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Despite the 3 blankets, the husky laying on his lap, and the wood stove burning away in the corner, Hal was somehow still a bit too cold. Alaska was about as far from LA as he could’ve been, and today he missed the palm tree lined streets a little more. Since Shadow Moses, and the trek back to David’s cabin (which ended up involving flying in smaller planes and rougher weather than he would’ve liked), Hal had hardly moved from that spot on the couch, just watching anime on his laptop and trying to plan his escape from the harsh winter, though he wasn’t sure where to go.
“I’m gonna need to steal Raptor from you, Hal. We’re going sledding.”
Hal glanced out the window next to him. It was completely frosted over and despite the fact it was still dark out, save for the moonlight casting a glow over the snow, it looked cold. “You’re going outside? Right now?”
David scowled and nodded his head, “I’m a musher, this is a good day for it,” and whistled to Raptor, who promptly shot up and onto the ground, sitting and panting. David knelt and patted his head, “Wanna go for a run boy? Huh?” the baby talk he gave to the dog startled Hal, he didn't know the solider was capable of speaking in any other tone aside from his low, gruff, cigarette smoke one. David looked back up at him, “You can come with, if you want. Actually, I’d prefer it if you did. I don’t want anyone kidnapping you when I’m gone.”
“You want me to go outside? Right now?” Hal was never much of an outdoorsman and if he had to wear anything more or less than a t-shirt and jeans, he generally wouldn’t leave the house if he could help it.
“You just have to sit there; I’ll do all the work. I’ve got extra parkas and boots and stuff. I won’t let ya freeze.” Before Hal could even say anything David went over to the coat rack and threw a parka at him. He really had no say in the matter; he was going whether he liked it or not. Raptor barked and yipped excitedly, jumping around after hearing what must’ve been his favorite words, and followed at David’s heels as he opened the door and stepped out, or rather waded through the multiple feet of snow. David looked back before shutting it, “You coming?”
“…I guess,” He put the parka on—it was heavy and lined with fur and about 2 sizes too big for him, but felt cozy. The snow pants David had were just as baggy as the parka, but the boots fit fine. All the clothes he was wearing were David’s anyways, and equally ill fitting. He didn’t think of packing an overnight bag while scrambling to get out of the crumbling Arms Tech facility. Silly Hal.
He followed David out, who shut the door behind him and locked the three deadbolts. “I gotta go rig the dogs up gimmie a minute.” He left Hal by the door while he turned and headed towards the dog’s shed. “Who wants to go for a run, huh?” he called out ahead of him, causing all the dogs to start sprinting out of the shelter and run in circles, barking. Hal just stood there and tried his best to get used to the cold. It really wasn’t bad, for the most part, but it burned his eyes and was making the snot in his nose freeze.
David returned shortly on the back of his sled with all the dogs hooked up and chomping at the bit. He hopped off and waded through the snow over to Hal, “Take these.” He handed him a pair of reflective goggles.
“For what?”
“You’ll burn your retinas from the glare otherwise.” Hal didn’t even know that was a possibility. “Helps with the wind, too. So your eyes don’t freeze.” Hal tried to hide the surprise on his face and took the goggles, situating them over his glasses. They sort of squished the lenses a bit too far up on his face, but it was something he could get used to. David put a pair of Oakley’s on his forehead—the slick cool guy kind—and pulled a scarf from out of nowhere, wrapped it around Hal’s face, “Don’t want you getting frostbite.” He stepped back, regarding him, and let out a chuckle.
“What?”
“You look like one of the little Yupik kids from the village.” He waved a hand at Hal before he could come up with any sort of rebuttal or protest, “Hop in the front,” he pointed at the sled, the front didn’t hold much except an insulated bag, a bucket, a handful of survival supplies, and a couple of blankets, a Hal-sized space cleared out in the middle of it. “Should be big enough.” This was becoming less appealing to Hal by the second, but he went over and settled into the sled anyways, tucking his knees to his chest and wrapping himself as tightly as he could in the blankets. David attached a rifle to the sled “Make sure that doesn’t go anywhere, and if we see anything trying to eat us, don’t hesitate to shoot.” He unzipped his parka to show Hal his 10mm, “I always got one on me, but. Just in case.” That made Hal feel a bit better. A cushy desk job doesn’t require firearms training, and the otaku had never even held a gun in his life. He’d much rather the lifelong soldier handle the shooting.
David stood on the back of the sled, “Ready, Hal?”
“I guess.” He had to nearly shout through the scarf.
“Hike!” David shouted and the dogs immediately took off down the driveway of the cabin, barking and drooling, breath making puffs like a steam engine in the negative weather. They were fast, tearing through the snow and whipping a freezing breeze into Hal's face, only made bearable by the scarf and goggles.
Hal was tempted to just fall back to sleep—it was still early in the morning, and he hardly slept the night prior. Between the threat of a bear or wolf attack and David shouting “Gee, Haw!” behind him periodically, on top of the dogs barking, he wasn’t sure if he could get any sleep. His eyelids felt heavy and the gentle glide and bump of the snow below him was oddly soothing, like a smooth ride on a long road trip. Eventually he lost the battle to keep his eyes open, and drifted off to sleep.
Hal woke up a couple hours later to the sound of David scolding one of his dogs, “Corsair, leave your sister alone, she’s not doing anything.” Through bleary, tired eyes, Hal could see two of the dogs nipping and yelping at each other, one of them must’ve been Corsair, he supposed. They were stopped in the valley of a mountain, and the first lights of dawn were casting through the peaks and turning the sky purple, reflecting off of the snow and glaciers on the mountains—it was breathtaking, the mountains an odd view to wake up to for Hal, who hadn’t really seen much of Alaska outside of the walls of the Arms Tech facility. Ptarmigans flew and ran around in the snow ahead of them, letting out their odd croaks and calls as they panicked. “Line out,” David ordered Raptor, who pulled the harness tight and stood at attention. Hal watched him shuffle the dogs around; apparently they were having some puppy drama while he was out. He put the goggles up over his head and let out a yawn, rubbed his eyes under his glasses. Surprisingly, he wasn’t cold at all, the fur coat did a great job at holding what little body heat he produced. “Mornin’.” David glanced at him while doing up the second dog’s harness.
“Were the kids fighting?”
David gave him a sideways grin, “Corsair’s always causing problems. I should’ve brought Chinook instead, but this guy’s gotta learn to get along with his siblings at some point. I put him next to Blackhawk because those two have the most beef. Thought maybe they could get over it today. Guess not.” He finished doing up the harness. “Down.” All eight of the dogs laid down simultaneously.
Hal was impressed by how well trained they were. “It’s like having your own little army, huh? They’re very obedient.”
David cocked his head, just like one of his huskies, Hal thought. “Never thought of it like that.” He didn’t dwell on it at all, just changed the subject, “You hungry?”
Hal really wasn’t but wouldn’t mind a snack. He just shrugged. David grabbed the bag sitting at his feet and fished out a variety of dried fruit and meats, “I shot this deer myself,” he threw a bag into Hal’s lap and sat down in the snow next to him. “He was a big fucker, 14 points. Neck as big as my head. Kept me and the dogs fed for a week. Leftovers got turned into jerky.”
“Where did you learn to do all of that?”
“What, hunting?”
“All the survivalist stuff, yeah.”
“Big Boss taught me most of it. There were times he dropped me in the middle of the woods with nothing and said figure it out. Had to eat rats and mice and stuff. Didn’t have the luxury of salt curing it, ha.” He fished out a bag of cranberries and shoved a handful in his mouth, talking and chewing at the same time, “This other stuff, tracking, skinning and processing a deer, this sledding stuff, too, I learned from a Yupik family around here. Dog breeders. Where I got the pups,” he gestured over to the dogs.
“I don’t really understand the racing aspect. It can’t be that hard, right? It’s the dogs doing all the work.”
“Nah. Way harder than it looks. They do most of it, but you steer the sled with your feet. Doesn’t sound like it but it’s a workout. And these dogs run a hundred miles a day during the Iditarod.”
“A day?”
David nodded, “And they like it, for the most part. Raptor loves every minute of it, but Flanker and Lightning get kind of snippy after a while. Rest of them don’t seem to mind.” He talked about his dogs like a doting mother. Hal had no idea he could feel that sentimental about any living thing. Well, yes he did, based on how he reacted to Meryl’s death, it upset Hal too but David was more invested in the young soldier. He was probably still broken up about it, but didn’t like to show it, though sometimes he let out these heavy sighs and would return from his morning snow shoe treks with bleary eyes that Hal didn’t think were just from the cold. Dave got up and passed out snacks and a bit of hot water from a thermos to each dog before packing everything back up. “Nice morning, huh?”
“I haven’t gotten to see this side of Alaska until now. I can see why you wanted to disappear to this place. It’s beautiful.” Hal looked up at him and squinted as the sun rose higher, the sky turning pink and reflecting off of the snow all around them.
“Ready to get back to it? Settle in because this leg is gonna be longer.”
Hal nodded and put his goggles back on.
The next leg took them through the valley, up and down steep hills where Hal thought he’d fall right out of the sled, over ice sheets that left David cursing whenever they hit patches of overflow from underneath, getting his boots wet and splashing into Hal’s face. The sun rose all the while and the snow around them turned from a soft pink to a blinding glare. David wasn’t lying—Hal had been through his fair share of winters on the East Coast, but the cities dull gray helped to cut up the white from the snow. Out here it was just never ending, and any evergreens that were there were buried up to the tops in some places. Mother Nature showed her raw power in this place, deterring everyone but the strongest. Hal supposed that was the appeal for David; compared to most of the other stuff he’d done, this was light work.
Their second stop was on the edge of a vast, frozen lake, next to an all but dead forest that sat on the shore. David ordered the dogs down and made shh motion to Hal as he moved to grab the rifle from the sled. He pointed to a set of prints on the ground, hoof prints of some kind, and brought his hands to his forehead, forming them into antlers, “Caribou,” he mouthed noiselessly, and brought one hand down, offering it to Hal and gesturing for him to follow. Their calls could be heard a ways in the distance.
Hal took his hand, untangling himself from the blankets and standing, his legs stiff from not moving for a couple hours. He had to stretch them out anyways, but he wasn’t very keen on the idea of watching David kill an innocent animal—though one caribou is probably the most innocuous thing he’s hunted in his life. The musher leaned over and whispered to him, “I like to get a caribou or deer for the dogs whenever I take them out; they love a fresh kill.”
It was odd watching David turn on kill mode outside of the mission. He crouched down and loaded his rifle, silently sliding the clip in; creeping through the woods and treading as lightly as possible over the snow, weaving through the trees, tracking the caribou like a bloodhound. Hal followed his footsteps, careful not to be too noisy himself. After only a few hundred feet, they came upon a clearing at the base of another mountain, where the herd was—not a very big one according to David but it was huge to Hal, must’ve been up to 20 of them, digging their faces into the snow and munching on the lichen underneath. David pointed to one and turned to Hal, mouthing, “That one,” then motioned, holding his hands up to his head, “Cover your ears.” Hal did, and watched as the soldier lined up his rifle and cycled a round into the chamber, clicked off the safety, and settled the stock on his shoulder. He took his time lining the scope up, took a deep breath, held it, then BOOM. It was muffled through Hal’s hands but still jolted a deep thunder through his body. One of the caribou dropped immediately, the rest went running every which way, a couple of them coming straight for him and David before the latter quickly took out his 10mm and let off a few more warning shots, scaring them off in a different direction. He turned to Hal, a huge grin growing on his face, “How bout that?” he gave him a shove and started off toward the kill, Hal lagging behind him.
Dead things always grossed him out; back at Shadow Moses he tried his best to keep his eyes shut or focus on his shoes as he passed the hallway full of bodies, turning so he didn’t have to look as he passed dead genome soldiers and Arms Tech staff around the facility. As he approached the caribou, tongue hanging out and eyes glossy, he couldn’t help but think of his own father after he fished him out of the pool, a similar expression on his face. He turned around so he didn’t have to look.
“Squeamish?” David said from behind him.
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Sorry. You go ahead; I’ll trail behind you. You know the way back, right?”
Hal nodded and started back towards the sled, following their footsteps back and not looking back to see if David or the caribou were behind him.
It didn’t take long for David to field dress, skin, and butcher the caribou—less than an hour, Hal not bothering to watch, despite a bit of morbid curiosity. Each dog got a fair share of bones and meat, though Raptor probably got the biggest chunk. “Hit it right in the heart with that shot,” David gloated as all the dogs chowed down. He gestured at Hal to hop back into the sled, and he gratefully obliged. He’d had just about enough blood and gore for one afternoon.
Two hours later, they made it to ‘camp’, which was an igloo in the middle of a wide valley. Hal had no idea how far they had travelled in one day, but it was way too far from the cabin for comfort. It was dark again by the time they got there, the stars shining brighter than Hal had ever seen them before; there were way more of them than he ever thought, and they dotted the sky like a cloud of dust. He could see the outline of the galaxy in the sky. “You can head on in, if you want. I was gonna start a fire, though.” David got to work undoing each dog.
“Did you build this?” Hal pointed a thumb at the igloo.
“Yeah, that Yupik family showed me how. It’s not warm in there but it’s not cold either. Between me and the dogs; the body heat makes it pretty cozy.” He got to work building a fire, saving one halved log to use as a bench, throwing it down into the snow for Hal, who plopped himself down and watched. David stacked sticks and kindling into a triangle and lit it with a couple of matches, lighting a cigarette (his first of the day, Hal noted) before tossing them into the stack. The wood quickly caught fire, and soon enough the heat emanating from the pile was enough to warm Hal up again. David set up a stove on top of the flames, setting a pot full of snow on top of it to let it boil, before settling down next to Hal on the log, fishing out more dried meats and fruit from his bag and offering them to Hal, who wasn’t very hungry but took some apple slices anyways.
“What made you get into this? The dog sledding?” Hal asks. He’s been wanting to know all day.
David shrugged. “I like dogs.”
Hal raised his eyebrows, wordlessly asking for an elaboration.
“Dogs are honest,” David continued. “When they bite you, they have a reason, and it’s usually your fault. They listen to you. Can’t judge. They’re loyal.” He paused to take a drag from his cigarette, “I’ve met a lot of bad people. Never met a bad dog.” He glanced over at Hal, “You’re good though. Glad I met you,” and looked away, up at the stars.
Hal stared into the fire trying to process what David just said to him. Glad I met you. That was high praise from someone as reclusive as him. The words were still ringing in his ears when he felt an elbow jab him in the ribs.
“Look,” David murmured at him and pointing up. Hal followed the direction. Ribbons of blue, green and red swirled and billowed above them. Northern lights. “You ever seen that before?”
Hal shook his head, though David probably didn’t see it since their eyes were both glued to the sky. This was so far removed from the fast city life that Hal was used to—a constant smog hanging in the air, the smell of weed and puke and piss mixing with the exhaust fumes, yelling and jet engines. None of that existed in Alaska.
“It never gets old.”
David only lingered for another moment before getting up, taking the now boiling pot of water off the stove and dumping it into a bucket with some dubious concoction in it that Hal didn’t really want to know the contents of. He dished it out into 8 different dog bowls before whistling for the pups, “Soups on, kids.” The dogs, previously exhausted from their long trek, were immediately reanimated and started barking and running to their bowls, chowing down on their odd meat-water-kibble mix.
They sat by the fire, chatting and talking for a while, as Hal’s yawns got more frequent and David’s eyelids dropped lower. Eventually the latter had to make the call, “I dunno about you but I’m gonna turn in for the night. The dogs seem like they’ve had enough for one day too.” He let out a big yawn and turned to crawl into the igloo, Hal following right behind him. Inside, the floors were completely covered with different animal pelts, each one David must’ve killed himself. He was right, it was pretty cozy in there, and each man shed a few layers before finding a spot next to each other in the middle of the floor, dogs laying around them and settling on top of them. In some odd way, laying there in what could only be described as a den, surrounded by canines, Hal felt like he was part of a wolf pack. “Night Hal,” David said right next to him, voice muffled by a layer of dog.
“Night.”