Cold water splashed across Scarlett’s chest as she broke through the ice. Howls rose into the night air, and she didn’t know whether they were the dogs’ or her own. Everything hurt and burned from the bitter cold. Her chest grew heavy and impossibly hard to lift with each staggered breath.
She was drowning, dying. And for the briefest of moments, the cold feeling abated. It felt warmer somehow, being surrounded by the water’s embrace. She closed her eyes and wondered if it would really be the worst thing, dying doing what she loved…
And then a frantic pair of paws scratched at her chest.
Lenny!
She’d vowed to protect him as a puppy, and he needed her now. They all did.
With a tremendous effort, she kicked and propelled herself toward the shore. Holding on to Lenny and the sled, she struggled to keep feeling in her extremities. Each movement took an enormous amount of strength to execute as her muscles and the blood within her veins both began to freeze. But she’d trained long and hard for this. She was stronger now and braver, too.
Back on land, movements were just as difficult as they’d been in the water. She now had to support her own body weight as well as that of the heavy clothes that had already turned to robes of ice.
“Don’t… give… up,” she grunted, unsure whether she was talking to herself or to Lenny, who still thrashed about in the water rather than coming up to the land at her side.
Panic rising to a fever pitch, she realized that the dogs were literally tied to an anchor. The sled had landed close to the shore and the dogs were still harnessed to it. Lenny was stuck to the others. She needed to get them all out together.
But as each husky, eskimo dog, malamute, and mutt struggled in the water, the line became more and more tangled. These dogs were used to working in a team, though they’d never faced a challenge like this before. Their survival instincts had kicked in, and that instinct shouted, “Every dog for himself!”
“Len-ny!’ Scarlett cried, hacking out partially frozen breaths on either side of the word. “I need you to be strong for the others. Come to me!”
She fell to the frozen ground, ignoring the pain that shot through her knees when she did. All that mattered now was saving these dogs. They’d put their trust in her, and she couldn’t let them down when it mattered most.
At the edge of the river, she took hold of the sled in both hands and began to drag it backward. She expected another jolt to her system, but it didn’t come. Did this mean she’d already begun to lose feeling, her systems already on the path to shutting down for the big sleep? The final sleep?
She could still save the dogs.
Working with Lenny and Wendy, she continued to slowly pull the sled backward. Scarlett used the snow hook to help drag herself farther from the river. It became easier as more dogs reached the frozen ground and aided in the rescue effort. They were trained to pull, and they, too, knew the danger of this situation. They trusted Scarlett completely and did her bidding even as broken and frightened as they were.
Maybe hours, maybe only seconds had passed since their fall. To Scarlett, it felt as if time now stood still, a chasm with no past, no future, only now.
“Hike! Hike! Hike!” Scarlett chanted as loud as her broken voice would allow.
The dogs struggled forth, pulling away from the icy riverbank. Scarlett grabbed the basket and held on as she was pulled away with them.
At last, the full team was safely on land and away from the water. They’d done it. They’d managed to survive this first obstacle, but what came next? None of them had the strength to go any farther. They’d fallen off the trail, and with the snow coming down, there wouldn’t be a trail anymore, which meant no one would know to look for them out here.
Scarlett knew then that she was going to die, but she could still save the dogs. Pulling off her soaked mittens, she worked her icy fingers at each of the harnesses. She struggled to free the dogs from the line, to give them the chance.
“Hike!” she cried weakly before at last collapsing into a bed of snow.
A warm tongue brought her back to herself.
The dogs. They still need me.
Scarlett fought through the pain to pull the dogs around to circle the wagons. In the middle, she pulled out her camp stove and the last couple bottles of Heet. Pouring out as much of the fuel as possible, she lit a small fire. Thankfully, most of her supplies were in dry bags. How Lauren knew she might need those, she could only guess.
Scarlett went through her checkpoint rituals, letting her body take over, her mind already impossibly trapped by the ice. The dogs got bits of meat from her pack and she worked on getting them all dried off. They dried quicker than she did, but the dogs came first. Always.
Once she was certain the dogs were okay, she flopped down next to the sled and peeled off the heaviest of her soaked layers. The cold wind stung but felt warmer than the water-logged parka.
The thick body of Lenny dropped onto her with a thud. She couldn’t even feel the impact of the nearly eighty-pound dog against her chest. The fire continued to burn low, but the rest of the dogs crowded around her, warming her and licking her and taking care of her like she’d done for them.
She must’ve fallen asleep in the warm embrace of the sled team because when her eyes opened next, the fire had dulled to embers, and the colorful wonder of the Aurora Borealis stretched into the stars. Was this God’s way of telling her she would be okay, or was she instead being welcomed through Heaven’s gates?
As long as she was alive—however long that might be—she would fight. Although sharp pain stung at her feet, she needed to force herself up and stoke the fire to a blaze once more.
Sleep threatened to overtake her, but she needed to find the energy to keep going. Somewhere. Somehow. If they stayed here, they would all die. Even unhooked, the dogs would stay at her side until the last of them succumbed to winter’s cold embrace.
It wouldn’t be much longer now…