The Winter Pony by Iain Lawrence Page B

Meares had leapt clear, but already they were on their feet and hurrying back.
    All around the sledge, the snow was cracked and crumbling. The men wrestled it sideways and anchored it firmly where the snow was solid. The traces stretched taut in front of it, into the crevasse and up again on the other side, where the dog Osman was holding the weight of his whole team. He was strangling in his harness, breathing in painful rasps. But he held his ground, and as much as I hated that dog, I had to admit he looked heroic.
    A hideous howling came up from the ice. Mr. Teddy and Mr. Forde ran out to help. Patrick untied me from my picket and hurried me around the wall. “They’ll be needing you now, James Pigg,” he said.
    I went at a trot as he ran beside me.
    It was a bridge of snow that had caved in, a cover for the crevasse. If the sledge had gone another foot or two, if it had weighed another pound, it would have crashed through the snow along with the dogs, taking Captain Scott with it, down and down through the Barrier.
    Patrick led me in beside the dog Osman. He could tell I was scared to go near that beast, and he kept talking to mecalmly. “Easy, lad. It’s all right,” he said. But the smell of the dog made me want to run away.
    Cherry and Gran had turned their team around and stopped their sledge. They ran across the snow toward Captain Scott.
    Patrick took me right to the edge. I looked straight down into the crevasse. It was much wider and deeper than the one that had nearly swallowed me. I could see a hundred feet down, but not all the way to the bottom. The ice was pale blue at the top, growing darker and darker until everything faded away.
    Sixty feet down, part of the bridge had jammed between the sides of the crevasse to make a narrow shelf. Two of the dogs lay there, on their sides, absolutely still. The rest dangled from their harnesses, some upside down, some sideways, all howling in terror. Two were swinging back and forth, back and forth, like enormous spiders at the ends of their threads. And every time they swung together, each snarled and snapped, trying to grab the other by the throat.
    Then Patrick turned me around and led me up beside the dog Osman. The smell of that dog put into my mind an image of Weary Willy fighting off the team. I was so scared that I shied away, and if not for Patrick, I might have fallen back right into the crevasse. But he kept his hold on my halter and stood between me and the dog. As we went past, the dog Osman raised its head and looked at me. For the first time, I stared straight into a dog’s eyes. I expected a black look of evil, but all I saw was fear and pleading. The dog couldn’t hold on for much longer. Already it trembled with the effort of holding the other dogs, and the weight was slowly dragging it backtoward the crevasse. A long rut was scraped in the snow, carved with the deep slashes of the dog’s claws.
    I was not wearing my collar, not rigged for a harness. Cherry brought a rope and put a loop around my shoulders. He cinched me up to the dog harness. Then Patrick stepped me forward, and the weight the dog was holding came onto me instead.
    I leaned into it. My hooves slipped, nearly dragging me down. But I planted them solidly and heaved on the rope. I took all the weight on my shoulders. Then Cherry whipped out his knife and freed the dog Osman. The dog bounded forward, then stopped and turned around.
    I hadn’t imagined us changing places, with me tethered and the dog standing free. Its mouth was open, its tongue hanging out, a pink slather slithering between enormous fangs, in and out over gums as black as coal.
    The dog could have attacked. It could have torn my throat wide open before anyone could help.
    But it didn’t. It stood facing me squarely, then bowed down on the snow with its front legs straight. It touched its chin to the ground. A feeling passed between us—a feeling of thanks and understanding. Then Gran came up beside the dog,