Across A Thousand Miles

Mac sighed. Taking care of forty dogs must be a hell of a lot of work for a woman! Caring for his brother’s dogs turned him inside out, and getting away from them for just one day was more of a vacation than a three-week holiday used to be. How on earth did she manage all by herself?

“Hey, mister.” A man leaned on the bar beside him, olive-drab wool cap with the ear flaps turned up, windburned complexion, black eyes, red-and-black-plaid flannel shirt, green wool pants with bright orange suspenders. “Barkeep tells me you play a mean game of pool and you’re looking for some action.”

Mac finished his beer and straightened. “Well, I don’t know how mean it is, but it’s pretty good, I guess.”

“Good enough to place a bet on?”

“Maybe.” Mac followed the woodsman to the pool table, thinking smugly, Ha! Easy money!

Six hours later he opened his eyes and stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling. For a moment he couldn’t remember where he was or why he felt so awful. Pool… He’d played pool with a guy named Joe Redshirt, and Joe played a pretty mean game of pool himself. Whiskey. Joe had bought him several shots over the course of the evening. One of the last coherent memories Mac had was of an easy rail shot he’d pooched, and Joe’s deadpan voice drawling, “Don’t worry, son, I couldn’t make those shots when I was young, either.”

Mac closed his eyes, moaned, then opened them again, realization flooding through him. “Dammit!” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, not overly surprised to find himself fully clothed. He held on to the nightstand for a moment until his legs steadied beneath him, then staggered to the chair. His fingers dug into the frayed pockets of his parka with frantic movements, and he knew a moment of wild relief when he drew forth the carefully folded envelope that held the dog-food money. He spilled the bills out onto the coverlet and counted them. Sweat beaded his brow. He counted again, as if more might appear the second time around then sank onto the edge of the bed. By nature he was neither a gambler nor a heavy drinker, but betting on a game of pool had seemed like such an easy way to win money to help pay both the vet and the hotel charges, and Joe Redshirt had kept handing him those shots of whiskey…

…and somehow Mac had gambled away half his dog-food money.

One hot shower and thirty minutes later, he was standing in the vet’s office counting those same bills again. Then he pushed all but sixty dollars toward the receptionist. She counted it primly before writing him out a receipt. “I’ll get Callie for you now,” she said, and disappeared into the back room. Mac stared at the remaining bills in his hand with a feeling of doom. “Oh, God,” he said to the empty room. “I’m flat broke.”

When he finally got Callie comfortably ensconced in the passenger seat of his old truck, he was stunned to realize that it was nearly 10 a.m. He had an early-morning appointment to pick up nearly a ton of dog food from a beautiful widow named Rebecca Reed, who lived about an hour outside of Dawson…and who didn’t sell dog food on credit.

“Oh, God,” he said again, putting the truck in gear and heading down the Klondike Highway. “I’m a dead man.”

“YOU’RE LATE! Rebecca said, hands on her hips. I could have trained three teams of dogs in the amount of time I’ve spent waiting around for you.”

A stiff wind bent the tops of the spruce, and the overcast sky gave off an ominous thundering. “I’m sorry,” Mac said. He stood at the foot of the porch steps looking about as apologetic as she’d ever seen a man look. Those broad military shoulders were hunched, and his hands were shoved deep into his parka pockets. His tawny hair was tousled, though clean and freshly trimmed, and he had obviously shaved, revealing more clearly the strong, masculine planes of cheekbone and chin, but his eyes mirrored his abject guilt.

“Well, I’m not going to help you load the dog food. That’s your job. Back your truck up to that door on the end of the dog barn. Your food is on pallets stacked to the right of the door. Forty bags, though I seriously doubt your truck will take the load.”

He nodded again, looked over his shoulder at the old rusted truck, then dropped his gaze to the toes of his worn-out pack boots. He stood silently at the foot of the cabin steps until Rebecca felt a knot forming in the pit of her stomach.

“What is it?” she said.

He sighed and dug his hands deeper into his parka pockets. He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. A snowflake fluttered down from the leaden sky and brushed over his shoulder unseen. “Well, the thing is, I’m a little short of cash,” he said in a low voice, speaking to the ground at his feet. “The vet bill turned out to be higher than I expected. You see, Callie ate this big rock…” He raised his eyes and pulled one hand out of his pocket, fingers unfolding to reveal the smooth egg-shaped stone cradled within.

Rebecca stared at the rock and crossed her arms in front of her. The wind was cold, but a curious feeling warmed her blood. “I see. Yes, that certainly is a big rock. So. You spent all your money on what had to be the most expensive surgery ever performed in the Yukon, and I suppose now you want me to extend credit to you?”

Mac shook his head. “I have enough left to buy a couple of bags. I can come up with more money. I’ll sell some stuff up at the cabin. A couple of bags will hold me over till I can hock my watch. I have a good one. A Rolex.” He bared his wrist to display the watch, but Rebecca was unimpressed. Another snowflake whirled through the air, a tiny dance of white, a promise of winter. He watched it land and disappear, then raised his eyes to hers. “I’m not asking to buy on credit. I’ll get the money. Callie’s okay, and right at this moment that’s all that matters.”

Rebecca’s arms tightened against herself. Bruce would have done the same. He would have sold his soul to the devil to save one of his dogs. And truth be known, so would she. “Take the food,” she said shortly, “and pay me when you can. Your brother, Brian, did very well with his trapline. I expect you’ll be able to make good on this loan in a month or so. I can’t abide the thought of those good dogs of Brian’s going hungry, and they can’t live on chum salmon…and egg-size rocks.”

Mac stared at her until she felt the cold knot in the pit of her stomach return with a vengeance. “What is it now?” she demanded.

“Trapping.” His eyes pleaded with her to understand, and the flush across his cheekbones deepened. Rebecca waited, grim-faced, for him to continue. “I tried trapping. I set the traps like Brian showed me. For a while there was nothing, and then I caught a fox,” he said. “When I came to check the trap, the fox was… It had…” He half turned away from her and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. His shoulders rose and fell around a silent sigh. “I let the fox go. It just didn’t seem right.”

Rebecca looked at him for a moment and then turned her back abruptly, raised her hands to her mouth and coughed behind them to hide her smile.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do to earn the money, but something’s bound to come up.”

She turned around, her face composed, and nodded curtly. “I’m sure you’re good for it. Load the dog food. You have a long trip ahead of you, and it’s starting to snow.”

She watched him back the old truck up to the barn door and let her hand drop to rest on the head of the dog who was forever by her side. “He can’t trap wild animals, Tuffy,” she said softly, a bemused smile curving the corners of her mouth. “Who can figure the heart of a man?”

IT TOOK MACKENZIE a good thirty minutes to load the bags. Rebecca spent the time mixing her own batch of dog food for the evening feeding. The cabin was warm, and she lit an oil lamp against the early twilight. The hardest part of living in the north was the lack of daylight in winter months. It wasn’t so bad now, but come December the nights would be endless, and sunlight all but a precious memory. She gave the stew pot a stir and poked the pan of sourdough bread rising on the warming shelf, shifting it to a cooler spot. A light tap on the door drew her back onto the cabin porch. MacKenzie stood humbly before her. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be off now.”

“Good,” she said.

He nodded. “I’ll pay you within the month.”

“I’m sure you will.”

She couldn’t keep the edge of sarcasm from her voice. He nodded again and turned away, walked down the three steps and crossed the yard to where his truck was parked. He paused before climbing into the cab. “Need any mechanical work done on your truck?” he asked hopefully.

“Nope.”

“Two weeks,” he said. “I’ll have the money in two weeks!”

She didn’t reply, and he climbed into the cab and slammed the door. The truck started right up, but he had to work to get it into first gear. He pulled ahead with a lurch that stalled it. He started it again, waved his arm out the side window when the engine finally caught and slowly rumbled out of the yard, the old truck’s springs sagging under the heavy load. As he drove cautiously down the long rutted track that led to the main road, it began to snow in earnest, the flakes whirling past on a strong westerly wind. By morning there would be a foot or more. Winter came all at once in the north country and stayed for a very long time.

She stepped inside to fill the buckets with dog food, hurrying now to beat the darkness and the storm. The dogs howled with delight as she reemerged bearing their supper, which she ladled into the feed pans attached to the sides of their houses. “We’ll run tomorrow, Thor,” she promised the black lead dog, another of her husband’s favorites. “Maybe even with the sled.” She’d been training the dog teams with a four-wheeler since the weather had cooled in August, letting twelve dogs pull the ATV down miles of dirt roads, and while rig training was important, she couldn’t wait to get back onto the sled. Nothing compared to a fast run behind a good team of well-trained dogs. Rebecca had come to love the dogs and the lifestyle they represented. She had come to love this little place on the edge of the wilderness, the timeless cycle of the seasons, the ebb and flow of life, and the hard, harsh laws of the wild. If not for the aching loneliness that had hollowed her heart since losing Bruce, she would be quite content here.

“Okay, Quinn, I’m coming with the chow. Hold your horses!” She dished out the food quickly, moving amongst the whirl and dance of the excited animals with practiced ease, speaking each dog’s name as she fed it. Finally she dropped the scoop back into one of the empty buckets with a weary sigh. “Done and done.” The snow was already turning the ground white, and strong gusts of wind lifted it up in streamers. “Wild night ahead.”

She wondered how MacKenzie was making out on his long drive home, and no sooner did this unbidden thought enter her mind than the dogs erupted into a frenzy of barking, all eyes focused on the dirt track that led to the main road. She followed their gaze and after a few moments picked out the dark shape of a man moving through the thick veil of wind-driven snow. “It can’t be!” she said.

But it was. MacKenzie trudged into her yard and veered in her direction. His hair was plastered with snow. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said over the roar of the wind. “My truck broke a U-joint about half a mile from here, just shy of the main road.”

Clutching both empty buckets in one mittened hand, she stared at him. “I guess it was too heavy a load,” she couldn’t resist saying.

“I guess,” he said.

“You got into that soft spot, didn’t you?” she said. He nodded. “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

“I was wondering if I could borrow your phone.”

“You’re assuming I have one. Who do you plan to call?”

“God,” he said.

“I don’t have that kind of a phone. Mine is a limited-signal radio phone, and the best you can do with it is to call over to Sam and Ellin Dodge’s place. They have a ham radio and can call into Dawson for a wrecker, but nobody will come out tonight with a storm brewing. And even if someone does, a wrecker won’t get you home with a load of dog food for a pack of hungry dogs.”

“No, ma’am, probably not.”

“And if you don’t get home tonight, who’s going to feed your dogs?”

“Fred Turner. He’s staying at my place till I get back.”

“Fred Turner?” Rebecca glared at Mac. “Fred Turner’s about as dependable as one might expect an alcoholic amnesiac to be. If you left any liquor in your cabin, he’s drunk it all by now. Lord only knows what shape your dogs’ll be in when you get back.”

“I can fix that U-joint in jig time. All I need is the right part. I noticed you had an old, broken-down Ford parked behind the dog yard…”

“That old, broken-down Ford is my snowplow, mister, and you aren’t laying a hand on it! Sam Dodge has some junkers over at his place. He may have the part you need. Like I said, you can use my phone to call him, though you won’t be able to do much in the pitch-dark.”

“I have a headlamp in my truck,” Mac said. “Hell, I could work blind if I had to. I’m a fair enough mechanic. How far away do these folks live?”

“Sam and Ellin? Not far. Five miles down the trail, east of here.”

“Which trail?”

“That one.” Rebecca raised her free hand and pointed. “If you hurry you could get there and back in my four-wheeler before the snow gets too deep, but we’d better call ahead first.”

“I appreciate this,” Mac said, following her into the warmth of the cabin. He stopped inside the door and looked around while she hooked the radio phone to the twelve-volt battery. She noticed him staring at Bruce’s clothing on the wall pegs near the door and the pair of man-size Bunny boots behind the wood cookstove. “You have a real nice place here,” he offered. She said nothing, dialing Sam and Ellin’s number by heart and hoping that they had their phone turned on.

They did. Ellin answered on the second ring. Her voice was always warm and welcome to Rebecca’s ears. “’Becca! Sweetheart, how are you? I hope you’re all ready for winter, my dear, because its here!”

Rebecca quickly filled Ellin in, and within moments Sam was speaking directly to Mac about parts and pieces and tools and time. Finally, Mac handed her the phone and grinned. “All set!” he said. “They have the part I need. All I have to do is pull it, bring it back here, and fix my truck. Callie should be all right in the meantime.”

“I could drive you over,” she offered, albeit grudgingly. She had chores to finish, a column to write and a deadline to meet.

“No need, if I can borrow your four-wheeler.”

Relieved, she led him back out into the brumal blast, zipping her parka against the cold. It was rapidly growing dark. The four-wheeler was parked inside the barn, and she swung the door wide and held it open against the force of the wind while he started up the vehicle and drove it out. Once again she pointed at the mouth of the trail that led directly from her yard into the thick spruce forest. “Just follow that trail. You can’t possibly get lost. It takes you right into Sam and Ellin’s yard. Don’t worry about Callie. I’ll bring her into the cabin and keep an eye on her.”

“Thanks,” he said, visibly relieved. He shifted into first gear, and was swallowed up instantly by the darkness and the storm.

CHAPTER TWO

THE WIND MADE a noise in the eaves that sounded like a dying man’s moan, and Rebecca fed more sticks into the stove to thwart the deepening cold that worked its way through tiny cracks between the cabin logs and radiated up from the floorboards. It was nearing midnight, and still no sign of Bill MacKenzie. The storm had intensified, and more than eighteen inches already covered the frozen ground in some areas. Rebecca poured herself another cup of tea, her fifth of the night. Maybe it was time to get out of the dog-food business. The markup was so small, just fifty cents a bag. For the privilege of selling Bill MacKenzie forty bags, she had earned the tidy sum of twenty dollars, not even enough for one bag of food for her own huskies. And that was assuming he ever paid her.

It simply wasn’t worth the aggravation.

And where was he, anyway? He had her four-wheeler, a Honda that Bruce had spent a small fortune on four years ago. If he hurt that machine… “Okay,” she said to Tuffy. “He left here around four o’clock. It’s five miles to Sam and Ellin’s. He has to go out back and remove the parts he needs from the junkers Sam collects and that’s going to take some time. One, two, three hours? Even if Ellin feeds him—and she surely will— he should have been back at least three hours ago. The snow is too deep now for the four-wheeler, which means he’s stuck out there somewhere and freezing to death.”

Rebecca paced the small confines of the kitchen with mug of tea in hand. Tuffy raised her head and watched intently. “I can’t call Ellin,” Rebecca told the dog. “I thought he’d be back by nine so I didn’t phone before and now it’s too late, Sam goes to bed early and if I bother them now…” She took a sip of tea. “I have to! If he’s lost out there we’ll have to find him. It’s ten degrees standing temperature, but way below zero with the wind chill.”

She set her mug down with a thump on the kitchen table and plugged the radio phone into the battery. “Ellin? Ellin, it’s Rebecca! Where on earth is Bill MacKenzie!”

Ellin’s voice was drowsy with sleep. “Why, he’s right here! He’s spending the night. It was late and the weather was far too nasty for him to head back after he and Sam had gotten the parts, so we made him bed down in the boys’ bedroom.” Ellin’s voice lowered to a naughty whisper. “My dear girl, wherever did you find him! He’s a treasure!”

“Ellin, for your information I did not find him! He bought a load of dog food from me, and his truck just happened to break down on my road! Do you mean to say that all this time he’s been sleeping?”

“Like a baby. We tried to call, but as usual your phone was unplugged. Don’t be mad, my dear. I must tell you that we’ve enjoyed his company immensely. He even helped Sam fix that old Bombardier of ours, he’s that good a mechanic! I must say, you’ve got yourself quite a man there, Rebecca.”

“Ellin, he’s not my man! I’m sorry to have woken you but I thought… I just didn’t know…” She glanced at Callie, who was curled on a blanket behind the stove, sound asleep. “I mean, it’s a bad storm and he—”

“You were worried. I understand completely.” Ellin’s grandmotherly voice soothed and reassured. “But worry no more, my dear. We’re taking good care of him and we’ll get him back to you safely first thing in the morning. Now go to bed and get some sleep.”

Rebecca couldn’t be angry with Ellin, and as she climbed the steep stairs to the cabin’s sleeping loft, she surprised herself by laughing for the second time that day.

BY MORNING the storm had blown itself out, and at 8 a.m. Sam and Ellin arrived, riding double on the wide-track Bombardier snowmobile and towing a sled. Bill MacKenzie was driving Rebecca’s Honda behind them. Rebecca had finished watering and feeding the dogs, and she invited the elderly couple into the cabin for a cup of coffee. Mac came inside briefly to check on Callie and then went out to rummage in the sled behind the Bombardier. She could see several mysterious tools protruding from the canvas wrappings he pulled out.

“Mac’s a darn good mechanic,” Sam said, as he settled himself into a chair at the kitchen table. Sam was in his seventies, lean and trim and bursting with the health and vitality of a man who had lived most of his life in the outdoors. Ellin’s hair was as white as her husband’s, and she was also in shape. They had lived in the Yukon all of their lives, had raised four boys in their cabin, home-schooling them with such success that all four had gone on to successful careers.

“He’s Brian’s older brother, and I remember Brian telling us he was in the military. I don’t recall which branch,” Rebecca said, pouring the coffee. “He’s taking care of Brian’s team for the winter.”

“Well, he certainly knows his stuff. He knows airplanes, too,” Sam said. “You should’ve seen his eyes light up when he saw my old Stearman! Said he’d help me get her back in the air this spring if I wanted. I guess I wouldn’t mind having some help.”

“I’ve never known you to refuse help,” Ellin said to her husband. “Now,” she turned to Rebecca. “Let me give you a bit of advice—”

“Ellin, before you start, let me just say this,” Rebecca interrupted firmly. “I’m not the least bit interested in Bill MacKenzie. I hardly know him.”

Ellin sat up straighter. “It’s been a long time since—”

“I wouldn’t go there if I were you, Ellin,” Sam advised his wife. “Rebecca knows her own mind.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Rebecca said.

“She can’t spend the rest of her life grieving.”

“When it’s time to move on, she’ll know it,” Sam replied.

“I doubt it. Rebecca’s one of the stubbornnest people I know,” Ellin said.

“Now, just a minute!” Rebecca nudged the sugar bowl in Sam’s direction. “I wouldn’t call myself—”

“Well, you are, my dear, and you might as well admit it. Trying to make a go of it alone here, running Bruce’s business—”

“My business now, Ellin, and I’m doing just fine with it. Better than Bruce did, if the truth be known.”

“It’s too much! You need help. Especially with the dogs and the tour business. What if you were out on a training run with a team of dogs and something went wrong? What if you never made it back home? Who would know you were missing? Who would know to come looking for you?” Ellin leaned over the table, her blue eyes earnest. “My dear girl, the lowest possible denominator in this part of the world is two. You simply can’t go it alone!”

Rebecca sighed and lifted her coffee cup. “Ellin, just what are you getting at? You want me to marry this man? This stranger?”

“He’s not a stranger. He’s Brian’s brother!”

“This conversation is getting a little too weird for me,” Sam said, pushing out of his chair. “I think I’ll go see if I can give Mac a hand.”

“Yes, you do that,” Ellin said, waving him away as if he were an annoying fly and turning her attention to Rebecca. “Not marriage, my dear. At least, not until you know each other a little better.”

“Thank you for that much, at least,” Rebecca said.

“I think you should hire him.”

“What?”

“Think about it. He owes you money. He told us the story about the dog food and also that he couldn’t pay Sam for the truck parts. So to work off the parts, he’s going to help Sam with some odd jobs. Maybe he could work off what he owes you for the dog food. You need a man’s help around here. He could get in your firewood, help with the tours, pick up the food in Whitehorse, help take care of the dogs—”

“No!” Rebecca said.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Where will he live? He can’t stay in your guest cabin because most of the time it’ll be occupied with paying clients. Well, don’t you worry, I’ve thought it all out. He can stay with us. We have that log cabin the boys built. It needs some fixing here and there, but he’s perfectly capable of making it livable, and it has a good roof. He can move the junk that’s stored there into the hangar, and in his spare time he can help Sam with mechanical things, like keeping the snow machines up and running, and working on that old wreck of an airplane.” Ellin sat back in her chair with a self-satisfied smile. “Don’t you see how perfectly that would work out for all of us?”

“No!” Rebecca repeated. “No, I don’t. If you want to hire him, Ellin, you go right ahead. Be my guest!” She nodded to give her words emphasis. “But I want no part of it.”

SAM FOUND Bill MacKenzie wedged beneath the rear axle of his old truck, his booted feet sticking out into the snow. “Well,” Sam said, hunkering down on his heels and peering beneath the truck’s frame. “How does she look?”

“She looks like a broken U-joint to me,” came the muffled reply. “As a matter of fact, she looks just as broke today as she looked yesterday.”