Iditarod rule number 42 says if one of your dogs dies, you have to notify a race official right away, then wait at the next checkpoint for someone to suss out what happened. But Dad blew through the checkpoints in White Mountain and Safety, he didn’t stop till he got to the finish line in Nome. Thirty-second place, and a dead dog in his basket.
None of it looked good, specially when the skier come forward with the story of what he thought he seen. After that, you wouldn’t believe how many other people claimed to of been there on the trail, too, you’d of thought the whole village of Golovin was skiing past that day. There was an investigation by the Iditarod committee, it took two weeks and when all was said and done, no one could claim that Dad was at fault for Panda dying. It was the pneumonia that took her, the committee determined. And as for him hitting the dogs, there wasn’t no evidence that any dog was struck.
Still, for breaking rule number 42, Dad got suspended from racing for two years. That decision seemed to satisfy people, mostly the ones who knew my dad’s name but didn’t know the kind of man he is. Folks round here grumbled about the decision, said two years was too long. Them same folks, people like Steve Inga and Wendell Nayokpuk, raised a little money to give to us when Dad’s sponsors started to pull out on account of none of them was keen on having someone who might of beat one of his dogs to death wear their clothes or have their name on his sled bag.
One night after all the ruckus of that year’s race died down, I come home from a spell in the woods to find Dad on his hands and knees in the kitchen, scrubbing the baseboard. There was glass everywhere. Red running down the wall, at first glance I thought it was blood.
Then I seen her handwriting. Mom always spent late summers canning tomatoes from the store and raspberries from the garden, she put jars up for the winter so we’d have good fruits and vegetables even in January. She always wrote the canning date on the lid of each jar in black marker, and if she thought she’d made an especially good batch of something, she’d put a star on the lid, too. The last time Dad sent me into the pantry to fetch one of her jars, I’d seen that there was only a couple left, the jar of applesauce he’d sent me after, and a jar of tomatoes.
Dad sat back from the work of wiping the tomato off the wall, he braced his hands on his knees and heaved a big breath. He hadn’t seen me come in. His back was hunched, like he was steeling himself against a strong wind, and then all the air went out of him. He seemed to shrink. He clutched the edge of the counter, as if to hoist himself from where he knelt, then only stayed there on his knees. His face sagged.
I backed out of the kitchen quiet as I could.
4
Dad’s suspension would be up just in time for me and him to run my first Iditarod together, that wasn’t what was stopping him. Even when he was suspended, it didn’t mean he couldn’t of kept training. But after his disastrous Iditarod, he had barely glanced at the sleds in the kennel.
The name Petrikoff had been left out of the Iditarod for too long. I aimed to fix that. But I had to figure out how to keep training despite Dad telling me I wasn’t to go near our dogs.
Early the next week, I figured out how.
I’d spent the weekend cleaning out the shed and doubting anyone would want to live there. I hauled out the junk we’d stored inside, swept its floors and cleared the cobwebs and mouse nests from its corners. It looked presentable enough, but it was awful small. Tuesday, Dad worked the whole morning building a cot, the two of us squeezed it through the door and made up the mattress. The place was ready to rent. But no one had called about it yet.
That evening, Steve Inga stopped by, brung a big box of fruit and cookies, and a bottle of whiskey. He set everything on the kitchen table then opened the bottle.
What’s all that? Dad asked. He stirred a pot of chili on the stove, more beans than meat, but the room smelled spicy and rich as me and Scott set the table.
Stopped by the post office, Steve said. Auntie of mine down in Florida sent a care package.
And the whiskey?
Dad found two small glasses and Steve poured, filled them to the brim.
Didn’t want to drink it all by my lonesome.
They lifted their glasses and drained them in one swallow. We hadn’t had much alcohol in the house since Mom died, Dad wasn’t much of a drinker past a couple beers, but Mom liked a glass of something each night, and more than just a glass in the months right before she died.
Stay to supper? Dad asked.
Got nowhere else to be.
Steve poured them both a second shot, it went down quick. Scott frowned as he watched them, then busied himself with dumping soda crackers into a bowl to put on the table.
Our spoons were making scraping sounds against the bottoms of our empty bowls when Steve asked Dad, You hear about Jim Lerner?
Dad shook his head.
Had a trespasser up his way, couple days back.
Somebody break in?
Didn’t have to. You know Jim, he never locks his back door. Some guy wandered right in. Jim and his wife was down to the village, they come back, find this fella asleep on the floor. Passed out right in front of the fireplace.
No shit?
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry.
A guy? I said. Like your age, you mean?
Naw, Steve said. Younger. Jim said he looked maybe sixteen. Ragged little guy. Spooked when Jim got home, took off and disappeared into the woods.
A runaway, you reckon? Dad said.
Suppose so.
I frowned at my empty bowl. From Steve’s description, Jim Lerner’s intruder didn’t sound like Tom Hatch. Still, I wondered how long it took someone to heal from a gut wound, and how much longer it might take to hitchhike or drive down from Fairbanks. Whether the ragged stranger who’d fell asleep in front of Jim’s fireplace was headed north or south.
I offered to clean up after dinner, so Dad let Steve pour him another shot of whiskey and the two of them talked a good spell, while Scott disappeared to his room, probably fixing to read the rest of the evening away.
When Steve eventually left, Dad waved him down the driveway, then staggered a little on his way to the kennel. I stepped outside like a swimmer treading slow into a cold lake, followed him across the yard. He didn’t say nothing when I picked up a bucket of kibble and trailed behind him.
Sled dogs need more food than regular dogs, they burn off so much energy. Over the summer, when we only done short, easy runs, their diet was lighter, but if I intended on getting serious about training now that there was snow on the ground, I would have to figure something out. We didn’t have nothing left in the kennel freezer, no salmon to add to the kibble because Dad hadn’t gone to fish camp that year, and no moose trimmings because he hadn’t managed to hunt. I could bring back some of what I trapped, but not if Dad was serious about me staying away from the woods.
We worked up and down the rows, him moving a little slower than usual. I paused in front of the house with Panda’s name over the door. Her food bowl was still there, froze to the ground. I kicked it free, and it flew across the snow.
Dad knelt down in front of Grizzly and took the dog’s face in his hands. Old Grizz, he said and his voice come out syrupy, like each word was stuck to the next. Grizz’s mom was one of my first racing dogs, he went on. Got her from a guy over near Tok.
This was a story I had heard before, sitting in front of a fire, the dogs paddling their feet in their sleep. We never told ghost stories or sung songs when we was on the trail together. Instead, Dad told me stories about building his team, the first races he ever run, how he come to be one of the best mushers in the state. Early days, when him and Mom was just starting out, and everything was an adventure.