I headed upstairs for a nap as Carpenter and Medred began arguing. The musher couldn’t understand what was so newsworthy about his little delay. Why would Medred want to write about this? Carpenter’s Iditarod was history, and he just didn’t see it. Lavrakas’s photo of the illegal tow was destined for page 1 of Alaska’s biggest newspaper. Medred was gathering details for the next day’s lead story: the first disqualification of this year’s race.
Had anyone asked, I would have said I was traveling somewhere in the middle of the 74-team field. Like Carpenter, I was deluding myself. Lee better understood our plight. He knew there was no one left behind us.
Joe Garnie led the first wave into Skwentna. The hard-driving Eskimo from Teller trotted into the floodlights set up on the river at 3:14 A.M. Sunday, March 3. Being first counted for more than bragging rights. Garnie had won the “Dodge Dash,” a special Iditarod promotion, and the prize was a $15,000 Dakota pickup. With the keys to his new truck in hand, Joe vowed to set fire to his old truck.
Within 2 hours, 15 teams were camped on the river below postmaster Joe Delia’s cabin in Skwentna. This was the Iditarod’s elite. They fed their dogs and traded stories about the first day of the race, all the while eyeing each other warily, waiting to renew the chase.
The shiny new truck was nice, but Garnie’s sights were set on the arch waiting 1,050 miles north. By half past noon, his sled was packed near the checkpoint tents at Finger Lake, 45 miles farther up the trail. Barve was again second, followed by Adkins, Swenson, Tim Osmar, and Jonrowe.
Seventeen teams reached Finger Lake before Butcher. Everyone was camping when Susan arrived at 6:01 P.M. The Butch had other ideas. She dallied just 15 minutes before ordering her 18-dog team onward toward Rohn. Iditarod’s defending champion was leading for the first time in the race.
As the front-runners maneuvered for position, Mowry burned up phone lines from his hotel in Dawson City, Yukon Territory. According to race headquarters, I had checked into Knik at 6:02 P.M. Saturday and I’d never left. Mowry knew that was probably misinformation. But what if I’d lost a dog? What if the team was sick? What if … It was maddening.
The Coach’s strategy called for me to reach Skwentna by noon on Sunday. Forty-nine mushers managed to do that; I wasn’t among them. Mowry called every few hours. New teams kept showing up on the river below Delia’s cabin. More than 60 teams had registered at Skwentna by 7 P.M. on Sunday. The checker’s log also showed one scratch: Englishman Roy Monk. His dogs’ feet were too sore to continue. Team number 2, meanwhile, remained listed “in Knik.”
The Poodle Man passed Daily on the river, roughly ten miles from Skwentna.
“Give the devil his due,” Daily grumbled to himself, watching Suter pass. God, those poodles are clipping right along, looking good.
Tom couldn’t say the same about his own team. Both of his high-priced leaders were a bust. The seed of suspicion planted during the Klondike had blossomed into an ugly reality. These dogs needed better conditioning. He could only blame himself for that. Relocating to Alaska had burned up a lot of time, but it didn’t excuse the training deficiency. And Daily was haunted by the memory of his sponsors’ unconcealed disappointment. There goes the free ride.
Reality, as so often happens, had arrived with a vicious bite. Reaching Skwentna a full hour behind the damn Poodle Man, the musher gloomily declared his 24-hour layover. The dogs needed a breather.
Since the day he signed up, Daily, an old hippie, had been reveling in the prospects of celebrating his thirty-ninth birthday mushing the Iditarod Trail. That day had arrived, and he wondered what he’d done to deserve such karma.
The river was crisscrossed with trails. Each intersecting alternative appeared better to Chad, who kept dodging between them. The general direction was right, so I let Golden Dog pick his own way. He performed reasonably well until we caught up with the Anchorage Daily News snowmachines late Sunday afternoon. Jim Lavrakas and Craig Medred had parked a few yards off the trail. Chad made a beeline for them. He flopped at the journalists’ feet, bringing the team to a dead halt. I had to get off the sled and drag him back on course. From there, his confidence shrank with each step. Before long, I banished Chad to wheel, inserting Harley in single lead.
Intertwining trails didn’t faze the monster. Given a choice between trails, Harley never agonized. He barreled forward, flopping his ears up and down with each step.
Relieved of his pressure position, Chad pulled like a demon. Muscles rippled in his shoulders. His head bent downward; this time from joyous effort, not discouragement. Watching the transformation, I shook my head. What a basket case.
Nearing Skwentna, I put the White Rat up front with Harley for better control. The combination worked beautifully. The wafting scent of woodstoves was as good as a dinner bell to an old sled dog like the Rat. She blazed ahead, displaying energy she normally concealed. In training, the Rat always ran fast enough to keep pace, but not so hard that she might have to work. In that respect, the Rat was the least honest dog in the kennel, and her calculated deceit infuriated the Coach.
When you prodded her, the white dog’s tug line would tighten, but the effort only lasted until you stopped watching her. Like most leaders, she had an uncanny memory for trails. But given any chance, she’d strike out for home. It didn’t matter whether the team had just left the lot. Cutting corners was her goal in life. I didn’t care. The dog might be lazy, but she knew commands. And I enjoyed her games at mealtime.
Every day, without fail, she would stash her pan in the deepest possible corner of her house, which happened to be the longest house in our lot. Our game grew more demanding with the onset of blizzards in December. I had to lie on my belly to reach the pan through her tunnellike entrance. The Rat applauded my cooperation with frisky hops. Then she’d squat on her haunches, lifting both paws in a begging motion.
“The Rat, the Rat,” I’d sing, filling her pan. “Queen of All Dogs.”
The Coach commented on an unintended consequence of my affection. “Rat is getting fat, O’Donoghue. Quit giving her seconds!”
I loved the conniving White Rat, and she paid me back tonight, guiding Harley toward Skwentna’s sagging checkpoint banner. It was a few minutes before midnight. Made it by 12, only it was the wrong 12.
The postmaster appeared holding his clipboard. More than 20 hours had passed since Delia had first checked Garnie’s sled for required gear. He was groggy.
“How many teams are in, Joe?”
Delia shrugged. “Lost track,” he mumbled, handing me the clipboard for my signature. “C’mon up to the cabin when you get settled.”
Where does the time go? First I bedded the dogs in straw. Then I picked up my four-gallon pot and searched for water. Other mushers directed me to a hole chopped in the thick river ice. You had to reach way down to scoop the water out with a coffee can. Filling the pot took a little longer than I expected. That set the tone, I guess. Everything took longer than I expected. Four sacks of supplies were waiting for me. Fetching those 50-to 70-pound sacks required several trips. That took more time.
Sack number 1 contained my most pressing needs at Skwentna, and every other checkpoint: whitefish for the dogs; new batteries; dry gloves; and several toilet-paper rolls for the stove. I threw each dog a chunk of whitefish — starting with Harley, of course.