My belly give a little tug as I settled my team, I thought of Flash and hoped the musher Dad had loaned her to understood that she was a natural leader. Then I pushed thoughts of her aside and concentrated on my own lead. I give Peanut a good pet and a talking-to.
Dad finished rechecking my basket, making sure the sled bag was secure.
A crackle cut through the air, I winced as the sound system squealed. Then the announcer asked the first couple teams to head toward the chute and the starting line.
Reckon we ought to get over there, Dad said.
Volunteer handlers was already heading our way. They grabbed hold of the dogs’ harnesses and behind us another volunteer hooked a snow machine to my sled, it would do the job of a tag sled, which is meant to slow the dogs down and keep them in place till the starting line countdown reaches zero. The announcer’s voice introduced bib number one, a racer from Bozeman, Montana, and my team jerked forward, closer to the start, as the first countdown begun.
Dad had hold of Chug at the wheel position, and I thought of Mom, all the years she had stood in that same spot as Dad waited out the seconds before the start of another race. He looked back at me and his face nearly cracked with how big his smile was. I couldn’t help but smile back. I briefly wished Scott was there, and Jesse. I pictured the two of them helping to handle the team, or standing close to the start and cheering, the way they most likely would the day of the big race. Warmth rushed all through me, and if I had felt even a little nervous that morning, all the nerves went out of me. My head went as calm as if I had just spent the last few hours running through our woods at home. I breathed deep and stepped onto my runners. Held on to my handlebar. My dogs yipped and danced and tried to wriggle free from their handlers.
The sound system crackled again. The announcer told us, bib number two is rookie Quentin Trefon, from Bethel.
I barely heard the countdown. My team surged forward, and we was at the start.
Bib number three is veteran musher Tracy Petrikoff, running her third Junior Iditarod.
Dad winked at me.
I winked back, then focused. A small crowd just beyond the starting line, a blur of faces smiling and chatting, a few hands fluttering as folks waved. I spotted Wendell Nayokpuk from the village general store, and somewhere Steve Inga was organizing the day’s volunteers.
Ten, the announcer started the countdown.
The sun had rose above the trees and the light bounced off the snow and made my eyes water. I wiped at them with one gloved hand.
Nine, eight.
Took my hand away, and there he was.
Seven, six.
At the far end of the crowd, standing off by himself. The scars on his face red and angry against skin that hadn’t lately seen enough sun.
Five, four.
All sound fell away except the beating of my own heart in my ears, it grew slower and louder and replaced the announcer’s countdown as I stared past Dad and into the face of Tom Hatch.
Three.
Dad, grinning. Hatch, turning away for a moment, then turning back. His eyes found me, and he raised his hands and started to clap.
Two.
The sled strained under the power of seven dogs eager to pull. My whole weight on the brake. A river of sweat underneath my coat and damp at the edge of my wool hat. Hatch’s eyes on me. Pinning me to the runners where I stood. My whole body frozen, my heart a panicked bird inside a cage.
One.
Go.
We lurched forward. I hadn’t stepped off the brake, but still the dogs surged, struggling, and I remembered how to use my legs again, I lifted my foot, and we sailed past Dad, he reached out to touch my shoulder. Proud of you, Trace, his voice come to me from the top of a canyon as I fell, the dogs went forward but I was going down, tumbling down past the sea of faces at the starting line, till I come to Tom Hatch. I plummeted past him, our eyes locked, and he smiled at me.
Good luck, musher!
Then we was on the trail. I looked back over my shoulder. The next team already at the line, and the crowd had swallowed Dad, I couldn’t find him. But Tom Hatch was there. Still waving.
15
I turned, and his hand struck me. I staggered but there was nowhere to go, his hands was already clutching me, the only thing to do was to find my knife.
This time, he didn’t throw me aside. I stepped forward and suddenly found myself on the ground behind the barn, Hatch’s warm breath in my face. Stop, Tom. Stop it. I glimpsed the rake out the corner of my eye.
Then I come back to the yard, myself again. My belly full.
The sun shone and sent shadows dripping across the snow. I gripped my sled’s handlebar, but I was barely on my runners. I was in the woods, behind the barn, Hatch coming toward me, toward Jesse, again and again. I was a hare, a marten, chewing at its own leg, pulling at the noose round its own neck and only managing to make it tighter. I turned, Hatch reached out. I seen the rake. The knife in my hand. The hunger that rose up in me, the instinct to protect myself, they was one huge tidal wave that swept me toward him. Then it slammed down.
I fell. Shit! I exclaimed and got a mouthful of snow. I spat and hung on to my sled and bounced over the hardpack on my belly, my feet kicking. I kept my head up, tiny pellets of ice peppering my face. I could see that Grizz had somehow managed to cross the gangline to run on the same side as Marcey and now they was tangled, while the rest of the dogs paid them no mind and kept running.
I didn’t bother calling out again. The dogs wouldn’t stop no matter how much I hollered Whoa! I hauled myself onto the left runner, arms straining, then balanced there on my knee. Threw the rest of my weight on the brake.
When I’d worked the dogs to a stop, I peeled myself off the ground and checked the team while a musher wearing bib number 5 zipped past. Got the dogs settled with a snack, then took a look round. While my head had been back in the woods and behind the barn, the dogs had kept us on track. I spotted an orange trail marker about twenty feet ahead, then squinted at the sun, done a little math, and realized my team had managed nearly twenty-five miles in about two hours. We kept going at that speed, the dogs would be wore out long before we reached the Yentna Station layover.
I had planned to rest the team after four hours on the trail, but I had also planned to stand on my brake and keep them at a steady eight or nine miles an hour once they got past their early race jitters. They needed a break. I checked their feet then let them be, they curled up and dozed, only waking when another team or a race official on a snow machine passed by.
At first I busied myself digging through my sled bag, looking for gear I didn’t need. I gnawed on a piece of jerky that tasted like old leather in my dry mouth. I considered stepping away from the trail, seeing if there was any animals nearby I could take, some way to get something warm inside me and banish the image of Hatch from my head. But we was in a wide-open area, the nearest trees dotting the horizon, and I didn’t want to leave my dogs. Another team passed, then another, one musher waving, the next calling out, Everything good? I nodded, then watched that team run into the distance, till they vanished.
I watched Hatch over and over, first his hand reaching out to me, then his hand waving, the smile on his face as he seen me at the start line. A predator’s grin.
I paced while my dogs slept. The crowd at the Junior start had been bustling but not overwhelming. Had Dad seen Hatch, too? And if he had, did it matter? I imagined the two of them running into each other, Dad exclaiming over the stranger he’d ferried to the clinic, asking after his injury. Shaking Hatch’s hand and wishing him well. Hatch smiling and nodding, thanking Dad for his help. Then climbing into a truck or making his way toward the road to hitchhike north with the certainty that when he reached my house, far as he knew, it would be empty. Maybe he was wily enough to hang back the way Jesse had done, watch the yard from the protection of the trees long enough to learn that Scott and Helen had stayed behind.
Why he had come back, I couldn’t b
e certain. Was he looking for Jesse? If he had been hanging round, he could of easily heard through village gossip that Bill Petrikoff had taken on a hand, a young guy who’d just showed up one day. Or maybe he knew about the money in Jesse’s pack? The money I had took for myself.
Whatever he wanted, it was my fault either way. Once I’d stabbed Tom Hatch, I should of never left home. I should of been always on the lookout, because he was my responsibility.
Stella woke up when another team slid past. We’d been stopped nearly an hour, enough time for the dogs to feel refreshed. Stella stretched and yawned, then looked at me with her head cocked, as if to ask, What now?
I could forge ahead, like I’d planned. I had about fifty miles ahead of me before Yentna Station. But once I was there, like all the other Junior mushers I would have a mandatory ten-hour layover before I could turn round again and finish the race. That was ten hours I couldn’t waste. Ten hours, then another eight or more back to the finish line, then the hours it took to pack the dogs and the sled and the gear, and the time on the road, and when we finally reached home, Hatch would be long gone. Leaving what in his wake? Thanks to Jesse, I had seen the kind of violence he was capable of.
But if I turned round right now and let my dogs run hard as they pleased, I could be back to the starting line in less than a couple hours. Hatch had a head start, but not much of one. Me and Dad, we could catch up with him. Get home before he could do much damage. All I had to do was drop out of the race.
My stomach sunk. Another team passed by, the musher wearing bib number 15, he raised a hand from the back of his sled, and I raised mine back. After that, the trail was empty. Nothing but emptiness round me, endless white space, a mountain in the distance. It’s what you call a paradox, the way that kind of emptiness can fill you up. As much as racing was about training your dogs and caring for them, planning and strategizing, it was also about appreciating this place, the rise and fall of the land, the barrenness and fullness of it.
The dogs had realized we was nearly ready to hit the trail again, some of them stood and barked, eager to do their job. We had only run a couple hours, they was still a fresh team and none of them showed signs of reluctance to get back into the race. We was in last place now, but the nearest team had only just passed us, we could catch up. I knew my team, and with a good rest that night, I felt like we still had a chance to run a respectable race, maybe even pull ahead. It wasn’t crazy to think we could still win this one.
If I run, though, it would be the kind of running a hare does when it catches the scent of a wolf in the air. A jagged, all-out kind of running, the woods and snow a blur. Nothing on its mind but finding its home, somewhere safe. But there wasn’t anyplace safe. Not with Hatch nearby.
Peanut whined when I opened up my sled bag instead of getting on the runners and pulling the snow hook. I pushed through layers of gear and food and extra clothes to find what I was looking for, not letting myself acknowledge that I had already made up my mind. Only solving the problem in front of me, then the one after that.
First problem was figuring out how things could go wrong. You don’t just turn round and go back to the starting line because you changed your mind, and I wasn’t about to tell Dad I come back to the start early because of Hatch. If I could get through the next day or so without having to confess what I done, Dad would never have to know. So I needed to create a reason for dropping out of the race that he would understand.
I had seven dogs on my team, and to stay in the race, I needed to finish with a minimum of five. If things somehow went horribly wrong, if I had to put three dogs in my sled’s basket on account of injury or sickness, I would be justified in turning round right here. I wasn’t about to injure none of my dogs on purpose, they needed to be in their best shape come the big race, never mind that no matter how many critters I had bled with my own hands, I didn’t think I could intentionally hurt any dog, much less one of my own.
Instead, I dug through my sled bag, growing more frantic as I searched for the surprise Dad must of left me. My first Junior, I slid into the Yentna Station layover and made straw beds for my dogs, fed them and cared for them, then rummaged through my gear to find my own dinner, a plastic bag of frozen moose stew I would heat up with my little pocket stove. What I found was the stew, plus a treat: Dad had taped a dark chocolate candy bar to the bag, along with a note in his slanty handwriting. Good luck Trace, I am Proud of you. Run hard and have Fun! I haven’t never cared for chocolate one way or the other, but I ate that bar, the bitter sweetness on my tongue a reminder of how hard Dad had worked to help me get where I was, of how much it meant to him that I had wanted to race, that it was something that linked us together.
Ever since then, he always slipped a chocolate bar into my sled bag right before a race, when I wasn’t looking.
I finally found it, wrapped in my extra pair of socks, a bar of plain dark chocolate with no filling or nuts inside.
The dogs had already had their treat, but Marcey was never one to turn down any type of food you give her, and some you didn’t. Once, when she was house dog, we left a plate of burgers on the counter and she managed to knock the plate to the floor and eat every last patty. Boomer wasn’t such a pig, but he would still eat nearly anything, plus he had a sensitive stomach. I snapped the chocolate bar in half and offered both dogs a piece. Marcey practically swallowed hers whole while Boomer held his between his paws and daintily bit off smaller pieces.
Both dogs weighed enough, the amount of chocolate I give them wasn’t likely to do real harm, just make them sick. By the time we got back to the starting line, they would probably be shaking and panting, maybe even vomiting. For now, they both sat on their haunches, licking their lips and waiting to see what I would do next.
I walked up the line to my leader. When I’d needed a replacement for Flash, I’d settled on Peanut because of his sharp sense of direction, he always seemed to know the way to go, even on a trail new to him. But he was also a trial. Ornery and obstinate, downright difficult when he wanted to be, of all our dogs he was the most likely to wriggle out of his collar and run off if he was feeling restless. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine he might experience one of his ornery moods just a few hours into a race and give me the slip.
The moment he heard me unclip his harness, Peanut bounded away, springy with energy after a snack and some rest. I whistled, and he come racing back, then passed me, headed in the right direction now, back the way we come. Good boy, I called after him. He paused, looked back with his tongue hanging out, his ears perked. When he seen I didn’t mean to follow right away, he barked, then took off, a dog on the loose.
I tried to take my time clipping Marcey, then Boomer, into the sled’s basket. No telling exactly how long it would take for them to start showing they was sick from the chocolate, and I needed evidence that I couldn’t possibly of kept racing. But Hatch was on my mind, him and the minutes that separated us, each one adding to the next, till we was hours apart, him ahead of me, and me scrambling to catch up. My hands shook as I put Grizz in the wheel position where Boomer had been, now it was up to Stella and Zip to lead. The dogs had been patient enough while I’d dosed Marcey and Boomer, but when I stepped onto my runners they went crazy, barking and jumping and tugging on lines. I pulled the snow hook and let them take me west long enough for them to run out their back-on-the-trail jitters. I scanned the horizon and seen I was alone, no other teams or race officials in the distance.
Then I hollered, Come gee! and we turned, headed back the way we come.
The sun dropped out of the sky trailing pink and orange, till there was only a thin band of light on the horizon and a half moon hanging in the sky. The early evening seemed to fill the dogs with adrenaline, they pulled with real enthusiasm over a trail dotted with dozens of paw prints and runner marks. Time to time, I hopped off the sled and run alongside uphill, when I jumped back on, my heart was pounding not just from the small effort but from how close I was to home. To the
truth.
The trail back seemed twice as long as when we’d run it earlier in the day. At every small rise, I squinted into the distance hoping to see a snow machine’s headlights, but it was more than an hour before I finally spotted a race official. Both Marcey and Boomer was shivering and panting in the basket.
I threw out my snow hook then waved my arm.
Got a little turned around, didn’t you, musher? he said when he pulled his ATV up next to my sled.
You seen a loose dog? I asked. My leader got away, and now I got two sick ones in the basket.
Marcey picked that moment to start retching. She made a hacking sound, nothing come up yet, but it got the race official’s attention.
I haven’t seen your runaway, he said, but I’ll radio to the other officials. Meantime, we’d better get you back to the start so the vet can take a look at your dogs.
Can you have someone find my dad, too? I asked. Bill Petrikoff. He’s camped out near the start.
You’re Petrikoff’s kid? He frowned, shook his head. Well, that’s too bad, you dropping out. Y’all have seen enough bad luck for one family, I’d say.
Don’t worry, I told him. I’m running the big race next week. That’ll put us back on track.
He grinned. That a girl, he said. Follow me.
His radio squawked as he turned his ATV round. I whistled at the dogs, and we fell in behind the official, following him down the trail at a too-slow speed for my taste. I practically bounced on my runners, more anxious the closer we got to the start.
When we finally reached our destination, it wasn’t no longer a start but a finish. Race volunteers had already erected the big arch with its banner that read junior iditarod finish! in giant, bold letters. For the second time that day, I had to stand fast against a wave of regret. I imagined the next afternoon when the first musher come gliding across the snow, greeted by a cheering crowd. Parents whose faces would beam with pride. I ended my run with Dad jogging over to meet me, wearing a look of concern.
The Wild Inside Page 18