Dogsong (14 page)

She was still, but the edges of her eyes were glowing with life, with happiness, with the pride in his voice at what his dogs had done. She was weak, weak and down, but there was still life, enough life, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile, a smile that went into Russel.

“See?” he said, raising the team. “We will be in a village soon.”

And he brought them up and ran them with his thoughts and on the ice they cut a snowmachine trail and he followed it to the left because that is what his leader said to do and he was the leader and the leader was him.

They drove down the coast, drove on the edge of the sea-ice and land-snow, drove into the soft light of the setting spring sun, drove for the coastal village that had to be soon; the man-boy and the woman-girl and the driving mind-dogs that came from Russel's thoughts and went out and out and came from the dreamfold back.

Back.

Come, see my dogs.

Out before me

they go
,

in the long line to the sea.

Out they go.

Come, see my dogs.

They carry me

into all things, all things I will be;

all things that will come to me

will come to my dogs.

I stand on the earth and I sing.

Come, see my dogs.

See them, see them

in the smoke of my life
,

in the eyes of my children
,

in the sound of my feet
,

in the dance of my words.

I stand on the earth and I sing.

Come, see my dogs.

My dogs are what lead me
,

they are what move me.

See my dogs in the steam
,

in the steam of my life.

They are me.

Come, see my dogs.

I was nothing before them
,

no man

and no wife.

Without them, no life
,

no girl-woman breathing

no song.

Come, see my dogs.

With them I ran
,

ran north to the sea.

I stand by the sea and I sing.

I sing of my hunts

and of Oogruk.

Come, see my dogs.

Out before me they go.

Out before me they curve

in the long line out

before me

they go, I go, we go. They are me.

If you enjoyed
Dogsong
, we feel sure you'd like another book by Gary Paulsen. Here is a sample from his popular novel
Hatchet.

B
rian Robeson stared out the window of the small plane at the endless green northern wilderness below. It was a small plane, a Cessna 406—a bushplane—and the engine was so loud, so roaring and consuming and loud, that it ruined any chance for conversation.

Not that he had much to say. He was thirteen and the only passenger on the plane with a pilot named—what was it? Jim or Jake or something—who was in his mid-forties and who had been silent as he worked to prepare for take-off. In fact since Brian had come to the small airport in Hampton, New York to meet the plane—driven by his mother—the pilot had spoken only five words to him.

“Get in the copilot's seat.”

Which Brian had done. They had taken off and that was the last of the conversation. There had been the initial excitement, of course. He had never flown in a single-engine plane before and to be sitting in the
copilot's seat with all the controls right there in front of him, all the instruments in his face as the plane clawed for altitude, jerking and sliding on the wind currents as the pilot took off, had been interesting and exciting. But in five minutes they had leveled off at six thousand feet and headed northwest and from then on the pilot had been silent, staring out the front, and the drone and the sea of green tress that lay before the plane's nose and flowed to the horizon, spread with lakes, swamps, and wandering streams and rivers.

Now Brian sat, looking out the window with the roar thundering through his ears, and tried to catalog what had led up to his taking this flight.

The thinking started.

Always it started with a single word.

Divorce.

It was an ugly word, he thought. A tearing, ugly word that meant fights and yelling, lawyers—God, he thought, how he hated lawyers who sat with their comfortable smiles and tried to explain to him in legal terms how all that he lived in was coming apart—and the breaking and shattering of all the solid things. His home, his life—all the solid things. Divorce. A breaking word, an ugly breaking word.

Divorce.

Secrets.

No, not secrets so much as just the
Secret. What he knew and had not told anybody, what he knew about his mother that had caused the divorce, what he knew, what he knew—the Secret.

Divorce.

The Secret.

Brian felt his eyes beginning to burn and knew there would be tears. He had cried for a time, but that was gone now. He didn't cry now. Instead his eyes burned and tears came, the seeping tears that burned, but he didn't cry. He wiped his eyes with a finger and looked at the pilot out of the corner of his eye to make sure he hadn't noticed the burning and tears.

The pilot sat large, his hands lightly on the wheel, feet on the rudder pedals. He seemed more a machine than a man, an extension of the plane. On the dashboard in front of him Brian saw the dials, switches, meters, knobs, levers, cranks, lights, handles that were wiggling and flickering, all indicating nothing that he understood and the pilot seemed the same way. Part of the plane, not human.

When he saw Brian look at him, the pilot seemed to open up a bit and he smiled. “Ever fly in the copilot's seat before?” He leaned over and lifted the headset off his right ear and put it on his temple, yelling to overcome the sound of the engine.

Brian shook his head. He had never
been in any kind of plane, never seen the cockpit of a plane except in films or television. It was loud and confusing. “First time.”

“It's not as complicated as it looks. Good plane like this almost flies itself.” The pilot shrugged. “Makes my job easy.” He took Brian's left arm. “Here, put your hands on the controls, your feet on the rudder pedals, and I'll show you what I mean.”

Brian shook his head. “I'd better not.”

“Sure. Try it …”

Brian reached out and took the wheel in a grip so tight his knuckles were white. He pushed his feet down on the pedals. The plane slewed suddenly to the right.

“Not so hard. Take her light, take her light.”

Brian eased off, relaxed his grip. The burning in his eyes was forgotten momentarily as the vibration of the plane came through the wheel and the pedals. It seemed almost alive.

“See?” The pilot let go of his wheel, raised his hands in the air and took his feet off the pedals to show Brian he was actually flying the plane alone.

“Simple. Now turn the wheel a little to the right and push on the right rudder pedal a small amount.”

Brian turned the wheel slightly and the plane immediately banked to the right, and when he pressed on the right rudder pedal
the nose slid across the horizon to the right. He left off on the pressure and straightened the wheel and the plane righted itself.

“Now you can turn. Bring her back to the left a little.”

Brian turned the wheel left, pushed on the left pedal, and the plane came back around on the left pedal, and the plane came back around. “It's easy.” He smiled. “At least this part.”

The pilot nodded. “All of flying is easy. Just takes learning. Like everything else. Like everything else. Like everything else.” He took the controls back, then reached up and rubbed his left shoulder. “Aches and pains—must be getting old.”

Brian let go of the control and moved his feet away from the pedals as the pilot put his hands on the wheel. “Thank you …”

But the pilot had put his headset back on and the gratitude was lost in the engine noise and things went back to Brian looking out the window at the ocean of trees and lakes. The burning eyes did not come back, but memories did, came flooding in. The words. Always the words.

Divorce.

The Secret.

Fights.

Split.

The big split. Brian's father did not understand as Brian did, knew only that
Brian's mother wanted to break the marriage apart. The split had come and then the divorce, all so fast, and the court had left him with his mother except for the summers and what the judge called “visitation rights.” So formal. Brian hated judges as he hated lawyers. Judges that leaned over the bench and asked Brian if he understood where he was to live and why Judges with the caring look that meant nothing as lawyers said legal phrases that meant nothing.

In the summer Brian would live with his father. In the school year with his mother. That's what the judge said after looking at papers on his desk and listening to the lawyers talk. Talk. Words.

Now the plane lurched slightly to the right and Brian looked at the pilot. He was rubbing his shoulder again and there was the sudden smell of body gas in the plane. Brian turned back to avoid embarrassing the pilot, who was obviously in some discomfort. Must have stomach troubles.

So this summer, this first summer when he was allowed to have “visitation rights” with his father with the divorce only one month old, Brian was heading north. His father was a mechanical engineer who had designed or invented a new drill bit for oil drilling, a self-cleaning, self-sharpening bit. He was working in the oil fields of Canada, up on the tree line where the tundra started
and the forests ended. Brian was riding up from New York with some drilling equipment—it was lashed down in the rear of the plane next to a fabric bag the pilot had called a survival pack, which had emergency supplies in case they had to make an emergency landing—that had to be specially made in the city, riding in a bushplane with the pilot named Jim or Jake or something who had turned out to be an all right guy, letting him fly and all.

Except for the smell. Now there was a constant odor, and Brian took another look at the pilot, found him rubbing the shoulder and down the arm now, the left arm, letting go more gas and wincing. Probably something he ate, Brian thought.

His mother had driven him from the city to meet the plane at Hampton where it came to pick up the drilling equipment. A drive in silence, a long drive in silence. Two and a half hours of sitting in the car, staring out the window of the plane. Once, after an hour, when they were out of the city she turned to him.

“Look, can't we talk this over? Can't we talk this out? Can't you tell me what's bothering you?”

And there were the words again. Divorce. Split. The Secret. How could he tell her what he knew? So he had remained silent, shook his head and continued to stare
unseeing at the countryside, and his mother had gone back to driving only to speak to him one more time when they were close to Hampton.

She reached over the back of the seat and brought up a paper sack. “I got something for you, for the trip.”

Brian took the sack and opened the top. Inside there was a hatchet, the kind with a steel handle and a rubber handgrip. The head was in a stout leather case that had a brass-riveted belt loop.

“It goes on your belt.” His mother spoke now without looking at him. There were some farm trucks on the roads now and she had to weave through them and watch traffic. “The man at the store said you could use it. You know. In the woods with your father.”

Dad, he thought. Not “my father.” My dad. “Thanks. It's really nice.” But the words sounded hollow, even to Brian.

“Try it on. See how it looks on your belt.”

And he would normally have said no, would normally have said no that it looked too hokey to have a hatchet on your belt. Those were the normal things he would say. But her voice was thin, had a sound like something thin that would break if you touched it, and he felt bad for not speaking to her. Knowing what he knew, even with the anger, the hot white hate of his anger at
her, he still felt bad for not speaking to her, and so to humor her he loosened his belt and pulled the right side out and put the hatchet on and rethreaded the belt.

“Scootch around so I can see.”

He moved around in the seat, feeling only slightly ridiculous.

She nodded. “Just like a scout. My little scout.”

And there was the tenderness in her voice that she had when he was small, the tenderness that she had when he was small and sick, with a cold, and she put her hand on his forehead, and the burning came into his eyes again and he had turned away from her and looked out the window, forgotten the hatchet on his belt and so arrived at the plane with the hatchet still on his belt.

Because it was a bush flight from a small airport there had been no security and the plane had been waiting, with the engine running when he arrived and he had grabbed is suitcase and pack bag and run for the plane without stopping to remove the hatchet.

So it was still on his belt. At first he had been embarrassed but the pilot had said nothing about it and Brian forgot it as they took off and began flying.

More smell now. Bad. Brian turned again to glance at the pilot who had both hands on his stomach and was grimacing in
pain, reaching for the left shoulder again as Brian watched.

“Don't know, kid …” The pilot's words were a hiss, barely audible. “Bad aches here. Bad aches. Thought it was something I ate but …”

He stopped as a fresh spasm of pain hit him. Even Brian could see how bad it was—the pain drove the pilot back into the seat, back and down.