been crazy. Anyway, the only kids coming through here I didn't know are the Jesuit Volunteers. One girl flew in late, because of the snowstorm, but by now, they're all up at Tuluksak, manning the checkpoint.”
“What did she look like?” Laura asked. “The girl who was late?”
“Skinny little thing. Black hair.”
Laura turned to Daniel. “It's not her.”
“This girl didn't have a warm coat,” the woman said. “I thought that was pretty crazy for a kid who knew she was coming to Alaska. She didn't even have a hat.”
Daniel remembered Trixie sitting in the passenger seat of his truck in the middle of the winter as they drove up to the high school entrance. It's freezing out, he'd said, and he handed her a hunter-orange wool stocking cap he'd used when he was out cutting wood. Wear this. And her response: Dad, do you want people to think I'm a total freak?
There had been times, when he lived in Akiak, that he would know things before they happened. Sometimes it was as simple as thinking of a red fox and then looking up and seeing one. Sometimes it was more profound: sensing a fight building up behind him, so that he could turn in time to throw the first punch. Once it had
even wakened him out of his sleep: the sound of a gunshot and the echo of basketballs thudding when the bullet upset the cart they were stored on.
His mother had called it coincidence, but the Yupiit wouldn't. People's lives were as tightly woven as a piece of lace, and pulling on one string might furrow another. And although he'd dismissed it when he was a teenager in Akiak, he recognized now the tightening of the skin at his temples, the way light moved too fast in front of his eyes a moment before he pictured his daughter, not wearing a hat, or anything else for that matter, shivering in what seemed to be a haystack.
Daniel felt his heart jump. “I have to get to Tuluksak.”
“Ikayumaamken,” Nelson said. Let me help you. The last time he'd been here, Daniel hadn't wanted anyone's help. The last time he'd been here, he'd actively pushed it away. Now he turned to Nelson. “Can I borrow your snow machine?” he asked.
* * *
The checkpoint in Tuluksak was at the school, close enough to the river for mushers to settle their dogs in straw on the banks and then walk up to the building for hot food. All mushers racing the K300 passed through Tuluksak twice - once on the way up to Aniak and once on the way back. There was a mandatory four-hour rest and vet check during one of those stops. When Trixie and Willie arrived, a team of dogs was idling without its musher down at the bank of the river, being watched over by a kid with a clipboard who asked if they'd run into anyone else on the trail. All but one of the mushers had passed through Tuluksak, detained, presumably, by the storm. No one had heard from him since he'd checked in at Akiak.
Trixie hadn't really spoken much to Willie this morning. She had awakened with a start a little after six A.M., noticing first that it wasn't snowing and second that she wasn't cold. Willie's arm was draped over her, and his breath fell onto the nape of her neck. Most humiliating, though, was the hard thing Trixie could feel pressing up
against her thigh. She had inched away from Willie, her face burning, and focused on getting herself fully dressed before he woke up and realized he had a boner.
Willie parked outside the school and climbed off the snow machine. “Aren't you coming in?” Trixie asked, but he was already tinkering with the engine, not seeming the least bit inclined to finesse an introduction for her. “Whatever,” she muttered under her breath, and she walked into the building.
Directly in front of her was a trophy case that held a wooden mask decorated with feathers and fur and a loving cup with a basketball etched onto it. A tall boy with a long, horsey face was standing next to it. “You're not Andi,” he said, surprised. The Jesuit Volunteers who were in charge of the checkpoint at Tuluksak were a group of college-age kids who did Peace Corpsstyle service work at the native clinic in Bethel. Trixie had thought Jesuits were priestsand these kids clearly weren't. She asked Willie why they were called that, and he just shrugged.
“I don't know about Andi,” Trixie said. “I was just told to come here/She held her breath, waiting for this boy to point a finger at her and scream Imposter! but before he could, Willie walked inside, stamping off his boots. ”Hey, Willie, what's up,' the tall boy said. Willie nodded and walked into one of the classrooms, heading toward a table set up with Crock Pots and Tupperware. He helped himself to a bowl of something and disappeared through another doorway.
“Well, I'm Carl,” the boy said. He held out his hand.
“Trixie.”
“You ever done this before?”
“Oh, sure,” Trixie lied. “Tons of times.”
“Great.” He led her into the classroom. 'Things are a little crazy right now, because we've got a team that just came in, but here's a five-second orientation: First and most important, that's where the
food is.“ He pointed. ”The locals bring stuff all day long, and if you haven't had any, I recommend the beaver soup. On the other side of the door where you came in is another classroom; that's where the mushers sleep when they come in for their layover. They basically grab a mat and tell you when they want to be woken up. We rotate shifts - every half hour someone's got to sit out on the river, which is cruel and unusual punishment in this kind of weather. If you're the one on duty when a musher comes in, make sure you tell him his time and call it into headquarters, then show him which plywood corral has his gear in it. Right now everyone's a little freaked out because one team hasn't made it in since the storm.'
Trixie listened to Carl, nodding at the right places, but he might as well have been speaking Swahili. Maybe if she watched someone else doing what she was supposed to do, she could copy when it came her turn.
“And just so you know,” Carl said. “Mushers are allowed to drop dogs here.”
Why? Trixie wondered. To see if they land on their feet?
A cell phone rang, and someone called out Carl's name. Left alone, Trixie wandered around, hoping to avoid Willie, who was doing such an effortless job of avoiding her. It seemed that the entire school consisted of two classrooms, and Trixie thought of Bethel High's complex layout, a map she had memorized all summer before
