My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [26]
I had to change my script after Swenson joined Joe Runyan, John Barron, Garnie, and a half-dozen other top mushers streaking ahead of us. I yelled to Coleman not to worry. “Those guys are contenders.” Nome wasn’t the only goal for those top drivers. A series of prizes awaited the first musher into half a dozen of the checkpoints ahead, starting with a new pickup parked in Skwentna, 100 miles up the trail. Those guys were out of my class completely.
It was a different story to be passed by driver number 15. Kraft General Foods employee Larry Munoz, who crept by us during a tangle, riding a sled decorated with a huge Oscar Mayer wiener. I wasn’t going to take that without a fight. I got my dogs loping, and we caught and passed the damn Hot Dog Man. Alas, my team again balled up and Munoz slipped by.
Big Larry lost his grip on Tom’s sled as it moved toward the starting line. The other handlers were flung aside, leaving Daily powerless to slow his surging dogs. Fidaa sprinted after her husband’s team on the snowy avenue. Like Tom, she was decked out in new Northern Outfitters gear. The bright parka looked sharp, but it was too warm for the day. By the end of the first block, Fidaa was drenched in sweat. Daily was using a single sled. Fidaa was still running when the announcer called her husband’s name. He couldn’t start without a handler and she barely made it, jumping into the sled bag as the countdown ended.
The excitement of the city gradually faded. With their sled gliding through the woods, the long hours of preparation caught up with the musher and his wife.
“Tom,” Fidaa said, “I’m falling asleep.”
“Yeah, I am too.”
The Dailys exchanged foolish grins.
Back in the city, Madman and dozens of other mushers were still fussing with their teams, awaiting their turn in the starting chute. Noon was approaching before the last musher, Mowry’s old trail companion Malcolm Vance, heard his countdown.
Miles ahead, Tom and Fidaa were sleeping soundly while their 20-dog team trotted on, navigating the forest without any guidance. The Dailys didn’t awaken until their sled flipped and went crashing through a trail barrier. Tom sleepily righted the sled, and his frisky dogs resumed their march on a hiking trail that followed Ship Creek up into the mountains. Daily had flickerings of doubt as the trail split from the creek bed and began climbing a high canyon. He had gone a long way without seeing a marker. These curves were dangerously sharp for long strings of dogs. But this had to be right.
The trail dead-ended at a tall fence. Daily’s leaders, some 80 feet ahead, turned and ran alongside the fence, halting finally on a cliff overlooking Ship Creek. Tom now found himself in an awful fix. It was a treacherous place to turn any dog team, let alone a full Iditarod string. Fidaa couldn’t offer much help. Not from her position inside the sled. Topping it off, Tom’s damn suspenders were screwing up, dropping those high-tech pants down around his knees, and this was no place to make adjustments.
Barry Lee had just 13 dogs—one of the smallest teams in the field—but most were proven Iditarod finishers. He had Louie, an old lead dog from Dewey Halverson’s third-place 1987 team; Onion, from Bill Hall, whose wife Pat Danly was also running the race; Mutt, from Dave Allen; and a young leader named Chiko from Mitch Brazen. Of course, Barry Lee also had dogs from his older brother’s kennel.
Former race marshal Bobby Lee was working in the chute with a microphone, interviewing racers for the live TV broadcast being fed to stations across Alaska. Musher number 46 got the standard questions. Then Bobby switched off the mike.
“You made it. You made it,” he said, hugging his younger brother.
Listening to the countdown, Barry Lee reveled in the moment. His eyes were puffy and red from three weeks of