For What He Could Become

by Jim Misko

  He was supposed to stop at a local resident’s home for food and rest. He got his drop-off bag of food and backup supplies, threw it on the sled, and ran to a place behind the armory where the wind was not constant.

  There were three teams parked there, the dogs sleeping.

  Somebody has a change of plans. They’ve been running all day. Now they’re stopped. The game has changed, and they think they can win.

  He calculated the time it would take to run to Elim, some fifty miles down Norton Bay and virtually due west. Maybe he could do it in five to six hours. The wind had come from the west all the way from Unalakleet, and now they might be headed right into it.

  Everything within him said go to the house. Eat and drink and rest. But he remembered how it felt when he went into the warm house at Unalakleet. How quickly it drained him of energy and desire. He hadn’t had any desire when he started this race two weeks ago, but now there was a small fire in his belly.

  He stayed with the team. If there were three teams in town, that meant two teams were still ahead of him. Probably John and Walt. He could go in the armory and see who was there, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to feel warm again just now.

  He tore open the bag that had his name written on it. Bill Williams, Arctic Village. He smiled. He hadn’t been in Arctic Village for years. He reached into the bag and his hand touched something soft. He pulled it out. It was a mink hat with great soft earflaps and a bill on it that would stop wind and snow from pelting his eyes. The inside was insulated and lined with beaver pelt. He took off his hat and tried it on. It slid down and covered his ears with the luxurious fur. Attached to the earflap was a small envelope. He opened it.

  Dear Bill—

  You’re getting this in Koyuk. We don’t know how many dogs you have left, what position you’re in, how tough the race has been, or if you’re safe and well. But we don’t doubt that you’ll make it. We talked David Green’s Furs into making us a deal on this hat. We want you to wear it when you cross the finish line in Nome. There will be a surprise when you get there. We love you.

  Ilene, Carolee, Sgt. Pat, Major Russell

  There was a frozen five-pound chocolate bar inside. He slammed it against a post and broke off a section. While he chewed it he read the note over again and used the back of his glove to wipe his eyes.

  In two hours and forty minutes, the Williams team was back on the trail, bucking into the wind and headed for Elim. He had counted eight, nine, and eleven dogs in the other teams. Other than at Koyuk, he hadn’t seen any dropped dogs. John and Walt might still be driving full teams. He started an individual screening of his dogs. He watched to see if the tug line was taut, if each dog had his tail up and was trotting, if any looked tired or bored. They all looked good, and it made sense to him to go with as many dogs as he could since it would lighten each of their loads.

  They had only been on the trail an hour and a half, but Bill’s eyes would not stay open. He could open them and then struggle to keep from blinking until he was almost asleep, until his knees collapsed and he stumbled on the runners. He took out a rope and tied himself to the sled.

  The third time he awoke and found himself being dragged behind the sled, he came up grinning. His legs were stretched out behind, chest and arms looped over the drive bow, still tied to the sled but being dragged down the trail like an anchor. He stopped the team and got into the sack. Rusty and Napoleon gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. He didn’t know if they were thinking they’d like to stop or that he was crazy or what. When he got in the sack with his head and arms out, he yelled to the dogs to start up. At least, in this position, he could sleep and they could keep moving without having to pull him along behind them.

  When he woke up, he was disoriented. He couldn’t see anything. The team was stopped and the dogs were asleep. He knew he would have to get out of the sled and figure out where they were and where the trail was. He could see a trail directly ahead of the leaders and wondered why they had stopped.

  His legs were slow to bend. He figured he’d kicked about fifty miles over the last twenty-four hours. Not bad for a man who hadn’t done anything but drink for years.

  Maybe I’m not washed up at forty-eight. Stiff but not crippled.

  “Let’s see where we are here.” His voice was hoarse.

  He walked to the head of the team. There were signs of sleds and snow machines in the snow. He couldn’t see far ahead but he could see the trail out front until it disappeared into the dark. He reached down and petted Rusty, then Napoleon.

  “Come on, guys. We gotta get to Nome.”

  They looked at him but didn’t rise.

  He walked back to the sled and shook it. The dogs rose, stretched, and shook themselves. It was a slow start in the dark, but they were moving again.

  The trail rose up and into trees. Bill remembered the trail was to have been along the coast, going pretty much southwest. It bothered him but he didn’t give it a second thought until the trail continued on a gentle rise further and in a direction he took to be more northwest.

  “Whoa!”

  The team stopped. A cloud of steam rose from the dogs’ heads and backs. They had been pulling hard.

  He got out his compass and the map. His instincts had been right. They were heading northwest.

  Where did we miss the trail? He looked at the map. It had to be Moses Point. The dogs had taken the split to the right while he was asleep.

  “Dammit!” he yelled. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!”

  His heart was pumping hard. He felt strong enough to lift the sled and turn the team around if the leaders didn’t take his instructions.

  “Gee, Gee! Come on, you lunkheads, get this outfit turned around. You took the wrong trail.” Then he corrected himself. “We took the wrong trail.”

  It was difficult to turn around, for two reasons. The lead dogs were sure they were on the right trail, and the unpacked snow beside the trail swallowed each dog up to his chest as he tried to turn and walk through it.

  “Come on, come on—move it! Gee, dammit! Gee, Rusty! Napoleon, make him turn.”

  Bill had no idea how much time he’d lost or whether he’d know when to turn southwest again—except that it had to be at the coast. He could tell when they hit the ice, but the trail should angle away to the southwest before the ice. He put the compass and map in his parka pocket and zipped it shut.

  The trip back down through the hills was fast. So fast that Bill used the snow hook several times and almost lost the sled on one downhill curve. He felt he wasn’t as heavy as when he’d started this race, and it was getting harder to hold the sled on one runner.

  When the lights of Moses Point came into view. he knew about where they were. At the intersection of the trails he saw how the dogs had chosen the right turn instead of going straight. It looked like a herd of buffalo had tromped over an area several acres in size, and trails went off in all directions. He drove straight to the ice of Norton Bay, a visible line even in the night, and stopped. He got off to look. There were numerous dog and sled tracks, many headed toward Elim. He couldn’t be far from Elim—seven, maybe ten miles. How many were ahead of him because of his nap in the sled?

  He jogged back to the sled and kicked off.

  “Hyaaa!”

  The dogs, who thought they had stopped for a snack, were a little slow in moving into their trail pace. Within half a mile they were a synchronized team again, and Bill was proud of them.

  The work Carl must have put into this team to get it to this point. He wished he’d had more time with Ilene. He could have sobered up, been more thoughtful. At first the thought that Carl got killed driving dogs seemed preposterous to him. Looking back now, he could see where a musher could get hurt bad, maybe killed. Hell’s Gate was one place. And coming out of the Happy River hills was another. He’d been lucky. He was so hung over coming through there that the thought of injury hadn’t occurred to him.

  The trail rose off the ice and into the low
spruce-covered hills before connecting with a road that led into Elim. The wind had stopped and the fresh smell of the spruce forest was a welcome change from the salty sea wind.

  It was easy to find the check station. About fifty people were standing around, and large overhead lights lit up the predawn darkness.

  A young man tugged on his sleeve.

  “You can stay at our house,” he said. “Good breakfast, good bed…you come?”

  “Sign here,” the checker said and put the pen on the line for him.

  Bill signed, then turned to the young fellow beside him.

  “Can’t,” he said. “Thank you, but I can’t.”

  “We can feed your dogs while you eat and rest,” he said.

  The dogs looked at Bill like they understood. They’d come fifty miles plus the detour, and they knew they needed to rest. He did too. He was planning on a four-hour stop anyway.

  He looked at the check-in sheet. Scribner, Peski, Branigan, Green, and Dick Wilmarth.

  “Who’s this Wilmarth?” he said.

  “Local musher out of Red Devil.”

  Bill looked at his time in. Wilmarth was in an hour and twenty minutes before him.

  “How many dogs did he have?”

  “I think he was down to eight or nine. They looked good.”

  “Where’s he staying?”

  The young boy spoke up. “Wilmarth’s staying with our neighbors. You can talk to him when we go up there.”

  Bill took a deep breath and as he exhaled, the bottom dropped out of his stomach and it felt like he hadn’t eaten for a week. His eyes closed and he left them shut for a few seconds. A bed and a breakfast while somebody else fed his dogs?

  “Let’s go,” he said. “You win. Grab hold of the harness.”

  As they approached the house, the family poured out of it. One kid grabbed a bucket of water from the entry and started filling the dogs’ water bowls. Bill handed over the beaver carcasses and salmon for the dog feeding with a reminder to call him when they thought they had it right so he could check.

  The kids looked at each other. Did this musher think they didn’t know how to feed a dog?

  In the entry Bill removed his outer gear and walked into the main room, mindful of what the heat and scents of a warm home had done to him in Unalakleet. He wanted to displace the trail air and nervous anticipation a little at a time with the heat and smell of the oil fire, the bacon frying, and the bannock. They pulled up a chair for him.

  Bill looked at the clock. It was 7:05 and starting to get light outside.

  “I can’t stay long. I need to be out in two hours.”

  What made me say that? I planned on four hours.

  He wanted to eat all the food they put on his plate, but his head kept drooping. While he was eating, the kids came in and said the dog food was ready for him to inspect.

  “Feed it to them—it’ll be all right,” he heard himself say, not wanting to put on the heavy clothes.

  The last thing he remembered was a boy showing him into the bedroom. He didn’t dream and he didn’t move until the boy woke him. The sun was up. He tried to sit upright in the bed but had trouble with his back. In a few minutes he stood and walked to the living room. The family looked at him as he stood there, weaving slightly. He smiled.

  “That was very nice. Thank you,” he said.

  “Do you want something to eat?” the woman asked.

  Bill patted his stomach. “I have enough here to get to Nome.”

  She smiled and handed him a sack. “Here’s some trail food.”

  Bill took it and thanked her. He went into the entry, shivering at the change in temperature, and put on his coveralls, boots, and parka. He smiled as he took the mink hat from the peg and pulled it over his head. There was a mirror on the opposite wall and he looked in it.

  That’s me? That’s not how I look. He moved his head from side to side and the reflection moved with him. That’s me. The beard, the gaunt eyes, the skin cracks, the haggard look like he had seen on the German prisoners, all a part of what he saw. He opened the outside door. The cold air was bitter but invigorating. The snow was dusted off the sled, the dogs harnessed and standing. Bill smiled.

  “You guys are good,” he said. “You’re very good.” He reached into the sled sack for a chocolate bar, broke off a corner to take with him and handed the rest of the huge bar to the boy who had awakened him.

  “Here,” he said. “You might like this.”

  The boy looked at it. “What do I do with it?”

  Bill stuck the corner into his mouth and bit off a piece. “You eat it.”

  The youth smiled. “I’m Alex. Will you come back?”

  “Not likely,” Bill said. “But thank you for the food and bed. I sure liked it a lot.”

  “I hope you win,” Alex said.

  “I won’t if I don’t get going,” Bill said.

  He shook the sled and looked at the boy. “Would you lead us out to the trail?”

  Alex handed the chocolate to his sister, ran in front of the dogs down to the ice, and turned the leaders onto the trail to White Mountain.

  “How far is it to White Mountain?” Bill said.

  “It’s about forty-six miles on this trail. Don’t forget to turn at Walla Walla. There’ll be lots of snow-machine tracks and dog trails there, so make sure you get the right one.”

  “They’ll have it marked, I think. Goodbye.”

  The dogs pulled the lines tight. Bill was proud of them, starting out again with their tails up on only a couple of hours’ rest. Now he had to plan on how to win this thing…

  Wait. He’d forgotten to check out.

  “Whoa..whoa! Gee, Rusty, Gee Napoleon! Come on—move it!”

  The team turned around and sped back to Elim. They had to backtrack half a mile.

  First we take the wrong trail. That’s the dog’s fault—no, it’s my fault for going to sleep. Then I don’t check out. That’s my fault.

  The team came into the checkpoint going full speed. The checker stepped out of his house.

  “Thought you’d be back,” he said.

  Bill started to sign and couldn’t believe it. Five teams had left ahead of him. While he was sleeping and eating and enjoying the warmth of the house, they’d gotten up and out of Elim. He doubted he could catch them between here and White Mountain, but from White Mountain to Nome he’d make it a first-class race. He signed and noted that he was an hour and a half behind the first team.

  “Hyaaa!”

  The trail led to a portage through the Kwiktalik Mountains, rising over a thousand feet above the sea and the ridges blocking the north wind. Bill and the team steered through the portage, then cruised down toward Golovin. A north wind caught them as they left the protection of the ridge and knocked two of the dogs over. They quickly regained their feet, but one came up lame. Bill stopped the sled to examine him. He couldn’t find any injury, but the dog limped all the way to Golovin.

  At Golovin he handed the dogs snacks and dropped off the injured one. He still had not seen any of the five teams in front of him.

  They gonna run all day and all night? They can’t do that—can they? What if they can? We’re running faster now than we were at the start of this race. But so are they. So where do I catch up?’

  It was easy to follow the trail across the bay and up the Nudyutok River to White Mountain. The dogs perked up, and their trot became a lope as they rounded a bend in the river and saw the village of White Mountain lying against a hillside in the sunshine.

  The checker was laughing when Bill opened the door. The smell of cigarette smoke filled the small room. Bill removed his mink hat and looked at the checker, who was winding down his laugh and looking back at him with smile-crinkled eyes.

  “I’m Bill Williams. How am I doing?”

  “Walt Peski just left. Said he had a complete conversation with his dogs from Elim to here and wished he’d had a pencil and paper ’cause he’d of written it down. I just can’t get o
ver the picture of a guy talking to his dogs and listening while they tell him something.” He chuckled and shook his head. “You’re doing okay. You’re in fifth place right now, ’course you’ve got another eighty miles to go. How many dogs you got left?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “You want to drop any?”

  Bill shook his head. “Think I’ll keep them all at this point.”

  “Some of the guys are dropping their slow ones on the theory that the team can only move at the top speed of the slowest dog.”

  Bill shrugged. He understood the theory but didn’t want to leave healthy dogs behind. There was some serious going ahead in the Topkok Hills. He might leave some in Safety, but not here.

  “Sign here,” the checker said. He scratched his large stomach as Bill signed, then inspected his signature through the glasses that sat low on his nose above a mustache that never stopped moving.

  “What’s the weather toward Safety?” Bill asked.

  “The Air Force tells me there’s a hellacious wind coming out of the north in the Topkok funnel. Maybe sixty- to eighty-mile-an-hour gusts with a steady fifty miles per hour. Could catch the whole bunch right there and freeze them up. Damnedest place for wind you ever saw. Makes Norton Sound wind seem like the air coming out of a kid’s balloon.”

  Outside, Bill drew in a lungful of fresh air. The cigarette smoke had made him woozy, and he took several deep breaths. He remembered being immune to the smoke when he worked at the Lane Hotel and would stop for drinks in the bar after his shift was over. When was that—about a hundred years ago?

  He snacked the dogs. He had to plan on at least one good feeding between here and Nome; maybe cull out some of the weighty items in his sled bag, lighten the load. It was what—about a seven- to twelve-hour run to get to Nome? If he cooked a double batch of food right now, fed half and took half with him—feed it on the trail. That couldn’t be right and he went over the plan again, but parts got left out. The grogginess was returning. He would have to get some sleep.