My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [106]
I was talking to an AP reporter on the pay phone when Tom walked in. I collared him, Herrman, and a few other mushers who happened past and put them on the phone for interviews. It was part of my campaign to make sure the Iditarod headquarters didn’t forget us.
“You should see O’Donoghue,” Daily told the reporter. “Skin’s falling off his face. He looks hideous.”
I was a little nicked, that’s all. Coming across the ice, wind had leaked between my goggles and the face masks and burned a line across my cheeks and nose. The shower had left the branding raw and bloody. It looked worse than it felt, but I was embarrassed by the way people kept gasping.
Later, Daily trudged up to the laundromat with a load of his own. Cooley was already there and had beat him to the bathroom. Tom shrugged and put his clothes in the washer. Long minutes passed. Cooley remained busy in the bathroom stall. Finally, Daily couldn’t wait any longer. He knocked. There was no response. Yanking open the door, he found Doc sitting on the toilet, sound asleep.
Back in the checkpoint, I cooked my spaghetti feast in a dog pan. Other mushers laughed as they saw what I was doing.
“You’re not going to eat all that yourself, are you?”
“Watch me.”
We were shell-shocked. Twenty days on the trail, and Nome was another 170 miles yet. But no one was complaining tonight. Half a dozen mushers agreed to accompany me to the school in the morning. Don Mormile was in rare form, mumbling songs and waltzing across the floor with a broom.
“We’re going to be here until spring,” someone cried.
“You already are,” another musher shot back.
It was indeed March 21, the spring equinox. The concept seemed ludicrous.
A television, tuned to the state’s rural satellite network, was blaring in the kitchen area. A news program was on. No one paid much mind until the Iditarod update started. “Snowmachiners are out searching for musher Tom Daily,” the announcer said, looking grave. “The rookie, traveling in last place, has been missing since Wednesday and is feared lost in a storm….”
Inside the checkpoint, all eyes turned to Daily, who was also watching the broadcast, munching a handful of caramel-coated Screaming Yellow Zonkers.
“Gee. And I didn’t even know I was lost,” Tom said, beaming. “Should I be worried?”
By morning, the sky had cleared. Below the village, the next section of trail stretched before us, flagged by tiny markers streaming bright orange tape. Other mushers scrambled to depart. I had an appointment to keep at the school. Let them go. I figured I could catch the slower teams without difficulty.
Looking at the bright faces of the school’s older students, I was glad I had kept my promise. Life is so cloistered for kids in Alaska’s small villages. Personal contact with outsiders can have a big impact. I’d learned that traveling to small villages as a reporter. It was even more true for a visiting Iditarod musher, a role that bridged our two worlds.
Sepp Herrman was the only musher left when I returned to the checkpoint. He was sweeping it out. The small contribution made him feel a little less ashamed of the Iditarod trash blowing through the streets outside. It may have been piled neatly when the front teams passed through Koyuk, but ten days of wind had spread the mess the length of the street.
Leaving Sepp working the broom, I crossed the street to my team. The males, now rested, were enraptured by Raven’s alluring scent. Cyrus was a hopeless case. The young male was on his feet, straining toward Raven rigid as a pointer, barking and barking. The other dogs stretched and sniffed each other as I moved through the team checking their feet. Their paws looked remarkably good, even those that had been sporting cuts a few days before. Coastal snow was kinder to sled-dog feet.
A sudden snarl