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Hannah peered into the darkness, but the light did not return, so she sat back down. A minute later, a movement caught her eye outside the circle of light from the fire, and she turned her head back to other side of the lake. The light was back, and this time it was pointed right at them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The light was accompanied by a sound, then it disappeared again but the noise remained, and then both the noise and the light broke the edge of an embankment, and she saw the dark, hulking shape of a snowmobile. It coasted to the edge of their campfire light, and then the light winked off and the engine cut o
ut. The dogs began to bark, but Hannah could identify their voices almost individually now and was not worried. Each of them was barking the hello/pay attention/we are here bark, not the wordless growl of being confronted by a true predator, the way they had with the wolf.
“Hello!” called a voice over the barking.
“Hello?” Hannah called back, standing up with her bowl still in her hand.
“I saw the fire. I live on the other side of the lake. Are you okay?”
For a moment Hannah was at a loss for words. She turned and glanced at Peter, who was still sitting and had his spoon halfway to his mouth.
“We’re okay,” she finally called.
A bulky shape rose off the machine and walked toward them carefully, snowshoe-less feet sinking in the snow. The dogs lay back down and went to sleep, even Sencha, who was still wedged between Rudy and Bogey.
“I would have been here sooner, but I couldn’t come across the lake — ice is rotten from this crazy weather.”
“We know,” said Hannah.
Beside her she heard Peter laugh, then cough, spitting out phlegm. “That’s the understatement of the year right there,” he said. It seemed like the understatement of her life.
Hannah watched the man as he walked into the light of the fire. He was wearing a long dark-green parka with fur around the hood. It had many deep pockets on the outside — a woodsman’s jacket. His mitts were the snowmobile kind, with wide ends that fit over his jacket to keep the wind out. Beneath his hood and above the snow goggles he wore, Hannah could see the edge of a brown knit toque.
The man stopped and took in the scene. Hannah imagined how the two of them looked to him: filthy from wood smoke and from gorging themselves, their noses running and their eyes red from leaning too close to the fire, still bedraggled from their icy dunking. His eyes flicked over the packed sled and the four dogs before coming back to the fire and the snow-filled pot beside it, then the water bottles that sat open-mouthed, waiting to be refilled. He took a step toward them. Silently, Nook and Bogey rose, their tails slightly lifted, and Nook raised a lip in silent warning. The man saw the dogs’ movement and stepped back, putting his foot into its previous footprint. He left his hands hanging and lifted his chin in the greeting that locals used, pointing it at them.
“What are y’all doing out here?” he asked.
“She has to get to Timmins,” said Peter. “Her mom’s sick.”
“And he has to get home,” said Hannah. “His aunt needs him. But he fell on a plow, so he needs to see a doctor first.”
Peter nodded and pulled back his tattered wool pants to expose the long white bandage spotted with blood. “It’ll need stitches, I’m pretty sure.”
“Looks like it,” said the man, crouching next to the fire, but on the other side from them, not too close. He pushed back his hood and removed his goggles. His face was lined the way faces are when they spend a lot of time outside: deep creases around the eyes and the skin under his chin hanging slightly away from his neck. His expression was focused and unsmiling, though Hannah thought that wasn’t its natural state. It looked like a face that smiled more than it was serious.
“Is that why you’re out here?” continued the man. “To get help?”
“Yes,” said Hannah.
“How long have you been going?”
She calculated quickly — Jeb’s, the shortcut and Jonny Swede’s, the quarry and the storm. “This is our fourth night,” she said. She pointed down the shore the way he had come. “That’s the way, right? To Timmins?”
“Yep, that’ll take you to Timmins.”
“How far is it?” asked Peter. He leaned forward, balancing his bowl on his good leg.
“Not far. Maybe twenty minutes by snowmobile. More on that, I’d imagine,” he said, gesturing to the dog sled.
Peter looked at Hannah, and his eyes were glowing. “We’re almost there! My other aunt lives in town. Aunt Peggy. She has a car.”
The man looked at them, his eyes widening. “Peggy Purcell? You’re Scott’s boy?”
“Yes. I’m Peter.”
