again.
“Well, we sure showed them.”
“Yeah,” Terhune growled. “Next time FEED your dogs first.”
The sun was out and it was warm, 20 or 30 degrees above zero.
“At least it’s a nice day,” I yelled back. “I don’t even need … my parka.”
Sharp as an eight-by-ten photo, I recalled my big coat draped over a chair in the checkpoint bathroom. “Son of a bitch,” I gasped, staggered by the magnitude of my screwup. I considered continuing on without it. It was so warm. Nome was so close. One word restored reality: “Topkok.”
The area surrounding the Topkok Hills was one of the most dangerous on the trail. Mushers were sometimes trapped for days on the hillsides, or in the windy valley below. Continuing without that parka put my entire race in jeopardy. I stopped the team and dragged my dogs off the trail, waving Terhune ahead.
“What’re you doing?”
“Left something behind,” I said grimly.
Grabbing the lesbian’s collar, I pulled the team back around and mushed toward Golovin.
What a pisser, thought Daily, watching me turn back. His own dogs were flying, soaring at a previously unimaginable pace behind Bogus. The lead dog appeared to actually smell Nome; Tom didn’t know how else to explain it.
My dogs broke into a joyous lope. Returning to Golovin, an easy three miles back, was obviously a popular idea with the team. I hadn’t even parked when one of the ladies staffing the checkpoint burst through the door with my parka under her arm.
“We found it as soon as you left,” she said. “You didn’t need to come back for it. We would have sent it to White Mountain on a snowmachine.”
I sighed. “Came too far to take that chance.”
Facing the exit trail, I snacked the dogs and petted them, trying to make a game of this latest pilot error. The crew responded as I hoped, wagging their tails, acting perky. But their spirits crumbled when I ordered Harley and Rainy to move out again. The lesbian didn’t want to go at all. Raven’s crotch was suddenly more interesting than anything waiting ahead. Harley froze, torn between my demands and the lure of Raven.
“Go ahead! Go ahead, Harley!” I insisted.
The big dog looked at me, a forlorn expression written on his face, then he lurched ahead, dragging Rainy to work. My dogs stumbled out of Golovin like POWs. Their ears were down. Pauses were frequent. All thirteen dogs had to relieve their bladders, or take smelly dumps, or both. I was the Bad Guy riding the heavy sled.
The accusatory looks didn’t impress me. We were only going eighteen miles. Not a damn one of them was really tired. Hungry, yes. They hadn’t had a hot meal since Elim. But my fine athletes couldn’t be tired, not after that extra break on Little McKinley. They were just disappointed. And I couldn’t blame them for that. I had broken the all-important Deal.
The dogs pulled and I fed them at each checkpoint: that was our unspoken compact, which had been reaffirmed at every stage of the last 1,000 miles. Every stage, that is, until Golovin, where I had broken that trust — twice in a single morning.
My assumption was vindicated as the dogs broke into a lope scenting White Mountain. The morning’s betrayal was forgotten. Happy days were here. Ears perked, shoulders pitched forward with effort, Deadline Dog Farm’s finest pulled with abandon. A checkpoint was ahead. Dinner was about to be served, thus reestablishing justice throughout dogdom as they knew it.
“HEP, HEP, HEP.” That simple phrase was all it took. Bogus kicked the team into overdrive, and Tom Daily easily beat everybody else into White Mountain.
Jacked by his team’s performance, Tom spent the next 45 minutes proudly greeting incoming teams. He wasn’t paying attention as the checker, who was late coming down from the lodge, made his rounds.
Daily was bummed when he saw the time sheet later. It had Lenthar arriving first at 11 A.M., March 23. Daily was listed as fourth, adding an unwarranted 36 minutes to his mandatory 6-hour stop.
“Jesus” he said, “you can’t win in this thing.”
I shared Tom’s disappointment in the White Mountain standings. Thanks to my parka snafu, I had arrived 70 minutes behind the closest musher ahead of me, and some two hours behind the Mormiles, Terhune, Daily, and Lenthar. Those were teams I expected to beat; 55 miles didn’t offer much opportunity for a rebound. But a lot could happen. Look at Swenson.
After serving the dogs a meal, I unhooked little Raven and escorted her to the picket line for dropped dogs. I hated myself. Wasn’t I the guy who had planned on mushing every dog to Nome?
Now I was abandoning a hard-working girl merely for being in heat, a situation I should have been able to deal with. But I couldn’t, and that was the truth. That mating on the ice was nearly disastrous. The fight and the subsequent delay leaving Koyuk offered further proof that Raven’s presence threatened the entire team.
The little black dog whimpered as I walked away. I hesitated, and Raven flopped on her back, legs spread, inviting me to stroke her. My princess deserved no less for hauling me 1,100 miles.
“You did a good job, little girl,” I said, rubbing her tight belly. “Too bad the boys won’t leave you alone.”
I was tired as I trudged up the hill to White Mountain Lodge. If there hadn’t been a free meal waiting, I would have gladly slept with the dogs on the frozen river below.
Inside the clean lodge I felt decidedly out of place. The thick steak, rolled napkins, and polished forks — all seemed unreal after three weeks on the trail. And the lodge’s interior was so hot I felt light headed.
My nap was interrupted. Mowry was on the line. The Coach berated me for not dropping Raven sooner. But that was just in passing. The Mowth wasn’t calling to criticize. He sought to motivate me with a new shining goal.
Though I had already been defeated by the Poodle Man, the Russians, Madman, and over 40 others, Mowry said, a means yet remained to salvage Deadline Dog Farm’s reputation. His old dogs — the team Old Joe had repossessed last spring — were pulling Don Mormile’s sled. Catherine was also mushing a Redington team. The way Mowth saw it, if I beat those two teams to Nome, the feat would command respect throughout Knik. That wasn’t just his own opinion, Mowry stressed. No less an authority than Marcie had agreed.
“Bri,” he said. “Beat the Mormiles at all costs. Got that? BEAT THE MORMILES AT ALL COSTS!”
“Hey, those dogs look sort of skinny,” said Plettner, offhandedly. She was picking up the pans from her team’s second full meal at White Mountain.
My dogs did look kind of bony. I cooked them a second meal. Plettner watched approvingly as my dogs sucked up the steaming pans of food. She was putting the last touches on packing, her own six-hour layover nearly complete. Shortly before six in the evening, Sunday, March 23, Plettner mushed out on the frozen river below White Mountain. Don Mormile followed close behind.
Watching the teams quietly slip away, I knew I’d never catch Plettner. The Mormiles? That game was still afoot. We’d find out soon enough.
I looked the team over. Even with bellies full the dogs’ ribs — rising and falling with each breath — looked more defined, all right. Bo, Digger, and Harley, in particular, appeared strikingly gaunt. It was their attitudes, however, that showed the most change. Three weeks ago Cyrus would have been pacing and whining. Like soldiers or laborers everywhere, he and the others had learned to snatch a meal or rest whenever it was offered.
Even our maniacs now exhibited workmanlike calm. In leaving Raven behind, I was losing the one dog left in the team who barked at the first hints of departure. The changes were subtle, but profound. Pig no longer squirmed. Spook even welcomed my touch as I placed on booties.
In terms of pulling, the dogs had become a fine-tuned engine. When I let off the brake, tug lines snapped taut, and the team pulled in unison. Whisper “Whoa,” and the dogs halted on a dime. The had become a single unit, possessing ability beyond the sum of the individual members. Though I didn’t know it, I hadn’t entered the race with a dog team. But I had one now.
Mushing from White Mountain, I was an hour behind the nearest sled. The trail and sky merged in a seamless gray landscape. I switched on my headlamp although it wasn’t yet dark. There was comfort in the line of reflectors
