Broken Trails

Upon awakening, she grabbed her thermos and returned to the community center. Those rolls had been wonderful, and she hoped there were more. At the very least, a thermos of coffee or even warm Tang would taste better than the juice packs and Gatorade she carried. She had tried to get an assortment of flavors in her food drops, but their taste was getting old. Maybe next time she could substitute a couple of other items to drink.

Next time? Where did that come from? Lainey snorted and shook her head, stepping inside the community center.

The faces of the mushers had changed, new ones having come in the afternoon while she slept, others having left. Roman Spencer was there, looking groggy as he spooned stew into his mouth. Lainey was pleased to see him, wandering if he had just arrived and planned to stay long. It looked like she might have evaded him for the rest of the race. She could only hope.

Lainey went to the drying racks and scooped up her things. Most everything was dry, though the boot liners were still slightly damp. Ruefully, she wondered if there would be a place in Kaltag to dry things. That was her next layover. She could really use those liners before reaching Unalakleet. She fumbled for her notebook and checked her food drop inventory for Kaltag. At least she had two pairs of liners in that drop, just in case.

“Lainey?”

She turned to see the woman who had taken her to the cafe, Suzy. “Hey, how are you holding up?” she asked with a grin, putting away her notebook and juggling her belongings.

“Better than you guys are,” Suzy said, indicating the unshaven and exhausted looking mushers peppering the center. “While you were asleep there were a few deliveries for you. I’ve got them right over here.”

Puzzled, Lainey followed her to where the volunteers had set up their office, a row of tables covered in paperwork, radios, and all manner of odds and ends. “Deliveries? I didn’t ask for anything to be delivered here. Other than my food drops, anyway.” She looked at the large chalkboard on the wall, Searching for Scotch’s name. It looked like she would be leaving the Kaltag checkpoint in the next couple of hours. Roman had only just arrived, giving Lainey the potential for another five or six hour lead.

“Well, old Harris spread the word after we left the cafe this morning.” Suzy pulled a large cardboard box out from under a table and hefted it on top.

“Harris?” Lainey lifted the flap of the box and blinked at the contents. A lump swelled in her throat, making swallowing difficult.

“Yeah, the man at the counter. He let some folks know about your need. We’ve had five or six people show up to give you these.”

Lainey pulled a plastic gallon jug of cooking oil from inside the box. There was another one just like it as well as several sticks of butter and margarine of different brands, obviously from someone’s home refrigerator. A large plastic bag held chunks of meaty bones, still mostly frozen - enough for sixteen dogs. In a smaller paper sack, there was a canning jar filled with a thick yellow fluid. “What’s this?”

Suzy whistled. “That’s seal oil. It has a very high fat content. That was probably meant for you rather than the dogs. You can either drink it straight or dip bread or something into it. Ever have it before?”

“No.” Lainey did not know whether to laugh or cry. Unable to make the emotional decision, she smiled as tears stung her eyes.

“Well, if you like fish, you should like this. It’s got a fishy aftertaste, anyway.”

Sniffling, Lainey found cards from a couple of children and seven notes from well-wishers. “Harris, you said?”

“Yep, Harris,” Suzy agreed. She poked through the cards and messages. “Everybody who brought something left a note for you.”

Lainey read each one. The children had drawn crude pictures of a sled and dogs. One even showed her bright yellow sled bag, so the kid had to have seen her while she was napping. The others were scribbled messages of good trails and encouragement to reach the finish line.

She made certain she had the names of the people involved, asking Suzy to translate those signatures she could not read. Though it took time, Lainey would not leave until she had written thank you notes to everyone involved, including Harris and the waitress at the cafe. When she finished, she gave them to Suzy who promised to deliver them.

Before Lainey could leave, Suzy pulled her over to the buffet table, and insisted she grab a snack to take with her. She chuckled as the volunteer buttered four rolls and wrapped them in tin foil for the trail.

Still a bit weepy, Lainey took the box - now piled with donations, rolls, and her dry gear - out to her sled. It was a little after three in the afternoon and the sky was darkening. Her six hour break would be finished soon. Still, she stopped and gazed at the village around her, memorizing its appearance. She even dug out her camera and took a few photos, more for her than any magazine article. What an amazing group of people here in Galena, Alaska.

She put away her camera and forced herself back to the business of dog sledding. Firing up the cookers, she moved down the line to rouse her dogs. The lump was still in her throat, but she forced it down.

Whatever could she do to repay the village of Galena?

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

LAINEY SPENT THE night on the trail, stopping at the Nulato checkpoint only long enough to snack her dogs. She pulled into Kaltag a little after three in the morning and took a much needed break. The dogs enjoyed their bones, gnawing and cracking them before they fell asleep.

Her notes indicated that the next stretch of trail to Unalakleet had the potential for problems. A straight shot through was not unheard of, though, despite the fact that it was ninety miles away. As she woke her dogs from their mandatory eight hour break, she gauged their strengths and weaknesses for a possible twelve hour run. All of them were eating well; they had been fortunate enough not to pick up some of the illnesses floating through the race. It was inevitable for dogs to get ill, what with hundreds of them on the trail. It only took one with a cold or canine version of the flu to infect a dozen others who parked in the same areas on the route. Her team still ate heartily, especially now that she had the extra fat to include in their diet, and they appeared no worse for wear.

Physically, they still pulled with abandon, though even her monster wheel dog, Jonah, had curbed his overbearing enthusiasm. He remained eager to get on the trail after every stop, but his boundless energy had mellowed with the many miles under his paws. None of them appeared to be straining anything. The veterinarians gave them good marks at every checkpoint. In fact, Lainey was one of the few mushers with fourteen dogs. Most had dropped to thirteen, some as few as nine by this point. Even Scotch was down to thirteen dogs according to the ratings, and she was renowned for taking excellent care of her team.

If anyone on the team was fading, it was Lainey. She was the weak link. Her emotions were all over the place, and the easy trails left her plenty of room to moan and grumble over everything from the idea of scratching to avoiding the complications of her feelings for Scotch by taking the first plane out of Nome. The desire for a drink had gotten stronger, her perpetual thermos of coffee and many juice packs not filling the need. She had not quite started hallucinating, but she knew from other mushers that sleep deprivation and not taking care of her health could cause her to see things that were not there. Snorting, she packed her sled bag. Maybe she would see pink elephants; she never had when she was a drunk so at least the possibilities were entertaining.