears and paused to look her daughter in the eye. “Or you’re free to go on worrying about something that doesn’t exist anymore and didn’t belong to you in the first place.”
Still moping, a short while later Sasha made her way to Kotka’s doghouse. She related the whole tale, from the felonious misdeeds of her brothers to Mother’s lesson.
“I don’t understand. How can I count good things when they are being taken from me?” she posited.
“I don’t really know much about this.” Kotka said rather solemnly. “I don’t even remember having a mother, or brothers, and I never really had anything. Excepting my breath and life as your mother said.”    His eyes wandered across the homestead slowly, and his head cocked a little. “Well, until I got here. I’ve come to have family, and friends. Comforts and caring. I have caring. And peace. Now that I think of it…”
“If everything is part of the world and nothing belongs to me,” Sasha rambled, interrupting her friend, “I guess I’ll never have anything either.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I have nothing.”
“That’s what you just said!”
“No. I said I’d never had anything besides my breath and life.”
“But everybody has those things. It’s a given.”
“Not so fast, young lady.” Kotka shifted his weight off his bad leg, “What about Iluk?” he asked, referring to the dog that had died just weeks ago, from unknown and presumably natural causes.
“But he’s dead!”
“Exactly.” He sat, staring at Sasha.
“Okay, so I have my breath and life. There. Two things everyone else…I mean…every living being has. How does that help me?”
“Well, you wouldn’t be able to talk about it if you weren’t alive. There’s that.”
“Great. So I have being alive and agony.” she fumed.
“So how many were there?” Kotka asked.
“What?”
“How many good things did you count?” he queried, turning to chase a bird from his dish.
“I don’t know.” Sasha pouted, “I didn’t count.”
“Well, isn’t that silly? You say you have only three things but haven’t counted?”
“What’s to count?” Frustrated and annoyed, she threw herself down. “All I have is a ball.”
“How about family?” Kotka countered, “You have siblings.”
“Oh yeah, and brothers who steal from me.”
Kotka was looking around the homestead again, enumerating all he saw from his perspective. “You have Bek and Nina. And Jiak.”
“Well, yeah, Jiak.” Sasha conceded briefly, “But I don’t own Jiak!”
He leaned closer and insisted. “But you have Jiak in your life.”
“Yes. That’s a good thing I guess.”
“And your bed. And supper. You never are cold or hungry.” The mentor continued, remembering times when this was not always so for him. He took notice of one precious thing after another that had been missing from his life before Bek brought him home that fateful day. It was easy to see the bounty from his perspective.
“Yes, that’s true too. I am grateful.”
“There, you have gratitude. And friends. How about me? Am I really nothing to you?”
“Oh, no! No!” Sasha ran to him and pressed her snout against his, “I treasure you most.”
“And you have your mother.” Kotka sounded a little sad as he said this. Taken from his own mother earlier than he should have been, watching Mother tend to her brood was the most magnificent and valued reward he had come to know at the homestead.
A tear welled in Sasha’s eye as she sat looking toward the yard.
“So you still feel you have nothing?” Kotka offered.
She was frozen still, her gaze fixed.
“I’m counting.” she replied.

Here in this shivering camp Sasha wondered where Splotch was now. And her other litter mates, Anchu being the only one still with her. She thought of her dear friend Kotka, whom she hadn’t seen since she’d joined the sled team on the mountain ascent. She poked her head up and out of the pile between one dog’s head and another’s butt, and called his name. She discovered immediately the futility of trying to out-roar the storm.
Then she realized that the objects in the tiny gap were becoming brighter. Day was dawning. At first light she would gather up her brother, and they would seek out Kotka. And Stone and Dak, Umka and Alexei and Larik.
She added these now to an account, an inventory of all the good things she was grateful to have.
An account which began, first and foremost, with her breath and life.

Caravan Draft Chapter Two

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Chapter Two
Dark March

 

At the lead, Dak held his eyes tightly closed, marching blindly at a plodding pace in the brutal Arctic night. The tornadic wind shoved menacingly at his chest, resisting his efforts, and hurled a never-ending onslaught of tiny frozen particles at him. Even if daylight, he would be unable to keep his eyes open.

Behind him, thirteen weary dogs shared the burden of the heavily laden cargo sled, similarly holding eyes closed, ears folded down, the bitter cold biting at their feet, their noses, their thinly-coated bellies.

Stone was behind Dak, so drained and tired that his closed eyes often convinced him he was asleep, and he would nod off while walking. He’d awaken to the harsh reality of the merciless night, suddenly feeling the frigid air and the relentless wind. Again he would remind himself that he’d seen worse. This malevolent storm still did not equal the pain felt the time he fell through the ice into the nearly-frozen water of the river.

Never before had he been rendered helpless. The water, a fraction of a degree above solid ice, almost instantly numbed muscles and arrested their motion, stabbed at every inch of skin like a thousand knives, drove the very breath from his lungs. A strong swimmer, he now found all four legs unresponsive, and they made just the slightest ellipses despite his greatest urging. He watched the water rise to consume him, to flood his open eyes and wash in agonizing waves into his ears.

He stopped breathing. His next breath would be his last, he knew. He was scared and saddened, but ready to escape the unendurable pain. He ceased his efforts to fight, and surrendered. A strange calm enveloped him, and he was surprised to find himself admiring the beauty of the sunlight as it danced on the crystal ceiling of ice above him.

It was not Stone’s time, however, and a force that seemed as mighty as the gods themselves clenched a great talon onto his vertebrate lifeline, catching at the last possible moment the last talonful of tail. Swords of pain shot up his back and up his neck as his entire body weight was hauled by this delicate appendage, against the current of the river and carrying the added weight of saturated fur. The agony of his spine rivaled that of being frozen alive, and with this he said goodbye to this life, and exhaled.

Instantly, his pain subsided, and for a moment, everything became brighter. Then he was running to his favorite thing in the world, Tun’s open arms. Then, as quickly as it came, the light faded.

Excruciating pain rapidly returned to Stone’s world when he awoke to find himself inches from the coals of a hot fire. It was not the heat that caused his suffering, but the return of warm blood to partly-frozen extremities. He couldn’t move, and saw with horror that his coat was solid ice as if it had been painted on layer by layer. It clad him like a suit of armor, prevented his movement, and laid on him like a ton of rock.

Stone stumbled and awoke again on the desolate tundra behind Dak, walking through the frozen night. His ears felt as if they were on fire, and he again recalled how this minor discomfort paled in comparison to the worst he’d felt.

Every dog, and Rol, maybe his reindeer, too, wondered how long they would continue. Some, perhaps, wondered how long they could continue without dropping from exhaustion. Mile by mile the world grew colder and the gale grew greater. Barely walking now, they moved slowly, step by step ever eastward into the withering wind, and there was no sign of stopping. More than one dog began to limp, hold up a paw occasionally, hopping along on three.

Anchu’s regular place was fourth in line, right behind his sister. On the East Woods Trail he first thought they were simply bound for another adventure. Still in his first year, he was slow to sense the fear in the air. Running to escape looks a lot like running a race on the surface of it. The clues slowly revealed themselves to the young dog. A lack of encouraging calls from humans, or rallying cries from teammates. No jovial exchanges between the people, or sidebar challenges between canine athletes. No one was talking, no one was laughing. No one was smiling.

Then Anchu saw the hue of trepidation and anxiousness, smelled the apprehension and dismay. Now the fear reached him and flooded over him. He was afraid, and didn’t even understand the reason to be fearful. Afraid of the fear itself. Now he trudged through the coldest, windiest, blackest night he’d ever experienced. In a place he was sure he’d never been, even further from his peaceful home on the moraine than he had been at Tun’s mountaintop Lodge.

He called to his sister, barely a dog’s length away, and could hardly hear his own voice above the hurricane. He tried again, but gulping the loads of frozen air required for barking brought sharp pains. He abandoned the effort. He was thirsty, but the windswept tundra was as clean as a kitchen floor. No snow to eat. Nothing but rock hard ice with bits of shale in it. He wished they’d pitch camp. Wished there was a fire and a hot meal. Wished he could talk to his brave sister, who always made him feel safe and protected. He wished they were Home, and this thought caused him to begin a whimpering that would continue through the night, unheard by any but the Ice Queen.

Behind Anchu walked people-loving Umka. After a separation from Tun, he was overjoyed they were together again, and eagerly anticipated the time they would go back to their regular, adventurous and fun lives. Following Tun as he puttered and worked. Curled beside his bedroll at a trail camp, or winning a race for him at Summer Festival. Umka thought of the innumerable evenings on the porch of the dogs’ house at The Lodge, Tun singing his songs, patting and petting his dogs as each drifted off to sleep. He dwelled on this vision, and despite the bitter cold, felt warm within.

Alexei was equally grateful for having reunited with his brother Larik, after Larik quit the team to stay behind in the smoking ruins of Tunkan. After the grueling round-trip to Bek’s, and Rol continuing without a break, he refused to stand and return to the trail. The pack would not accept this, and returned to retrieve him after their duties were fulfilled, delivering Rol safely home. Alexei vowed he would never be apart from Larik again. He would stick beside him through anything, even face death itself by his side.

Umka, too, would make such a silent pledge. Once together again, he swore never to separate himself from the smiling giant.

Behind Rol’s sled, out of view of Tun and the team, Larik followed amidst several orphan dogs who had attached themselves to their fellow emigrants. The hasty nature of their meetings, without introductions, left them unaware of one another’s names. The subsequent race up the mountain then into the storm perpetuated this condition, and the insistent wind extinguished any possibility of conversation.

His thoughts argued with themselves, alternately seeking to justify or curse his presence here on this pitiless plain. He should have stayed in Tunkan, where he’d decided he would separate from the team, live independently, emancipate himself from the harness and the sled and the life of a working dog. The vision of living free in the wild expanse of the Chukchi Peninsula called to him. He was ready to get on with it when his brother returned, and Alexei was keen to do anything for Larik, to be together as they had since birth. Apart barely a day, Alexei could see no light in his world without his ever-present brother, and went to find him. He made no consideration of what he would leave behind, and without knowledge of what the future would bring, it was then Alexei vowed that it was life with Larik, or he’d as soon have no life at all.

Now Larik thought of that day, when the rest of the pack came to find him and Alexei. How they decided democratically that as long as they were separated from Tun and at a loss as to his whereabouts, they would join Larik and form their own wild dog pack together. That mild morning was like a dream, and the happiness, joy and revelry of the day was Larik’s fondest memory.

Still, he was thankful and glad to be running with Tun, now that they’d found one another again. He hadn’t realized until he saw him again just how much he loved him.

“Great.” came the response from the other side of Larik’s thoughts, “so now we’re out here and not even with the pack. Surrounded by dogs we don’t even know. Freezing. This is the worst storm I’ve ever tried to mush through, and the people aren’t stopping to camp.” He thought again of the dream, striking out on his own if need be, to live the wild and free life. “I could start right now I suppose.” The debates continued in his head. “I could pitch my own camp and make a bed right here. Well, if there was anything to make a bed in. Can’t just sleep on the ice on the open tundra, you’d just freeze solid.”

He continued to walk as he argued with himself, occasionally opening one eye as best he could against the stinging ice pellets. He’d look to assess the dogs around him, maybe recruit them for his wild dog pack. Sometimes he’d try to look ahead, to see his brother, Tun, Stone or Willow.

This thought startled him, as he remembered Willow, the pack mother that partly raised him, had died last winter in a bear encounter. It was Sasha now. Sasha was now their pack mother.

Sharp pains flashed up his left foreleg as the sub-freezing miles wore on. He could see nothing ahead, not even Rol’s back, darkness and wind-driven snow unyielding.

Now he felt he wished he had reported for duty in answer to Tun’s call. At least he would be near them. Behind Stone and Mother, and Tun right behind him. He longed to be with them now, and tried to move through the train to catch up to them, but the pain in his leg was amplified by the effort, and he could make no gains.

Larik saw the dog beside him begin to lift the same paw. He drew closer to him to be heard above the raging storm.

“I’m Larik.” He shouted into the dog’s ear. The other leaned in, “Omok.” he replied.

They each opened ever-so-slightly the eye facing the other. The blistering wind and stinging snow seemed to subside a bit, seemed more bearable now, to facilitate this meeting. They held this look for a moment. This was not an ordinary introduction. This was the kind of instant bond born of shared calamity.

To be vexed by life’s ills and difficulties is unavoidable. To face them alone is unimaginable. Larik and Omok, who had each felt the isolation of this desperate flight, muzzled by the roaring winds, now felt some kinship.

Kindred in the face of their foe, the mighty Ice Queen. Each thinking that now they felt less alone as they began to wonder if they had pressed too hard, gone too far.

As they began to wonder if this is the place they would die.