Chapter 5: Mae's Harness

I woke with Astrid's arm still around me and her breath on my neck.

The storm had finally run out, and a thin blue light came through the window.

I lay very still because I did not want to be the one who moved first.

She was awake too, because her breathing had gone careful and slow.

"Morning," I said.

"Morning." Her voice was gravel.

She slid her arm out, sat up, and put her boots on without looking at me.

"Sun's out," she said. "We should dig."

We dug for two hours, shoveling a path from the door to the wood shed.

We also dug a pen in the lee of the cabin where the dogs could run.

The air was so cold that it squeaked, and the sky was the deepest blue I had ever seen.

Moose raced in circles with a bark that was half joy and half complaint.

Pip tore down the path after him, and his taped paw left small rust-colored prints.

Astrid leaned on her shovel and watched them with a look I could not name.

"Mae would have had them in harness by now," she said.

"She ran dogs?"

"She loved them more than anyone I ever knew." Astrid's eyes stayed on the pen.

"She had a team of five, up until last winter."

"Her whole job was winter patrol on a dog sled, because the district wouldn't let her have a snowmobile."

"Where are they?"

"Her sister took them to Duluth in May."

The way she said May made my chest ache.

I thought of all the things I was not asking, and I laid my shovel against the wall.

"There's a harness in the shed," Astrid said, as if she had decided something. "Hanging on the back wall. Come see it."

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