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 be 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.