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By Root 1115 0

and the opening miles crossed tundra stripped of snow by the sun and the rain. Conditions worsened as the trail dropped down on a river. There, wet, slick ice threw Terhune’s dogs into a panic. Even worse, Daisy, a recently purchased young leader, was in front. Dandy, the musher’s favorite, most dependable lead dog, was running inside the team. It was a protective move: Terhune wanted to spare her from the pressure. But the strategy backfired tragically when Dandy fell on the slick ice. She dragged in a tangle of lines while Terhune battled to slow his runaway team. But he couldn’t plant his hook in the hard river ice. Afterward, he spent 20 minutes trying to revive poor Dandy. To no avail. His lead dog was dead.

Terhune scratched from the Kusko. His girlfriend, Dawn, hoped he had learned his lesson. She hoped he was ready to give up his Iditarod obsession. Dawn figured wrong. Though traumatized by Dandy’s loss, Terhune wasn’t accepting defeat. He chose to protect his team for the bigger challenge ahead. Three other dogs were hurt. If he didn’t quit, he wouldn’t have enough left to run the Iditarod. He’d invested far too much, endured too many nights on the trail preparing for the coming trip. And he owed it to Dandy to try. Drop out? Each setback further steeled Jon Terhune’s resolve.

In February, as he prepared to take his vacation, the machinist reminded his supervisor of the promised leave. The message was relayed upstairs, where the plant manager had changed his mind. Terhune’s leave was officially denied. He appealed through Unocal’s grievance committee, but the decision was upheld. Terhune was a ten-year employee. He sent the company a letter reminding them of the prior arrangement and reaffirming his intent to run the race.

Unocal officials responded by offering to extend the machinist’s vacation by a couple of days, but the request for unpaid leave was again denied. The machinist was ordered to report back to work the day before the Iditarod started. Terhune had a hunch they were calling his bluff, convinced that no one would walk away from a $50,000 job.

“You want to know where I am?” he told his boss at Unocal. “Look in the fucking newspaper.”

On my visits home, I always put on a slide show for friends and family in Washington, D.C. After I moved to Alaska, those shows inevitably featured recent sled-dog races, conveying my growing appreciation for the sport. Over Christmas one year, my brother Coleman relayed a message from his father-in-law.

“If you want to run the Iditarod,” he said, “Mr. Brown told me to tell you not to let money stop you.”

Occasionally I’d daydreamed about entering the sled-dog races I covered for the newspaper, but I’d never given it serious thought. Certainly not the Iditarod. Did Brown realize that it would take the better part of a year to get ready? That it would cost at least $10,000? That I might not make it to Nome?

Coleman smiled, daring me to do it. “I think you ought to talk to him.”

For the hell of it, I worked up a budget and arranged to meet Brown at the Kennedy Center cafeteria for lunch.

A retired foreign service officer, Bazil Brown, 59, was a man of broad experience, sensitive to the fleeting adventure our lives represent, and haunted by a son’s death and his own bouts with emphysema. Reminders of mortality had led Brown to reflect on the experiences that had brought him the most satisfaction.

Aside from his family life, he told me over lunch, one of his most gratifying experiences resulted from a spontaneous decision he had made at a party, many years before. That night the young diplomat recklessly agreed to invest in a new play. It was called Sleuth, and it turned into a huge hit. The play was followed by a movie with the same name. By getting in on the ground floor, Brown reaped continuing financial rewards. His involvement also gave him a backstage introduction to the theater community, a world he would have otherwise missed.

Brown saw my possible entry in the Iditarod in a similar light. He told me he was prepared to put up $10,000 to make it happen.