My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [11]
I didn’t want any surprises to mar this gorgeous day. It was 15 below, just cold enough to envelop the team in a flowing fog of exertion. The sun hung low over the river, creating orange streamers between the blue trees. Seven dogs were pulling my sled. The sunlight set their breath ablaze, wrapping the team in a warm glow.
As we neared the river, the trail rose and fell along a series of man-sized dips. Topping one of the rises, I saw a dark mound ahead. The trail dropped again before I could make it out. Something odd was coming up. I braced as the sled climbed another slight hill. Hair, I could see hair. A moose. Oh God.
Then I realized it was dead.
The dogs slowed to sniff the carcass. “All right! All right!” I cried, forestalling any thoughts of stopping. Where there’s one, there are often others.
“A person’s crazy to go out without a gun,” Rattles had said. “With all this snow, those moose are desperate. They won’t give up the trail.”
I didn’t even own a gun, so I was a real Alaskan oddity. I’d arranged to borrow Cyndi’s .357-caliber pistol for the race. The gun was waiting for me 360 miles south. Here in town, Madman had offered me his old rifle—if I ever got around to picking it up. I’d been trusting luck to dodge the sort of encounter that postponed Susan Butcher’s first appearance in the Iditarod winner’s circle.
1985 was supposed to be Susan’s year. No woman had ever won Redington’s Great Race, but Butcher had placed second in two of the three previous years, and her 17-dog team led the race crossing the Big Su. Traveling through a spruce thicket soon afterward, Butcher and her dogs came upon a large cow moose blocking their path. The musher threw her sled over and braced for the moose’s charge, which, experience told her, would carry the brute through the team. But this angry cow was far more destructive. Wading into the middle of the team, the moose reared on its hind legs and began stomping and kicking.
The carnage lasted for about 20 minutes until fellow racer Dewey Halverson mushed to the rescue. He emptied his .44-caliber special into the enraged moose, which continued kicking dogs until the last bullet brought it down. Susan’s dog Johnny was dead. Another dog named Hyde died after five hours on the operating table. Two more needed surgery, and thirteen others were injured. The distraught Butcher scratched, clearing the way for Libby Riddles’ march to glory.
This year Alaska’s interior was reeling from an invasion of the long-legged brutes. Starving, irritable from battling the unusually deep snow, moose were in no mood to mingle peacefully. Finding it easier going on packed trails, roads, and railroad tracks, many refused to surrender their right of way to anything, including trains. The carnage was particularly gruesome along the northern railroad corridor. It got so bad that the Alaska Railroad provided counseling for engineers freaked by the nightly gore. At least locomotive drivers knew they would come out on top. Moose held the advantage over unarmed mushers.
Dave Dalton, a fellow Fairbanks musher, could testify to that. A few miles after leaving his kennel, his Dalton Gang team had met an angry moose head-on. The moose’s charge didn’t do any damage, but it was likely to get a second shot. The team had no other route home. Dalton had his pistol ready on the return trip. Sure enough, the moose was waiting. It flared its nose and barreled into the team. Taking aim, Dalton squeezed the trigger.
The gun jammed.
The moose crashed into the sled, sending the musher flying. The Gang made a clean getaway. Dave’s situation remained ticklish. He was chest-deep in snow, looking upward at a huge bull that was snorting with anger.
Very, very carefully Dalton backed away