My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [113]
Sepp Herrman was already closing in on Nome. Plettner’s final drive was also underway. Cooley urged the others to assemble at the shelter cabin, and then mush together into Safety. Doc figured he’d brought his rookies too far to let one stray into the Bering Sea.
Don Mormile was outside the cabin working with his team when Terhune’s dogs popped out of the darkness. That meant I was the only driver still on the way.
“You’ve got to stop,” Mormile began. “Cooley says—”
Terhune cut him off. “I told you people, if you stop again—I don’t care what the goddamn reason is—I’m going around. I don’t want nothing to do with this group!” Ordering Daisy past the parked teams, Terhune rounded the cabin, followed the markers into the brush, and vanished.
Mormile went inside. The group got a chuckle out of this latest declaration from Terhune. No one felt threatened. This was, what, the third time the sourpuss had tried to get away? Those Kenai dogs were slower than dirt. When would he give it up?
As far as Daily could tell, Terhune couldn’t get ten feet without screaming bloody murder at his poor lead dog. Daily saw nothing noble in it, not when the price was being paid by those poor tired dogs.
It mattered to Terhune. Every inch between him and those other people mattered. Rounding the shelter cabin, the musher switched off his headlamp. His dogs were slow, but they were tough, like him. Jon Terhune and Daisy meant to show them all.
I was startled by an approaching light. It came so fast I knew it had to be a snowmachine. The driver, a burly Alaska Native, stopped alongside the trail and beckoned to me. As I drew closer, the man smiled and reached inside his suit. He pulled out a tall bottle of Bacardi 151.
“Here, take a swig,” he said, handing me the rum.
“Wind blew down the markers through here,” the snowmachiner said, as I handed back his bottle. “Don’t worry. I put in new ones for you guys. You won’t have no trouble.”
For the last hour, I’d been climbing featureless, snow-covered hills. The trail was barely discernible on the hard windswept surface. I hated to imagine this place in a whiteout. The trail rose steadily higher and higher over bare rounded steps. Several times I thought I was cresting the summit only to discover another steep hill waiting ahead.
The moon, near full, shone brightly through the misty night sky. After I switched off my headlamp, the snow seemed radiant with reflected light. The dogs and I were cast into a realm of living negatives. I rubbed my eyes and pressed on. The top—it had to be the top—was getting closer.
Cresting Topkok, the trail crossed a short flat plateau. I stopped the team and studied the valley below. The view was surprisingly clear. I could trace the trail, winding through bushes and shrubs to a shelter on the valley floor. It looked dark and deserted. Way, way off in the distance, I saw a string of moving lights.
“Gotcha!” I said. Releasing the brake, I sent my dogs charging downward.
I’d come straight through from White Mountain. The dogs were due for a break, so I paused to check out the shelter cabin. Leaving the crew gnawing on chunks of whitefish, I headed inside. The cabin interior was hot. Coals were still glowing in the stove. Obviously, the others had spent a fair amount of time at the cabin.
I found some crackers and munched on them as I read the graffiti on the walls of the cabin. Recently refurbished, the shelter cabin beneath Topkok was in the best shape of any I’d seen on the trail. Most of the graffiti must have been left by mushers in this year’s race. I saw comments from quite a few people I recognized, including Swenson, who was already gloating about win number five.
I scrawled a ditty about slipping from first to worst. “Let historians ponder that,” I muttered, signing and dating it. Then I headed back outside and roused the dogs. It wasn’t over yet.
Terhune kept Daisy on the march. He watched over his shoulder for headlamps, but none appeared. He traveled as much as possible with his own