I think I woke sometime that night, but I may have dreamed Mom sitting on the edge of my bed, a shape in the darkness. Her arms wrapped round a pillow as she studied me.
My head was fuzzy from a sleep so deep it seemed to grab at me with sticky fingers and pull me down even as I tried to lift my head. Mom? I managed to say, my voice come out rusty.
She got up. Go back to sleep, she said.
Next morning, she was waiting for me in the kitchen. My schoolbooks missing but my pack on the table, waiting for me.
There’s a water bottle, Mom said before I could ask. Her voice flat and calm as she went on, Matches, even though I know you can start a fire without them. Gloves and an extra sweater. I know you think you won’t need any of it, but you might, so take it. And this.
She opened her hand and offered me a pocketknife. It was heavier than it looked, not the cheap kind you give to a kid for a first knife but a real tool with a paper-thin edge to its blade. It was the prettiest thing I ever seen and I wanted badly to pocket it. But I was afraid to take it, afraid to go out the door with the pack and the knife. Afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to come back.
Mom mustn’t of slept all night, judging by the circles under her eyes. There was lines round her mouth and wrinkles between her brows that I hadn’t noticed before, and although her own hand was steady the rest of her seemed delicate, breakable as glass. She couldn’t really tell me what to do, I understood for the first time. I was stronger than her, and faster, specially when I had got my fill of what I needed.
I planted my feet and stood firm.
She come round the table, brought the pack to me. Be back by dinner, she said.
I wasn’t about to ask questions. I shouldered the pack and stumbled out the door, my knees watery with relief, though I did listen for her to turn the lock behind me. She didn’t. And when I come home that evening, just as she was setting the last plate on the table and Dad was cleaning up after being gone on the trail, she only reminded me to wash my hands and keep my new knife somewhere out of Scott’s reach.
Did you drink? she asked in a low voice when I come back to the table.
It was a shock to hear her ask so plain, and with Dad and Scott just a room away. What I done in the woods wasn’t something we had ever talked about in so many words.
I nodded, but she seemed to be waiting on something, so I said, I caught two squirrels, plus a little beaver out near the river. I brung the fur back.
Good, she said.
After that, I had the run of the woods. I felt full and warm all the time, more patient with Scott, tolerant when Mom or Dad give me a chore I didn’t like.
Mom was different, too. Though she still wouldn’t go into the woods on her own, she spent more time outdoors. She was also more patient, specially with me. If I come home late or forgot one of the rules, long as it wasn’t the Fourth Rule, she only chided me, there was no more sending me to my room or keeping me indoors for days at a time.
That spring, Mom started training other folks’ dogs again. It was something she done before I come along, there was old pictures of her taking a pack of new pups on walks or fitting them with harnesses. Early on, she’d helped Dad teach his racing dogs the basics, and she turned out to be so good at it other people come to her to train their dogs, and not just racing dogs, neither. Soon our yard was overrun with all kinds of dogs, every single one learned to sit or heel or play dead at just a word from Mom.
She got busy fast. Soon enough, Dad suggested they take on another hand.
I don’t need some kid tagging along while I work, Mom argued.
It doesn’t have to be another youngster, Dad said. We’re doing okay enough, we can pay someone a real wage, not just a few bucks and the benefit of experience. Someone who knows what they’re doing.
They went back and forth on the subject at least a week till Mom finally give in. But I’m the one who has to work with whoever it is, she told Dad. So I’m going to find the right person.
Mom probably met with two dozen folks before she found Masha. She wasn’t the sort I expected Mom to choose, she was hardworking enough but she was also chatty, what you call bubbly, she never seemed to have a bad day and greeted every frustration with a smile on her face. Her disposition made her specially good with problem dogs. Maybe that’s why Mom picked her.
Either way, Mom and Masha got real close over a brief time. Soon enough, Masha wasn’t just helping with the dogs but Mom would invite her to stay for dinner, or the two of them would bake together or weed the garden beds. Masha always chatting away, and Mom always smiling and laughing. Something about her seemed to rub off on Mom, and even after Masha left for the day, Mom would still float round the house, cheerful and even silly.
Then, quick as switching off a light, something changed. That winter, Masha flew back to her home on account of her dad dying, and when she come back more than a month later, you could tell she felt real bad. Still, she wanted to get back to normal, is what she said. She was quieter than before, still friendly enough but not so fast to laugh or make a joke.
It was understandable, someone close to you dies, you feel bad. But the change in Masha seemed to trigger something in Mom. At first, she just got quiet, too, and you could imagine she was only trying to make things easier for Masha, not pry into her personal affairs or expect her to act like nothing had happened. But Mom started to grow out of sorts, she would snap at Masha or find excuses not to work so close with her. Even after Masha went home for the day, Mom would still be surly, barking at me and Scott, getting angry at Dad over small things. Or else she would disappear for the evening, close herself in her bedroom and not come out.
Then one morning over breakfast Dad asked her if she could spare Masha because he needed an extra hand to help with drop bags, and Mom wiped her mouth with a napkin then said, She won’t be here. I let her go.
Dad dropped his fork. What do you mean?
I mean I let her go. I told her we couldn’t use her and that she needed to find work somewhere else.
Told her— Dad stared at her. Wasn’t she doing a good job?
She was fine, Mom said.
So she done something to make you mad?
No.
He crumpled his own napkin up and tossed it at his plate. You didn’t think maybe I’d want to weigh in on something like this? he asked.
Mom shrugged. She worked with me, not you.
Dad huffed. That’s nice, Hannah, he said and stood up, dropped his plate in the sink. That’s a great attitude. I guess you can take care of everything yourself.
Mom glanced at me then.
Tracy can help, she said.
So that’s how I come to do more than just run dogs down the trail for fun. I always had my eye set on racing. By the time I was ten I was already taking small teams down the trail, my sled behind Dad’s. But after Mom got rid of Masha, I started learning what it really takes to raise a racing dog right, how to train them and how to tell which pups are suited to race and which are destined just to be someone’s pets.
When Fly’s newborn pups was ready to move from the house to the kennel that spring, Mom laid out her tools on the kitchen table then called me over.
Grab one of those dogs, will you? she said.
I handed her a puppy and she held it against her chest and with a needle numbed the place on its foot where the dewclaw was. Switched the needle for a pair of long-handled scissors. Real deft she cut the dewclaw off. There was a little blood but not much.
You clip it off, Mom said, so it doesn’t catch on something when she’s running. Better to remove it now than for it to tear off later. You want to do the next one?