My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [37]
The shiny new truck was nice, but Garnie’s sights were set on the arch waiting 1,050 miles north. By half past noon, his sled was packed near the checkpoint tents at Finger Lake, 45 miles farther up the trail. Barve was again second, followed by Adkins, Swenson, Tim Osmar, and Jonrowe.
Seventeen teams reached Finger Lake before Butcher. Everyone was camping when Susan arrived at 6:01 P.M. The Butch had other ideas. She dallied just 15 minutes before ordering her 18-dog team onward toward Rohn. Iditarod’s defending champion was leading for the first time in the race.
As the front-runners maneuvered for position, Mowry burned up phone lines from his hotel in Dawson City, Yukon Territory. According to race headquarters, I had checked into Knik at 6:02 P.M. Saturday and I’d never left. Mowry knew that was probably misinformation. But what if I’d lost a dog? What if the team was sick? What if … It was maddening.
The Coach’s strategy called for me to reach Skwentna by noon on Sunday. Forty-nine mushers managed to do that; I wasn’t among them. Mowry called every few hours. New teams kept showing up on the river below Delia’s cabin. More than 60 teams had registered at Skwentna by 7 P.M. on Sunday. The checker’s log also showed one scratch: Englishman Roy Monk. His dogs’ feet were too sore to continue. Team number 2, meanwhile, remained listed “in Knik.”
The Poodle Man passed Daily on the river, roughly ten miles from Skwentna.
“Give the devil his due,” Daily grumbled to himself, watching Suter pass. God, those poodles are clipping right along, looking good.
Tom couldn’t say the same about his own team. Both of his high-priced leaders were a bust. The seed of suspicion planted during the Klondike had blossomed into an ugly reality. These dogs needed better conditioning. He could only blame himself for that. Relocating to Alaska had burned up a lot of time, but it didn’t excuse the training deficiency. And Daily was haunted by the memory of his sponsors’ unconcealed disappointment. There goes the free ride.
Reality, as so often happens, had arrived with a vicious bite. Reaching Skwentna a full hour behind the damn Poodle Man, the musher gloomily declared his 24-hour layover. The dogs needed a breather.
Since the day he signed up, Daily, an old hippie, had been reveling in the prospects of celebrating his thirty-ninth birthday mushing the Iditarod Trail. That day had arrived, and he wondered what he’d done to deserve such karma.
The river was crisscrossed with trails. Each intersecting alternative appeared better to Chad, who kept dodging between them. The general direction was right, so I let Golden Dog pick his own way. He performed reasonably well until we caught up with the Anchorage Daily News snowmachines late Sunday afternoon. Jim Lavrakas and Craig Medred had parked a few yards off the trail. Chad made a beeline for them. He flopped at the journalists’ feet, bringing the team to a dead halt. I had to get off the sled and drag him back on course. From there, his confidence shrank with each step. Before long, I banished Chad to wheel, inserting Harley in single lead.
Intertwining trails didn’t faze the monster. Given a choice between trails, Harley never agonized. He barreled forward, flopping his ears up and down with each step.
Relieved of his pressure position, Chad pulled like a demon. Muscles rippled in his shoulders. His head bent downward; this time from joyous effort, not discouragement. Watching the transformation, I shook my head. What a basket case.
Nearing Skwentna, I put the White Rat up front with Harley for better control. The combination worked beautifully. The wafting scent of woodstoves was as good as a dinner bell to an old sled dog like the Rat. She blazed ahead, displaying energy she normally concealed. In training, the Rat always ran fast enough to keep pace, but not so hard that she might have to work. In that