I haven’t drunk in days, I told him when I let go. I feel like shit, but I could still do that. Hatch is stronger than you, too. But I’m at least as strong as him. If one of us has a shot at dealing with him at all, it’s me.
I could tell Jesse was irritated, but he was also coming round to my point. I don’t like it, he said anyway.
Don’t matter if you do, I told him. Only one of us needs to have this on our conscience, and it might as well be me, since I’m the one who nearly killed him the first time.
He chewed his lip, wanting to protest. But he said, If you think that’s what’s best.
I closed my eyes, pulled his blankets round me. The mattress creaked when he lay down again. I was so close to sleep. But I spoke up one last time.
Stay in Anchorage, I said. At least for a while. Helen will bring Scott back home after the ceremonial start, but you tell her you’re volunteering with Steve for the rest of the race. And don’t come back till Dad finishes.
But—
Promise, I said.
Outside, one of the dogs howled. Another joined in, then another. They sang like that for a long minute, baying at no moon, just checking in with each other, harmonizing briefly then falling silent again.
Okay, Jesse said and that settled it, the dogs begun to sing again and I floated on their voices, lifted up, up, soaring into the night even as I sunk deeper into sleep.
The morning they left I bundled up and stepped outside to watch Dad recheck the bindings that secured his sled to the dog box. The team was already inside, each dog probably already curled up and dozing, they was so used to the road trips that took them to each race start.
Helen come out onto the back stoop and put her arm round me. I’ll be back right after the official start, she said. Or maybe I should stay here? How are you feeling?
Go, I told her. Otherwise, Steve is going to have to be Dad’s date for the mushers’ banquet.
She grinned and give me a squeeze. Soon the trucks was loaded up, Jesse behind the wheel of one truck with Scott in the cab next to him, and Helen waiting on Dad in the second.
Dad come over to where I stood. How you feeling? he asked.
Pissed off.
He chuckled, then got serious. I know. This isn’t how I pictured this day.
My stomach cramped, and I winced.
I’m not so sure I ought to go myself, Dad said. You’ve been sick an awfully long time.
He took off his hat, and right then I was convinced he would shuck his coat, too, tell Jesse to take the sled down and let the dogs out. I had gone too far, got too sick, and now he wasn’t going to race.
If I don’t feel better after the weekend, I told him, I’ll have Helen take me to the clinic. Okay?
Mean it?
I swear, I said.
I’m calling Helen from the first checkpoint, he said. She better tell me you made a full recovery or that I’m getting a bill from the doctor. One way or the other.
Yes, sir.
Good enough, he said, then a look of surprise struck his face. Hell’s bells, Trace. I nearly forgot! Happy birthday.
A laugh fell out of me. For months, I had pinned my hopes on this birthday, it was the whole reason I was even able to enter the big race. But I’d got so preoccupied with Hatch and Jesse and convincing Dad to race, I had forgot all about it.
I didn’t even make you a cake, Dad said.
How about you just win this race? I said. That would be a pretty good gift.
A win for Tracy, he said and give me a hug. I’ll do my best.
Then he was walking away, leaving me where I stood. He climbed into his truck, the engine already running to keep the cab warm. Jesse rolled his window down and stuck his head out, give me a look. He started to say something, then changed his mind. Whatever he’d wanted to say, odds was he couldn’t say it in front of Scott, anyhow.
I waved one more time, then darted inside, through the kitchen and up the stairs to my room, before the trucks rolled down the driveway. Even from inside the house I could hear the engines grumbling then growing faint as my family pulled away. I could see them leaving. Dad’s truck first, then the one Jesse drove. I could see it easily enough from my bed, blankets over my head, eyes closed. Didn’t need or want to see the real thing.
When I woke, it was Friday. I reached over to my bedside table and found my knife. Sliced across my palm and licked. Enough to wake me up and make me feel for the first time in days like I might want to do more than trudge from my bed to the bathroom and back. I put on boots and a sweater, tucked my hair under a wool hat, then struck out across the yard and onto the trail. Jesse and Dad both had checked my traps early on but they hadn’t reset any since I was too sick to mind them. So I hunted, still feeling slightly woozy, till round midmorning, a snare I set caught a small marten near a squirrel midden where it liked to rest.
Once I had something warm in me, there wasn’t much to do but wait, and think.
Next morning, I watched the ceremonial start on television, sharpening my knife as Dad’s number was announced and the crowd clapped and cheered to see his team sail down Fourth Avenue. The real start happened the following day, fewer cameras round and no television coverage, just mushers and their families, handlers, volunteers. A few busy hours as the mushers left the chute one by one, then everyone scattered.
Helen had planned to drive back to the village that same evening, after the official start, and Scott spent the night with her so she could drop him at school the next day. Late Monday afternoon, her Jeep come trundling up the drive as I was working my way through a small stack of wood.
Scott leaped out of the Jeep, already chattering at me about the start and the mushers he’d met, the movie he and Helen had caught while they was in the city. It wasn’t till his stomach complained loud enough all three of us heard it, and he run inside for a snack, that me and Helen was alone.
I split a log and it fell to the ground.
I guess you’re feeling better, Helen said.
Once I’m done being sick, I said, I bounce back fast.
No kidding.
I stood another log on its end.
Jesse called last night from Skwentna, Helen said. He didn’t want to call here and wake you up, but he asked me to tell you that Bill came in with the early leaders.
I frowned. What’s Jesse doing at Skwentna?
Just eighty-three miles from Anchorage, Skwentna was one of the busiest checkpoints, since most teams hit it the first night. I pictured Jesse there, antsy and wondering what was happening back here, if Tom Hatch had showed up yet.
Helen waved a hand. Oh, who knows where he is now. Steve’s got him traveling all up and down the trail. Jesse’s going to have a front-row seat to the entire race, from what it sounds like.
I went back to chopping to hide the relief that come over me.
Helen went on, He also said to tell you Bill stayed six hours at the checkpoint. He’s using the Tracy Strategy, is what Jesse said.
Hearing that made me smile. Dad had planned to check in at Skwentna and get through the vet check, then grab his food bags and hit the trail again, quick. His strategy was to run fast early on, get as much distance from the other mushers as he could.
But I had planned to run my race slow and steady. Since it was my first year, my job wouldn’t of been to try and win but to learn the course, finish strong, and look toward the next year, when I could run as a seasoned musher. I had read how long-distance runners pace themselves, going slower the first half of a race to conserve energy so they could speed up toward the latter half, and I thought that plan could work for a team of dogs. I’d meant to try it out over the course of the Iditarod, just to see. Weeks before, I’d asked Dad what he thought. Might just work, he’d said. Then added, Every musher’s got to come up with their own way of running a race. Now he had decided to run my race for me, in more ways than one.