My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [92]
The scars of the race were most evident on Adkins, whose windburned face was a swollen mass of scabs as he stepped forward to collect his $5,000, nineteenth-place check. The Montanan was also presented with the Sportsmanship Award for rescuing Whittemore on the ice outside Koyuk. Several dogs had died during the storm, and both men had been hypothermic and frostbitten by the time they reached the village. The worst part of the experience, Adkins told the crowd at the banquet, was when village medics had stuck a rectal thermometer up his ass.
“That was probably the most embarrassed I’ve ever been on the Iditarod,” he said.
Five more teams mushed into Nome before the banquet broke up. The last in was Redington. He checked in under the arch just before midnight, in thirty-first place. Cheers resounded through the armory hall at the announcement of Old Joe’s arrival.
The custody of one more award remained unsettled as the main banquet ended. Its ownership floated among a select few of the 29 mushers left on the trail. It wasn’t something anyone particularly wanted. Call it a booby prize. Such is the status of the Iditarod’s Red Lantern.
A sudden cry shattered the peace within Old Woman Cabin. Asleep on the floor, I awakened to find Sepp Herrman standing in the center of the room. The disheveled German was hurriedly collecting his gear.
“I’ve got to sleep outside,” the trapper mumbled, tightening the laces on his mukluks. “Where I live, I hardly hear nobody. I can’t take a house of snoring men.”
CHAPTER 10
Harley’s Nose
Terhune awakened in excruciating pain. Another musher examined his eye with a headlamp to no avail. Jon assumed the pain came from a speck of dust or some other irritant caught under his damn contact lens. It would happen at a place like Old Woman, a cabin with no running water, when his lens fluid was outside frozen solid in the sled. Unalakleet was only 45 miles away. Looking at his filthy hands, Terhune decided to clean his contacts when he reached the village. A little pain wasn’t going to kill him.
It was a glorious day. Daily stayed behind, taking his time. The rest of us leapfrogged past each other, trading positions, letting the dogs find their own gleeful pace. I traveled with Terhune for the most part. The last miles to the Bering Sea coast flew past in a blur of rolling hills, fat spruce trees, and winding river curves.
Several snowmachines buzzed past us as we neared the village. They swung around and waited on the flats. One of the machines was hauling a huge sled packed with gear. Rich Runyan had accomplished his lonely mission. The radio operator waved and fell in behind the dog teams for the final mile.
A jumble of structures, power lines, and smoke rose at the end of the flats. It was Unalakleet, the largest village on the trail, and home to about 900 Inupiat Eskimo villagers, an airport served by Alaska Airlines, a satellite uplink station, and a medical clinic. And most significant to me, the gateway to Alaska’s ice-locked coast. Nome, that almost mythical destination of ours, lay just 270 miles to the northwest.
The sun was setting as I approached the checkpoint, located by the village’s school gym. I parked my team alongside a building across the street. Cooley and Williams already had their teams bedded in straw, and Daily soon joined us. A woman told Tom she’d drawn his name and had dinner waiting at her house, just down the street. I asked her if there was a restaurant in town. After two days of dining on crackers and raw Spam, I’d pay nearly any price for a fat cheeseburger. She gave me directions but