Secret of the Past

Balto recounts the past to Jenna as he works to reveal a terrible secret.

Spring 1923

The mail team lined up at the center of town as the musher checked the harnesses and talked quietly to the dogs. After a few minutes he mounted the back of the sled and secured the mailbag with all the letters of Nome stuffed inside it. The team barked and whirled around in their harnesses, eager to go. The musher patiently waited for them to calm down so they could start their long trip to Nenana.

A small 2 month old red-and-cream-colored husky pup lingered next to one of the sled dogs, a strong brown husky with a white ear and white paws. The pup hopped around excitedly, and the brown husky, her father, chuckled at his daughter’s antics.

“Will you be home soon, Daddy?” the puppy asked excitedly. The brown husky, whose name was Ranger, laughed again.

“Yes, my girl, me and Uncle Scout will be home in a few days, as long as he doesn’t decide to join a wolf pack along the way. Right, Scout?”

A brown husky with white circles around his eyes, white paws, and a splash of gray on his back turned around from his place in front of Ranger and grinned at the puppy.

“That’s right, sweet Jen, Uncle Scout will be home in no time. But wouldn’t it be great to at least SEE some wolves on the way to Nenana…” The puppy laughed. Scout’s fascination of wolves was a big joke throughout the town.

The dogs were quieter now, and the musher gripped the handrail and raised his arm. Ranger turned to his young daughter.

“Daddy’s got to go now, Jen.” He nuzzled her cheek, and she licked his face.

“Love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, Jenna, my girl.”

“Mush!” the musher shouted, and Jenna jumped back as the team dashed off and out of town.

Spring 1931

Balto and Jenna lay side by side on the hilltop, watching the sun surrender itself to the night, its shining rays leaving a smudged, glowing horizon behind, stained with blazing color like warm blood. The pure snow swims before their eyes in pale waves of rosy pinks and yellows, and as the sun drowns in the darkness waiting for it beyond the horizon, the shadow of Balto’s boat slowly stretches its ghostly fingers towards the now brightly lit town of Nome, Alaska. This town seems quite small and ordinary, especially in all of Nature’s glory in this evening’s sunset, but it holds a story, a story rich with prejudice and sorrow, of pain and lost hearts, of action and competition, of love and bravery, but most of all, it’s a story of one noble canine, half wolf, half husky, and his realization of who he is and where he belongs. Balto’s story.

But by his side, always, will be Jenna, his girl, the one who drove him on, the one who was the reason he went on the mission to get the antitoxin, the reason he found himself. But even before all that, there is a secret Balto has kept ever since he was a pup, a secret that whispers from hilltop to hilltop, carried by the Arctic wind, dances with the spirits of the Aurora Borealis, whooshes through a long deserted wolf den, and murmurs from rooftop to rooftop in Nome and rattles the eaves of houses and awakens the very feelings of the barren tundra. Such a deep secret, one that Jenna has forgotten, kept tucked in a corner of Balto’s heart for such a long time, like a precious gem, and he wonders if maybe, just maybe, he can tell Jenna that secret tonight.

The majestic sunset drains away, sucking all the color from the land away with it, letting darkness swoop down like a huge black bat to veil the sky. Jenna sighs and leans her head against Balto’s strong neck. He looks down at her with a smile. “Did you like that, Jen?”

“Oh, Balto, it was beautiful,” Jenna breathes, lifting her head to smile back at him. “Just like all those times before the puppies. Of course, they’ve all got their own homes now, but I still feel like I should worry about them.” She laughs lightly. “You really know how to take all those worries away. It was beautiful.”

Balto grins. “Oh, don’t start giving me all the credit. You were the one that did all the work, raising them and stuff. All I had to do was sit back and tell them the antitoxin story, and they all thought I was the best father ever.” He pushes Jenna playfully with his nose. She laughs.

“You and those stories! The puppies could listen to you for hours, with you talking forever about magic places and strange animals and everything else in between. Which reminds me, I’ve been wanting to ask you something. Where did you learn to tell stories like that?”

Balto twitches as a series of bare memories flows through his head like a river. “My mother taught me.” He shifts so Jenna is leaning against him, and an idea slowly bubbles into his head. “Let me tell you a story, Jen.”

“Balto!” Jenna laughs. Balto shakes his head.

“No, really Jenna. Listen.” He settles back against her and excavates his mind for the right words. “A few years back, in a wolf den just a couple miles from Nome, Alaska…”

Early Summer 1924

“Oh yeah!” Nanuq whooped and grabbed Balto by the scruff of the neck and shook him in small, jerky movements. Balto squeezed his eyelids shut as the world spun before his amber eyes, then rolled over and pulled Nanuq along for the ride. The two 2 year old canines rolled down a small hill, creating a tiny avalanche, and roll-slammed right into Aniu, Balto’s mother, as she was just coming out of the pack cave to call Balto in.

“Whoops, sorry Mom,” Balto apologized quickly. Nanuq’s head popped up out of the snow and he started laughing like crazy.

“Man, did you see that? Killer ride. Whoa!” Nanuq finally noticed Aniu standing there watching him. “Sorry, Aniu.”

Two pairs of eyes stared up at the white wolf innocently, and Aniu barely stopped a laugh from rolling up from her chest. Balto’s golden eyes were wide with apology, but Nanuq still had the blue eyes of a young puppy, and now they sparkled with mischief.

“Boys!” Aniu said, shaking her head. She nudged them inside with her cold black nose. “The sun is almost set. Time to come in and join the rest of the pack.”

“Oh, alright,” Balto said, giving Nanuq a nudge, and both got up and trotted into the cave with Aniu following behind in a stately manner, still trying to fight down a laugh. Nanuq found his mother, Snow Paws, lying down and chewing on a piece of meat in a bleak corner of the cave. She stopped eating and smiled sadly at her teenage son as he bent over and licked her ears. She always did things with a sad air. She had never gotten over the death of Nanuq’s father, Seminole, who had been shot by a hunter before Nanuq was born. The motherly gray wolf with white paws gently rolled her son onto the cave floor, and he cuddled up next to her.

“We couldn’t find any food today, Mom, not even a snowshoe hare. Did you get anything?” Nanuq growled when his mother shook her head no. “Man, this sucks. We’ve hardly had any food for at least a couple of weeks! Are we all gonna starve?” Then he saw the piece of rabbit meat his mother was eating. “Whoa, Mom, where’d you get that? The storage places we dug?” Snow Paws nodded. Nanuq arched an eyebrow and cocked his head. “Did you check it for rabies? Balto’s mom says there’s an epidemic going around.” Snow Paws smiled to say she had, and, satisfied, Nanuq curled up next to her and drifted to sleep. On the other side of the cave, Balto frowned worriedly and hurried back to Aniu. He plonked himself down in front of her and she looked up at him with her wise, sweet amber eyes.

“Mom, is the rabies epidemic really killing hundreds of wolves everyday?”

“Yes,” Aniu said simply. Balto sighed with worry.

“I wish there was something I could do to help.”

“So do I,” Aniu said gently, reaching down and licking his ears. “So do all of us. But there isn’t much we can do, so we’ll just have to wait and be content that none of our pack has been stricken yet. It’s nothing for a pup like you to worry about. Now come here.”

Balto crept forward and snuggled into his mother’s white fur, though it had recently turned yellowish from lack of food. The cave became quiet as restless young pups were put to bed and adults closed their eyes and dreamed of mountains of meat, enough to provide for their families, for ever since the start of the rabies epidemic and the caribou shortage there hadn’t been enough to eat. Food was the only thing any of the wolves could think about.

Quiet slowly poured its blessing over the cave like cold, refreshing water filling a glass, and all was silent except for the gentle breathing of the wolves.

A 2-years-and-2-months-old red and cream Siberian husky stood outside her house in Nome and watched the Northern Lights quiver and sparkle on the tar-black horizon. A 5 year old red husky with a white star in the middle of her forehead slid through the house’s doggy door and saw her daughter absorbed in watching the Aurora. The adult husky, whose name was Jewel, swished her tail and called to her daughter.

“Jenna, what are you doing out here? It’s past 10 o’clock!”

“But Mother, isn’t it beautiful?” Jenna turned to face her mother, and Jewel could see the happy expression flowering on her daughter’s face. In fact, Jewel didn’t think she had seen her daughter this happy since before