My Lead Dog Was a Lesbian

by Brian Patrick O'Donoghue

  “You go ahead,” she said.

  As I guided my leaders around her team, Mormile suddenly pulled her snow hook and tried to outrun us, nearly causing a tangle.

  “My team is faster than yours. I’m supposed to be ahead of you,” she snapped.

  Both of us urged our teams forward, meanwhile cussing each other out. The argument was finally settled by the dogs—mine emerging in front.

  So she was faster? Only in her dreams. Driving hard, I left her behind. Later, during a quick break, I described the scene to Terhune. He laughed for the first time in days. Mormile didn’t catch up until we were camping that evening at Old Woman Cabin.

  The plywood cabin was sparsely furnished with a pair of bunks and a fat stove. After tending dogs, mushers filtered inside. The tensions of the morning were gone, and everyone was in a sharing mood. Lenthar gave me a roll of film. I joined the mushers providing Herrman’s dogs with extra food, giving the light-traveling trapper a big chunk of lamb.

  My own acute shortage was in personal food. When I had shipped out supplies, I hadn’t planned on two-and three-day treks between checkpoints. I hadn’t sent out enough juice or snacks. My main-course menu was not only insufficient; it was sabotaged by flawed packaging. Two of my staples, Anna’s meat-loaf, as well as her potatoes, were sealed in plastic baggies which disintegrated in hot water. I had to chuck them, or nibble on icy half-thawed portions, another sorry testimony to the importance of prerace field-testing. I had more success with the precooked steaks and pork chops. Each was individually wrapped in tin foil. To heat one up, I merely set the wrapped foil on a hot wood stove. By Kaltag, I was developing a reputation as a carnivore.

  My provisions had seemed extravagant when Mary Beth and Anna spread them all out in the newspaper’s lunchroom. Yet I was running on empty at Old Woman Cabin. More was waiting in the supply sacks at Unalakleet, but here I was down to raiding the shelter’s emergency stocks: peanut butter, stale crackers, and a pile of dried salmon scraps someone found in a corner of the room. Daily, likewise destitute, joined me in delving into the meager rations.

  Trading stories by the stove late Monday night, I dug out the surviving bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Plettner, Cooley, Herrman, and I toasted our impending arrival on the coast.

  The Nome banquet had been delayed. Too many teams remained out in the storms pounding the coast. The postrace party was finally held Monday, March 18, day 17 of the race. While Daily and I gobbled stale crackers and scrutinized withered fish scraps, searching for edible chunks of salmon, 26 mushers and some 850 fans were moving through a buffet line at the Nome armory.

  Accepting a $32,000 check for third place, Susan Butcher, her face puffy from windburn, graciously praised Swenson’s unprecedented achievement—restaking his claim as Iditarod’s all-time champ.

  Martin Buser’s three-year-old son, Nikolai, sang impromptu trail songs into the microphone as his heavily scabbing father collected a check for $39,500 for his second place finish. It wasn’t the prize Martin had hoped to gain that final night. Hearing from a snowmachiner that Swenson was reported missing, Buser had slipped on a white windbreaker, what he liked to call his “stealth shell,” and sought to steal the lead. But Swenson, taking nothing for granted, had arranged to delay reports of his arrival at Safety, the final checkpoint before Nome.

  As he presented Rick Swenson with a silver cup and the first-place prize of $50,000, Nome’s perennial checker, Leo Rasmussen, recalled the musher’s first appearance on stage as an Iditarod winner. The year was 1977, and the grand prize stood at $9,600, which, even then, hardly covered the expense of fielding a competitive team.

  “He was so enamored with the race he couldn’t stop talking. He must have talked for 24 hours to whoever would listen,” Rasmussen said.

  Swenson’s Goose and Major were voted joint custody of the Golden Harness Award given to Iditarod’s best lead dog.

  Mere blocks from the finish-line arch, Nome musher Matt Desalarnos had the $14,000 check for seventh place in his grasp. Alas, his dogs veered toward an alley, and Dee Dee Jonrowe passed him. That last-minute move from seventh to eighth place cost him $1,000. Chief vet Morris also presented Dee Dee with the Humanitarian Award for displaying the best dog care among the competitive drivers.

  Barve had regrouped after finding his lost dogs and finished seventeenth, winning $6,000. Garnie had also recovered his lost team and continued, but he missed out on the money, finishing twenty-third. The respect for their achievement, surviving storms on foot, was evident as the mushers in Nome awarded the pair jointly the Iditarod’s “Most Inspirational Musher Award.” The wind-scorched Eskimo had extra incentive pushing him toward the finish line; Garnie had to finish the race or forfeit the new pickup he had won in Skwentna.

  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 h
is 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 told me to hurry. The place closed in half an hour. I sighed realizing that promised burger was out of reach. The place would be closed by the time I finished feeding the dogs.

  “We have plenty of stew,” she said. “Why don’t you come over, too.”

  A reed-thin gray-haired villager struck up a conversation. His name was Mugsy, and he bragged about his feats as a champion sprint driver decades ago. The old musher smelled like booze, but he was entertaining. His stories were interrupted by the sudden appearance of the last person I ever expected to see.

  “They told me I could find you guys back here,” said Barry Lee. “Hey, Tom, your dogs looked really good coming into the village.”

  It was painful to see a musher, and a friend, who had traveled so many miles with me, but who was now out of the Great Race. If only he had come with Daily and me. If only we had waited in Grayling.

  “Someday I’m going to write a book about this, Barry,” I blurted out. “I’m going to dedicate it to you.”

  One of my dogs growled over a snack and I turned away. The distraction lasted a couple of seconds, but when I looked back Lee was gone.

  “Am I going crazy,” I asked Daily, “or was Barry just here talking to us?”

  “I saw him too,” he said, wonderingly. “He did sort of vanish.”

  But I wasn’t having visions. Lee had flown into Unalakleet with his dogs and was waiting for a connecting flight to Anchorage. Earlier that day, Barry had got in an argument with local mushers, who thought we were “wussies” for traveling so slow.

  “So you’re Bobby Lee’s brother,” the man said. “Should I tell him you’re a wussie, too.”

  “You don’t know what they’re going through,” Lee said. “You have no idea.”

  Lee had spent the afternoon watching for us from a bank overlooking the trail. Lee had greeted Herrman, the first one to town. He had talked to the Mormiles, Johnson, and Lenthar. He had helped Terhune park his dogs and had discussed feeding schedules with Plettner. And he had assisted Cooley with his blood tests. This had enabled him to prolong his involvement in the Iditarod, if only for a few hours. Seeing us, he knew it was time to say good-bye. He took off because he was crying.

  Daily didn’t have time to dwell on Lee’s disappearance. His fancy boots were wet again. Tom was changing them, with his back to Mugsy, when the old musher calmly stepped on the runners of Tom’s sled and pulled the snow hook. In the excitement of the big village, Daily’s dogs hadn’t settled down. They were antsy and took off at the graying racer’s command, loping down the center of the busy village street.

  Throwing his boots aside, Tom Daily chased his Iditarod team down the street in his socks. Doc and I watched in astonishment as the villager dodged head-on traffic from cars and snowmachines and gradually pulled away. The guy could drive dogs, you had to give him that.

  The infection in Terhune’s eye warranted immediate attention from a specialist. The medic at the Unalakleet clinic advised the musher to consider flying to Anchorage for treatment at a real hospital.

  “There’s no way I’m going to scratch,” declared Terhune.

  Though his back also hurt and his hands were throbbing from a brush with frostbite, Terhune refused to accept any medication for the pain. He was worried that painkillers would make him sleepy. He settled for having his bad eye flushed out and treated with antibiotics. The musher left the clinic with a pocket full of pills and sulfa drops, shrugging off warnings that he could suffer long-term complications if the infection worsened.

  Tom Daily found his dog team parked in a driveway a few blocks from the checkpoint. The sled bag was open, flapping in the wind. Dog pans and other small items were blowing across the yard. The woman who met him at the checkpoint greeted Tom at the door of the cabin. The old racer was her uncle.

  The cabin was gloriously hot inside, spiced with the aroma of rich caribou stew. We passed a fine evening listening to Mugsy’s stories. In the background, a child was watching The Wizard of Oz on a big color TV set.

  Not long after dinner, Mugsy, the woman, and I cleared out, leaving Daily alone in the cabin.

  “Whatever you do,” the woman said as she departed. “Don’t let my uncle in if he comes home drunk.”

  Daily didn’t like the sound of that warning. The last thing he wanted was to become ensnared in a family dispute. He locked the cabin door and went to sleep. A few hours later, Daily’s rest was disturbed by pounding. It was Mugsy. The villager was drunk, and he was furious at finding the door to his warm cabin locked. Daily explained his orders, which just made the old musher angrier.

  “Let me in,” the man cried, “or I’m going to kill your dogs.”

  This thrust Daily into a dilemma. If he opened the door, he sensed that Mugsy was going to come in swinging. Tom didn’t want to fight the poor old guy. All he wanted was a few more hours of rest.

  “Mugsy, if you’re going to kill them, go do it, get it over with. I’m going back to sleep.”

  Leaving the sled dogs in peace, the old musher headed up the street.

  After dinner I went to check on my dogs. They were sleeping peacefully, so I went over to the gym. I talked for a while with the checker, a local musher, and one of the race judges. Al Marple had flown in to Unalakleet that afternoon to “give us a pep talk” and make sure we backpack mushers didn’t overstay our welcome.

  “Don’t lump me in with the guys who stayed three days at Eagle Island,” I said, feeling defensive. “Doc, Daily, and I spent that time battling storms on the Yukon. We got into Eagle Island at night and pulled out in the morning, same as we’re doing here.”

  Marple appreciated my attitude. “We want to see you guys make it,” he said.

  There was a shower in the gym bathroom. I let the burning steam wash away 900 miles of pain. The shower left me richly satisfied, but dizzy. I collapsed on the hardwood floor of the gym next to Cooley. I didn’t bother with a sleeping bag, I just stretched out on top of my suit. A feather mattress couldn’t have felt any finer.

  Shouts awakened us a few hours later. I knew that voice. Who was it? Oh yeah, it was that crazy old musher. I fell back asleep as a Unalakleet public safety officer, Alaska’s village equivalent of a policeman, hauled the drunk away.

  A cloud of smoke enveloped the streetlight. A pair of snow-machines throbbed in the street below. Doc, Williams, and I carefully lined up our dog teams facing the deserted intersection. It was 4 A.M. I was last in line.

  The snowmachines took off around the corner. Doc and Williams charged after them. Chad got the call and seemed enthusiastic. He leapt in the air as I pulled the hook. Following his cue, my entire 13-dog team sprang forward with manic intensity.

  I cut the turn too close. My sled climbed the berm and launched sideways into the air. I hung on, flying parallel with the ground. The sled finally crashed on its side, knocking the wind out of me, but I didn’t let go. The snow-covered street was icy and hard-packed, a perfect surface for dragging. The dogs seized the opportunity to set a new kennel record, dragging me 500 yards.

  I wouldn’t have minded the dragging—I was used to that—but Chad and the wild bunch had so much fun that he lost track of the teams ahead. The snowmachines, Doc, and Williams—all had cleared out before I regrouped and righted the sled. Ahead of us the street was deserted. My bold leader didn’t have a clue where to go next.

  “Go ahead! Go ahead!” I shouted, sending Chad charging forward in hopes he would pick up the scent. There were side streets and snowmachine tracks leading everywhere, but no Iditarod markers. I would get lost in Unalakleet, the biggest labyrinth on the trail, where I hadn’t talked to anyone about the route out of town—because we had arranged for guides.

  I saw a light in the window of a nearby cabin. Could someone actually be awake a
t 4 A.M.? Probably not, I decided. But what did I have to lose. I threw the sled on its side again and jammed the snow hook in the ground. Then I climbed the icy berm by the side of the road and dropped into the yard of the cabin with the lighted window, thinking this was a great way to get myself shot.

  An older woman opened the door. She stared at me, eyes widening, dubious. I realized that I filled her doorway in my bulky suit, which was smeared in snow from my dragging adventure. The headlamp shone crookedly from the side of my natural wool hat. A red face mask concealed all but my eyes and nose.

  “Can I help you?” she said, in a perfectly reasonable voice.

  “I was hoping you might be able to point me toward the Iditarod Trail,” I said, gesturing toward my dog team, parked out in the street. “We’re sort of lost.”

  “Oh my,” the woman said. “I think it’s by the river, but I really have no idea.”

  I thanked her and returned to my team. Nothing was going easy this morning. I was trying to decide what to do next when a snowmachine cruised up. It was a village cop. Chuckling at my story, he offered to lead the team out of town.

  Jumping on the sled, I pulled the hook and—watched my leader lie down.

  The officer zipped away. He returned before I finished placing Harley and Rainy in lead.

  “Thought you were following me.”

  “So did I, but Wonder Dog had other ideas.”

  The officer lead me through a winding series of streets, past the last line of cabins, to a marker at the bottom of a small hill. “Here’s your trail,” he shouted over the wind and the whine of his engine. “Good luck.”

  I thanked the officer, delighted to be on my way. He gunned his snowmachine, fishtailing the rear in a tight circle, and buzzed away.

  A sheet-metal sign rang in the wind, which had intensified now that I was beyond the sheltering streets of the village. In the distance, I could see the outline of hills against the stars. But a dark, churning haze gripped the flat landscape directly ahead. It looked mean out there. I walked up the line, petting most of the dogs, and retightening the booties on the Rat and Screech, who still had sore feet. Little Cricket watched me, shyly wagging her tail. “What a brave little girl,” I said, stroking her chin.