Across A Thousand Miles

CHAPTER THREE

REBECCA WAS STILL SMILING three hours later, twenty miles down the trail. The dogs were trotting smoothly, moving through the fresh snow as if it wasn’t there. She had put Cookie and Raven up in lead, two young females with loads of drive and intelligence, and they were doing a great job. The sky was a deep vault of blue, the sunlight bright, the air very still and very cold. Her eight-dog team was covering ten miles an hour, not bad at all on an unbroken trail and pulling about a hundred pounds of weight in the toboggan sled.

“Raven! Gee!” The main trail intersected with a cutoff that would loop around and take them home. Raven pulled to the right as ordered, taking Cookie and the rest of the dogs with her. “Good girl, Raven! Good girl.”

Common sense? Hah! The man was hopeless. He would most certainly die out there in that trapper’s shack on the Flat this winter. He would starve to death trying to feed his dogs. He would freeze to death trying to keep a fire in the woodstove. Common sense, indeed! What on earth possessed him to think he could come into this wild land and survive?

And now she was stuck with taking care of him and his dog team, all of which made her wonder just how much common sense she, herself, had. She laughed aloud, the noise startling her dogs and causing them to break their gait and glance back at her. “It’s okay, gang. Good dogs. All right.” They faced front again and their tug lines tightened as they forged ahead. She could still picture Mac sitting on the bunk with that old wool army blanket pulled around him, his broad shoulders bared to the chill of the room. She hated to admit it, but Sadie Hedda had been right. William MacKenzie was one long, tall, handsome man—even if he didn’t have one shred of common sense. He had something else, though, something she couldn’t quite fathom….

Rebecca shifted her weight on the sled runners, bent her knees and bobbed up and down to warm up the backs of her calves. Her toes were cold even in her heavy boots. This was nothing new. Her toes and fingers were always cold from October until May. It came with the Territory.

“Okay, you huskies, pick it up!” Cookie and Raven broke into a lope at her words, and moments later they were heading home. The trip back would be quicker on the broken trail, and she’d have time to run one more team before she had to start evening chores. The other dogs in the yard heralded her arrival, and Rebecca was surprised to see her red plow truck parked in front of the main cabin. As she looped her snub line around the hitching post, securing the team, Sam stepped out onto the porch. At the same moment, Ellin emerged from the guest cabin. Ellin’s face was radiant as she strode across the dog yard.

“Rebecca,” she said as she approached. “We’re taking Mac over to our place. Sam’s rigged a sled behind the Bombardier for Mac to lie in so it’ll be an easy trip for him. He can stay in the boys’ room for now and move into the cabin when he’s ready.”

Rebecca unsnapped the dogs’ tug lines and began stripping the polar fleece booties from their feet. “Ellin, you and Sam have enough to do without taking care of an invalid.” She reached for the stack of galvanized feed pans and dropped one into the snow in front of each dog, then opened the prepacked cooler to give each some broth thick with chunks of liver.

“He won’t be an invalid for long, Becca. Sam could use some help around the place, and the way I see it, God has provided it in the form of this nice young man.”

Rebecca straightened, one mittened hand pressing into the small of her back. She looked at Ellin and sighed. “You do have a way of looking at things.”

“He’s going to be a big help to Sam. If he can do all the things Sam thinks he can, Bill MacKenzie will be worth his weight in gold. After all, he did fix the Bombardier, and that thing hasn’t run since the turn of the last century.”

“He’s a big man, Ellin,” Rebecca cautioned. “Probably eats a lot.”

“I cook a lot. Can’t get out of the habit after raising four boys. There’ll be plenty to eat. And Sam has fixed up one whole end of the hangar for the dogs.”

“You’re taking his dogs, too?”

“Of course! It’ll be fun having a dog team around the place again. I miss them.”

“Take some of mine!”

“Becky, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is too much for you. You can’t go it alone.”

Rebecca bent to pick up the empty feed pans. “I have another team to run, Ellin.”

“Yes, I know,” Ellin said curtly. “And another team after that, and then there are the chores to do. The wood to split, the water to lug, the dogs to feed.” She sighed. “Well, my dear, I’ve had my say and as always, it’s fallen on deaf ears. I really think all mushers have dog biscuits for brains!”

“I love you, Ellin Dodge, and I always will,” Rebecca said, arms full of feed pans. “But I have to do things my way.”

Thirty minutes later she was out on the trail again with another eight-dog team and Ellin’s words echoing in her ears. Her neighbor was right. It was too much. There were days when Rebecca felt like giving up, days when everything piled up in front of her like an unscalable mountain, days when she was so lonely and exhausted that she would drop her head into her hands and weep like a baby. Those were the bad days, and while not all of her days were bad, they were all long and lonely and hard, and they were making her hard in ways she didn’t like.

Bringing coffee and breakfast to Mac this morning was the first time she’d felt like a woman since Bruce’s death. There was no denying that the simple act of handing Mac a cup of coffee had made her feel good inside. And the way he’d looked at her had made her feel… He had made her feel… Oh, for Pete’s sake!

“Twister! Get up, you lazy beast!” she chastised a young wheel dog, whose job was to run directly in front of the sled. “I’ll feed you to the wolves if you don’t pull your weight!”

Ellin was right about Sam. He did need help. Sam and Ellin’s boys had all become very successful, but none of them had wanted to remain in the Yukon. Sam had given up the mail route he used to fly two years ago. He probably shouldn’t be flying at all, but she’d like to see anyone try to keep that old man out of the sky. And then he’d gone and bought that old wreck of a Stearman with the dream of restoring it to its former glory. Rebecca shook her head. It was true about men. They never grew up. They were just boys grown tall.

“Come on, Minnow, you can do it. Good girl!”

Well, anyhow, she was rid of Bill MacKenzie. He’d be gone when she got back and she could spruce up the guest cabin and get it ready for her first clients, who would be arriving in a few weeks—and none too soon. She desperately needed the money the dogsled tour would generate.

Three hundred yards from the cabin she stopped the team, snubbed the sled to a nearby spruce and loaded the toboggan bed with six armloads of the firewood that had been cut to length and stacked beside the trail. She used dog power to pull the load to the cabin and had barely finished watering, snacking and unharnessing the dogs when a familiar truck bounced into the yard. The cab door opened and Sadie Hedda jumped down, waved, then grabbed her parka and shrugged into it as she crossed toward the guest cabin, one hand clutching her medical bag.

“He’s gone, Sadie,” Rebecca called, tossing the wood from the sled onto the cabin porch.

Sadie turned to stare at Rebecca. “Gone? Gone where? My Lord, Becky, the man was seriously injured, and he was in no shape to be going anywhere! I know you didn’t want him here, but surely you didn’t drive him off!” She was walking rapidly toward Rebecca as she spoke.

“No, Sadie, I didn’t. Ellin and Sam have adopted him. If you want to do a follow-up exam, you’ll find him there.”

Sadie was visibly relieved. “Rebecca,” she said. “I know it’s none of my business, but where did you find that guy?”

“I didn’t find him! He came here to buy dog food.” Rebecca continued to unload the firewood. “He’s Brian MacKenzie’s older brother and he’s taking care of Brian’s dogs for the winter while Brian finishes his degree at the university. He says he’s going to race the team and expects to do very well. He thinks there’s nothing to mushing, that it’s easy as beans and anyone can do it. And, oh, by the way, he’s also planning to win the Percy DeWolf.”

Sadie grinned. “Where’s he from?”

“Dunno. But he was in the military. Some kind of mechanic, I think.”

“Mechanic,” Sadie said, eyes narrowing appreciatively. “Mechanics can come in awfully handy around here.”

“Yes. I’ll be glad when he fixes his truck and gets it out of my driveway.”

Sadie shoved her hands in her parka pockets and frowned at Rebecca. “I know he owes you money, but is that the only reason you dislike him so? I mean, you have to admit that he’s the best-looking thing to step into the Territory in a dog’s age. Does he smoke?”

“Nope. At least, I don’t think he does.”

“Good! I like the idea of a Marlboro man without the cigarettes. By the way, if you’re throwing him back, throw him in my direction, would you?”

“He’s a free man,” Rebecca said as she threw the last log onto the porch. “But, Sadie, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to stop by Sam and Ellin’s. Your patient looked kind of off-color to me this morning. I think he might be running a fever.”

“A fever! That’s not good at all,” Sadie said ominously. “I’d better get over there straight away.” Without another word she marched back to her truck, jumped in and roared off. Rebecca eased a cramp in the small of her back as she watched Sadie disappear. She longed to sit down in the rocker beside the woodstove with a cup of hot tea, but there was no time. She had to mix the dog food, fill the wood box, haul endless buckets of water up from the springhouse, and then feed the dogs before full dark. It was going to be cold tonight. She needed to be sure that each dog had enough straw in its house to make a warm bed.

No time for tea. No time for herself. And certainly no time for anyone else, especially a helpless cheechako like William MacKenzie.

IT TOOK FAR LESS TIME than Sadie had predicted for Mac to recover from his injuries. Within a week he was up and about, doing light chores over Ellin’s protests, but by the end of the second week he counted himself cured and was taking care of his dogs when he wasn’t helping Sam work on the Stearman.

In his third week at Sam and Ellin’s, he used Sam’s old Jimmy to haul his dog truck from Rebecca’s driveway to Sam’s hangar where, with Sam’s help, he replaced the U-joint. The next day he drove his truck to his brother’s place on Flat Creek, picked up his few belongings, the two dogsleds, feed dishes, the harnesses, gang lines and other assorted mushing paraphernalia, and returned to the little cabin on Sam and Ellin’s property. The day after that, he began training his dog team.

The trails around the Dodges’ place were the same trails that Rebecca trained on, so Mac had anticipated that they’d run into each other frequently and had been looking forward to it more than he cared to admit. But during his first week, he saw no sign of Rebecca. He finally mentioned her absence to Ellin.

“She’s probably out on a trip with some clients,” Ellin explained. “She usually heads down toward Guggieville or up toward Inuvik. You might swing by her cabin and see if Donny’s old blue Chevy is there.”

“Who’s Donny?” Mac asked.

“Donny’s a good kid. He takes care of Rebecca’s kennel when she goes on her trips. He’s Athapaskan.”

Mac spent the rest of the afternoon splitting firewood for Sam and Ellin, but the next morning, bright and early, he was on his way to Dawson City, where he sold his Rolex for far less than it was worth. He drove directly back to Rebecca’s with the money. She wasn’t there, but Donny was.

“She could be gone two, three more days,” the young man said in answer to Mac’s question. “Maybe more, maybe less. Hard to tell sometimes. Three Japanese clients. Big money.” He smiled broadly.

Mac left an envelope for Rebecca. He’d sealed a brief note inside, along with the money from the sale of his watch, promising to pay the balance by the end of February. Mac had big plans for February, and if everything worked out, he’d have more than enough to pay off his debts and buy more dog food. Feeling pretty good about things in general—better than he’d felt in more than a month—he returned to Sam and Ellin’s place and harnessed a team of dogs for a training run. Sam came out of the hangar to watch him take off. “You might try the trail that leads down to the river,” Sam shouted over the frenzied barking of the dogs. “The Mazey Creek trail. The river’s frozen solid and it’s fine traveling right now—you can make a lot of miles on it. Good training!”

Mac nodded, pulled the release knot on the snub line, and the team shot down the trail at warp speed. Mac loved the takeoffs best of all, the wild, blind explosion of power and speed that catapulted the sled—with him hanging on for dear life—down the narrow twisting path that led from the Dodges’ cabin out onto the main trail, which, in turn, led to the river. He’d avoided running the river before because of the rough pack ice. But Sam was right. If he was going to make good in February, he’d need to start putting longer miles on his team.

When he reached the main trail, he gave Merlin the command to turn to the right. “Gee, Merlin!” He grinned, as the big, handsome, blue-eyed, black-and-white husky veered unerringly to the right. “Good dog!” The idea that one could steer sled dogs with mere voice commands was still novel enough to astound him. Driving a big team of dogs was like driving a freight train from the rear of the caboose without the benefit of rails to keep the train on track, and without a steering wheel to make the turns. A good lead dog like Merlin made the job easy. A simple verbal command and the entire train turned smoothly to the right or the left.

The trail veered suddenly and Merlin disappeared from sight, followed by five pairs of dogs, all running hard. The sled whipped around the corner, and Mac had a split second to assimilate several facts: One, he was airborne; two, his team was below him, descending an extremely steep bank that dropped onto the pack ice of the river; and three, when his sled came down to earth, there was going to be quite a spectacular crash.

And there was. He heard a high-pitched scream and thought for a moment that it had come from him, although it sounded like a woman’s scream.

“Son of a bitch!” he roared just to hear his own voice, which to his relief sounded normal. “Whoa!” The dogs were still running. In fact, they were running faster than they ever had before, even though the sled was on its side and he was being dragged along behind it, gripping the driving bow with all his strength. “Whoa! Merlin, whoa!”

He heard another scream, closer this time, and definitely not coming from him. The scream was followed by a steady stream of excited babbling in a foreign language.

“Kanemoto! Hold your team!” another voice, a woman’s, firm and familiar, shouted in English. “Hideka! Run up and take your lead dogs! Hold them steady! No, Kanemoto, don’t get off the sled! Stay on the brake! The brake! That’s right! I’m going to try to catch that team!”

Oh, no, you’re not, Rebecca Reed, Mac thought grimly as he struggled to right the capsized sled. He got one knee onto the bottom runner, ignoring the pain of the foot board digging into his kneecap. He got his second knee on it, and then both knees were jolted off and he was being dragged face down again. The ice hook was bouncing wildly beside his head, having flipped out of the sled bag when the sled capsized. He seized it with one mittened hand and in the same motion jammed the pointed tips into the ice. The sled stopped so suddenly that his head smashed into the driving bow. He jumped to his feet, jerked the sled back onto its runners and barely had time to get on again before his team lunged forward, ripping the ice hook loose, and galloping madly toward two oncoming teams.

There were screams from the passengers in the other sleds, snarls, barks and growls from the dogs on all three teams, and Rebecca’s voice clashing with his own as they both shouted, “On by! On by!” to their leaders.

“Kanemoto!” Rebecca shouted. “Run with your sled! Don’t let your team stop! Keep them moving!”

Rebecca was driving the first team, which passed Mac’s flawlessly. As she came abreast of him, she gave him a brief up and down, an even briefer smile and a curt, “Hello, Mac. Nice recovery!” Then she turned her head and shouted encouragement to the three clients struggling with the team and sled behind her. The Japanese clients managed to keep their team moving, and soon Mac had the trail to himself again. He looked back to see that Rebecca’s team was charging up the riverbank. Her clients’ team followed close on her heels. When she reached the top, she raised her arm to him in a slow farewell wave. Her action startled him so much he didn’t have time to wave back before she was gone.

REBECCA STOOD under the hot, powerful, therapeutic stream of water in the Dodges’ shower and let her muscles relax for the first time in more than a week. She was tired but she felt great. It had been a good trip, a profitable trip, and she couldn’t wait to tell Ellin about the unexpected bonus she’d gotten. Rebecca squeezed more shampoo from the bottle and lathered her hair for the third time. The tension between her shoulder blades was beginning to ease as the forceful stream of hot water worked its magic.

She exited the bathroom in a huge cloud of steam dressed in clean clothes top to bottom, thick wool socks and expedition-weight fleece. She padded into the warm kitchen with the towel still wrapped in a thick, white turban around her wet hair. “Thank you, Ellin. Once again, you’ve saved my life.”

Ellin poured a second cup of tea and set it on the table. “Sit down and tell me what’s gotten you so excited. You’ve been hopping up and down since you got here this morning.”

Rebecca dropped into a chair and pulled the tea toward her. “I can’t believe it myself. It’s a dream come true for me! Ellin, Kanemoto’s coming back here in February.”

“That’s wonderful! Two trips in one winter! He must be some kind of nut, but so long as he’s rich, who cares!”

“No, Ellin, he’s not coming back for another trip. He wants to be my handler for the Yukon Quest! We talked about the race a lot this past week. He’s always wanted to be here for the running of it. He said how much fun it would be if he personally knew a team and driver. Then we began to discuss the possibility of my running the race!”

Ellin’s eyes widened with surprise. She blinked rapidly and sat up straighter. “My dear, you never said anything about running the Quest this season.”

“I hadn’t planned to. It’s way too expensive. But Kanemoto has paid my entry fee, and Ellin, you know he usually gives me a tip at the end of each trip, a couple hundred dollars or so. But yesterday? Yesterday he writes me a check for five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars! He hands it to me and says, ‘You get ready to run that race, Miss Reed. I’ll be back to handle for you one week from race start!’ Can you believe it!” Rebecca leaned forward, eyes sparkling. “I have my first official sponsor!” Then, after a brief pause, she said, “What’s wrong, Ellin? I thought for sure you’d be excited for me.”

“Well!” Ellin said, composing herself quickly. “I am, my dear, I’m just surprised, that’s all. That’s something, all right!” Ellin took a sip of tea. “The Yukon Quest is a very tough race, Rebecca,” she cautioned.

“I’ve already talked to Donny about taking care of the kennel for the two weeks I’ll be gone. Oh, Ellin, I can’t believe it!” Rebecca jumped out of her chair and paced to the woodstove and back. “I’ll need to get my toboggan sled fixed—one of the rear stanchions is cracked and the bed plastic really needs to be replaced— and I’ll have to buy some new harnesses. I think I have enough booties, but I’ll have to check. Bruce has all the right gear—” She stopped suddenly and raised a hand to the towel wrapping her head. “Bruce had all the right gear,” she corrected slowly. “And I’m sure it’s all still there, stashed out in the barn. His lightweight aluminum cooker, the training notebooks, those are important. I’ll have to find them. Meat. I’ll have to order some good ground meat in Whitehorse and feed the dogs really well. Then there are the food drops to organize. Oh Lord, the food drops! Ellin, you can’t imagine the sleepless nights spent calculating how much dog food, people food and extra supplies needs to be shipped to each checkpoint before the race starts. Fortunately, all that information should be in Bruce’s notebooks. He kept notes on everything. He…” She turned and looked at Ellin. “I wish I could tell him about this. He’d be so excited at the idea of his dogs running the Quest again.”

“I’m sure he would,” Ellin said quietly.

Rebecca returned to the table and sat down again with a happy sigh. “I can’t wait!” She took a sip of tea. “I wonder if Mac’s still planning on winning the Percy DeWolf.”

“He’s been training,” Ellin said vaguely.

“Yes, I know. I met him on the river yesterday. He was dragging along quite nicely behind his sled.”