My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [116]
The one thing I had in my power to do was scratch. Let Mormile keep the damn Red Lantern. That was tempting. For the first time in the entire race, I seriously considered scratching.
Pondering the ramifications, I ordered another beer.
Two and a half hours later, I’d run out of reasons not to go. The wind kicked up as I prepared to leave. Drifts had erased every trace of the trail.
“Perfect,” I said, dragging Chad to the closest marker, the first in a line of flapping streamers, which stretched toward a cluster of subdivision homes.
Golden Dog was in a contrary mood. He ignored my commands and repeatedly dragged Harley and the team away from the markers. I wanted to win this last battle of wills, but Chad was equally determined to follow snowmachine tracks leading to nearby homes. Forty-five minutes after leaving Safety, the bar remained in view behind us. The checker came outside and stared. This wasn’t going to work. Demoting Chad, I placed Rainy up with Harley. The lesbian quickly sniffed out the trail, and Safety finally faded behind us.
Wind, fog, mist, and blinding snow—we encountered the whole gamut on the Iditarod’s final 20 miles. The dogs paid no mind. They were too hardened to flinch.
Passing through a cluster of homes near the beach, I saw a couple sitting on chairs next to a marker. It was an older man and woman. They flagged me down.
“We were waiting for you,” the woman said, petting Rainy and Harley. “Could we offer you a cup of coffee or a bite to eat?”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I guess there’s some folks waiting for me.”
I was flattered that strangers would take the time to welcome me. The wind was dying down, and the day appeared brighter.
Rounding a bend, I confronted several dog teams, headed right at us. I realized we must have crossed the trail of another race as three teams passed, head-on, going full bore. I was startled by a face I knew, Iditarod musher Peryll Kyzer. She’d not only finished an impressive eighteenth; she was already running another race.
“Hi, Peryll,” I shouted as she flew past on my left.
“Brian!” she said. “Welcome to Nome.”
A few miles ahead the trail neared a plowed road leading to Nome. I knew the area well. It was the place where I had once had a pair of cameras freeze up while I was shooting Nayokpuk leading another musher through a storm, which subsequently halted the race for days. I had also been waiting here as Butcher charged into view, en route to her third straight victory. And it was at this same spot, 40 hours later, that I had witnessed Redington cap his bold run as Smokin’ Joe.
With the race lost to Susan and the other young hounds, Redington had waited at Safety for Nayokpuk. The two veterans traded stories over coffee, then Old Joe issued a challenge.
“Now we’re going to race,” he said.
The lead switched several times during the furious 22-mile sprint that followed. Redington emerged victorious, crossing the finish line 1 minute, 16 seconds, ahead of Nayokpuk.
“This is fantastic,” Butcher said, greeting the pair under the arch. “This is the best race within the race.”
Iditarod’s 70-year-old founder had failed to take the big prize, but Smokin’ Joe’s style couldn’t be beat. He earned $9,000 for the fifth-place finish, which equaled his all-time best.
In the morning, Nayokpuk awoke with a tingling in his left arm.
“I just hate to think our race had anything to do with it,” said Redington, pacing the floor of the Nome checkpoint as his friend was being flown to a hospital in Anchorage. “But Herbie, he was pushing pretty hard.”
Nayokpuk was hospitalized with a mild stroke. He recovered, but his Iditarod days were over. Thus ended the racing career of the Shishmaref Cannonball.
As for Redington, he never topped that 1988 run.
“In my mind,” Swenson said, years later. “There’s no question Joe would have won that race if he had a trail out of Cripple. It’s a damn shame.”
As I pulled within sight of the road, I heard honking and whistling.