My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [29]
There were scattered clusters of people, some of them seating on folding chairs. There were cars and trucks, haphazardly parked. Groups of children were playing. Snowmachines were zipping in different directions. Confronted by all these strange sights and sounds, my little girl freaked, peeling Rainy and the team away from the trail at a 45-degree angle.
I yelled. I hit the brakes along with Troyer, who’d replaced Coleman on the second sled. But the sheer ice offered nothing to grip. Spooked, little Cricket remained on a tear, propelled by 64 additional flailing paws. Both sleds swung wildly behind the team, which twisted like a mad snake. We slammed into several hard-packed mounds of snow before my hook took hold, finally ending Cricket’s charge.
In the distance, I saw other mushers trotting past us in neat formation. I would have changed leaders, but the situation remained precarious. One slip and Troyer might be on his own. All I could do was coax them. “Go ahead, Rainy, go ahead. Good girl Cricket! Good dogs!”
The leaders were finally headed in the right direction, when they spotted a spectator’s dog.
“Put that thing in your car!” I yelled.
“My dog has every right to be here,” the guy shouted back, ready to debate the point. The man reconsidered as my excited crew barreled down on his lone mutt. Scooping up Fido, he dove into his car.
We continued skidding in the general direction of the trail. Just short of a dangerous cluster of spectators and parked vehicles, I again stopped the team.
“I think we’d be all right if you could just please steer my leaders past these cars,” I called to a woman standing near Rainy and Cricket.
The woman crouched down and gave the pair directions, pointing out relevant land marks. Cricket wagged her tail, sensing an opportunity to be petted. Rainy held the team in place, but she shied away from the woman. My lesbian didn’t know what to make of a talkative stranger.
Troyer was too busy laughing to be of any help.
“Lady,” I shouted, “just grab the dogs. Please, grab their collars and drag them to the trail.”
As the trail joined Knik Road, my old landlord, Tom Renggli, appeared alongside up in his van, waving madly and pacing my team. Rushing ahead, he parked and greeted me at a road crossing.
“Need anything, Brian?”
Several friends were throwing a bonfire party on Knik Lake, the trailhead first used by dog teams hauling gold miners and their supplies to a place called Iditarod. This year Big Sandy had gone all out, renting a portable John for the festivities. As the team trotted past, I urged my landlord to meet us out on the lake. “Look for the John,” I said by way of a landmark.
He recoiled at the suggestion.
The van again zoomed by. Minutes later, I saw my old landlord perched on a berm overlooking the trail. Worry creased his brow.
“Bri, you need a porta potty?” he shouted. “I got one at home.”
“Thanks,” I said, realizing I couldn’t begin to explain, “but I’m fine, really I’m fine.”
Tom Daily realized his sponsors were disappointed. They wanted to see more fire in their musher, more dedication toward winning the Iditarod his first time out. As if that were as simple as tying on a new pair of sneakers. They might be generous with their money, but these folks had no idea what this sport entailed. None. Tom’s current objective was to escape town without any more disasters.
The musher arranged with race officials to drop four dogs from his team at Wasilla. Those he left behind weren’t injured. Driving 20 dogs was just too crazy; after careening down that creek, Daily wanted absolute control. But that hope was crushed before Tom even made it past the restart banners. One of his shoe-company volunteers had meticulously fastened each dog’s neckline to a thin tag clip, instead of to their sturdy collar rings. The weak clips held so long as handlers were there restraining the dogs. As soon as they let go, necklines began popping loose.
The force exerted by a working sled dog is primarily channeled into the team’s gang line through a tug line, which is