My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [76]
Midnight was approaching in Anvik. Leaving the village, Barry Lee’s dogs trotted along briskly. They were refreshed by their five-hour rest. It was the musher who wasn’t ready for the raging wind that met his team on the dark river. Barry’s cheap parka wasn’t the greatest. And the blowing powder reduced visibility to almost nothing. The trail would sure be easier to find in the morning. That decided it. Awarding this round to the Yukon, Lee returned to Anvik.
To us, waiting in Grayling, the news of Barry’s retreat seemed like a death knell to his chances. The gap was only 18 miles, but we couldn’t risk further delay. Outside, a blizzard was forming.
“Are you absolutely sure about this, Doc?” I shouted, mushing from the village.
The wolf pack was breaking trail. Daily’s team held the rear. My dogs were sandwiched in the middle. There was no wind, no sound, just torrents of fat flakes cascading from above, so thick I could hardly breathe.
Cooley laughed. “Oh yeah,” he said. “We can handle it.” His leaders were amazing. “Gee, haw, gee, gee. That’s right. Go ahead.” Cooley directed the wolf pack marker by marker, and our three teams crawled ever deeper into a featureless white sea.
An hour out of Grayling, the snowfall was replaced by a series of wind storms. The sky would darken ahead. A churning white wall would then roll down the river and envelop us, and we couldn’t see past the wheel dogs. As quickly as they came, the storms passed on. In the breaks between them, the Yukon stretched before us, a massive alley through the wilderness.
We traveled miles without seeing official trail markers. We relied on cut branches thrust into the snow with unnatural regularity. We guessed that snowmachiners had left these crude guideposts for the same purpose. There was no trail here. If one ever existed on this seldom-traveled stretch of the Yukon, it was forever lost now, buried by two to three feet of powder.
Daily had an old leader named Diamond. The dog was painfully slow and hadn’t been much use on good trails, but he took orders with the precision of a marine—the perfect recommendation for this job. So Tom and Cooley rotated the point position. Mushing through the waves of changing weather and beautifully strange light, Tom felt cleansed of his recent blues. Thanks to Diamond, he had something to contribute in this stormy dimension.
It was my turn to feel useless. Neither Rainy nor Harley was much good as a command leader where trails weren’t apparent. If I were on my own, it would have been snowshoe time. Rat was usually a good chaser. I put her in lead with Chad to give Rainy and Harley a break. It was warm, at least zero under a clearing bright sky. Cooley accelerated nearing a bend in the river, taking advantage of snow hardened by the wind. Rat kept bumping into Chad. He abruptly sat down.
Concealing my worry, I played with Chad until he decided to humor me. I moved down the line, petting heads and massaging necks until everybody was happy. “All right!” I yelled, catching the sled as it passed.
Both Daily and Cooley had vanished around the curve. As far as Rat was concerned, that canceled the chase. She quit next.
Watching the other teams pull away, I had almost cried out, “Wait, don’t leave me!” Pride held my tongue, and now Tom and Doc were gone. I was alone on the Yukon fearing the arrival of another storm. Resisting panic, I calmly placed Rainy and Harley in lead. “All right.” The team promptly lurched forward.
Rounding the bend I scanned the horizon. Tom and Doc looked like tiny centipedes far ahead. Again, I battled panic. Please, PLEASE let me catch them. It took us an hour to close the gap. And when I finally approached the others, something strange was afoot. Neither of the teams was moving.
Drawing closer, I made out two sleds, two dog teams, and no mushers. Coasting to a stop, I jammed the hook down and trudged to the closest sled. Doc was on his