Be it known: I own none of the characters you recognize, and I'm not making any money.
Springtime in Alaska
"And you…" The man's drunken bellow sounded near my ear. I turned toward him, half wondering if it was smart to do so. "Look at you." He said at a lower volume. His dark hair shone under the light, but his wan face was sickly. "Never had to think of it."
His arms rested heavily on the bar next to me. Looking at him at length I was surprised he was still on his stool at all, let alone talking. His arms sagged under their own weight, the muscles loose and uncoordinated. He'd gone back to looking fixedly at the polished surface in front of him. I heard, and then felt, the concussion of his boot toe slipping from the foot rail and hitting the side of the bar. His head dipped lower.
"They're looking for me." His words flew out in a rush, only barely accented by all the drink. But his head hadn't moved, and they remained muffled against the bar. I turned toward him, resting my elbow on the bar as I faced him.
"Who is?" I asked quietly. As it came out I wondered what had seized me to make me step in the middle of this—this man's angry drunkenness that could only cause me worry. Maybe he'd ignore me.
"My friends." He laughed through his nose as he spoke. If I'd been turned away to miss the sneer on his face, I'd have mistaken the sound for sobbing. I looked at him as he adjusted his posture, trying to stay upright and train his eyes on my face. "My family."
"But you don't want to go back." I finished. A detached and tiny voice in my mind wondered what the hell I thought I was accomplishing by continuing to talk to him.
"I don't want your pity." He snarled at me, leaning toward my face, his graying teeth snapping near my cheekbone as I turned my face. I felt one of my dogs stand up near my feet. He maneuvered his body between the man's stool and mine.
"You don't have it." I managed, my voice flat. Two more of my dogs had come over from the hearth of the fireplace.
"Going to set your dogs on me, girl?" He gave another sneering laugh and returned to his slouch against the bar. My dogs sat one by one, their ears still perked.
"No." I said simply, turning to take a drink of my neglected whiskey. Before I could turn back the man leaned close to my ear.
"These muggles don't know what you're doing; I do." He said. I tensed my muscles involuntarily, making an effort not to show surprise. I turned my eyes toward him, forcing my face not to move.
"My dogs might attack you if you touch me." I notified him. "They don't like some people." I expected some leering remark. I expected him to reach for me, and for Blue, my half-blind old lead dog, to try to snap his hand off at the wrist. Instead the man leaned his head back and laughed. He had a short and forceful laugh like a bark. As he tilted toward the light his face looked younger. He laughed with his mouth wide and his teeth showing, like a dog running.
"But you like me." He declared. He leaned closer again, his eyes focusing a little more clearly on my face.
"So you say." I said, my eyebrow raised. I turned to the bar to toss back the last drops of my whiskey.
"Another, Dempsey?" Brooks, the bartender, called down to me. I shook my head. No need to call him away from the pretty tourist asking about gold panning, and no need to keep myself there with the drunk who seemed to know something about who I am.
"Dempsey," the drunk man echoed. I turned back to him automatically and flinched when he grabbed my hand. He brought my knuckles to his lips. They were dry and cracking; his breath was hot between my fingers. But above all else I felt the crackle of energy up my arm, standing my hair on end all the way to my scalp. He let go and I turned away stiffly. I gestured for my dogs to follow me out the door, and behind me I heard the man's loud, barking laugh.
"Oh get up, princess." I instructed crossly. Delphine lounged there on her straw, disregarding me utterly. "You think you don't have to work when there aren't sheep, lazy?" I banged a mitten-covered hand against my thigh, and she obliged me by perking her ears. I banged again.
Slowly, the huge dog got to her feet, shaking the sleep out of her muscles. Delphine's a Great Pyrenees and something else—hard to say, now. She's as big as I am. The rest of the dogs are Malamutes, either pure or nearly pure. I run the fifteen of them in varying configurations in sled teams. Delphine's a bear dog.
All right, you can uncurl yourself. Yes. I meant "bear dog." She was raised with a flock of sheep, and her breed makes her a protective herder. So she's perfect for this place, this close to the edges of the clear cut. She's bred and trained to run off everything from bears to wolves. She's done it all her life, she likes it, she does it with a team of bear dogs for the shepherds every spring in the new clear cuts, and she serves as my bear alarm during the cold months. She barks at them, she trees them, and they don't eat the sheep. Or me. Or her. It's a nice life, I guess.
While I'm going on about dogs I might as well explain what one woman's doing in a hut on the tundra with a pack of them. I live here while the tourists are up. I run teams pulling tourists in fake sleds so they can pretend they're gold miners or something. In the winter I move out closer to an airstrip and keep the dogs for supply runs to the hinterland. And like I mentioned, in the spring I loan out Delphine to the shepherds running herds through the clear cuts for the logging companies.
And I guess your next question might be about what I'm doing here. Fair enough. My father was from the UK. My mother was an Alaskan native. For whatever reason, they chose to raise me here. Now neither one of them is still around, but I still am. So there you have it. Yeah, I left to go to school near the sea, where all the towns are, but I got sick of the people and the racket. So I'm back. And I guess I'm staying.
I continued down the line of straw beds in the yard, checking the dogs over as they stretched in the morning light. I love the way dogs stretch. Nothing matters to a dog outside the movement from forelegs to back legs. Nothing but the feel of their ribs stretching and their ears moving occupies their minds. Dogs understand some things I'm sure I don't. Delphine blew a puff of air against my leg as I stopped to check Blue's front paw for lacerations. She nosed at the seam of my pant-leg. "All right, girl," I allowed. "I'm going after your breakfast."
I chewed the end of my sandwich in preparation for the next wave of cruise ship passengers. I'd rented a booth in the "wild west" themed set of storefronts the cruise line had built at the landing for their shore craft. Out behind it was a normal dog shed, but the front looked like a saloon from an old cartoon, spindly railings and all. The line even asked all of the contractors and employees to dress the part while in town. I kicked up a fuss about it enough that I was allowed to wear sane clothes on the actual sled runs, but so help me.
So help me, I was sitting in a fake saloon store front with a big desk covered in price boards selling sled rides of differing lengths to a bunch of retirees. And I was doing it in a dress. I brushed the remaining crumbs off my vest-thing. I'd been wearing the contraption for a while now, but it still seemed a little mystifying. I had a fairly normal shirt and a skirt with a drawstring waist, but this odd vest deal perched atop all of it, sucking in the fabric around my middle and making the rough material rub at my ribcage all day. I was constantly yanking at it, then realizing the neck of my shirt was open way too far in the front, or had migrated way too low. Stupid costume.
But the cruise line was on to something. The tourists ate this charade up. They meandered off the docks onto the groomed pathways in their city-slicker hiking boots, just aching to spend money. I stood to get a better view of the landing zone, and cursed lightly when I saw a boat there already discharging passengers. I slammed my folding chair shut and whisked it into a closet, adjusting my costume just in time for the first faces to approach the desk.
Eight hours of short runs later I was too beat to think about making dinner. I shoveled out the feed for the dogs and watched them clear it up, then set to playing. The flowers that come up in the clear cuts are miraculous to me every year, even though I've seen them all my life. I guess you have to be here during the dark winter to understand how improbable it seems. It's just dirt and stone for so long, then grass, then blooms. Hundreds, thousands of them. A small breeze pushed in from the water, and the dogs turned their noses to it. I faced the water as well, and watched the last launch fade away from the shore.
I was hungry. There was no way around it. The breeze was getting chilly for the night, the dogs were still playing, and there was nothing in the house but enough corn flakes for breakfast tomorrow morning. I took a breath, feeling beleaguered.
"Delphine!" I called. She lumbered toward me, her ears relaxed and her mouth hanging happily. "Run 'em in, girl." She gave a short, low bark and turned to observe her quarries. Within minutes she'd run the pack back to the enclosure, where they continued to wrestle happily. I motioned her back out with me, eyeballing the level of the water troughs before closing the gate. I fished my wand from my jacket and set a series of protective wards around the pen.
"Into town with us, girl." I informed her. She fell in beside me, her tongue hanging lazily out the side of her mouth. I rested my hand on her broad head, pushing my fingernails into her thick white coat.
We were just beyond an edge marker for the town—one that advised the tourists to turn back for fear of grizzlies—when Delphine tensed. Her ears pricked up at once, and the hair along her back stood up. She lifted her tail, inhaling deeply and planting her paws. I closed my fingers around my wand and matched my sight line to hers.
A/N: I like any review, but I'd especially like feedback on this character. I'm using this story partly as a writing exercise to get her clarified in my mind. I'd love your suggestions or general thoughts. Thanks.