Ice Island Read Free Page B

asked.
    “Anyone without a plate,” Jake said.
    She picked up three plates, balancing one on her forearm. “Bandit, you wait here.” Bandit curled up in a corner, head on front paws, watching. She seemed to know something was going on.
    Tatum pushed through the swinging doors. Judging by the windburned faces and the stories, everyone in the crowded dining room was either a musher, a race official, or a vet. This was obviously a favorite mushers’ hangout.
    “He got sucked into a bad hole near Koyuk,” one guy was saying, drawing circles on the table with his spoon. “Nearly lost his wheel dog.”
    “He’s probably still pouring water out of his long johns,” said another.
    “It was so warm going through McGrath, the liver started to thaw.” A guy pushed back from the table with a satisfied burp. “Turkey skins stayed solid enough.”
    Tatum squeezed between the tables. “Hi, Mom.”
    Her mom smiled, rushed over, and took the plates. “I have exciting news,” she said, setting them down to grateful murmurs. “We’re going to Wager.”
    “Ain’t she a bit young to gamble?” a guy cracked.
    “Not in Nevada, you fool,” her mom said, shushing him. “Santa Ysabel Island.”
    “A hundred miles from nowhere,” he said. “And colder than a tail on a brass donkey.”
    Tatum had heard of Santa Ysabel, an island in the Bering Sea, closer to Russia than the U.S. mainland. “Remember Maryanne?” her mom went on. “She called this morning and asked if we could fill in at her lodge while she’s on vacation. Jake said he could make do without me for a week.”
    “She’s probably going to Hawaii,” the guy said with a laugh.
    Tatum’s mom ignored him. “She’d planned to close down, but a reservation came in from the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” her mom said. “Pack your heaviest gear. Maryanne said the wind blows so hard it can be minus forty, even when the sun’s out.”
    Tatum didn’t mind moving from place to place during the winter or living out of a duffel. It was sort of like camping indoors. She took a deep breath, knowing it was now or never. “Can I bring a friend?”
    Her mom stopped what she was doing and stared at her. Tatum’s only friends lived near Skilak Lodge, where her parents worked April through October.
    “Order up!” Jake called from the kitchen.
    “Sorry, honey,” her mom said, still looking surprised. “Not this time.”
    •  •  •
    Nome Airport was a flurry of activity.
    Tatum and her mom had tickets for the early flight to Santa Ysabel. But a soupy fog hung thick and low. Who knew when they’d be able to take off? The best estimate, late morning.
    Her mom was still mad as a box of bullfrogs. “Tatum, we’ve been through this before,” she’d whispered angrily. “We move around too much right now to have a dog. Things will be different when we have our own lodge.”
    She had only given in because they couldn’t get ahold ofBeryl. “I don’t know what we’ll do when we get back from Wager. You know how the manager feels about pets,” she’d said, then sighed. “But we’ll figure something out.”
    Tatum had thrown her arms around her. “You’re the best!”
    “And Bandit needs regular exercise, even when the weather’s crummy.”
    “No problem!”
    Her mom had sighed again, long and loud. “You’re so much like your dad.”
    Tatum didn’t think that was such a bad thing.
    She held Bandit’s leash in a cubbyhole of a gift shop, disappointed to be missing the mushers’ banquet. But Beryl wouldn’t be there either.
    No one fussed about a dog at the airport. There were more dogs in the forty-ninth state than people. She killed time, thumbing through a book about local history.
    In the 1880s, when maps had been drawn up for this part of Alaska, the mapmaker couldn’t find a reference for the point of land that stretched east of town. He’d scribbled
Name?
on a rough draft, planning to fill it in later. When the map was published, it showed