Lone Wolves (11 page)

14

Denny's yuuł tezyaa

Denny's Journey Begins

B
y midmorning of the following day, Denny and her team arrived at the race starting point. Aside from the dozens of teams entered in the race, many hundreds of spectators, perhaps thousands, wandered amongst the racers who were unloading their sleds and dogs and hooking the dogs up to the rigging. Several teams came from out of state, and a few from Canada and other northern countries. Barking and yelping filled the air. Local, national, and even some international news crews from television and newspapers busily interviewed racers.

Once each team was ready, officials made sure the required gear was onboard. Eleven hundred miles through the teeth of an Alaskan winter is a long way. Because of the inherent dangers, racers are required to carry specific survival gear on their sled. Failure to comply means disqualification.

Every team was also inspected by a veterinarian, who looked to see that each dog was healthy. In the old days, dogs were sometimes run to death from exhaustion. Over the years, rules developed to protect the dogs, a kind of doggie Bill of Rights. At strategic check
points along the 1,100 mile route, veterinarians would again exam
ine every dog. Many would be scratched from the race because of exhaustion or dehydration or injured paws, among other ailments. Since losing a dog or two during a long race was commonplace, many teams start off with as many as twelve to eighteen dogs on the main line.

Denny only had eight. She couldn't afford to lose a single dog.

As the youngest racer in the field, Denny received a lot of attention. One reporter took a bunch of photographs of her wearing her old-fashioned parka and mukluks as she handled her team, hooking them up to the main line, her handmade seal-skin gloves hanging from their strings.

“You look like one of them old black-and-white postcards,” said the reporter while squatting to get a good angle on one picture. “I can just see the caption: Eskimo girl and sledge.”

Denny didn't smile.

She wasn't Eskimo. She was Indian.

Behind her, crews from ESPN and the BBC were interviewing Jasper Stark, the three-time winner of the race and the favorite to win this year. Jasper had numerous big-time sponsors. Corporate logos adorned his expensive jacket and his shiny, red pickup truck, the way a race car is covered by logos.

“What's your prediction?” asked the reporter from the BBC, his British accent unmistakable.

“Well, there's a good base of snow. If the weather holds, I think a new record could be set,” replied Jasper adjusting his sunglasses. “This is a tough field, but I'm pretty confident. I'll try to set the pace early on. We'll see. Should be a great race.”

After chatting back and forth about issues having to do with weather and trail conditions, the reporter posed a question.

“There are a lot of good teams here from the villages. Do you expect a challenge from any of those contenders?”

“Well, I expect two or three of the Native teams will give it a go. But, frankly, I think my team is the most experienced in the field. As you know, we won two qualifying races earlier this season. And some engineering students at the university redesigned my sled. It's made of the most durable and lightest material available. She's fast. Like I said, I'm pretty confident.”

Jasper smiled broadly as he spoke.

The reporter sensed an opening.

“Are you
overconfident
?” he asked, pushing the microphone at Jasper.

“It's not about confidence. It's about experience and trail knowledge, and no one knows this race course as well as I do. Like I said, I predict a new record will be set.”

The reporter thanked Jasper and then turned to his cameraman and drew his finger across his neck, the signal for “cut.” Then he saw Denny hooking Tazlina to the front of the line. She was wearing her grandfather's red flannel shirt.

“Let's interview the girl,” he said to the cameraman.

“You're Deneena Yazzie, aren't you?”

Denny looked up from her work.

“Yes. That's me. But most people call me Denny.”

“We're from the BBC. That's in England. Can we speak to you for a minute? Do you mind if we put you on camera?”

“Sure. That's okay with me,” replied Denny. “Just let me finish hooking up my lead dog.”

When she was ready, the cameraman gave the signal and the camera's little red light beamed like a laser.

“I'm here with Deneena Yazzie, the youngest racer in the field this year. How old are you, Ms. Yazzie?”

“I'm sixteen, but I'll turn seventeen in a few weeks.”

“Good for you. Can you tell me about those lines on your chin?”

“They're tattoos made from bear grease and ash. They're part of my heritage,” Denny replied proudly, holding up her chin so the cameraman could focus on them.

“That's a good-looking lead dog,” stated the reporter. “What's
his name?”

“His name is Tazlina. I call him Taz for short. He's a wolf,” Denny said matter-of-factly.

“He's a . . . wolf?”

“Yep.”

Both reporter and cameraman took a step back.

“He won't hurt you,” said Denny.

The reporter collected himself.

“We just interviewed three-time champion Jasper Stark. Have you met Mr. Stark?”

Denny looked over at Jasper, standing beside his diesel pickup truck—the one he had won last year in addition to the cash prize—signing autographs for two boys. She imagined that if she won first place she'd probably sell the truck, which was worth $50,000. She needed the money more than she needed a big, fancy truck like that in the village.

“Not yet, but I know who he is, and I'm a fan. He's great.”

“Stark says he's confident in his team, in his equipment, and in himself. He says there's no one in the race this year who can challenge his team. What do you say to that?”

“Well,” said Denny looking around at all the teams preparing for the start, “there sure are a lot of teams here, and some of them look really strong. My own team is pretty fast, thanks to Taz here.”

The cameraman caught Denny patting the wolf on the head and scratching him behind his ears. The wolf made a low groaning sound.

“Stark seems to think conditions are right for the record to fall. I guess that means he would have to beat his own best time. Do you think he can do that?”

Denny thought for a moment before she answered.

“If anyone knows this race, it's Jasper Stark. But, this race is so long. How can anyone predict what will happen? You just never know.”

“You heard it folks. It's anyone's race. Even a 16-year-old girl might win. On behalf of our millions of viewers around the world, I wish you and Taz the best of luck.”

Denny beamed a genuine smile.

“Thank you,” she said. “I'm just happy to be running the race. Can I say hello to everyone back home?”

“Go ahead,” replied the reporter.

Denny waved at the camera. “Hey everyone!”

After thanking her for the interview and double-checking the spelling of her name, the reporter turned and walked away, remarking to his cameraman what a nice young woman she was.

By late morning, after all the gear was checked and the dogs examined, the race began. As always, the racers left the start gate separated by a few minutes to avoid piling up or bottlenecking on the narrow trail. As the reigning champion, Jasper Stark was first. Denny was twenty-seventh. The route had been mostly the same for decades, following rivers, through mountainous passes, past small villages of barely a dozen or so cabins, and finally along the sea as the racers made their way to the finish line. All racers were required to stop at more than two dozen check points and to overnight at certain places to ensure adequate rest for mushers and dogs alike. Eleven hundred miles is a long way to go.

Denny tried to put the distance into perspective.

Eleven hundred miles was three hundred miles longer than Alaska's length north to south. The length of the Alaska Pipeline was only eight hundred miles. It was like driving from upstate New York to Nashville, Tennessee or Ocala, Florida. In Europe, a train traveling eleven hundred miles would pass through the boundaries of numerous small nations and through populations of over a hundred million people.

The race record was a little over fifteen days.

Fifteen days! That meant a team had to cover roughly 75 miles
a day. Denny had done the calculation long ago. She had nev
er done anything like that in her training, because there wasn't enough time with everything else she had to do. She worried that she was in way over her head, that her team couldn't keep such a pace for so long a distance. But she swallowed her doubts and fears and prepared herself for what was ahead, remembering what her grandfather had told her about trying your best, even if you fail.

For the most part, the first day was uneventful. The field stayed pretty much in the order they left the gate. A few racers jockeyed to move closer to the leaders. Even Denny leapt into the top twenty. But this early in the race, with so many miles to go, no one was going to push his dogs too hard. As predicted, Jasper Stark set the pace, which was fast.

But late in the afternoon, Denny came upon a scene that illustrated the danger of the trail. A team had rounded a bend only to come face to face with a cow moose and her calf. Moose often followed the packed trails made by snowmobilers and mushers. Every winter, thousands of moose were killed by automobiles and trains as they followed the snowless highways and railroads.

With her ears back and her mane bristling, the protective mother had launched her angry, thousand-pound bulk into the line of dogs, kicking and stomping. In her fury, she killed one dog and severely injured two others before she and her calf dashed off the packed trail and into the safety of the woods. Such encounters were one of the many hazards along the trail.

When Denny arrived, another musher was helping the driver and had already called for help on his cell phone. He told Denny that a helicopter was on its way to transport the wounded dogs for medical help; both suffered from broken ribs and legs. With eleven uninjured dogs remaining, the musher was determined to continue the race.

Denny knew that at least one such incident occurred during each year's race.

Hopefully
, thought Denny as she continued down the trail,
this would be the last.

In the Great Race, mushers don't stop just because it gets dark outside. Instead, they push on through the darkness, guided by their headlamps, barely illuminating the trail ahead, the dogs dimly feeling the trail with their feet. Some clear nights the full moon is so bright that its light casts dark shadows from trees, staining the white snow. Though inexperienced, Denny knew her team. They had never run so far in a single day. Now, there would be days on end of such punishment. She wanted to pace them, keep them strong.

For now, rest and a hot meal was just what the doctor ordered.

Sometime around midnight, Denny stopped alongside a frozen river and made camp a dozen yards off the trail. She would allow herself and her team several hours of much-deserved sleep and a hot-cooked meal. Before dawn, which came late in winter, she would break camp and once again hit the trail. After feeding the team a steaming gruel of dry dog food in warm water, she gave each dog a fillet of dried salmon and then examined their paws for injury, carefully splaying each paw apart and checking in between the toes.

After the full-bellied dogs were bedded down for the night, Denny ate her own meal and afterwards cut spruce boughs for her bed. She stripped down to her long johns and crawled into her sleeping bag, still wearing her thick wool socks and a black wool cap. She cringed all the way because the inside of the sleeping bag was the same temperature as the outdoors, which was below zero. It took a few minutes for her body heat to warm up the ice-cold bag.

She was asleep only a few minutes later.

While she slept, snuggled inside her warm sleeping bag atop the scented pile—snoring from exhaustion—stars slid above treetops, the nearby river heaved and strained to turn over in its icy bed, and the campfire burned down to a heap of gray ashes as cold as the night.

Other teams passed in the quietude, the only sound the soft patter of paws on packed snow, the huffed panting of tired dogs, and the scraping glide of runners as the sleds passed in the darkness. Taz opened his eyes groggily and went back to sleep almost instantly.

In such a long race, timing was everything. Everyone had to rest sometime, dog and man alike. When they did, other teams gained ground. But even those same teams had to sleep sometime or other, at which time their lead would be lost. Knowing when to rest and when to push on was part of the strategy. Racers like Jasper Stark knew it well. He mapped out his rest stops systematically, with calculated precision—a few hours here, an overnight there. Many a leader had lost the race by miscalculating rest stops. Sometimes, driven too hard for too long, a team hit a brick wall of fatigue and could move no further. Thoroughly exhausted, the dogs required eight hours of rest to recharge. By then, other leaders might be nearing the finish line or, perhaps, had already crossed it.

15

Ghelaay nen'

High Country

T
he next morning, after building a campfire to heat water for the dogs' breakfast and for her oatmeal and tea, Denny walked out on the frozen river and gazed in the direction she would travel. From where she stood, she could see that the trail climbed into high country. She could see that the valley became narrow and steep, forbidding and treeless at such altitudes.

It took an hour to pack up camp, use a tree out of necessity, and rig up the team to the main line. The dogs whined and leaped with anticipation, especially Taz. Denny was surprised at their enthusiasm, given the long previous day. She herself was tired and sore all over. Her shoulders throbbed, and her hands hurt from gripping the handle so tightly for so many hours. But most of all, her lower back ached from standing on the back of the sled all day. She wished she could sit in the little sweathouse behind her cabin for a while to soothe her muscles.

It wasn't long before the team was in the mountain pass. To Denny's dismay, screeching winds funneled through the valley had scoured snow from the ground, exposing large and small rocks frozen to the earth as if they had been set in concrete. The going was rough on dog paws, rough on the sled, and rough on the driver. The constant jolting rattled Denny's teeth and her bones, and her arms felt as if they were being wrenched from their sockets.

After crossing a particularly treacherous stretch of exposed rock, Denny saw blood on the trail.

“Whoa!” she shouted. “Stop!”

Taz brought the team to an abrupt standstill. Denny tried to set the brake hook, but the ground was so frozen that the sharp hooks wouldn't penetrate. Instead, she tied a snub line around a boulder.

“See if you can move that,” she said to the team after cinching the knot.

Methodically, from the front of the line to the back, Denny lifted each dog's paw to see which one was bleeding. It was one of the mid-line dogs, the one named Molly. She had thrown three of her booties, and one of her front paws had a cut from a sharp rock. Denny untied the dog from the tow line and guided her to the back of the sled where she treated the injury with a first-aid ointment. Then she bound the foot in gauze, and gently set the dog into the basket.

Molly didn't seem to mind.

“You can take a break until your paw heals,” she said, patting the dog on the head.

Denny knew that such a minor cut would heal quickly, and the dog would rejoin the team by mid-afternoon. She'd make sure the Velcro straps on her booties were tighter this time. With her team temporarily weakened by the loss of one dog, she undid the snub line, put her gloves back on, pulled up her parka hood, and gripped the sled handle.

“Mush!” she shouted.

And once again the team was off.

As she rode along on the back of the sled, trying to keep from falling asleep from exhaustion, Denny marveled at the steep, rugged valley. The cliffs and crags looked as if nothing had changed since the beginning of time. She imagined dinosaurs roaming this valley long ago. But she knew better. Many times, sitting around a campfire, hot coffee mug clutched in both hands, her grandfather had spoken about the nature of Time and of Nature itself.

“Everything changes,” she remembered him saying in his slow, deliberate way. “Forever and forever and forever nothing stays the same. The earth turns and each day the radiance of the sun spins into existence and is gone. Sea waves crash and scour the coast and the coastline changes. Rain erodes mountains, and rivers carry them back to the sea. People die and people are born. Glaciers grow and melt. Many are gone that existed when I was a boy. I have seen whole mountain slopes suddenly break free and crash like thunder into their valleys. They say even the sun itself will one day burn out. Nothing that comes stays for long. Live fully in
this
moment. Embrace that truth, Granddaughter, and live a happier life.”

As young as she was, Denny already understood some of what her grandfather had told her. Year after year, she had marveled at how the river alongside her village changed channels, how sand and gravel islands appeared and disappeared, how tree-lined banks sometimes sloughed into the river, creating new banks. She recalled how most of the trees along one of her favorite fishing streams had been toppled in a storm, the creek bed and surrounding ground crisscrossed with felled trees and deadfalls, making it impossible to fish or even to walk through the once-forest. For over a hundred years the trees had grown there, and then one day the place no longer looked the same, nor would it for another hundred years.

Halfway through the pass, Denny came upon two teams stopped along the trail, the two mushers standing beside one of the sleds. One of the men was a foot taller than the other. Denny stopped to investigate, securing her team far enough away from the other teams to avoid dogfights.

“Any trouble?” she asked, as she walked up to the two men and pulled down her parka hood.

The taller man told how his sled had hit a large rock, which had overturned and thrown him, breaking his arm in the fall. The shorter musher had arrived about fifteen minutes later and helped to fashion a makeshift sling for the dangling arm.

“Are you going to scratch from the race?” Denny asked the injured man.

“I don't have no choice. I can't hold onto a sled with one hand for five hundred miles.”

“Can you help me get him into his sled?” asked the shorter man. “I'll hook up his team in front of mine and take him to the next check point, which is about twenty miles away.”

Denny knew that the reason he wanted the other team in front of his was because it was downhill all the way, and with the injured man resting in the basket, he would be unable to use the foot brake when the sled gained too much speed and they would crash into each other. In this way, the driver at the back of both teams could use his brakes as well as voice commands to control the descent. Denny helped load the injured racer into the basket, and then she tied a line between the teams.

“Does this look good?” she asked the other musher.

“It looks great,” he said after checking the length and the knot. “You might as well go on ahead of us. We're going to take it slow. Tell the people at the check point that we're right behind you and that he'll need a doctor to set that arm.”

Denny wished them both luck, untied her team, and took off down the trail, turning and waving goodbye as she passed. The whole way down the mountain, she worried something like that could happen to her. She knew that in the Last Frontier, it only took an instant for disaster to strike.