with more confidence. For a few moments he stood fast, then he turned and began to lumber further into the forest. She continued forward, sure now that the bear was leading her somewhere, that he had sought her out.
Glancing at her watch, she saw it was just past 9 a.m. In two hours from now Sammy Inukpuk would be pulling into the official start of the Iditarod dogsled race at Willow, expecting to see his ex-wife among the backup crews. It was her job to make sure he had all the supplies he needed and to offer moral support at the start of what were bound to be two of the most challenging weeks of Sammy’s life as he raced sixteen dogs 1150 miles through some of the toughest terrain on the planet. From then on, she’d remain in Anchorage, organizing supplies and being on hand to receive any dogs that might get injured en route, while her old friend and ally, Derek Palliser, provided logistics support and managed communications up at the race finish in the northwestern town of Nome.
Edie walked on, the bear maybe fifty feet ahead, through stands of white spruce then out into clumps of quaking aspen, wadingthrough deep snow, her heart thudding in her throat. It seemed as though they had been travelling a long time when, all of a sudden, the bear stopped and swivelled about. He was a long distance away now, his body visible through the trees like a patch of mist in the dark. He watched her heading closer for a while, then raised his head and smelled the air, turned and cantered away.
Edie looked about. For the first time in her adult life, she realized that she was lost. Glancing back at her footprints, she could already see that the bear had led her round in circles, jumbling the prints into a series of long switchbacks. Now she found herself in a dank world full of shifting shadows and strange, whispering sounds, like something from a childhood dream, with absolutely no sense of where to turn next. She felt her throat tighten and her palms begin to sweat.
She took in a deep, calming breath and stood listening, absorbing the sounds of the forest and trying to take some meaning from them. Where Edie came from, up on Ellesmere Island, just shy of the North Pole, there weren’t any trees, only raw, rocky tundra. On a clear day you could see the earth’s curve. The unfamiliarity of the landscape was just one more thing about Alaska she hadn’t really thought about when she’d agreed to step in to help Sammy after his one surviving son, Willa, broke his arm. Now the wind picked up and began snaking along the forest floor, bothering the snow into little fountains of flakes. The trunks of the spruces all around her creaked very softly and a drift of accumulated powder snow swept from the branches and tumbled to earth. If she’d been in Alaska any longer than two days she might already know where the prevailing winds blew from, but even of that she was ignorant. She looked up but could not see the sun through the canopy. No chance of knowing which direction she was going in.
Far away, a few ravens chattered, a nearby twig snapped, andthere was the rustle of something low to the ground, a fox perhaps.
It had been crazy irresponsible to come out here without so much as a rifle, the kind of thing she’d had a habit of doing when she’d been drinking. The kind of habit she hoped she had kicked.
A thin rumble came to her, more a vibration than a sound, then it deepened and grew louder until it resolved into the deep whine of an engine and she felt a hollowing sense of relief. The vehicle drew closer and before too long a snowmobile came into sight. She grinned and waved and waited but when the vehicle carried on without even slowing, she ran into its path, shouting and waving her hands, bewildered. The driver opened his visor and a pair of eyes almost lost in a furze of salt and pepper facial hair looked out. A female passenger in silver fox mitts sat impassively behind him. Under their down parkas, they both appeared to be
Glancing at her watch, she saw it was just past 9 a.m. In two hours from now Sammy Inukpuk would be pulling into the official start of the Iditarod dogsled race at Willow, expecting to see his ex-wife among the backup crews. It was her job to make sure he had all the supplies he needed and to offer moral support at the start of what were bound to be two of the most challenging weeks of Sammy’s life as he raced sixteen dogs 1150 miles through some of the toughest terrain on the planet. From then on, she’d remain in Anchorage, organizing supplies and being on hand to receive any dogs that might get injured en route, while her old friend and ally, Derek Palliser, provided logistics support and managed communications up at the race finish in the northwestern town of Nome.
Edie walked on, the bear maybe fifty feet ahead, through stands of white spruce then out into clumps of quaking aspen, wadingthrough deep snow, her heart thudding in her throat. It seemed as though they had been travelling a long time when, all of a sudden, the bear stopped and swivelled about. He was a long distance away now, his body visible through the trees like a patch of mist in the dark. He watched her heading closer for a while, then raised his head and smelled the air, turned and cantered away.
Edie looked about. For the first time in her adult life, she realized that she was lost. Glancing back at her footprints, she could already see that the bear had led her round in circles, jumbling the prints into a series of long switchbacks. Now she found herself in a dank world full of shifting shadows and strange, whispering sounds, like something from a childhood dream, with absolutely no sense of where to turn next. She felt her throat tighten and her palms begin to sweat.
She took in a deep, calming breath and stood listening, absorbing the sounds of the forest and trying to take some meaning from them. Where Edie came from, up on Ellesmere Island, just shy of the North Pole, there weren’t any trees, only raw, rocky tundra. On a clear day you could see the earth’s curve. The unfamiliarity of the landscape was just one more thing about Alaska she hadn’t really thought about when she’d agreed to step in to help Sammy after his one surviving son, Willa, broke his arm. Now the wind picked up and began snaking along the forest floor, bothering the snow into little fountains of flakes. The trunks of the spruces all around her creaked very softly and a drift of accumulated powder snow swept from the branches and tumbled to earth. If she’d been in Alaska any longer than two days she might already know where the prevailing winds blew from, but even of that she was ignorant. She looked up but could not see the sun through the canopy. No chance of knowing which direction she was going in.
Far away, a few ravens chattered, a nearby twig snapped, andthere was the rustle of something low to the ground, a fox perhaps.
It had been crazy irresponsible to come out here without so much as a rifle, the kind of thing she’d had a habit of doing when she’d been drinking. The kind of habit she hoped she had kicked.
A thin rumble came to her, more a vibration than a sound, then it deepened and grew louder until it resolved into the deep whine of an engine and she felt a hollowing sense of relief. The vehicle drew closer and before too long a snowmobile came into sight. She grinned and waved and waited but when the vehicle carried on without even slowing, she ran into its path, shouting and waving her hands, bewildered. The driver opened his visor and a pair of eyes almost lost in a furze of salt and pepper facial hair looked out. A female passenger in silver fox mitts sat impassively behind him. Under their down parkas, they both appeared to be
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