My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [79]
There was no uncertainty about Alan Garth’s status. From the moment the Englishman had accepted a ride on the snowmachine, leaving his dog team behind, he had become subject to disqualification. To his credit, Garth joined the village rescue party that left Shageluk Friday and saved those Redington dogs.
Swenson didn’t even see the other dog team. His leaders trotted straight through the string of sleepy, snow-covered sled dogs. He wasn’t aware of the other team, parked crosswise blocking the trail near Fish River Flats, until his sled was nearly upon them. Then he wondered if he was hallucinating. That was Slugo he saw resting there—one of Susan Butcher’s dogs.
A red suit with a dark fur collar popped out of the covered sled like a jack-in-the-box. It was Susan. Not sure what to make of this, Swenson shouted that he was continuing on. He got less than a mile before his headlamp gave out. Stripping off his gloves, the musher attempted to change the bulb, but had trouble seeing through his frosty eyelashes, and his hands instantly stiffened. His bare flesh couldn’t withstand the wind, which carried a chill factor of 90 below zero. Appalled and angry at this careless injury, Swenson jammed his frost-nipped hands inside his snowpants to warm them.
Rick, helplessly stalled, saw another headlamp approaching from behind. It was Susan. She berated Swenson for leaving her without even checking to see whether she was all right. Butcher parked her team and helped Rick fix his headlamp. She explained that she had driven through here earlier trying to reach Timber, a sheltered area where the wind never blows, but that she’d turned back after losing the trail. The savage storm had engineered the unthinkable. Some 70 miles from Iditarod’s finish line, Rick and Susan, the sport’s celebrated rivals, agreed to stick together.
Swenson took the lead. The wind was so intense that he rode with his head turned to the left, protecting his face with the ruff. His leaders kept following the light to the side, and he repeatedly had to pull them back on the trail. Butcher was having the same troubles behind him. And then she was gone. No dogs. No headlamp. Swennie saw nothing behind him but swirling snow.
Cooley opened his eyes just in time. Daily’s figure was shrinking in the distance. The musher was on foot, his dogs apparently abandoned. Reflecting on his own misery, Doc was seized by the conviction that Tom—gripped by a suicidal impulse—was marching to his death. The veterinarian leaped from his sled.
Sheltered by the river bend, Daily hastily squatted in the snow and attended to what was, indeed, a personal emergency. He was pulling up his pants when Cooley rounded the corner.
“Tom, … I thought—” gasped Cooley, panting from his sprint. Then he noticed the steaming evidence of Daily’s vitality.
They both began to giggle.
Martin Buser was astonished. The shrewd Swiss musher had departed White Mountain at 5:30 A.M., holding scant hope of catching any of the four teams ahead. Yet, hard as it was to believe, here was Susan of all people, emerging from the blinding gale, returning toward the checkpoint.
“Hey, you’re going the wrong way, girl.”
“It’s not doable, Martin,” replied Butcher, mentioning that she feared for Swenson’s life. Lost as he was out there. “What are you going to do?”
“Well, I think I will give it a try,” said Buser.
Tim Osmar and Joe Runyan materialized from the storm next. Like the champ, both were returning to White Mountain. They urged Buser to give it up. To take shelter at the checkpoint until the weather broke.
Declining the invitations, Buser drove onward. He’d waited for this chance at redemption, at erasing the memory of the opportunity he had blown the year Redington faltered.
In the 1988 race, Buser’s young hounds had slowly but surely