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Overview
Andrea Thalasinos's debut novel is an inspiring story of how a single act of kindness can transform your life.
Rosalie MacKenzie is headed nowhere until she sees Smokey, a Siberian husky suffering from neglect. Rosalie finds the courage to rescue the dog, and—united by the bond of love that forms between them—they save each other.
Soon Rosalie and Smokey are immersed in the world of competitive dogsled racing. Days are filled with training runs, the stark beauty of rural Wisconsin, and the whoosh of runners on snow. Rosalie discovers that behind the modern sport lies a tragic history: the heartbreaking story of the Chukchi people of Siberia. When Stalin's Red Army displaced the Chukchi in 1929, many were killed and others lost their homes and their beloved Guardians—the huskies that were the soul and livelihood of their people.
Alternating between past and present, telling of a struggling Chukchi family and a young woman discovering herself, An Echo Through the Snow takes readers on a gripping, profound, and uplifting dogsled ride to the Iditarod and beyond, on a journey of survival and healing.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429968423 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/21/2012 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 370 |
| Sales rank: | 890,428 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
ANDREA THALASINOS, Ph.D., is a professor of sociology at Madison College. Her respect for huskies grew while she was running her own sled team of six dogs. She helped found a dog rescue group in the upper Midwest for displaced northern breeds. Andrea lives and writes in Madison, Wisconsin. An Echo Through the Snow is her first novel.
Read an Excerpt
An Echo Through the Snow
By Andrea Thalasinos
Tom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 2012 Andrea ThalasinosAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-6842-3
CHAPTER 1
Sometimes a story has to be told if for no other reason than to unburden the heart.
— Anonymous
OCTOBER 1929 — UELEN, CHUKOTKA, NORTHEASTERN SIBERIA
He strained to catch a glimpse of them through the morning mist. Tariem wiped his runny nose on his sleeve. A truck engine rumbled from the outskirts of the village; the soldiers must have discovered that he'd escaped. Earlier he pried off a few loose boards from the temporary stockade and slipped out.
It was snowing lightly, the clouds low hanging and billowy. Snowflakes gathered in lacy patterns along the folds of his sealskin sleeves, like the mountain ridges where he'd soon be headed. It might have been a peaceful morning if not for the smoke from burning houses, the Red Army's truck or that his wife was gone. Today all remaining Chukchi along the Bering seacoast were to be evicted. Evacuation orders had been tacked up in Russian on family yarangas for weeks, though no one could read.
Tariem fumbled as he attached the gangline to the remaining sled. The engine sounds stabbed his stomach like spoiled whale meat.
The remaining team of dogs watched in silence as he readied the loaded sled. It was his wife Jeaantaa's team. The dogs looked wary, especially Kinin. The lead dog's blue stare pierced the mist. From a puppy he'd been Jeaantaa's leader, and leaders often ran for no one else.
Tariem lashed the frozen salmon tighter onto the heavy sled. The gut line dug deeply into his palm as he leveraged his weight, securing it to the sled's driftwood stanchion. He prayed it wouldn't snap. Losing food on the tundra was death.
He looked to Kinin. The Guardian had bear-thick fur, as blue-black as the Siberian night. Above each crystalline eye a white fur circle grew. These markings proffered guidance from the Old Ones, whose spirits swirled in colorful trails across the sky. Tariem hoped for Kinin to get him out of the village, to the Cave of Many Points, and from there find the twelve-hundred-mile trail to their reindeer-breeding cousins.
The dogs' whiskers were frosted into snow beards. Though they ordinarily would be yelping with excitement as a sled was being readied, the events of the past few days made them hushed and suspicious. Gaps in the yard stood like missing teeth — only twenty dogs left where there had been eighty.
"Kinin," he called. The dog lowered his head and didn't move. Tariem slowly approached, trying to be calm, though the army truck was getting louder. Harness in one hand and a piece of seal meat as an offering to Kinin in the other. Just like Jeaantaa questioned his judgment, Kinin also had doubts.
"They're coming, Kinin," he explained. Palms up, he laid the meat down. Dogs couldn't be forced to run. They'd just lie down. You could beat them, cut off their tails in anger; they still wouldn't get up.
Tariem glanced at the family yaranga out of habit. "Ku, ku" — he'd not had time to burn their birch and walrus-skin house to free the House Spirit. Now the Spirit would follow, even harm them.
Tariem and the dog turned in the direction of the truck. Kinin's eyes softened. His one ear twitched; then his body relaxed. "Thank you," Tariem whispered. Kinin slipped his head and front legs into the harness and then surged, dragging Tariem to the front of the gangline as he toggled him in lead. Kinin pulled the line taut and then watched as the remaining nineteen dogs were quickly attached.
Tariem stepped onto the sled runners and pulled the wooden stake.
"Ke!"
Kinin charged. The Guardians lunged in unison. Tariem fell back from the momentum, grabbing on to the handle to steady himself.
The truck rounded the bend, barreling down the shoreline coming closer to the yaranga. Two soldiers stood in the rear. They pointed, yelling in broken Chukchi for him to stop.
"Ke, ke, ke, Kinin," Tariem urged, but the smell of fear was enough. Kinin raced to beat the truck, to get past the last yaranga and out to the snowpack. If they didn't start shooting he'd have the advantage. The sled runners would glide, leaving the truck's wheels to break through, spinning and whining like a frustrated reindeer scratching off spring's growth of itchy antler velvet.
Tariem spotted a child's empty kliak molded in the shape of a foot. Dread spread through his lungs. Blood dotted the snow.
"Ke, ke," he repeated.
Kinin's paws flicked snow as he jettisoned the team forward. All twenty spines undulated with speed, their breath syncopated with pounding feet.
Charred Chukchi yarangas blared by, burning in fragrant streams, their smoldering birch poles like red eyes. Tariem braced his knees against the stanchions for balance anticipating the first steep mogul. The runners hit and the sled was airborne. He used his weight to counterbalance, but the sled flipped on its side. Dogs darted back looks as it dragged.
"Ke, ke-e-e-e," he hollered. The truck gained. Tariem grasped the sled handle, worn smooth from Jeaantaa's touch.
Soldiers jeered from behind as he struggled to right the sled.
"Ke, ke, Kinin," he shouted. A gut lash snapped. Bundles of frozen salmon rolled out along with the heavy anorak that Jeaantaa had made for him. The team accelerated on the brief downslope. As he yanked the handle, the sled flipped upright.
Spires of the Siberian tree line were immediately visible to the west, close enough to make out individual branches. If only his will could catapult them. A painful spasm gathered in his throat. He lowered his chin to his sleeve, crouching to make a smaller target, his fingers numb and stinging with cold. Mittens would have to wait until deep within the forest. The gangly-limbed Russians must be cold. He was shorter, more compact.
"Ready." A command came from behind.
He glanced back. A young soldier unslung his rifle. Tariem turned forward, watching only Kinin and the trail before them. He held his breath, as if doing so could block bullets.
"Fire!"
A shot chipped and sprang one of two strands of walrus-gut ganglines. The team surged, startled. "Forest Keeper," Tariem cried out to Jeaantaa's guardian spirit. He eyed the straining gangline. "Breathe your life here."
With a crack, truck wheels broke through the ice behind him. Curses echoed off the surrounding hills, in first broken Chukchi, then Russian. Soon nothing but the rhythmic breath of the dogs as Kinin entered the stillness of the trees.
* * *
Tynga was limping.
"Whoa." Tariem kicked in the wooden stake. His legs were rubbery; he staggered like a drunken man over to the dog. Her back paw was up. Tariem bent over, and when he touched her leg Tynga yelped and pulled away. Her blood warmed his fingers as he touched them to his lips. She looked up adoringly. Her eyes crinkled as her ears lay flat, tail wagging and thumping against his thigh. In the dim forest light he checked her shoulders, abdomen and back. "Easy," he said. They'd run two of twelve hundred miles. He could leave her here, or sacrifice her.
Tears burned his eyes. Why Tynga? She was the only one to single him out. From a puppy she claimed him, following him everywhere. It was as annoying as it was touching, but he'd gradually come to accept this love. Crouching down, he looked at Tynga. She bunched her shoulders and licked his face. This was Bakki's daughter, the color of early orange sunlight, with lichen-colored eyes.
Pride had deafened him to Jeaantaa's warnings. A day earlier he struck her and then stared dumbfounded as blood dotted her nostrils. Though he was furious at how she'd broken the laws of the Lygoravetlat, or the original ones, he ached for her. She'd never been freely his and now even less so. He hated that he was so powerless to despise her. "A man should never love more than a woman," years ago the elders warned. "She's bewitched you."
The day before, Jeaantaa left with a man named Ramsay who'd come with an Inuit guide from Alaska. Tears cramped Tariem's throat as he thought of his sons. He imagined them waiting for her at the Cave, not wanting to leave for the longer journey inland in case she'd show.
He dreaded the two-day journey. The burden of not-knowing would drag beside him, like the anxious soul of a dead relative. He'd trudge long past the Valley of Flowers, down the frozen River of the Dead, hoping all the way to the Cave that he was wrong. Praying to Aquarvanguit for the moment when the boys would reach the Cave with Cheyuga and spot their mother's beautiful face. There she'd be with a fire already started, a bubbling pot of marrow and seal stew. And from there, together they'd begin the monthlong journey inland to their reindeer cousins.
But even if she changed her mind and left for the Cave, Bakki, her fourteen-year-old dog, couldn't run that far. She had him in lead and not Kinin when she left. And while Bakki wouldn't make it to the Cave, the dog could make it across the frozen Bering Sea to Rochlit.
Tynga licked mucus from his nose as he squatted. Tariem lifted the dog, stumbling as he carried her back to the sled, her tail thumping. He laid her down onto the sled and raised his knife, arching his back to gain force for a quick kill. Tynga lay quiet and trusting, lifting her leg to expose her belly as she did for only him.
A convulsive sob stopped him. "No more blood," Jeaantaa had pleaded yesterday. The knife dropped, he buried his face in Tynga's fur, gasping in spastic heaves. The dog's musky warmth was a momentary comfort. He picked up the knife and began sawing off a length from the bottom of his anorak. He scooped a handful of snow, packed Tynga's flesh wound and tightened the bandage around her leg.
"Lay still," he scolded. "We have a long way." The dog's tail thumped against the load as she settled in on top of the sled, her eyes fixed on him.
CHAPTER 2Despite heavenly intentions, sometimes the wrong soul makes its way into a human body.
— Anonymous
NOVEMBER 1992 — BAYFIELD, WISCONSIN, THE SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE SUPERIOR
Locals say that winter in the snowy north is a land of extremes. Some days are so dreary that the bluntness of low-hanging gunmetal clouds is enough to steal your soul. On others the sun is so bright you can hardly see. Everything that's gloomy becomes brighter, and everything that's bright becomes blinding.
Her stomach squeezed as Mrs. Cleo plopped down at her station. Rosalie MacKenzie hated how the old woman clutched her purse like the body of a stillborn child. One of the stylists had cropped the woman's hair too short — like a botched grooming job on a white poodle — and her raw pink scalp made Rosalie shudder.
As the eighteen-year-old lifted a comb to set Mrs. Cleo's hair, the old woman's blue marble eyes fixed on her. The kind of stare you sometimes see in the truly mad. Rosalie's cheeks flushed under the scrutiny, beads of sweat formed on her upper lip. Except for an occasional "oww" from a bent bobby pin, everyone understood the woman to have "lost the power of speech" from a stroke. At least Mrs. Cleo didn't require an audience.
Maybe it was more out of shyness, but while speaking Rosalie would restlessly avert her eyes, as if searching about for help or fishing for things to say.
She fumbled the comb. It clanked loudly on the black-and-white floor. Rosalie sneaked a glance as Marge peeked over to check, her latex gloves red with hair dye. Rosalie nodded in apology and reached for a clean comb. Being a disappointment is exhausting. When shop gossip would target an absentee local, Rosalie would smile slyly as the lynch mob formed, never chiming in, just relieved it wasn't her that time. She'd get a perverse sense of superiority at someone else's being an "incompetent piece of you-know-what."
She smoothed a swatch of Mrs. Cleo's hair and checked the clock. Marge caught her. She'd already been warned; clients complained that her "clockwatching" made them feel like she couldn't wait to shoo them out.
Tuesday evenings were "Old Lady Day" at the Frosty Tip Salon. After the last paying customer left for the day, a van pulled up from Ashland's assisted-living complex, nine miles east on the shore of Lake Superior. All those who were still mobile enough to navigate frozen sidewalks were delivered for a wash and set. A weekly treat designed to lift even the lowest of winter-worn spirits.
Rosalie caught herself about to sigh and stopped — last week's "talking-to."
"You're a spy," Mrs. Cleo blurted.
Rosalie looked up. Their eyes met in the mirror. "She speaks," a few remarked. "Why, I've never heard her ..." Clients in the adjacent stations chuckled. Stylists paused beside spiderweb tangles of bouffant hairdos. A lone hair dryer droned.
Mrs. Cleo's voice was low and deep. It sounded as if coming from a long way off, yet it got right under Rosalie's skin. She tried to break eye contact but couldn't. Marge stepped up with red-stained gloves. "No one's a spy, Mrs. Cleo. That's Rosalie, my right-hand girl."
To listen to Marge you'd think it was true. But Rosalie was scrutinized more closely than the other trainee. Just last week Marge exploded on the shop floor right in front of stylists and customers alike. "Do something with that hair for cripe sakes, Rosalie. Put some makeup on." The woman's hands tapped her cheekbones for emphasis. "Take off those boots; get some smart shoes on those tootsies — look like a stylist and not like you're shoveling shit."
Her chest had collapsed into her fingertips, her wounded spirit hovering just beneath her ribs. No one rushed to her defense. She glanced around for the soft eye-rolling smile of an ally, but she hadn't a friend in the place and knew it. Even the few to whom she listened endlessly as they chattered on about their "man problems." Others fired off looks of moral rectitude, as if "glad someone finally had the nerve to say it." The next day Rosalie made the good-faith effort to don her "woman face" with blue shadowed and lined eyes only to end up running late.
* * *
"Rosalie washes and sets you every week, Mrs. Cleo," Marge continued. "Remember?"
Rosalie folded her arms and peeked at the clock. Her dark brown, shoulder-length hair was pulled tightly back into a ponytail. Tall and willowy with the high Ojibwa cheekbones of her mother fused with her father's nose and Irish green eyes. Her sheared-off bangs fluttered like fringe with every turn of her head.
Mrs. Cleo's eyes fixed on her. She wasn't buying it. Her spotted bony finger repeated the accusation.
"Oh my, you're such a card." Marge dismissed it with a playful wave. She turned to her audience of patrons, crossed her eyes and made a face. Everyone but Rosalie laughed. Instead she stood motionless in her pink clown suit, bangs fluttering, arms crossed, fingertips tucked into the soft folds of her elbows. She looked at the floor.
Mrs. Cleo agitated in the chair. "Let me up," the old woman growled. She spoke with an air of authority. Razor sharp one instant, mad as a hatter the next. Clutching her purse with one arm, she pushed against the chair arm with the other. "False prophets stand among us —" She began to yank out the top few curlers. Clips clinked as they hit the floor, threads of white hair in each.
"Stop it, Mrs. Cleo." Marge took command. She peeled off her latex gloves and chucked the latest issue of Midwest Living onto the old woman's lap. Mrs. Cleo collapsed as if all the air had been let out of her body. The woman felt for the certainty of her purse, lowering her head to whisper secrets into its handle.
Marge nudged Rosalie aside. "I'll finish, hon. You can go on home now."
Rosalie grabbed her blue parka from the coat tree by the front door and wrestled into the sleeves. Too embarrassed to turn around and wave or think of something funny to say, which she never could anyway, Rosalie pulled open the door.
The icy fresh air felt good on her hot eyes. She inhaled deeply, trying to rid her nostrils of the stench of perm chemicals. Though relieved to be out, she hoped Marge wouldn't dock her the last two hours. It would be just her luck that Jerry would notice the difference in her check.
* * *
The sky was ink and the moon unnaturally bright and high as she walked home. It felt like someone was watching from inside the chain-link fence across the street. The Bayfield junkyard. She slowed down and scanned the street. She had an odd feeling, more like being studied than watched. Her steamy breath etched itself into the frigid Wisconsin night air. The silence rippled with expectancy.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from An Echo Through the Snow by Andrea Thalasinos. Copyright © 2012 Andrea Thalasinos. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
What People are Saying About This
“Andrea Thalasinos has written a sensitive and engaging story which beautifully illustrates the ancient human/canine bond. Her rendering of the little known story of the Chukchi people of Siberia is heart-wrenching and uplifting at the same time. The interwoven stories of Jeaantaa and Rosalie and the dogs that mean so much to them is destined to become a classic.”
—Susan Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of One Good Dog
“The author's love of dogs and the land come shining through in this compelling and evocative novel. Don't pick it up unless you're able to step on the sled, listen to the panting of the dogs and the thump of their paws on the trail while you enjoy the ride—I read it straight through and couldn't put it down.”
—Patricia McConnell, Ph.D. author of The Other End of the Leash
“Powerful debut...stark, gorgeous prose and a timeless story of love realized, lessons learned, and paths taken.”
—Booklist
“Beautifully drawn and emotionally resonant.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Delicate and vivid as the beadwork Rosalie works on by night, energetic and fast-paced as the dog teams she handles by day, An Echo Through the Snow is an elaborate weaving of past and present, of two women trapped by their circumstances and determined to set themselves free. I loved this book.”
—Michelle Diener, author of In a Treacherous Court
“If you like dogs, history, and richly drawn characters, An Echo Through the Snow is the book you've been waiting for. Fascinating, and deeply moving.”
—Randi Barrow, author of Saving Zasha