My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [75]
The only Iditarod team in the village belonged to Doc. Williams and Lenthar had apparently left Grayling at roughly the same time that we had pulled out of Anvik. Well, let them go. I’d seen all I wanted of the river that night.
Cooley was ensconced on the carpet of the local kindergarten classroom, one of his perks as an Iditarod official. He was disappointed to hear that Lee had stayed behind. The three of us were rooting for Barry to catch up, but we knew his chances were slim against that wind.
I dragged Doc outside to examine Skidders. Afterward, the veterinarian advised me that the veteran sled dog’s minor toe-sprain wasn’t necessarily cause to drop him. “Maybe so, but it’s killing me to watch him.” I petted him as he licked that sore foot. “You got me to the Yukon old man, I think you deserve a vacation.” I resolved to ship Skidders home in the morning.
Back in the community hall, Daily stoked the barrel stove until the room resembled a dry sauna. Gear steamed from the rafters. I stretched out on a bench table and soaked in the heat, trying to absorb every possible calorie before our next scheduled bout with the Yukon.
Daily had the blues. He wasn’t sure he could face that wind again. He considered scratching. Why be macho about it? He and Fidaa could be in Hawaii right now. With such thoughts on his mind, Tom went out to check on his dogs. He struck up a conversation with a local musher, an Athabaskan who bragged he’d been raised on a dog sled. The Indian was a bitter man. He’d dreamed of running the Iditarod himself, but he said he couldn’t find sponsors.
Daily was convinced that the villager was wrong. Any musher supporting a twenty-dog kennel ought to be able to scrape together the extra cash to run the Iditarod. Get that race experience, he told the man, and then shop for sponsors. The villager wouldn’t listen. He wasn’t interested in merely running the race. He planned to be a contender. Money was all he needed, the villager was sure of that.
Daily left the musher stewing in his bitterness. The conversation reminded Tom how lucky he was. Bring on the Yukon, Hawaii could wait.
Two players were left in the Great Game.
As the defending champ prepared to leave Elim, another dog team was visible on the horizon. Butcher told KTUU’s television crew that she hoped it was Swenson. “I think it would be nice. We’re both going for our fifth. Why should I race against Runyan? I don’t respect him the way I respect Swenson. It’s fun to see Rick coming strong.”
The odds favored Susan. Rick hadn’t won the race since 1982. That was a different era, one in which the Iditarod’s champ could confidently boast to Shelley Gill that he would eat his sneakers if a woman ever won the race. But in this year’s race Swennie was fighting to the last mile. He was the driver on the horizon at Elim. He pushed through the checkpoint there without stopping and, 26 miles later in Golovin, he was still tracking the Butch like a crazed wolf stalking a polar bear.
For seven years running, the Iditarod had been won by the first musher into White Mountain, where teams rested a mandatory six hours before sprinting for the finish line, 77 miles ahead. Butcher was poised to make it eight straight as she checked in at 7:30 P.M. on Wednesday night.
Her last challenger, losing ground, didn’t reach White Mountain until 8:38 P.M. Asked by a TV crew if he still had a chance, Rick Swenson snorted with disgust. “You guys have got to be realistic,” he said. “Christsake, you got a team that’s way stronger than mine, and I’m an hour behind her. Only a lightning bolt or something is going to allow me to catch her.”
Butcher, camped nearby,