with a quiet to his expression. “Dusty, please, come on and just say we’re even.”
Dusty stared coldly at him.
“What is wrong with you?” Mr. Simpson grabbed Kodi roughly by the collar and spun him around so he faced the way he was supposed to run. “You run this way, got it?” He extended his arm out away from the team and Dusty. “Now come on, let’s go.” Kodi growled sullenly at his failed attempt at forgiveness.
Mr. Simpson bolted back to his sled and jumped on the runners. “Hike!” He yelled at the top of his lungs and threw his right arm forward like he had a whip in it. Kodi slowly pulled forward in his harness and the team began to follow in suit as the gang line pulled taught and their collars were pulled forward. Soon the entire team moved forward and the sled followed behind. Kodi aimed around the corner of the post office and out into the street. They plowed through the snowdrifts creeping into the street on their way past the only lit lantern in town at the telegraph office. Without the slightest of goodbyes, the team vanished into the receding gloom of the night, the directional lantern following their tales, not to return till tomorrow, if ever.
As they vanished out of sight, the telegraph operator stepped from his little building wearing a hooded parka, carrying a stack of papers under his left arm, and a stapler in his right. His little pug dog, Morris, followed him out and scrunched his nose against the cold, then huffed out against it. He turned to go back into the building but found that his master had already shut the door. He barked up at him.
“No no, I’m sorry. We need to go hang these up, and I could use some company.” The telegraph operator said down at his little dog. “If my hands were free I would carry you around, but there’s going to be a big race and we need to tell the people. Right Morris?”
Morris rolled his eyes disgusted that he was going to have to walk through the dark cold streets with his master. He had a nice warm bunk to sleep in near the stove and half a bowl of food to finish.
The telegraph operator wasted no time on setting up the first green paper flyer on the side of his own building. With his right gloved hand he managed to get one paper away from the stack in his left hand and slam it against the side of the building. At the same time he put a single staple with the hand stapler into the center of the sheet. He then stapled all the corners and sides of the single paper against the rough siding so it wouldn’t fly away. With a grin he looked down at his dog. “Okay Morris. One down, seventy nine to go.”
Turning, the telegraph operator stepped off his little deck into the snow and away from his building. Morris whined and looked up at the paper, but his master couldn’t hear him. He then bound onto the packed snow and followed his master into the darkness to hang the rest of the flyers.
The flyer the telegraph operator had left hung slightly sideways on the side of his building read in bold black lines across the top. The Return of the Alaska 500.
5. Balto
The day moved on slow and thoughtfully, never making a move without waiting an infinite amount of time to do it. Around 9 A.M. people in their homes began to stir to life. They crawled from their warm beds and began to feed the fires in the stoves and cook breakfast for themselves and each other. None of them went anywhere near the door for the fear that today they would just find the day colder than yesterday. When they were finally forced to venture out into the cold, a great sigh of despair escaped them. It was just as cold, if not colder, than the day before.
Around 10 A.M. the sun rose behind a great bank of grey clouds to the south, brining on the customary day of endless gray that consumed Nome in its own great depression. It was just another day to sit around, fight with each other until voices became hashed, then spend another cold night in warm beds until morning when they would try the temperature again.
On the outskirts of Nome - one miles to the east along the shore – an old dilapidated fishing trawler that must have been fifty years old, sat, rotting and rusting away with the snows and the rains that came each winter and summer. The boards along the sides had been striped away by ice and wind, and carried away into the nearby ocean, some recent, some long ago. There were some hatchet marks on the left side where people had come to steal firewood. This had happened long before, Balto, the only creature to reside on the boat full time, lived. This boat seemed hardly the kind of place for a famous town hero to reside when half of the people in Nome would have gladly taken this heroic canine in and called him their own. Yet Balto was a free spirit, and felt that he didn’t need anybody but his wonderful friends, and beautiful mate, Jenna to be happy.
A freak gust of wind kicked up snow that had collected along the front railing of the boat, casting it towards the wheel-house. As the gust died down most of the flakes fell away onto the deck to spin fruitlessly about. Nevertheless 12 flakes kept aloof on the breeze, making their way towards a missing board on the side of the wheel-house. Like passing under the victory flag of a race, 8 of the 12 flakes flew through the hole, the rest smashed against the board that hung by one nail below the hole. The eight flakes swirled about in the calm of the wheel-house, focusing their energy towards the exposed nose of a creature under a lumpy wool blanket in the corner of the building. They came to rest just in front of the large creature’s nostrils where they waited to be caught by another movement of wind.
Balto breathed in slow, letting the air warm in his long sleek muzzle before entering down into his lungs. He had learned to do this in many years living in the cold weather – along with many times he had froze the back of his mouth breathing to fast while sleeping.
The three flakes stayed still, vibrating low and harmoniously as Balto breathed. The steam from Balto’s exhaled breath collected on the three flakes of ice, bulking them up and making them bigger. In just minutes the three flakes that had started out like shavings of dust were as large as a mouse eye; the perfect size for a dog to gag and choke on and never know what hit him.
Without warning, Balto sucked in hard. It was just his natural reaction to breathe in sharp every now and then when air scarcely entered his lungs at a portion of normal speed. It sent the three flakes into the air. Two of the flakes entered his right nostril, while the third one missed completely and got stuck on the edge of his nose.
It only took a moment for the two flakes to get lodged in Balto’s throat, causing him to gasp like he got a knife wound in the stomach. Balto panicked and threw his feet out from under himself and the blanket, coughing and gasping he rose into the cold grinding his throat in short moans. The blanket fluttered to the floor in a pile. The two flakes melted in just moments, leaving Balto rudely awakened in the cold day.
His throat quickly cleared of any obstructions, Balto looked to the sky in the skinny doorway of the helm. Only moments told him what the days was like “Too cold.” Balto moaned and looked at his blanket wadded on the floor. As he ruffled the blanket with his nose to get it in a better position to crawl under, another sound came, this one from deep within Balto. The sound was like a starving dog growling at comers to his feast.
Balto looked down between his legs at his stomach and watched his fur ripple as another growl echoed up from below. Even though Balto didn’t feel hungry he knew that the feeling wouldn’t last. “Guess I better get something to eat before I go back to sleep.” Balto’s voice was groggy and sleepy sounding from the two days of solid unconsciousness he had retained.
Balto yawned and stretched his body as far as it would go. Turning, he stepped out of the small door to the wheelhouse of the boat and looked to the south. The sun had risen, but was imprisoned behind the castle wall of grey clouds. “Looks like another beautiful day.” Balto said sarcastically to himself. He chuckled lightly and turned towards the bow of the boat.
Age began to sneak up on Balto. His walk became slow and jerky and his joints were always just a little bit sorer in the morning. But he couldn’t help that, he was pushing five years old already. Every dog begins to feel the age at some point. Balto thought as he rounded his right shoulder to relive a knotty muscle there. The pain receded, and Balto jumped up onto his favorite crate at the front of the boat. It had been there forever and preserved every mark Balto had left with his claws since he stood just half as tall as it.
From his vantage point Balto could see almost every house in Nome. They all stood dark faced with lighthearted insides where the people and the warmth was, where conversations about life and death and politics happened at the drop of a hat. At times the homes, under the guiding light of cross atop the church, beheld a certain warmth and loving; like a family you loved to love. But that was not the case today. Even today the homes looked dreary and miserable under the grey hue of the day. Balto closed his eyes and began to turn away when he noticed a flicker of life among their stern cold faces.
It was Jenna, moving briskly out away from town, her paws treading lightly through the snow that had blown across the path Balto used to get to town and back. From the way Jenna walked Balto could tell that she had
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