Broken Trails

For the first time in days, Lainey felt her mood improving. Was it so easy, receiving the best of both worlds? She and Scotch could be together for a lion’s share of the time, she could continue traveling and following her career, and still spend every other winter in Alaska following the races. Scotch would get a steady income, a break from the constant need to search for donations and sponsors, an opportunity to travel and experience all the things she dreamed of …

This could work.

An official Bureau of Land Management sign brought her back to reality. The Tripod Flats cabin was just ahead, the sign indicating where to pull off the trail. The team was officially thirty-five miles from Kaltag. Old Woman cabin was another fifteen miles further on. Lainey looked at her watch, pleased to note that they had been on the trail for about five hours. At this rate, they would pull in to Unalakleet in eleven hours.

Rather than take the turnoff, she guided the dogs past it and pulled off for a rest break. Even if they were not going to take a full rest break, the dogs needed a little more food than the occasional snack. She did not break out the cookers or release the dogs’ neck lines, not wanting them to get the idea it was time to nap. Instead, she set out their plates and used the prepared food in the cooler. When they got to Unalakleet, they would take another eight hour break and could afford to use the time to cook a fresh meal for them upon arrival.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

AS LAINEY’S MOOD lightened, so did her appetite. While the dogs ate, she scavenged through her snacks to find edibles that did not require heating. The pickings were slim, of course, and she was relegated to pemmican, trail mix and various breakfast breads lathered in butter. She debated firing up a cooker to boil one of her meatloaf meals anyway, but decided against the option. This was not an extended break and the dogs needed to be kept ready to go. If there was going to be a mutiny for whatever reason, it would happen somewhere between here and White Mountain.

Instead, she took a slice of pizza in tin foil, wrapped a couple of activated hand warmers around it, and shoved into her bib pocket under her parka. It formed a hot and icy lump against her chest. Maybe that would thaw it enough to eat. In the meantime, she still had a number of banana and pumpkin breads to choose from.

As she packed away the dogs’ plates, she unearthed the brown paper sack from Galena. The rolls were frozen, but the jar of seal oil was not. Lainey eyed the sluggish liquid speculatively as she tilted the jar. Suzy had told her it had a fishy aftertaste but was good. It was part of the cultural diet of the natives here. Quite possibly, Lainey would find the whole thing revolting. Still, she was never one to back down from a challenge. With a shrug, she unscrewed the jar and took a sip.

Her initial response was to cringe away from it, the texture of a straight shot of oil insulting to her bland American palate, but she forced herself to swallow. It did not taste bad, per se, but she was unfamiliar with the flavor, and that caused a natural level of aversion. Her face screwed up in automatic distaste, but her body responded to its desire for more fat by demanding another sample. Once she was past the split second shock, she found herself drinking deep of the thick fluid and barely managed to stop before draining a good portion of the jar.

Lainey smacked her lips. “That wasn’t half bad,” she said aloud. She glanced at her immediate wheel dogs, Jonah and Aziz, who were content to wag their tails at her. Pleased with herself, she sealed the jar and put it back in her sled. There was definitely a fishy aftertaste, not surprising considering the natural diet of seals. She could almost feel a rush of heat as her body stoked itself on the extra fuel. Had Scotch ever had this stuff? She would have to ask when she saw her next. In any event, she decided she liked the stuff and wondered where if she could get more in Unalakleet.

Darkness was setting in, and she changed batteries in her head lamp and put it on. She sealed her sled bag, and climbed aboard the runners. Pulling the snow hook and putting it away, Lainey said, “All right.”

Most of the dogs stood up in response to her warning. Trace and Sholo shook themselves and pulled the line tight, forcing the few recalcitrants to rise and get to their places. Bonaparte gave her a long, calculating look before taking his position.

Lainey did not push them. There was no hurry now and she did not want any of them to be stubborn about things, especially His Majesty. “Let’s go.”

The team moved forward and she gave a relieved sigh. Scotch had intimated that Bonaparte would eventually bollix things. Lainey was actually surprised he had gone on as long as he had. Barring any unforeseen accidents, she had long ago accepted the fact that he would be one of her dropped dogs. Bonaparte had never run the Iditarod before, though he had lots of mid range race experience. He had been nine days on the trail and was surely beginning to feel the need for more regal treatment to suit his station. Kaara would be heartbroken to continue without him, but she had run without him before and would do so again.

They approached a bridge with no side rails almost immediately after passing the Bureau of Land Management sign. Before Lainey had time to worry about its stability, they were across the deep ditch with little fanfare.

As they continued on through rolling hills, she wondered if she really would have been scared of the bridge had she been well fed and rested. After over a week on the trail, dealing with all sorts of physical challenges, she was a lot more confident in her abilities in both survival and endurance. Either that or her hormones were all out of whack and the proper flight or fight response was buried beneath exhaustion and dehydration. She supposed the proof would be in the pudding after she had a week of pampering. Maybe she would join Strauss’ next bungee jumping excursion to test the theory.

Lainey smirked to herself at the thought. His interest in death defying vacations baffled her. She would never be caught jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

It was getting too dark to see and Lainey turned on her head lamp. Despite her best intentions, she weaved in and out of consciousness, drowsing as she slumped over the sled. She knew she should be alert and ready for any trouble, but she had no energy to draw upon. The dogs kept plodding along while her mind drifted from the trail to split second day dreams of Scotch and back again, with little to show where reality ended and fantasy began.

The team became a road in Australia, heat beating down on them as they drove through the interior hunting for a rare bird. Then she saw the dogs take a turn, and she roused far enough to see the trail marker. Heat on her chest became Scotch’s head, resting after an extensive love making session in a hammock. She remembered the hand warmers and the frozen pizza with sluggish interest, but she was more tired than hungry. Scotch smiled at her in wonder as they followed their guides in the Amazon, sweat slicking her skin and a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Lainey reached in for a kiss and jolted back to reality as she nearly toppled.

Before she could gather herself, a dark shape loomed out of the night and she recoiled with a yell. For an instant she transposed a memory of the jeep in Kosovo as her fire team rode up to an abandoned house - the house where an ambush occurred and she had been shot. Lainey’s ribs twinged in sympathy, and she felt a flash of hot and cold until she realized it was the BLM sign for Old Woman cabin.

“Christ, I need a drink,” she gasped, heart thumping. Lainey removed her face mask in the hopes the icy wind would keep her lucid. “I guess this is what they mean by hallucinations,” she told her dogs.