My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [83]
“At least he’s not a lawyer,” anchor Jim Vance said.
CHAPTER 9
The Kaltag Eleven
Dusk was near as I parked in the Iditarod village taking root in the slough. “HOW LONG DO YOU PLAN TO STAY?” asked Eagle Island checker Ralph Conatser, a hard look in his eyes. Dogs were sleeping or stretching over long beds of straw. Smoke rose from several campfires. Heaps of supply sacks and trash were scattered in the crusty, urine-stained snow.
The stormy 60-mile trek up the Yukon had taken us more than 30 hours. Conatser tensed as I described our ordeal, mentioning that the dogs needed a good rest. He relaxed as I added, “So we won’t be pulling out until tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, that would be fine, just fine,” said the checker in a much warmer tone.
The scowl returned as Conatser gestured at the other dog teams scattered nearby. Terhune, Linda Plettner, Sepp Herrman, Don and Catherine Mormile had been camping on the island for the past three days. Mark Williams, Gunnar Johnson, and Urtha Lenthar had been in residence nearly that long. Friday’s addition of Doc, Daily, and me brought to eleven the total number of dog teams crowding Conatser’s peaceful retreat. He and his wife even had a visiting cyclist. After intercepting the three of us, the trapper had found Bob, the owner of the abandoned bicycle, struggling up the river on foot, through waist-deep powder. The amused trapper had given the failed Idita-cycler a lift to the checkpoint.
The crowd itself wasn’t unusual. Twice that many Iditarod teams had jammed into the slough after Runyan lead the first wave last Sunday. But hardly seven hours had passed before King launched most of those teams on a new stampede up the Yukon. Mushers traveling in the rear of the field were different, said Conatser. They weren’t racers. They were campers. Look at those wood fires burning in his slough! These damn campers would clear-cut his entire island if he didn’t watch out.
“Some of these people act like they’re never going to leave. They’re eating us out of house and home. And we got one woman here who’s driving me crazy.”
“Daily and I have been chasing these guys for weeks,” I said. “Don’t worry. Now that we’ve caught up, we won’t be sticking around.”
The checker invited us to come by his cabin after we finished with the dogs. “Haven’t got much left, but my wife will fix you something. I’m glad somebody here remembers the Iditarod is a race.”
Jon Terhune hadn’t forgotten. As Daily, Doc, and I arrived, the irritable Soldotna musher was tightening the straps, resealing his sled bag. Stuck in this lousy slough since Wednesday, Terhune was anxious to escape. He was sick of listening to Linda Plettner, sick of that Gunnar kid, the Mormiles, and those others. He thought they were a bunch of sorry whiners, every one of them. He planned to ditch them once and for all.
Earlier that afternoon, Terhune and the other seven mushers encamped at Eagle Island had pitched in $50 apiece and hired the trapper to break a new trail to Kaltag. They were unaware that Niggemyer, the race manager, had already cut a deal with the trapper, filling his snowmachine with gas for that same mission. The trapper kept a straight face as the mushers approached him with their request. They wanted him to wait until morning, but the trapper was impatient to get back to Grayling. The trip north was hundreds of miles out of the way. So the trapper struck out for Kaltag that evening, carrying his unexpected $400 bonus.
Another cold night was forecast on the river, at least 30 below. Plettner and the others resolved to wait until daylight, giving the trail more time to set. Terhune thought they were fools.
“Screw you people,” he said, stomping out of the stove-heated mushers’ quarters. “I’m leaving.”
Plettner, Herrman, and the Mormiles felt differently. They were angered at Conatser’s refusal to share supplies abandoned by previous teams, and his stinginess in doling out alcohol for their stoves. Several went so far as to accuse the checker of creating the shortage by bartering away his checkpoint reserves. They