Nadia Nichols - Across A Thousand Miles

“I doubt it,” Rebecca said, reaching for her parka. “But that antique flying machine definitely comes a close second.”

She had combed out her hair, but it was still damp, and in the frigid air the dampness crystallized as she walked across the packed snow of the yard toward the big Quonset hut. Sam always kept the old double-barrel stove roaring when he was working inside the hut, and the hangar was surprisingly comfortable even on the bitterest of days. Rebecca opened the door and slipped quickly inside, surprised to see Mac’s dogs still tethered on their picket lines. She had assumed he’d be out training.

“I don’t know, Sam,” she heard Mac saying as she pulled the door shut behind her. His voice sounded strangely muffled, as if it was coming from inside a deep well. “I’d like to think you’re right, but I just don’t know. What I do know is that I have to pay her back what I owe her, and the sooner the better.”

Rebecca could see Mac’s legs sticking out of the rear cockpit of the huge yellow Stearman. She could also see Sam standing near the top of the stepladder on the plane’s off side, but neither man had noticed her. “I’d like to start all over again without that big debt hanging over my head,” came Mac’s voice. “And who knows, maybe that won’t help. Maybe nothing will change her opinion of me. I seem to be in competition with a dead man and I’m losing. Do you have any idea what that does to a man’s ego?”

Rebecca felt her face flush. She reached back, opened the door again and slammed it hard behind her.

“Sam? You in here?”

“Over here, Rebecca,” came Sam’s slow, mellow voice.

“Ellin’s made a batch of her cinnamon rolls and she’s just taking them out of the oven.” Rebecca walked toward the old plane. She saw Mac’s legs writhe about wildly as he wriggled, twisted and levered his body out of the cockpit.

Rebecca waited until he’d extricated himself and was sitting on the back of the pilot’s seat. “What are you doing in here?” she asked. “I should think you’d be out running your dogs. If you plan on entering the Quest, you’ll need to put at least another thousand miles on them. Better hop to it! Oh, and by the way, that was an interesting technique you employed yesterday coming down the Mazey Creek trail.”

“You liked that, did you?” Mac said.

“That was without a doubt the most spectacular crash I’ve ever witnessed,” Rebecca said. “And the most miraculous recovery, I might add.”

“Coming from you, I take that as high praise.”

Rebecca nodded. Mac was dressed in dark-green wool army pants and a thick red-and-black-plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled back. His arms and hands looked strong and powerful, and she had no doubt that they were. For him to have held on to that sled yesterday had required Herculean strength. She noticed his fancy Rolex watch was missing. “Look, Mac, don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t have enough experience to run the Yukon Quest.”

“Maybe you think I don’t, but the dogs, you have to admit, do,” Mac said, narrowing his eyes on her.

“The judges on the race committee don’t base their decision on the dogs. They want to be sure the musher is qualified to run a long-distance race, and you have to prove yourself by finishing some shorter races, like the Fireplug and the Percy DeWolf. They won’t let you run the Quest.”

Mac’s grin was irritatingly arrogant. “They’ve waived that requirement,” he said with a casual gesture of the pliers he held in one hand. “Sam told them I’d been trapping up on the Flat with my brother’s team of dogs and they figured that was qualification enough. I’m good to go.”

“Good to go?” Rebecca stared at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious! You have absolutely no idea what you’re getting yourself into!”

“Ignorance is bliss,” he said.

“Baloney! Ignorance can kill you out there!” she snapped. “Sam, I can’t believe you fronted his entry fee knowing how inexperienced he is!”

“Well,” Sam said, dusting off his coveralls and avoiding her eyes, “I’d better get inside. Ellin’s cinnamon rolls don’t like to be kept waiting…”

“Trapping up on Flat!” Rebecca scoffed when the door had closed behind Sam.

Mac eyed her defiantly. “I lived there for four months with the dogs.”

“You trapped one fox and you let it go!”

“Would it have made me a better musher if I’d trapped two hundred wild animals and killed them all for their pelts?”

“That’s not the point! This race is about being tough, about having tough dogs, about being able to travel across a thousand miles in some of the worst weather and over some of the most gruelling terrain there is. Believe me, it isn’t like that Walt Disney movie Iron Will. You can’t live on a piece of fruitcake for two weeks, never feed your dogs, and end up winning enough money to save the family farm. You can’t fake it out there. It’s for real, and it can get really, really nasty!”

Mac’s eyes narrowed speculatively again. “You don’t think I’m tough enough, is that it? You think I’m too much of a greenhorn to go the distance?” He pushed himself off the side of the cockpit and descended the ladder propped beside the plane, stepping off the bottom rung to stand beside her. Even in his stocking feet he stood a good ten inches taller. He braced the palm of his hand against the plane’s fuselage and looked down at her with those clear, piercing eyes. The nearness of him scrambled her thoughts. She felt her heart rate accelerate and a curious warmth flush her face.

“I don’t think you can get the miles on your team,” she said. “You’ll need at least a thousand training miles. Competitive mushers put more than twice that many on their dogs before they run that race.”

“I’ll put the miles on them.” He reached for his boots beneath the tail of the plane. “I’ve got until February and it’s only November now. We’ll be ready.”

“Good to go, right?” she said caustically. “Look, Mac, if you’re running the Quest to finish in the big money, I’ll tell you right now, you don’t have a snow-ball’s chance in hell.”

He paused, boots in hand. His expression was carefully polite. “Why, thank you, Rebecca Reed, for your inspirational vote of confidence. You don’t know what it means to me to have your support.”

Rebecca pulled an envelope out of her parka pocket and held it out to him. “Here,” she said. “Take this. If you’re really serious about running the race, you’ll need every cent you can get.”

Mac recognized the envelope and a muscle in his jaw tightened. “That’s your money,” he said.

“You pawned your watch to get it, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. And I’ll pay you the rest of what I owe at the end of February. Keep it, Rebecca,” he said, and his eyes were steely. “I mean it.”

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