Broken Trails

“What was?”

“You and her. You’ve always loved Scotch best.”

Lainey burst into giggles. “Yeah, you’ve got that right.”

“On the rocks.”

“I suppose I had to come to Alaska to get the right ice for her.”

Strauss joined her laughter.

After a nap, Lainey felt more refreshed than she had in days. She was certain it had everything to do with her phone conversation and crying jag. Refusing to be embarrassed by her outburst, she used the kitchen microwave to warm up a meal of chicken dumplings. As a special treat, she had brought in two pieces of apple strudel that had thawed while she slept.

Six more mushers had arrived while she was out of it, but all of them were an hour or more behind her check in time. The predominant discussion around the table was the weather on Topkok. As she ate, she learned that this was the most treacherous section of the race, surpassing even the Dalzell Gorge in its dangers. Lainey did not know if it was an indication of her exhaustion or her newfound confidence, but she felt no fear at the scare stories being passed around the room. Nothing was going to stand between her and Scotch for long. She had a woman to kiss senseless at the other end of this race and meant to get there to do so.

“You’re out of here soon, right?” a woman asked, her plain face rugged with windburn.

“Yeah,” Lainey said. “In less than two hours.” She pried open the tin foil encasing her strudel.

“Bad time to be out there. Night time’s never good on the mountain. You can’t see what you’re heading into,” an older man said, fingering his gray beard.

Lainey grinned and stood up. She poured herself a cup of coffee from a pot on the stove. “Think I should wait until a couple of hours before dawn?” she asked. That was the preferred time to depart White Mountain. If the wind were going to die down, it would be after dawn, making a musher’s arrival at Topkok a lot easier.

The man’s expression became sly, and a couple of others smiled at her. “Would you do it if I said yes?”

“Nope.” She sipped the strong brew and nibbled her dessert.

They laughed as Lainey finished eating and dumped her trash. She found her mukluks and slipped them on.

Before she left the kitchen, one of the rookies tailing her said, “Good luck.”

“Good luck to you, too.”

“I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

The others guffawed at his boast, Lainey included. “No offense, but I hope not.” She waved farewell to the others and left to collect her belongings.

Strauss met her at the door, his hair rumpled from a nap. “Wind isn’t picking up any, but it’s still going to be a bitch,” he informed her. “Remember what Scotch said about visibility.”

“I remember, Dad,” Lainey said. She stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll probably be in Nome before you are.”

“No doubt,” he said, smiling. “And you’ll be very busy until the awards banquet.”

“Very busy,” she assured him with a wink.

“Kick butt, Hughes,” he said.

“You know I will, Strauss.”

When she arrived at her sled, she was pleased to see her dogs rouse themselves. “Hi, guys! You ready to hit the finish line?”

Lainey worked her way up the line, talking to her team as she removed dog blankets and checked them over. Then she dished up dinner for them. While they ate, she cooked another batch. Granted, chances were good that she would be in Nome for their breakfast, but if Topkok was as bad as what everyone said, it would behoove her to have an extra meal or two stocked away for emergencies.

Some mushers went through their sleds and dropped as much as possible at this point. Scotch’s notes did not mention doing this until the Safety checkpoint. If something did happen on the next stretch of trail, Lainey would rather go slow and have the gear necessary for survival. This was the point where even hardened veterans had come close to losing dogs, life and limb. As a rookie, Lainey knew to be extra cautious.

What little gear she could afford to lose was set aside for shipment to the kennel. This included extra socks, work gloves, boot liners, her mid weight long underwear, left over lithium batteries for the head lamp, extra dog booties and wrist wraps. She almost put the .44 revolver into the pouch but was uncertain whether it could be legally mailed. With a sigh, she eyed the ugly thing and put it back into her bag.

Lainey checked her watch. She still had half an hour to go. Again she walked down the line, picking up dog plates. Then she donned hand warmers and latex gloves. Each dog received a thorough paw massage and ointment application, and had their booties put on. Bonaparte licked her face again, and she laughed at him. He did not quite act like a puppy, but his regal manner hovered on the edge of a desire to frisk.

“Who are you and what have you done with Bonaparte?” she asked him.

He yipped and wagged his tail, causing her mouth to drop open.

“This is a day for miracles, that’s for sure,” she said, hugging him. “You’ve been hanging out too much with Chibee.”

Her youngster, Chibee, whined in pleasure at hearing his name.

Lainey finished her task in amusement, finally packing everything into the sled.

“Ready?”

Trace and Montana hopped into position, the others following their lead.

“Let’s go.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

IT WAS NOT too windy in the parking area. Once around the bend of the Fish River, however, it blew harder and Lainey hunkered over her sled in determination. Her recent experience dealt with worse than this, but she also knew she was nowhere near the ultimate trouble spots on this leg.

They followed the river for a short bit before turning onto land and heading southwest. Here the ground was barren, the landscape dotted with scrub brush, and trail markers few and far between. As her leaders followed the obvious path ahead of them, the sled jerked and shuddered from the wind. It felt similar to driving a small car while speeding eighteen wheelers passed on the highway. Lainey knew Sholo would have never left White Mountain had he remained with the team this long. As much as she regretted dropping him, she was glad she had Montana in the lead now. He seemed to take the weather into stride, slightly turned away from the oncoming wind but never faltering.

Their forward motion no longer a concern, Lainey worried about the sparse trail markers. She located maybe one reflective indicator every mile or so. Was the wind so strong it knocked down the sturdy tripods the trail breakers used? As the dogs plodded on, she saw a flash from the ground downwind of her. There lay a marker, barely visible through a minor ground blizzard, collapsed in the snow beside the trail. A gust shook her sled and she saw the depressed area where someone had fallen against the tripod and into the snow, knocking it down. No wonder markers were missing. She had half a mind to put them back up, but doubted their stability. Besides, stopping for each marker would invariably slow her down to worse than a crawl and give her competition plenty of time to catch up.

The barren landscape faded into a tree line as they approached a creek valley. Open water gurgled in several places up and down stream with an ice bridge spanning one section. Her dogs took her across the ice, standing water spraying to either side of the sled runners. Lainey winced, knowing her next stop would be to change wet booties.

They cut into a river valley that was less windy, and her team made decent time as they trotted along. The Klokerblok River was completely iced over with some overflow. There were two trails here, one on the river with the official markers and another, private trail along the right bank. Lainey figured that was the one the locals used when the river was unfrozen. In any case, both trails eventually converged, the overland trail dropping down to cross the river, and turned left onto the river bank.