Chapter 10
The team ran as hard as they could for the last mile. They were able to tell that they were close when they could see the sunlight creeping up the valley. The sunlight would only do this at the mouth of the valley near Nome.
Balto could see the point where the trail moved up off the river and onto the bank. He steered the team up onto the bank and out into the sunlight. The sun had just risen out over the sea ice and sent hundreds of shadows, from small pressure ridges, running hundreds of yards across the ice. The roof's of town were lit up by the sun, but there back walls were not. The shadows of town reached out like the warm hand of loving mother they hadn't seen for years.
Balto began the final half mile run into town. In the shadows of the buildings he could see blurred figures standing around, they were of dogs and of men, Balto could tell this by the height of the characters.
Balto pulled the sled to the back of the building, coming to rest ten feet from the building. Balto struggled to keep from falling over from exhaustion. The three other dogs behind Balto also had the same problem, there feet shook violently under there body weight. Kaltag drooled a pure blood slurry and coughed violently every few seconds. Balto watched the blood fall from Kaltag's mouth and freeze before hitting the ground. Balto began to realize that he himself was hurt. Balto could taste the light coppery taste across his tongue, and he noticed a few spots of blood in the snow below him. Balto's vision was blurry; he couldn't make out any minute features. He wasn't able to see the perfect outlines of Kaltag's body, or the outline of the puddle of blood below him. Balto's hearing was also messed up; he could hear people and dogs talking and could hear the sound of himself panting. But all of this noise sounded like he was listening to it down a long hallway.
Balto turned back towards the building and could see Jenna up in his face trying to talk to him. Balto's vision of her was blurred, and every time she moved her image would move slowly with her. Balto could hear her talking but it was blurred out and deep.
Balto waited a moment for the blood to run from his legs back to his head, and everything soon was restored to a natural order. But Balto still bore the weakness of the trip.
"Jenna" Balto finally muttered. "I brought, our son, home." Balto said very slowly. To Balto the words still had a slight echo, as if he were in a glass jar.
"Thank you Balto." Jenna nuzzled up against Balto then repeated in a whisper.
Balto smiled and got his mouth a little bit closer to her ear. "What, did you think it was hard?"
Jenna giggled a little at Balto's brawn sense of humor even after such turmoil. "How's Kodi doing?" she said moving back to the seriousness of what was going on.
"I think he'll be just fine." But Balto didn't convey his worry about Kodi's leg. If the mushers decided not to try and save the leg, Kodi was as good as dead. But he couldn't let Jenna know this; she had just got her son back.
Balto stepped back a little, moving away from Jenna who was still around his neck, and looked back towards the sled. The mushers were standing in a small circle behind the sled talking about the attacks that had just taken place. Balto looked at the sled below them and could see Kodi's head sticking out of the sled; he was still unconscious and his head laid sideways across the blanket he was wrapped in. clover had her head lain out across the blanket just below the point where Kodi's head came out of the blanket. She was crying and tears could be seen running down her face.
Balto then looked at Kodi and held his breath. He waited for Kodi to take a breath; he just realized that he hadn't seen Kodi breathe since he first looked at him. But Balto let it out in a long quick sigh when he saw Kodi take a large breath into his lungs.
One of the mushers turned and began to walk over towards Balto. As he walked he removed his glove letting the steam, which comes from this extreme cold, float off his fingers. The musher walked to the front of Balto and bent down to give him a pat across the head. The musher smiled a little bit, checking Balto's cuts and scrapes, then took hold of the harness across Balto's back. "Well why don't we get this off of ya."
The musher bent up over Balto's back and grabbed the harness firmly in his bare hand. He gave it a hard jerk forward, as he did Balto gave out a yelp of pain, the harness was stuck, and stuck firm. The musher bent down over Balto's back, getting right up next to the harness. Under the harness the blood had melted, and when Balto had stopped creating heat with his body, the blood had fused to the harness.
The musher smiled, he seemed to know exactly what to do. He turned and began to walk towards a large shed with several large hooks with wet harnesses on the door. He stepped through the door with a long laid out creak and began to rummage. Balto listened as he heard metal bang against metal, wood against wood, and wood against metal. Within several minutes of these sounds he returned. In his hands he carried a large metal grill looking thing, and a large metal black bucket stuffed with wood. He dropped it in the snow just a few feet from the dogs and returned to the shed. He then returned with another bucket, this one stuffed with much smaller wood and a few pieces of paper.
The musher then went to work. He took the grate that lay on its side and set it upright. Under this he began to make a small tripod with small sticks. As the musher began to stack the wood higher, he began to put on more, much bigger, wood. As soon as the tripod of wood was a foot off the ground he put the paper inside of the tripod. He produced some wood matches from his pocket and lit the paper on fire. Smoke began to plume from the pile of wood, quickly fallowed by a foot high flame. The musher began to feed more wood onto the fire and within minutes had a toasty fire going.
As soon as the fire was going the musher turned and walked over to a large pile of snow that had gathered under the corner of the shed. He jammed the bucket down into the snow, scraping up a bucketful, and brought the bucket back to the fire. He then returned to the shed and came back with a large steel lid to the pot of snow.
Balto hadn't noticed, but a large crowd had begun to gather. The word quickly spread through town that the team had returned and were torn to shreds. The people stood around quietly making comments to one another about the team. And the people who didn't know what had happened asked people who might know. It hadn't been confirmed that the other team had been lost, but the dead dog and the horribly injured dog were enough to prove it to even the most skeptical. The people couldn't help but notice the dogs torn harnesses, the way they were tied to the sled, and the blood coming from some of there mouths. It was a horrible scene for all of them, but they staid, wanting to see what happened.
Balto listened to the pot of water boil over and sizzle off onto the hot coals underneath it. The musher dropped down to his knees with a few tools in his hands. He set them out in the snow where Balto got his first view of them. There were a large pair of rusty, metal scissors with the tips of the broken off. Next to the scissors was a large skinning knife that was at least six inches long. But the actual length of the knife was probably only five inches, this being so due to the customary bent tip. The knife had recently been sharpened, Balto could tell this by the shinny cutting edge of the knife.
The musher, after laying his two tools out, walked back over to the large metal pot. He reached into the pot and came forth with a pot on a long stick. It was a rolled metal handle nearly three feet long, that was spot welded onto the metal can. The mouth of the can was nearly a foot across and a foot tall, the tool was mainly used for serving out dog food.
The musher pulled this tool, full of water, from the boiling pot. The water within the pot instantly began steam from the cold air. He stepped quickly towards Balto; he knew that in this kind of cold the water would freeze within seconds, so he had to move fast. He dropped down to his knees at Balto's side and picked up the knife in his left hand. But as he looked at the task ahead of him he began to realize he needed another hand.
The musher looked at the crowd of people standing around and picked out a small boy, in a wool hat and scarf out front.
"Hey boy, can you give me a hand?" the young boy pulled his hand from his pocket and pointed at himself in wonder.
"Yeah kid you." the boy stepped forward and crunched through the snow. He stopped just on the other side of Balto and waited for his task in silence.
"Ok kid, take this pot of water." the musher lifted the pot of water over Balto, and carefully put it into the young boys hands. "Ok kid, when I tell you too, pour the water over the spot where the harness is still frozen to him. Ok?"
The young boy shook his head yes and waited for the command to start pouring.
The musher took his knife in his right hand, and the harness in his left. He pulled the harness up to the point where it started to stick to Balto's fur, and set the knife carefully where he did. "Ok kid, pour."
The kid turned the pot over and began pouring the water onto Balto's frozen harness. While the Luke warm water melted the blood, the musher cut along in a sawing motion with the harness. The work was quick and over with in seconds. When the boy had no more water in the bucket he stopped. The musher, meanwhile, kept trying to cut, but the bloody ice was too much for the blade, and out of accident cut down into Balto's side leaving a small bloody wound.
Balto yelped out in pain at the wound and moved away from where the pain came from. He looked back at his harness and could see the harness lifted up over his back. Balto looked at where the harness had been and could see a missing patch of fur, nearly twelve inches long, that ran along where the harness had been.
The musher looked at the boy and told him to go get more water. The boy jumped around the front of Balto, and ran up to the boiling pot of water. Balto looked back at Kodi and could see Sam standing over him with the other musher down at the side of the sled. Clover had been pushed out of the way, but Balto could see the look in her eyes, it was a look of fear.
The musher had taken the blanket off Kodi to get a better look at him. He shook Kodi, rather violently, trying to wake him from his deep slumber. Balto held his breath; his feet became weak and cold. Balto stared at Kodi, waiting for him to take a breath; he couldn't be dead after all Balto went through to get him. But when Kodi took in a long, laid out breath, Balto let out his in a long exasperated sigh.
"I don't know Sam, his ankles froze up pretty bad." the musher who was kneeling on the ground said, not looking up at Sam. He held Kodi's frozen foot in his hand, bending it slightly to show how frozen it was. "We could get the doctor over here to look at it, but it's going to be expensive."
Sam stared at the frozen foot, thinking of what to do. The musher on the ground looked up at him waiting for an answer. "No I can't…it's just too much money to put into a dog right now." he looked at Kodi down through his nose. "I think we'll just put him down."
Balto heard this and tried to run back to stop them from doing what they were going to do. But when Balto tried to move, the musher at his side grabbed hold of him so he couldn't run. "Stop, moving." he yelled pushing his weight down on Balto so he couldn't move, Any other day Balto would of just drug the man with him, but today he was to weak to pull any harder. He turned to Jenna who was standing just off to Balto's left, gasping at what they were about to do.
"Jenna you half to stop them."
Jenna bound forward through the snow barking at Sam. She stopped just short of the two mushers and barked as loud as she could. Clover joined in right next to Jenna and began barking at the two men.
"Would some one restrain these dogs." Sam yelled. Two young men came forward from the crowd, one grabbed Jenna's scarf, while the other grabbed clovers collar. Balto began barking at both the young men and Sam.
Sam grabbed hold of Kodi's hair along his side, and pulled him away from the sled amidst the three barking dogs. After dragging Kodi's body about eight feet away from the sled, he turned and walked back. Sam picked up the rifle, took a shell out of his pocket, and put it in the gun. He levered the action twice, so a bullet was now in the chamber. The dogs behind Balto began barking with him. Balto tried to struggle forward away from the mushers grip, as did Jenna and clover who were equally unsuccessful.
Sam stood above Kodi, rifle held across his hips in both hands, seemingly unaware of the barking. Then he slowly put the but of the rifle to his shoulder, and the barrel against the side of Kodi's head. He began to squeeze on the trigger, and as he did, he closed his eyes, waiting for the bullet to go flying through his head.
"Sam, what do you think your doing?" all the dogs grew quiet with the older lady's yell. "What do you think you're going to do with that gun?"
"Shut up Kris, this doesn't concern you." Sam said leveling the rifle with his hips again.
"Anything my little brother does concerns me." She stepped forward around the front of the team and walked up into Sams face. She stood for a moment glaring Sam into the eyes. She then turned and knelt down next to Kodi and began to rub his side. At first she didn't notice anything other then the small cuts and scraps along Kodi's chest and head. She knew some stitches were going to be needed, but didn't notice anything real bad. "You're going to kill this perfectly fine sledding dog?"
"No, he's not fine." Sam said moving around the back of his sister, bending down and grabbing Kodi's frozen foot. "This is an injury that will prevent this dog from running ever again." Sam dropped Kodi's foot and stood up, as did his sister. "I'll never be able to sell this dog. And I don't want a dog to just lie around my house, expect to get fed, and never half to work."
Sam stood up and moved around his sister, back to Kodi's head, and put the rifle to his head.
"I'll buy him from you." Kris said kicking the rifle barrel away from Kodi's head and looking her brother in the eyes waiting for an answer.
"You don't want to waste your money on this dog. Even if you did get him proper care from you husband, the doctor, he could still die. Besides this dogs and athlete, he needs to get out and get his heart pumping or else he'll go stir crazy, and die."
Kris reached into her pocket and came forth with several wadded crumpled bills. "Fifty dollars," she said holding the money out. "I'll pay you fifty dollars for him." Kris waited for her brother Sam to take the money.
Sam stared down his nose at the money. He bit down on the inside of his lips, frustrated with his sister's insistence. He reached out with a rattle snake like quickness and snatched the money from her hand with some grumbled words. He then returned to the sled and his dogs.
Kris looked down at her recent investment and got ready to begin the real work. She had to carry him to the hospital so her husband could begin to rehabilitate the dog.
She bent over and wrapped her hands around Kodi's rib cage and lifted. She managed to get Kodi about a foot off the ground before loosing her grip and dropping Kodi to the ground. Kris looked at the crowd of people and picked out a young man of maybe seventeen. "Hey you, I'll pay you five dollars if you will carry this dog to the hospital for me."
The young man ran forward and stopped next to Kris. "ok, pick him up, lets go." the young man bent over and grabbed Kodi's front foot, he then grabbed Kodi's, good, back foot and with one lunge, threw Kodi upon his shoulders. He then turned to Kris, who was walking off to the hospital, and began to fallow her.
