My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [22]
Twenty minutes left. Handlers and several Iditarod volunteers assumed positions along the gang line. Troyer knelt in front, calming the leaders. Digger madly shoveled snow with his front paws. Spook uttered his keening wail. Other dogs whined anxiously or jerked on the gang line.
Joling was assigned to the ballerinas, Raven and Cricket. “Approximately ninety pounds of yelping fury,” he called the pair.
I left Cyrus chained to the truck until the very last second, a slight that drove him insane with worry. He whined. He stood on his hind legs pawing the air. Other dogs were going someplace. Why not him? Why not him?
I remembered the day Rattles had brought over the young black-and-white dog for a tryout.
“This is Cyrus. He’s a Rum dog, a Rummm dog,” said Rattles, chanting the phrase like a mantra.
We had been hearing tales of the late great Rum for months. Rum was merely the leader immortalized, according to Rattles, in the Quest’s official sled-dog logo. His bloodline was marked by distinctive barrel-chested dogs with pointy snouts.
Barely two years old, Cyrus was Rum’s grandson. Like his proud owner, the pup was painfully loud. The dog whined day and night and whooped for joy when Rattles’s pickup entered our driveway. At 50 pounds, the big lunk was prone to knocking food pans out of my hands and chewing anything within reach.
“Jesus, Rattles, has that dog even been harness-broken?” Mowry said after wrestling Cyrus into the team for the first time.
“He’s a Rum dog,” Rattles replied, as if no other answer was needed.
Mowry tested the dog during the week I was away on the Klondike.
The Coach began cautiously, taking Cyrus on a 15-mile run. The young dog was hardly panting when he returned. So Mowry ventured to try him on 30-milers, several days in a row, then 3 5, then 50 miles.
“I can’t tire that dog out,” the Coach said when I got back, for once truly impressed.
Today I had a special slot reserved for Cyrus. He’d be leaving town paired with Gnat in wheel position, which locked them down directly in front of the sled. Rattles’s pup was too wild to trust anyplace else, and I wanted Gnat where I could keep him under close watch.
It was time.
Coleman stood ready on the back sled. “Let’s go!” I shouted, pulling the rope. Feeling give in the gang line, the dogs plunged ahead. Clawing and straining they dragged the sleds and handlers forward. My handlers skidded and struggled to keep their footing in the mushy snow, which had been trucked in to Anchorage and dumped on the barren street for the occasion.
“Like walking through a big pile of cornmeal,” Troyer told himself. He glimpsed Butcher directing a swarm of handlers attired in matching suits. Passing by Redington, Swenson, and other famous drivers preparing for their own approaching departure, Troyer noted similarities to the pits at the Indianapolis 500. He was amused at the thought of his former Yellow Press bowling partner competing against these legends of the sport.
I didn’t notice any of that. My eyes were fixed straight ahead where I couldn’t see through the crowds blocking the street. But the sea of parkas, cameras, and barking dogs kept parting mere yards ahead of our advance, as ranks of race volunteers screamed for people to clear the way.
Officials halted us a few doors down from the Iditarod starting-line banner, which was fluttering grandly above the avenue. After a brief pause marking the late Doc Lombard’s honorary departure, my team was waved into the chute. A crew of burly guys grabbed my sled. An announcer boomed out my name, giving a brief biography. I walked up