In those first twenty minutes Molly had gripped the handlebar with all her strength, hardly daring to breathe in case she tipped the sled. But then they’d left the tall bushy fir trees behind and the landscape had opened into an endless white expanse. Without the fear of crashing head first into a tree trunk, Molly had relaxed, and with a little trial and error she’d discovered that steering was a simple matter of leaning her weight on one foot or the other, like a skateboard, and now she could weave left or right whenever she wanted, and lift a hand from the handlebars without fear of falling.
The train of sleds in front of Molly began to slow. Beyond Rachel and Noah, Valek and the rest of team A had already stopped and were stepping from their sleds. Molly pressed her foot to the brake and a second later her huskies drew to a stop.
The noise was instant. Eleven people, all with six huskies each. Sixty-six dogs barking and whining in protest, bucking and jumping on the lines. They didn’t want to stop running. She felt the disappointment too. After an hour, maybe more, of riding across the snow with only the skill of the sled and her own thoughts to occupy her, the last thing Molly wanted to do was stop and socialize again.
With a heavy sigh, Molly dug her snow hook deep into the snow behind the sled. After Lee and Valek’s drilling on not letting go, it felt strange to do exactly that. She watched for moment, her hand hovering over the handle in case the line wasn’t secured properly and the dogs decided to lurch forward.
Her feet sank down into ten centimetres of powdery snow as she stepped in long slow steps to the front of her sled. Molly reached down and ruffled the fur of the two huskies at the front of the sled. One was white with patches of silver-brown, like chocolate that had been left in the sun to melt and then set again. The other was off-white with large ears that stuck out to the sides.
Even with the thick gloves protecting her hands from the elements, Molly could tell the fur was damp from the snow. Then the smell hit, affronting her nose. A musky stench, like her sodden running trainers after a winter’s run across the peaks, and raw chicken two days past its sell-by date. But worse. Worse than a hundred cats with a hundred litter trays all crammed into one room.
The first dog whimpered from her touch and dropped onto her back, rolling in the crunchy snow. Molly rubbed her tummy fur and made sure to breathe through her mouth.
‘I think you’re Chevy – right?’ she cooed with a smile as the dog’s tongue flopped out of her mouth, all rosy pink next to her white fur.
***
After all the dogs had been taken from their sleds and secured to rope lines dug into the snow, the group had formed an awkward standing circle and had eaten sandwiches whilst making small talk about themselves. All except Molly. She’d lingered by her sled, eating her sandwich of chewy bread and some kind of meat paste alone before going to each of her dogs in turn, fussing over their bodies and trying to remember their names.
All of her huskies were named after American cars. Chevy and Mustang were at the front. Then Dodge and Shelby, and Tesla and Jeep. Dodge was her favourite. Black fur covered his ears and circled his face, before running down his back. The rest of him was white, with a scattering of grey that made him look like a wolf. A big, friendly, slobbering stinky wolf who jumped and yelped until she leant close enough for him to lick her ears with warm slobber that made her laugh out loud with joy and horror in equal measure.
‘OK, let’s set up camp,’ Lee called to the group, waving Molly over. ‘We’ve already secured the dogs to the lines. Who knows what’s the next thing we do?’
‘Tents?’ Greg called out.
‘Nope, before that.’
There was a silence. Molly ruffled Dodge’s belly one more time before standing up and trudging through the snow to join the group. ‘Feed the dogs,’ she said.
Lee nodded. ‘Exactly. The dogs are your first priority, always. No matter how tired or hungry you are, the first thing you do when we stop is take the dogs off the sleds, remove their harnesses and secure them onto the lines. The second thing you do is give them a brick each of frozen dog food, which is packed at the back of your sleds. Since it’s not their feeding time, we’ll skip this part and move on to the tents.’
It took an hour for Molly and Erica to unpack the tent from Erica’s sled and set it out in the snow. With the exception of a ‘pass me that pole,’ and a ‘have you got the other end?’ they worked in silence, which suited Molly just fine. The anger Erica had stirred inside Molly the previous evening simmered under the surface of Molly’s thoughts. Erica could pretend she knew Molly; Erica could even delude herself into believing she understood what Molly had been through this past year, but there was no way Molly was going to play along. Erica was clueless.
The red dome-shaped tent was tiny. There was an open canopy at the front where they’d be able to heat their food and sit out in the evenings, but inside there was barely enough space to crawl in on their hands and knees and lie down.
The tent provided a shelter from the wind but not the cold. Molly was beginning to understand why spare clothes were considered non-essential. There was no way she’d be stripping off in minus twenty-degree temperatures just to put on a clean T-shirt, that was for sure.
‘Each night you’ll use your camping burners to melt some snow and heat up a pouch of food,’ Lee called to them. ‘The food pouches have been specially designed for these types of journeys and contain the extra calories and nutrients your body will need to maintain energy levels during long days in extremely cold temperatures.’
Molly crawled out of her tent and glanced around at the other red tents, dotted like an outbreak of acne over the snow-covered frozen lake. Her biceps and shoulders were already aching from their journey this morning. How much harder would it be setting up camp tomorrow after a full day of sledding?
At least they’d all be too tired to sit around a campfire sharing boring life stories Molly couldn’t care less about. With any luck, she could get through this trip without exchanging more than a handful of words with Erica or anyone else for that matter.
Molly
‘Hike,’ Molly shouted. Her voice was muffled through the neck warmer pulled high up her face, but the dogs responded with a lurch and all at once they were flying over the snow, following their tracks back towards Huskyleir.
A moment later the two leading dogs closed in on the back of Rachel’s sled. Rachel’s start had been slow and there was now a gap between her and Noah, and team A, pulling ahead. Molly glanced behind her to Erica and Lee bringing up the rear as she lifted her foot to tap the brake. Then Molly had a better idea, and leaned her body hard to the right. The change in direction from the dogs was instant. They picked up speed as if sensing Molly’s plan. Within seconds they were side by side with Rachel’s sled.
Rachel twisted her head, her goggles like the beady eyes of a fly staring at Molly. Molly lifted her hand in a wave and grinned before urging on her dogs with another ‘hike’. She pulled away from Rachel and tucked herself in the space behind Noah. Another laugh built inside her. Goose bumps prickled her body, but it wasn’t cold this time, it was raw thrill.
There was something strangely familiar about sledding, as if Molly had done it a thousand times before. It wasn’t the sled or the dogs that felt so natural to her; it was the wind in her face and the landscape rushing by in her periphery. It was the exhilaration – the zeal – like the little pop-up toys from party bags with the sucker and the spring, jumping and popping in her stomach. It was the adrenaline racing through her blood like a double shot of espresso that felt so right, that Molly knew so well.
Then it hit her – a kick to her gut – and the smile dropped from her face. It wasn’t sledding that she’d done a thousand times before; it was running. Not just running, but racing. Winning. That’s why she felt so … so at home.
A sudden