The Source of All Things (27 page)

In order to qualify for the Iditarod, Krista had to prove herself competitive in two separate races. In mid-January, we agreed to meet at the start of the Kuskokwim 300, near the town of Big Lake. The second I saw her pull into the parking lot, I could tell
she'd been crying. It was 30 below zero—without figuring in a wind-chill factor. She kept crying as we unloaded her huskies from their dog boxes and led them to the start line. She cried as we hooked them up and booted their paws. She was still crying when she thanked me for helping her, before unhooking her sled and yelling “Get up!” to her string of yapping, screaming huskies. She was beginning a three-hundred-mile round-trip journey to the Kuskokwim River, where the temperature would drop another 10 degrees to 40 below zero. I knew she was crying not only because of the terror that must come when you set off on a race that will last between twenty-four and forty-eight hours. She was also crying because a few days earlier, she'd been told that Pecos had only a few months to live.

So moved was I by the five-foot-two-inch Talkeetna librarian that I went home and wrote a story about her on the back of a grocery bag. Colin and I were so poor at the time that it was the only blank paper I had. Scribbling the scene that still held in my imagination, I burned the last of our white gas writing by the light of a Coleman lantern. When the lantern light died, I turned on my headlamp and wrote until I'd completed the story. In the morning, I took it to the local radio station, where I read it over the airwaves.

The tale of the dog-mushing librarian wasn't great, but it was honest. And in the weeks after it aired, dozens of people congratulated me on its humor and compassion. Not only did my neighbors in Talkeetna love it, Alaska Public Radio Network picked it up and aired it two weeks later, on the start of the Iditarod, which in Alaska is akin to Super Bowl Sunday.

That's when I realized, for the first time in my adult life, that I might have a gift for writing.

Krista and I went to Anchorage, where dozens of mushers were milling around 4th Avenue, loading their sled bags with all the required provisions for the long, strenuous trek. I tended to Krista's dogs' feet, while she fed them a final prerace snack. As I smeared each paw with an ointment of eucalyptus and wax, I heard the sound of mukluks padding across snow behind me. They belonged to a native Alaskan woman who said she lived in the village of Unalakleet, several hundred miles to the west. She told Krista about a story she'd heard on the radio that featured her and her dog team. It was so good, the lady said, she knew she'd remember it forever.

Bent over booting a dog paw, I closed my eyes and listened to the praise being bestowed upon me. I had reached someone. I'd made a difference.

I
f only that story could have been the true beginning of the life I was about to encounter. The good life, with nice people, heartfelt love, and grand, amazing adventures. But there was one more obstacle I had to overcome. And it had to do with Colin.

The winter of 1997, Colin's violence escalated to the point where I feared he'd physically hurt me. We'd argue, and he'd scream until his face was flaming. One fight was so bad, I ran out of the cabin in my stocking feet and spent the next several hours shivering in our broken-down Subaru. I sulked back to my now-calm husband only when I realized that if I didn't, I might have died of hypothermia.

From then on, I started seriously looking for ways out. Big escape plans, like saving my money and disappearing to a yoga colony somewhere in Hawaii or Costa Rica. When I realized that I wasn't going to save a penny while caring for Colin and feeding our (now twenty-five) sled dogs, I began secretly exploring different options with my neighbors.

A woman named Bonnie-Ann told me about a ranger job in Denali. She said I'd be perfect for it and that I should apply. The job would require that I move to the park for the whole summer. Family housing didn't exist; there'd be no place for Colin. Not only that, but I would get to spend seven to ten days at a time “patrolling” Denali's six-million-acre park. Patrolling meant hiking over passes and into pristine river valleys, making sure people were storing their food in portable containers impenetrable by grizzlies. I swooned at the thought of living and working in a place where, for most of the year, lynx, wolves, and wolverines outnumbered humans. In early March, I told Colin I was going on an all-day yoga retreat with Bonnie-Ann and then drove two hundred miles with her to Denali.

By the time
we were done visiting Bonnie-Ann's friends at Denali headquarters, I knew I had to be a backcountry ranger. I applied, right on the spot. People who live in Alaska year-round have priority for ranger jobs with the park service, so I figured I had a good chance of getting one and of banking the big bucks ($11/hour!) that came with it.

The only trouble was, Colin would never let me go. I decided I'd wait until I had a job offer to tell him. Bonnie-Ann and I agreed to put her PO box as the return address on my application. When the letter came, either offering me a job or denying me one, she'd signal to me by sending a message on the local radio station's
Denali Echoes
program, which sent messages to bush dwellers who didn't have phones.

On the day the letter came, Bonnie-Ann sent me an Echo. Just
like we'd planned, she kept it short and coded. “To Tracy in Freedom Hills from Bonnie-Ann. The rabbit has left the water.” Colin heard it too, but when he asked what it meant, I told him it was Bonnie-Ann's way of informing me that a date she'd gone on went well. I knew he didn't believe me, but I didn't care. I was going to work in Denali.

The question, though, was how. I knew when Colin found out about the offer, he'd threaten to call the park service and tell them I'd lied on my application. He'd say I was too stupid to be a ranger, that my sense of direction was always off (which would have been honest), and that I couldn't start a fire even if someone handed me a Duraflame log and a can of jet fuel. I knew he'd grind down my confidence until I gave up completely. So Bonnie-Ann, another friend named Cheri, and I planned my great escape. They would come to my house on the day I told Colin I was going to Denali. Cheri would drive her car, because she was rich and had a good one. She and Bonnie-Ann would stand at the end of my path and make sure Colin didn't come after me. All of us were so scared of what might happen, Cheri offered to bring a gun.

On the big
day, Cheri and Bonnie-Ann sent another Echo that said they'd be over at eleven. I walked the snow-covered road in front of my house until I saw Cheri's bright red truck. She and Bonnie-Ann hopped out, gave me quick hugs, and told me to be brave. I breathed in their smells of woodsmoke and rose water before going into the dog yard, where I found Colin shoveling poop.

I picked up a shovel and started digging with him.

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

“Oh, yeah? About what?”

“Oh, you know. Things.”

“What kind of things? Things I'll like or things I won't like?”

I paused, because I knew that I was about to say it. Flexing my muscles under my raincoat, I reminded myself that it was now or never. “I want to tell you something important,” I said. “Let's go make some tea.”

I probably shouldn't have said the tea thing, because we usually made each other tea
after
a huge argument. I waited for Colin to signal that he was on to me, but he didn't act the least bit suspicious.

“Tea, huh? Okay, I'll be in in a minute.”

I went inside and made some tea. Orange pekoe for him, Earl Grey for me. As our bags steeped, I peeked through the door and saw that my day pack was where I'd hidden it, sitting behind a tree and loaded with essentials. I'd filled it with everything I'd need if Colin went crazy and tried to kill me.

He came in, took off his work boots, and sat down in a rocking chair by the window. “Okay, I'm here. Now what is it?” he said.

For a second, I almost felt bad. Colin's eyes were glinting with anticipation. I thought that maybe he was hoping I would tell him I was pregnant, but I knew before I'd married him that I'd never give birth to his kids. If anything would bond me to him forever, our progeny would be it. He rocked back and forth, smiling.

Still, I didn't speak. Only stood against the ladder to the loft with my heart lurching toward my teeth. I knew if I didn't tell him now, it'd never happen. I didn't want to lose my nerve or, with it, my ranger job. I waited as long as I could and then said, “I—”

A dog barked outside. Another howled. Soon they were all
howling. I hoped they hadn't seen Bonnie-Ann and Cheri. It would have sucked to have dogs blow my cover.

“You what?” asked Colin. The glint had left his eyes. Now he was just staring. The hair on my arms stood up, along with more hair on the back of my neck.
Just say it
. I pleaded with myself.
Please, just say it
.

Okay. Here we go.

“I'm going to work in Denali.”

Colin stopped rocking.

“You're what?” he asked again.

Don't stop. Keep going. Bonnie-Ann is right outside.

“I said … I'm going to Denali. I applied for a backcountry ranger job. And I got it. Aren't you happy?”

At first Colin
was calm. He held on to the arms of the rocker and started cranking it again. He put his elbow on the arm of the chair and rested his chin in his hand. I thought for a millionth of a millisecond that he might be okay with my leaving. But in the next millionth of a millisecond he said, “Well, how're you gonna get there, then? You don't have a car, do ya?”

My insides were quaking, but I kept going.

“I was thinking Bonnie-Ann could take me. She works up there every summer.”

Colin's face darkened. “So that's who's behind this, huh?
Boney Arm
? She's the one who's encouraging you to leave your husband. Why am I not fucking surprised?”

“It wasn't Bonnie-Ann,” I pleaded. “It was my idea. I want to be a ranger. I just want to. It sounds fun.”

“Fun?” said Colin. “And why should you get to have fun? Fun is staying here and helping me care for these dogs. The last time I checked, fun wasn't running off and leaving your husband for an entire summer.”

“But we need the money,” I went on. “And it could be good for me. I'd get to spend ten days in the backcountry at a time. I'd get to help. Imagine …”

I knew as soon as I said it that I should have left that last part out. I should have made it seem like the job was actually for Colin; that while I'd gotten the summer gig, he would get to know the dog mushers at the park kennel. “
Imagine it
,” I should have said to him, “
we could move to Denali and you could run the park dogs all winter
.”

But I didn't say it. And that's when Colin stood up, climbed into the loft, and started pinging me with my belongings. Shoes, books, and clothes rained down on me like giant hailstones. I dodged a small, wooden jewelry box that my mom had given me. It flew past me and smashed onto the floor, spewing turquoise necklaces and hoop earrings around my feet. When I looked up again, my 20-below sleeping bag was flying toward me. Then my journals, all five of them held together with a giant rubber band.

Without a word, I bent down and started gathering my things. Colin stormed down the ladder and grabbed them out of my hands. He went to the kitchen and found a giant, black garbage bag. Saying things like “bloody hell” and “I should have known,” he jammed in everything he could fit.

I waited until he finished, then took the bag from him, very carefully. If this was his worst reaction, I would take it. Because I
was afraid to look him in the eye, I bowed my head. As I did, I saw his hand raise, as if he were going to hit me.

“It's not even worth the trouble I'd get in,” he said, turning around and walking away. “You're not worth it. I've known it since the second I met you. You're just a stupid, worthless little cunt.”

I have that word bound up in a piece of cloth and stored in the back of my memory. Because as much I hated hearing it, it sounded like the sweetest send-off in the world. Colin stormed after me as I ran down the path to Cheri's getaway truck, screaming that I was a little bitch who should never have been born. But when he saw my friends—prepped and ready to support and defend me—he stopped chasing me.

I sprinted the last forty yards to the truck, ripped open the door, and jumped into the front seat. Bonnie-Ann squished against Cheri, making room for my garbage bag and me. Cheri threw her truck in gear, and we spun out in the snow. The back end fishtailed a couple of times as if waving good-bye to Colin.

I waited until we were all the way down the steep face of Freedom Hills Drive and onto the plowed pavement of Comsat Road before I gathered the courage to look behind me.