How to Keep a Human, as told by Amaruq

The King of Dawson City

SLAM! Bump! Our truck left the pavement of Front Street for the potholes of good old Third Avenue. Unmistakably, we were rolling and pitching into Dawson City once again.

I groaned in pain, digging twenty claws into the sheepskin seat covers to avoid being thrown against the dash or the door. With every jolt, my right haunch seared under its bandages, and my ribs burned steadily, a roaring noise in my ears like the fire my human has captured and tamed down to the stove, tamed down so far that I have even come to like lying near the stove and listening to it roaring, trapped in its cage. But I don’t enjoy this inside fire at all. Ow. Ow ow ow!

I must be getting old, I thought with some alarm. Already? I was only seven, but my body didn’t seem to be healing as well as it did when I was a pup. To tell the complete truth, which is a dumb thing to do except in a story like this, in my secret heart I dreaded this trip to Dawson City--what if that big brute was still around?

Once upon a time I would have been scrabbling eagerly at the passenger door by now, glorying in the warrior’s return, anxious to explode from my truck to find my enemy and tear him to pieces, preferably within sight of my beloved human. Now…with a torn leg and bruised ribs, for the first time in my life I doubted my ability to beat the bad-mannered beast. I, Amaruq the wolfdog, king of the Yukon, famous for vanquishing four scrappy huskies at once in the dusty streets of Dawson and sauntering off on a date with the cutest bitch in town afterwards, I, Amaruq, suffered nightmares now about losing my crown.

True, on our last trip to Dawson I had beaten the beastly Butch—but at what a price!

I yelped as the truck hit a particularly evil pothole, right in front of our store. Pack Leader pulled up and parked; then sidled across the seat and slipped an affectionate arm over my shoulders. “Still hurt, old boy?” she murmured softly. Her other hand pulled my ear gently, a gesture that only human apes can do and which I have come to love immeasurably. “You’re not so young as you used to be, are you? It’s been at least two weeks since that fight; you’ve done nothing but eat and sleep since then, and look at you—still a wreck!”

Her tone bantered, but the implications bothered me. Did she realise how old I felt? She sighed as she tumbled out of the truck and came around to my side to let me out. “Maybe it’s true what they say about huskies: they’re just not a very long-lived breed. Guess that’s why the Inuit shoot ’em at seven or so—can’t afford to keep an old dog who can’t work.” 

I jumped out of the truck to the boardwalk with all the alacrity I could muster, clamping my muzzle shut on the whimpers of pain wanting to escape. She grinned at me, my beloved human, giving my collar a teasing tug. “You’d make one hell of a pair of mitts—’long as we skin you in the winter when your coat’s good, eh, Wolfydog?”

Her teasing struck terror into my heart. Of course she loves me, but how much? I’ve known plenty of huskies just barely past their prime who suddenly disappeared. I once saw a human who seemed to be a perfectly good pet lift up his rifle and blast his two wounded huskies into oblivion. Then there’s the pound—I’ve been inside there once—or was it twice?—and please, dear furry goddess of the huskies, never again! I wouldn’t have believed it without seeing it, but there were some older dogs in there whose humans had actually brought them there to be killed.

Now, my human’s better than most. No matter how badly hurt I am, even if it’s my own fault, she takes me the vet to get sewn up. But, if I become stiff and blind and deaf and useless, what will she do then? Will she shoot me after all, and make my skin into a nostalgic pair of mitts?

I shook off the nightmare and went to work as briskly as I could in my wounded condition. First, patrol the store, refreshing all communication posts, forward and back. With one leg still unable to bear weight, this proved difficult enough. At each post where Pack Leader could see me, I gritted my teeth and stood the pain, but once, unobserved at the back of the store, I squatted like a puppy to spare the leg.