by Sue Henry
“You do like to throw around that trooper shit, don’t you, Jensen? God, you assholes are all alike.”
Caswell stepped up to stand beside Alex, a study in poised relaxation, silently confronting the musher, hands thrust into his parka pockets. Becker walked a wide circle to put himself between Cranshaw and his team.
“Shit,” Cranshaw said. “All right. What the fuck do you want?”
“You lost almost an hour getting to Takotna, then went right through.”
“So?”
“Where were you in that hour?”
“Hell, I made ‘em take it easy getting back into it. They’re greedy to go when they’re rested. Let ‘em go too fast and they’ll dump too much energy and go flat on you. I stopped to snack ‘em twice.”
“You know your snow machine is missing in McGrath?”
Impatiently he shook his head, but he grinned, as if pleased to catch Jensen in an error. “Shit. I loaned the machine to a guy who’s feeding my other dogs while I’m gone. He’s got it.”
“Jim Miller says it was gone when he got up this morning. He’s using his own.”
Cranshaw’s head came up in seeming surprise. “Goddamn it. Fuckin’ kids. They’ll find it somewhere out of gas and probably bashed up.”
Good save, thought Alex.
“We think a snow machine drove the moose into Jessie and Ryan.”
He watched the other man think about that one.
“And you think it was me, in the extra time you say I took. Aw shit, man. Why the hell would I do that? They’re friends of mine.”
“But you got pissed and took off this morning by yourself.”
“Listen.” Cranshaw’s jaw tightened and his hands clenched into fists as he stiffened. “I didn’t need her accusing me of stealing the gun she lost. Making you guys think I’m responsible for this shit. If she wants to suck up, it’s her mistake, but she can fuckin’ leave me out of it. Okay?”
“You have a problem with Jessie and me?”
“Shit, no. She’s smart. It won’t take her long to figure out what troopers are full of and that will be it, so I’ve got no reason to care.”
Alex felt himself boil. Cranshaw seemed to be letting his anger overcome caution. Something in his eyes said he was coldly aware of every word and calculating the effect.
“You’re not doing yourself any good with that kind of jealousy, Cranshaw.”
“What jealousy? I like Jessie. I just think this should be a man’s race. They fuckin’ confuse the issue. They’re a distraction. They have a place, just like men, but, goddamn, it’s not the Iditarod, or any other trail.”
“We’ll have a look at your sled, Cranshaw.”
“I oughta make you get a warrant.”
“You got something to hide?”
“Not a damn thing. Be my guest.” He made a sweeping mock bow toward the sled and its contents. “Mind if I get down to the important things now?”
Half an hour later, the troopers were again airborne. There was little to say about Cranshaw, and Alex was silent, letting his temper cool. Flying west they passed over Martinson and his team, running over fairly flat ground on a trail that wound gently through spruce and birch stands, gradually climbing into the hills of the Beavers, which rise like a terrace in the Kuskokwim Mountains.
Ninety miles separate Ophir from Iditarod, the town from which the race and the mining district both take their name. The last great stampede for gold had taken place in this area, which the Ingalik Athabaskan Indians had called Haiditarod, “the faraway place,” long before white men found it to be true. During the years of extracting gold, sleds hauling heavy loads of freight, pulled by dogs or men on snowshoes, marked the trail over these hills so deeply in places that it is still easy to follow, even in new snow, by the depression alone.
Midway through the flight, Holman called. Over the crackling static of the transmission, he informed them that a McGrath kid had been caught with Cranshaw’s missing snow machine.
“Took us back to where he says he found it. The tracks in the snow are damn close to the trail, about a half-mile from where Ryan got stomped. Seems Jessie might be right, huh?”
In brooding silence, Alex stared out the window at the hills.
The sun ahead of them went down into a band of cloud along the horizon, and darkness began to fall slowly, deep shadows defining the spaces between the hills. Looking closely they identified all four of the racers headed for the silver prize at the halfway point. Harvey and Ellis, running within a mile of each other, led Schuller and Murray by only a little. It would be a race into Iditarod sometime during the night.
“Looks like we’ll get some weather,” Caswell commented. “The report says there’s a front moving in slowly along the coast. It could come in late tomorrow, or hold off for two or three days.”
“Three days would suit me fine,” Jensen told him. “I don’t like the idea of bouncing around up here in bad weather.”
“Bouncing around, hell. You’ve obviously never seen weather like they get around Norton Sound. We’ll be sitting it out wherever we are when it comes in. Nobody flies in that.”
“Could we handle being grounded?” Becker asked. “Do we have enough food and stuff?”
Caswell laughed. “You’ve got your priorities straight, Phil. We could make do for a while.”
After the emptiness of Ophir, it was a surprise to see several planes at the edge of the river ice when they reached Iditarod, the last of the light fading fast. Pulling in near them, Alex was glad to drop onto the ground. Caswell’s plane flew well enough, but it made him feel like a grasshopper, with his long legs folded into the narrow space below the instrument panel.
As they went up the bank toward the lights of the checkpoint, he hoped the opportunity for sleep would come early. It had been a long day. The temperature had dropped steadily throughout, and he intended to sleep in his clothes, if necessary, to stay warm, but he wanted to do it soon.
A wall tent, glowing in the twilight, welcomed them to the checkpoint. A fire in front of it heated a kettle of water and an enormous coffeepot. As he stopped close to warm his hands, Alex wondered whether Jessie would sleep or run through the dark. He hoped she’d be okay wherever she was.
Goodnight, Jess, he thought. Go well.
22
Date: Friday, March 8
Race Day: Seven
Place: Iditarod checkpoint
Weather: Clear and sunny, moderate wind
Temperature: High –4°F, low –11°F
Time: Early morning
It had been light for two hours when Jessie and Mike Solomon dropped down through the surrounding hills into the wide valley of the Iditarod River. A navigable waterway, the river had been the reason the town of Iditarod became the center of the mining district in 1910. When the water was high in those early summers, this was as far as the paddle wheelers could come with their loads of freight and supplies for the gold-rush community.
As they came out of the hills, Jessie began to look for buildings in the distance. From past years, she knew the tallest, the old, abandoned Northern Commercial Company, would be visible before they reached town. Tired and past ready for a rest and hot food, she finally spotted its peaked roof on the far side of the river and followed Solomon’s team down onto the ice for the run across.
Passing three small planes, including the one she recognized as Caswell’s, they located their supplies in a neatly organized line of bags and loaded them onto their sleds. Up the bank, the checker waited, clipboard in hand.
Rather than pitch their tent, the troopers hauled their gear into the old Northern Commercial Company building. Although it tilted to one side, it was sound enough to provide shelter and allow access to all of its ancient two and a half stories.
After a dinner from cans, Alex went straight to bed, where he slept ins
tantly.
A little after midnight, Caswell shook him awake, much to his groggy displeasure.
“Come on, Alex. First musher’s on his way. You gotta get up.”
“The hell I do. Let him come.”
“No. You said to wake you up, no matter what. You’ve gotta see this. I promise it’s worth it.”
“What’s worth it? Won’t he still be here in the morning?”
“The silver. The halfway trophy. It’s a big deal. There must be a dozen reporters out there.”
Oh yeah, the silver, Jensen thought resentfully. What made me get into the law-enforcement business anyway? But he stumbled out of the warm bag, glad he had followed the instinct to sleep in his clothes, and took the cup of steaming coffee Caswell offered him.
Outside the old building, they walked toward the riverbank. He could see the bobbing light from a headlamp and, illuminated in its glow, a team of dogs just beginning to cross the ice.
“Hey,” someone said, loudly, “there’s another one.”
Coming down the opposite bank was a second headlamp.
“Who is it?”
“Can’t tell yet, but it should be Harvey and Ellis, unless Schuller got the drop on them.”
As they watched a race develop between the two mushers, he saw that Cas was right about the news media. Video cameras with blinding lights were everywhere, competing for vantage points. Three thousand in silver made good press.
Swinging out to the side as if to pass, the second team was gaining perceptibly on the first. Shouts of encouragement broke out among the spectators. Neck and neck, the two teams dashed for Iditarod. As they came within range, the bright lights caught the colors on their sled bags and clothes, enough to identify them.
“Damn! It’s Harvey and Murray,” a KTUU reporter yelled. “COME ON GAIL!”
“Back up! Give them room,” the checker shouted, as the sleds reached the bank, and flew up it.
The spectators divided, forming a corridor just as one team gained the advantage and whipped through them, forcing the other into second place.
“It’s Murray by a nose,” a fan called out. “By a bunch of noses.”
The camera jockeys ran toward the checkpoint cabin, where the teams had been whoa’d to a stop. The rival mushers now grinned at each other and shook hands.
“Good run, Gail,” Harvey congratulated her. “Worth about three thousand. But I’d’ve had you if I hadn’t had to carry Hot Shot.” He patted the head of a dog that protruded from the bag of his sled.
“Maybe not,” Murray laughed. “Luck of the draw, T.J. I gave you a run.”
“And picked up the halfway jinx. Now I know you won’t beat me to Nome, anyway.”
“Yeah, Gail,” a reporter said. “How about that old jinx?”
“What’s he talking about?” Alex asked Caswell.
“It’s a superstition this award has picked up. Since the race started, back in nineteen seventy-three, only one person has ever won halfway silver and gone on to win the race. Dean Osmar did it in nineteen eighty-four on the northern route. No one has ever been the winner after taking it here in Iditarod.”
“We’ll see about the jinx,” Murray was telling the reporter. “Just have to wait and see.” She opened her sled bag and waited while the checker affirmed the presence of her mandatory gear. Then the media claimed her.
Two Alascom officials set a large two-tiered silver trophy down in the snow by her sled. On her knees beside it, Gail Murray watched with everyone else as one of the officials opened the drawstring on a canvas bag and poured three thousand dollars’ worth of silver ingots into the upper bowl. Shiny new, specially minted, they tumbled musically, filling it and overflowing into the lower basin.
Reaching out, she took two from the bowl, held them up, and smiled for the photographers. When they finished their questions and turned off the lights, she got to her feet and walked over to where the checker was still going through Harvey’s sled.
“Hey, T.J. It was close enough so you ought to have this to remember.” She handed him one of the ingots, which he accepted with a grin as she pocketed the other.
“She’s not going to carry all that silver to Nome?” Jensen said.
“Not a chance. Alascom will take it up for the banquet. She’ll pick it up there. Glad you got up?”
“That’s debatable.”
“Oh, go on back to bed,” Caswell told him. “You’ll be better company tomorrow.”
Alex didn’t argue, and was glad in the morning. He slept later than usual and woke to find himself alone in the ruins of the Northern Commercial Company building, sun shining in one broken window. He was hungry, but what he really wanted was a shower and shave. He settled for half a bucket of hot water, begged at the checkpoint, which he used to scrape off his whiskers and wash what he could of his upper body. Feeling almost human again in a clean shirt, he went to look for Becher, Caswell, and some breakfast.
Schuller and Ellis had come in shortly after Murray’s win. Martinson had followed them by two and a half hours. Just after daylight, Bomber Cranshaw had pulled into the checkpoint, and he now slept in his sled at a point on the riverbank away from the checker’s tent. The first four were gone, on their way to Shageluk and Anvik. Martinson was repacking his sled when Jensen walked by, but he ignored the trooper.
After eating Alex once again tackled Cranshaw, with even less result. The musher sulked and said little.
“Would I be stupid enough to steal my own machine, then leave it that close to the trail?” he demanded sourly.
“Maybe,” Jensen commented to Becker. “If he thought it would throw suspicion away from him. On the other hand, Martinson could have figured we’d suspect Cranshaw of just that kind of duplicity.”
The day was sunny, defying Caswell’s weather forecast. The abandoned buildings of Iditarod cast dark shadows from their weathered sides. Curious, Jensen wandered over to take a look at the remains of what had once been the center of their third largest gold-producing district in Alaska.
In October of 1910, advertisements in the Iditarod Pioneer indicated the existence of eight saloons, six cafés, six general mercantiles, six attorneys, five clothing stores, three hotels, two banks, two doctors, two dentists, two tobacco shops, a barber, a drugstore, an undertaker, a bathhouse, a music store, and a candy store. Construction of these businesses, and houses for the residents, required that all the usable timber be stripped from the hills for miles around. To the present day, there have been almost no trees of any size near Iditarod. The few buildings still standing define the old streets.
A concrete vault stands by itself. The building around it, once a bank, has long since disappeared, demolished, probably a board at a time, for firewood. In the vault lie the remains of old records of deposits, withdrawals, and loans, each telling its own silent tale. In its heyday, the Iditarod District yielded up over fourteen million dollars in gold.
Alex fingered a few of the crumbling paper records of those long-ago transactions. Then he walked past the rest of the tumbledown buildings, back to the Northern Commercial Company store.
Inside, counters and shelves that were once filled with merchandise now held only dust. Old account books were still on shelves in the office, filled with lists of debits and credits for the inhabitants of the town and its surrounding mining camps. Amused, Alex wondered if ghosts of those who died owing the company might still haunt the building. He could almost imagine the sound of voices and footsteps in the empty rooms. Upstairs he found rooms for boarders, one with a number of old bunk beds.
What had once been a bustling boom town was now empty enough to echo. He decided he’d like to come back and see it in the summer.
Going out the gaping front door, he met Caswell on his way in.
“Is there anything else we can do here now? If not, I have a suggestion.”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s go on to Kaltag. They’ve flown gas in for us from Nome. We can fill up the plane and take on the additional cans of fuel. Then, if this storm hits, we’ll be ready for it.”
“How far is it?”
“About a hundred and thirty miles if we fly from here, cutting off two sides of a triangle. Following the trail west to Anvik, then north to Kaltag, would be almost two hundred and fifty.”
“Sounds like a good idea. We can wait for them there, or come back down if we need to.”
“Right.”
“Let’s get our gear.”
Heading for the plane, they found Solomon and Jessie checking in.
“Everything all right?” he asked Solomon, who was nearest.
The musher smiled shyly. “Yeah. Pretty calm, except for a wild ride after some caribou in the dark last night. The mutts should know better by now. They never catch anything, but they never give up.”
Jessie looked up and smiled as he approached.
“Hi, trooper. Caught any bad guys?”
“Not yet. You okay?”
“Tired, always tired, but fine. It was a good run.”
She turned to open her sled for the checker, then back to Jensen.
“Have you heard anything about Ryan?”
“The hospital says he’s okay. No permanent damage. Check with the ham, he sent a message for you this morning.”
“Oh good. I miss him.”
“How’s Solomon?”
“Mike’s really fine. He’s sort of quiet and sweet, but, boy do these Yukon mushers know their dogs. Emmett Peters, the Ruby Fox, helped him train. Now there’s a sharp one for you. Wish he was racing this year.”
He grinned at her enthusiasm.
“Listen, Alex, I want you to hear something Solomon told me last night. Hey, Mike.”
The musher stopped what he was doing and walked over.
“Will you tell Sergeant Jensen what you told me about Tim Martinson?”
Solomon shuffled his feet and looked uncomfortably at the ground.