by Katy Regnery
Except it’s not, whispers my heart. If you win the Qimmiq and open a line of credit for the truck, you could swing it.
But winning the Qimmiq?
No way.
There are seasoned racers signed up, mushers who’ve been racing for years. Juliet’s been racing for a handful of months. And me? I shake my head. It’s just not possible. It’s not.
No matter how much we want it, there are better racers.
I stand up and trek back to the bedroom, where I find her curled up on the bed with her back to the door.
“Hey,” I say. “I’m sorry I called you crazy.”
She doesn’t face me so her voice is muffled when she speaks: “You’ve lived with ‘good-enough’ for so long, you barely dare to dream of spectacular.”
“What does that mean?”
“You don’t have any hope!” she cries, flipping over to face me with a tear-streaked face. “Would it be hard to win the Qimmiq? Would we be long shots? Yes and yes. But impossible? No way, Cody. We just have to come up with the right strategy.”
“You’ve never raced before!”
“I know that!”
I stare at her, feeling like my head’s about to explode.
“Nor have I ever fallen in love before...or trained for a dog sled race before...or wanted anything in my whole life as much as I want you,” she says. “But somehow those things are all happening. Just because something wonderful hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it can’t!”
“You want to win the Qimmiq,” I say, staring into her bright blue eyes.
“I want to try,” she says, sniffling softly.
I run what’s left of my fingers through my hair. “It’s two-hundred miles.”
“I know.”
“You’re only comfortable doing fifty a day.”
“I can do more,” she says, sitting up.
“Seventy? Eighty?”
She nails me with those blue eyes. “Are you willing to consider coming to Montana this summer?”
I bite my bottom lip, then lick it. I feel nervous, but I can’t deny it: there’s this galvanizing momentum, this insane-fucking-energy budding within me. I can feel it taking root. I can feel it dying to grow.
“This is crazy,” I tell her.
She wipes away her tears, nodding at me with a blossoming smile. “Yes. It’s crazy. Be crazy with me.”
“I don’t know if we can win,” I tell her, searching her eyes.
“We’ll never know if we don’t try,” she tells me, breathing deeply.
I take a deep breath too, holding it for a second before letting it go. “Okay. Okay, we’ll... we’ll train harder. We’ll...see what we can do. We’ll try!”
“Cody!” she cries, rising up on her knees and opening her arms.
I embrace her, letting her pull me onto the bed with her. I kiss her face all over, the maniacal notion that two rookie mushers could actually win a race, a plan I’ve got to try. For her. For my Juliet. Only for my love.
Grinning at me, she reaches for her phone, flipping it over to show me the time: 12:03 a.m.
“Happy New Year, Cody,” she says.
“Here’s to the future, darlin’,” I tell her, fusing my lips to hers, and praying that our hope and our conviction is enough to make a miracle happen.
Chapter 13
Juliet
“Wake up,” Cody whispers. “Juliet. Wake up. We gotta get going. Come on. Get up.”
It’s Day #2 of the Qimmiq and pitch-dark in our icy-cold tent.
My body aches everywhere.
My face and fingers feel both dry and frozen.
My eyes will barely open, and when I force them, they burn.
Why is he waking me up already? I couldn’t have slept for more than ten minutes.
“What time is it?” I mutter.
“Four.”
“Already?”
“Yep. You got three hours of sleep, but we’ve got to go now if we want to get a jump on the lead.”
“Cody,” I half whisper, half sob, as I try to sit up, “I’m so tired.”
“I know,” he says, putting his arm around my waist to steady me when it looks like I might topple over. “But we did the mandatory six-hour rest. If we want to win...”
“O-Okay,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “Okay. I’m up. I’m up.”
“Eat.” He hands me a piece of reindeer jerky and a Ziploc bag of dried fruit. “They’ve got some great volunteers here. Got the dogs fed in half an hour.”
I can hear them, not too far away from where I got a little sleep in our tent, baying and howling.
“A guy helped with the harnesses too. Checked yours and mine. They’re ready to run again.”
Once the volunteers at the Qimmiq found out about Cody’s military service and disability, they immediately started championing us. When we arrived at the Teller checkpoint five hours ago, the cheering was deafening, and we seemed to be prioritized over other arriving teams by the waiting volunteers.
“Vet checked on Boston’s paw. Wrapped it up and got the bootie back on. Looks okay to go again today.”
“How many miles left?” I ask.
“Uh...little over a hundred,” he says.
“How many exactly?”
“A hundred and twenty-two.”
The Qimmiq 200 started yesterday in Nome and continued northeast to Teller. Today, we’ll follow the shoreline of the Imuruk Basin to the abandoned village of Mary’s Igloo, and continue southeast to Council. On Monday, we’ll end up back in Nome at the same finish line used by Iditarod racers.
Our strategy was to do eighty miles in ten hours on the first day with one break at the first checkpoint halfway between Nome and Teller, then stop for sleep at the second checkpoint, just southeast of Teller. I don’t know how exactly, because I could barely feel my extremities by the time we arrived in Teller, but somehow, we made it.
Today we’re supposed to do the same, stopping at Mary’s Igloo to eat and let the dogs take a three-hour rest, but we won’t set up camp and sleep until after the fifth checkpoint, in Council. Then we’ll finish the final fifty miles tomorrow, hopefully arriving first in Nome.
Except I can barely sit up. How am I going to mush a team for another rigorous day and a half?
Cody hands me another piece of jerky. “I got some cheesecake too. You want it?”
I nod. “Uh-huh.”
It’s a weird combination of foods we’re using to keep our strength and stamina up: protein, of course, like jerky, which wears well on the trail, and dried fruit, which shatters like glass when I bite down because it’s so cold, but cheesecake is also great. Even if it freezes, it tastes delicious as it thaws in my mouth and has tons of fat and sugar for a quick energy burst.
“Who else is here right now?” I ask.
“Everyone except one team. Heard them leave about thirty minutes ago. I checked and our times from yesterday have us at fourth right now. We need to make up some time today and tomorrow.”
I blink at him, trying not to cry. “We need to make up time?”
Cody’s eyes are sympathetic. “If we want to win. Yes.”
It’s the reminder—the push—I need, and I nod, shoving a chunk of cheesecake in my mouth and crawling out of the tent, onto the hay-covered snow.
It’s got to be thirty below out here.
And it’s dark as midnight.
But the air is bracingly brackish from the wind sweeping in from the Bering Sea. I take a deep breath and the cold burns my lungs, but not in a bad way; in a way that wakes me up after the rigors of yesterday’s mushing and so little sleep last night.
I knew that sleep deprivation would be part of these three days of racing, and when Cody and I agreed to make a run for first place, I knew it could be even more brutal than I’d originally planned. That said, our financial resources are decidedly limited, and the Qimmiq purse is imperative to our future.
My parents were generous enough to pay for grad school and give me a small all
owance, but I can’t ask them for more money to help relocate my Alaskan boyfriend to Montana for a few months. And from what Cody tells me, his extra savings have all been ear-marked for the Iditarod.
Winning the Qimmiq would mean everything to our relationship.
Without it, he could maybe come and visit me for a few days in June, and I could maybe fly up to Nome a few months later for a visit with him after I’d been working for a while and earned up a few vacation days. But it wouldn’t be a good plan for maintaining the intimacy of our relationship. I’m just not sure how Cody and I—as a relatively new couple—would survive.
I stand up, my boots crunching over the snow and ice as Cody leads the way to our harnessed teams.
Bending down, I say good morning to each dog individually, giving her a kiss on the muzzle and telling her what a great job she’s doing. Something important I’ve learned during the last three months is that these dogs clock my mood at every turn. If I’m upset, they’re nervous. If I’m angry, they’re manic. If I’m cheerful and encouraging, they’ll run their hearts out for me. We are symbiotic in that way; we need each other to race...and to win.
Stepping onto the back of my sled, I take the reins in hand, then nodding once to Cody to let him know I’m ready, I yell, “Mush!” into the early morning darkness.
***
Arriving at Mary’s Igloo this morning before all but one team gave us a good advantage, as did checking in at Council by five o’clock tonight. We blow past the checkpoint, continuing south toward Nome, but by six-thirty, I’m running on fumes and can barely keep my eyes open.
We’re in the lead now, but I tell Cody I need to stop.
Because we’re between Council and Nome, and not at a checkpoint, there are no volunteers to help us unharness the dogs, bed and feed them, so it takes hours to get them settled.
It’s only fifty miles to Nome, a distance we regularly practiced on training days. It’s even possible we can make it without stopping, but we need to be sure the dogs get a solid rest before we ask them to run again.
“What are we thinking? Five hours? Six?” I ask Cody.
He’s spreading out a layer of hay for our tent. “I overheard the other team say they were staying at Council until morning. I say we get five hours of sleep, get up, make breakfast for the dogs, and shoot down to Nome.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’m starving,” Cody says. “What do we have?”
I take out four vacuum-packed pieces of pizza we picked up in our drop bag at Council, relieved that they haven’t frozen between there and here. Cody joins me inside the tent, unrolling and unzipping two sleeping bags so that one can be our mattress and the other our blanket.
“Pizza,” I say, handing him two slices.
He gobbles it down hungrily, stopping between bites to ask me: “Can you...set an...alarm?”
I nod, fishing my phone out of the pocket of my parka. “Sure.”
Except...my phone isn’t there. I put down the pizza and try my other pocket, frantically fishing around for my phone, but it’s not there either.
“When did you last use it?” asks Cody.
“On the trail,” I say. “To tell you I needed to rest.”
“Twenty minutes back,” he says.
“Twenty minutes by sled!” I say, which translates to two to three miles over land.
“I can go back for it.”
“What? How?”
“Snowshoes,” he says. “I keep a pair on my sled.”
“Cody, that’s crazy! That’s a four- to six-mile round-trip hike. On no sleep.” I stare at him, shaking my head back and forth. “And there’s no moon out. No. Forget it. I’m sure someone else will find it and turn it in at the finish line.”
“How are we going to communicate tomorrow?” he asks.
Cody had our phones outfitted with SatSleeves before the Qimmiq, so we could get in touch with one another, no matter where we were.
“We can...stay together.”
He exhales loudly, with barely concealed annoyance, as he opens his second piece of pizza. “Our whole strategy for tomorrow was for me to push my dogs as hard as possible to bring down our average time.”
“Okay...” I say, blinking my eyes at him. I’ve never been this exhausted in my life. My whole body hurts. My phone is gone. And now Cody’s upset with me. “You can still do that. It’s only fifty miles. I can do fifty miles solo. Go as fast as you can. I’ll see you in Nome.”
“No, Juliet,” he says with an edge in his voice. “That’s not safe. You can’t race fifty miles in the wilderness by yourself after two long days and almost no sleep.”
“Yes, I can,” I tell him, my voice soft and small. “I’ll be fine.”
“You’re not thinking straight. All of the supplies are with me.”
“I’ll take some on my sled.”
“Just...” He finishes his pizza, sets an alarm on his phone, then lies down on his back. “No. We’ll stay together. It’s safest, but...”
“But what?”
“I don’t see how we can win,” he says. “You’re already down a dog by having a single lead, which makes you a little slower anyway. If I slow down so we can stay together—”
“Just leave me behind!” I yell.
I lie on my side with my back to him, hating the tears that slide form the corners of my eyes. I don’t even remember dropping my phone. I’m so weary and bleary-eyed at this point, so cold and achy. I only had three months to prepare for a race that takes most athletes years of conditioning. All I want to do is crawl into a soft bed and sleep for days, and instead I’m here, somewhere in the middle of Alaska, and the one person anchoring me to this race is mad at me.
Cody rolls onto his side and pulls me against him, and though I’m grateful for the contact, I’m frustrated with him. Can’t he see I’m trying my best?
“I didn’t mean to drop my phone,” I murmur.
“I know.”
“I can race alone.”
“No darlin’,” he says gently, squeezing me tighter, “you can’t.”
“I’m s-so...s-sorry...Co-dy,” I mumble, my eyes fluttering closed as he holds on to me.
“Shhhh,” he hums near my ear. “Just sleep.”
I do exactly as he says.
***
“Juliet!” Cody’s voice is urgent as he shakes me. “Shit! Juliet!”
“Huh? What?”
“The—the other team...they just passed us.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I heard them! Someone yelled, ‘Mush!’ so I peeked outside and there they were, sliding by.”
“What...what time is—”
“Just after midnight,” he says. “I mis-judged their rest-time in Council. I think they only took three hours, not six.”
I sit up, pushing past the aching pain of every muscle. “We have to...to go. We can catch up. Cody, we can still—”
“No.”
His phone light is on, illuminating the tent, and his face says it all: It’s too late. We’ve already lost.
“Dogs aren’t even harnessed,” he says. “But more important, do you hear anything?”
I don’t. Nothing but the whistling Arctic wind outside.
“They’d be barking and howling their heads off if they were rearing to go right now. That last leg was five hours long, and we’ve only been asleep for three. They’re tired. They need rest. I need rest. You need rest. I just...” He clenches his eyes shut. “It’s over.”
“It’s okay,” I say, my voice lacking any conviction.
“It’s not,” he answers, turning off the light, his voice laced with misery. “We were so close. We could have—damn it, Juliet, we could have won.”
“Lie down with me.” When he does, I lean my head forward until my forehead gently touches his in the darkness. “When you asked me to race with you back in September, all you needed was for us to finish. Not win. Not place. Not show. Finish. And we’re still going to do that. M
aybe not first, but we’ll finish.”
“But the money...”
“It was long shot anyway,” I say. “This was our first race. We were up against seasoned pros.” I gulp, concentrating on the one place on my entire body where his skin touches mine. “But we’ll still finish, Cody. I promise we’ll finish tomorrow...and your dream will come true: you’ll race in your first Iditarod this March. And I’ll—I’ll finish my study and maybe get published. That’s why we found each other in the first place, right? That’s what’s important, right?”
I hear him take a sharp breath, but he doesn’t answer.
“And...” I clear my throat, trying to be brave. “We can figure out the rest. We’ll plan to see each other in June. Or July. At some point. When we can. Right?”
“Yeah. Right,” he says, but his voice is dull and flat. It scares me because it says so much more than his words. He doesn’t see our future clearly, and the truth is, neither do I.
“Let’s just...s-sleep,” I say, turning over so my back is against his chest, and glad he can’t see the tears sliding down my cheeks.
“I love you, Juliet,” he says softly, his voice gruff with emotion. “Always remember that. No matter what happens. Remember I loved you.”
Remember I loved you.
I can’t answer because I’m crying too hard and trying not to break into runaway sobs. I swallow my cries and clench my teeth against whimpers. And at some point, my burning eyes close and I finally fall back to sleep in the dark wilderness of Alaska, utterly alone, though my love sleeps beside me.
***
Cody
Fourth place.
We didn’t win, place or show in the Qimmiq.
We ended up in fourth.
Two more teams passed us on Monday: one in the early morning, before we woke up, and another as we were breaking down camp and harnessing the dogs.
We arrived in Nome at noon.
As the top-placing local team, Nome celebrated our fourth-place finish as glorious. Jonas and Rita wouldn’t let us pay for celebratory drinks at the Klondike, and the Nome Nugget took our picture with the dogs and featured us on its front page the following day: ROOKIES FROM NOME TAKE 4TH IN THE QIMMIQ!