Across a Thousand Miles (25 page)

Merlin rounded the corner and trotted in his bold, brisk way, leading the team. Mac's first impression was that he was driving his team into the midst of some kind of parade or winter carnival. There were people everywhere, thousands of people, more than there'd been at the start of the race. People were waving little Canadian and American flags and jumping up and down and raising their voices in one continuous roar as his team trotted toward them. The massive crowd parted to form a long, ragged chute and as they did he suddenly saw, at the end of it, a big banner strung on high with huge black lettering against a white background. The letters spelled out just one word, but it was undoubtedly the sweetest word he'd ever read from one hundred yards away.

 

FINISH!

 

“My God,” he said, amazed. He found it difficult to comprehend that this crowd of people was standing here
waiting for him to finish the race. Why would they be so interested in a musher who was running so far back? He was in sixteenth place, or so he thought. Maybe even seventeenth. This had to be some awful and embarrassing mistake, or maybe the first group of mushers had gotten lost and were somewhere out on the edge of nowhere, running their teams in circles for days while desperately trying to find the trail to Fairbanks.

Well, a man could always dream.

Merlin's nose crossed the finish line to a deafening roar and an intimidating stampede of the crowd. The dogs spooked and bolted, ducked and cowered, and Mac had no idea what to do. He stepped on the sled brake and stared around at the wall of unfamiliar faces, felt the slap of unfamiliar hands on his back and shoulders, saw several microphones and large video cameras zooming toward him, and wondered where Rebecca was. He took the clipboard from the checker and signed his name while a race official checked his sled bag for the mandatory gear.

And then he heard a high, excited voice. A foreign voice. Japanese. He caught sight of a small, slender man, forcing his way through the crowd. Kanemoto emerged, out of breath. “Mac!” he said, and bowed, reaching at the same time to pump Mac's mittened hand, a unique Japanese-American greeting. “Congratulations!”

“Excuse me,” a sonorous voice interrupted, and a microphone was pushed closer. “Could you tell the crowd how you feel at this moment? What emotions are running through you as you stand at the finish line, after having just completed such a long and challenging journey? How did you feel when you carried that young woman to safety and when you flew Guy Johnson to
Fairbanks, knowing that you'd given up any chance of winning this race?”

Mac felt acutely embarrassed. “It feels good to be here,” he said. He looked at Kanemoto, ignoring the reporters and their microphones, cameras and questions. “Where's Rebecca?”

Kanemoto pointed vaguely and then walked to the front of the team, grabbed Merlin's harness and trotted through the crowd, leading the team while Mac handled the sled as he threaded his way to the dog truck. The truck was Rebecca's. Where Brian was, Mac hadn't a clue. Maybe he was at class. Maybe it wasn't a Saturday or a Sunday.

And then it didn't matter where his brother was, because suddenly he saw her. She edged her way through the crowd, walked up to Merlin, knelt and gave the dog a warm, one-armed hug. She grinned at Mac as she rose to her feet. He knew he should be tending his dogs, seeing to them first, but for the moment he only had eyes for the woman standing at the head of his team. He walked toward her and didn't stop until he had pulled her very gently into his embrace. He felt her good arm squeeze him fiercely and he heard her say in a choked voice, “Oh, Mac!”

The crowd had followed them to the truck. People thronged around, their voices an unintelligible babble, asking questions and patting the dogs while Mac and Rebecca clung wordlessly to each other. Finally, he set her back at arm's length and looked her up and down. She looked alive and well, he thought. Hell, she looked beautiful. “I'm so damn glad to see you!” he said. “I missed you like crazy!” He knew by the bright, shining joy in her face that the feeling was mutual, even if she didn't voice it. He wanted to tell her a hundred things,
a thousand things, but first he had to tend to his team, those loyal, courageous dogs who had brought him safely across a thousand miles of rugged wilderness, from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, to Fairbanks, Alaska.

“My dogs,” he said, knowing that she would understand.

“They're in good hands,” she said, nodding behind him. He turned. Beech was helping Kanemoto unhook the team and tether them around the truck. The dogs' food bowls were out and Wilton was already dishing up their snack. He stared for a moment, then turned back to Rebecca, perplexed. “Why are all these people here?”

“They're all here,” she explained patiently as if he were a very young child, “because everyone wanted to see you finish. What you did out there on the trail made them want to be a part of your race. You're a hero, Mac, and heroes are a rare commodity these days.”

He pulled her back into his arms and bent his head over hers, intoxicated by her nearness. “Rebecca, are you all right? I mean, really all right?”

“One hundred percent,” she said.

“You can't be one hundred percent if your arm is broken,” he said with mock exasperation. They drew apart and looked at each other, grinning like idiots.

“Well, ninety percent, if you want to get technical. You, on the other hand, look like you could use a hot meal, a cold beer and about two or three months of sleep. But, Mac, be forewarned. You have less than two hours until the awards banquet, and you absolutely have to attend. It's mandatory. You can't skip out, and you can't fall asleep. I have a hunch you're going to be the star of the show.”

Mac reached out for her again. “Rebecca, listen,” he began.

She shook her head again. “Not now, Mac. We'll have plenty of time to talk later. At the banquet.”

Talk! He didn't want to talk! He wanted to wrap her in his arms. He wanted to kiss her so badly that he was giddy with desire. He was about to grab her and do something in front of all these people that might just shock the hell out of them when someone behind him apparently caught her attention. She looked over his shoulder and raised her arm in a beckoning wave.

“It's Sadie,” she said. “She's been here since early this morning, waiting for you to finish.”

Mac whirled around. Sure enough, there she was. Sadie Hedda, making a determined beeline through the crowd toward them. She caught Mac's gaze and waved her hand wildly, grinning from ear to ear as she approached. Drat and damnation! “Look, Rebecca—” he said.

“Later!” she repeated. “Right now I think you'd better pay some attention to Sadie. Here,” she said, pressing a key into his hand. “Brian got you a room. He was around here just an hour or so ago but some friends of his showed up and they drove off to get something to eat. They should be back soon. You can walk to the room from here, and the banquet's in the same building. Don't worry about your dogs. We'll take good care of them. And I'll see you at the banquet.”

“Rebecca!” he said as she nimbly eluded his grasp, ducked beneath an approaching video camera and disappeared behind a wall of humanity.

“Mac!” Sadie was calling his name, but Mac was staring after Rebecca and thinking about later—later being that long-awaited time when they could finally be
alone together, when he could finally tell her all the things he'd been thinking about and wanting to say for the past thousand miles.

Later! Could he possibly wait that long?

R
EBECCA SAT ON HER BED
in the motel room she'd been holed up in for the past two days and nights and stared at the wall. It was time to leave for the banquet. Any moment now Kanemoto would tap on her door and drive her to the place where all the mushers and race fans would be gathered. Mac would be there. Sadie would be there. Sadie would be at Mac's side. Sadie and Mac. Rebecca had always known it would work out between the two of them. They were a good match for each other. She should be happy for them, but instead, she was immersed in self-pity. She didn't want to go to the banquet, sit with them, watch them, listen to them. She didn't think she could bear seeing how Sadie looked at Mac, how she reached out her hand and laid it on his arm whenever she spoke to him. Oh, God, in spite of all her precautions, Rebecca had fallen in love with Bill MacKenzie, and she had no one to blame but herself for the way she was feeling now.

She had sworn she would never love anyone the way she had loved Bruce, but she had forsaken the memory of her husband. Worse, she no longer felt the guilty sting of her transgression. Bruce was dead. Mac was alive. Loving Mac felt so good, so right. But it was too late! She'd driven him into another woman's arms, and with Sadie he would find all the loving he needed. He'd soon
forget about her and the dogs and the wild and lonely land known as the Yukon.

The tap at the door startled her even though she was expecting it. She stood up, reached for her parka and wondered if she could beg off the banquet. Nobody would care if she didn't go. After all, she hadn't even finished the race. She'd tell Kanemoto she was ill. He would understand. She dropped her parka on the sofa, drew a measured breath to compose herself and opened the door.

“Mac!” she said to the man who stood before her, freshly showered, shaved and dressed in decent clothes. His face was drawn with fatigue, and there were two small patches of frostbite, one on the bridge of his nose and the other over his left cheekbone. Rebecca thought he'd never looked sexier. She raised a hand to the side of her face and stared. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“Good to see you, too,” Mac said. “Mind if I come in?” She opened the door wide and he stepped past her into the room. “For the past hour I've been sharing the same hotel room with my brother, but all he wants to talk about is how broke he is and how desperately he needs to sell the team, so I told him that you were my date and I was taking you to the banquet. He gave me the keys to the dog truck and here I am. Hope you don't mind too much.”

Rebecca's heart rate accelerated. “But—” she glanced outside the door before closing it, spying his dog truck parked next to hers with no one sitting in the passenger seat “—where's Sadie?”

“Sadie?” Mac said with a puzzled look. “She stayed long enough to congratulate me and then headed back to Dawson, but before she left she gave us this to
share!” He held up a bottle of champagne with a triumphant grin, which slowly faded in response to Rebecca's frown and long silence. “It's good champagne,” he said.

“I don't understand,” Rebecca said. “I mean, why would Sadie give us champagne? Why did she leave? She's crazy about you and—”

Mac set the champagne bottle on the desk and reached out to her. His strong hands closed on her shoulders. “Listen to me very carefully, Rebecca. I told you before and I'll tell you again—there's nothing between Sadie and me. She wishes us all the best. She really does! Why in God's name are you looking at me that way? When are you going to realize that you're desperately in love with me? And when, for the love of Pete, are you going to ask me to kiss you? Dammit, woman, these last few days without you have been the loneliest of my life!”

Rebecca could scarcely draw breath. His words addled her tormented mind and wreaked havoc with her heart. Her eyes stung with tears. He cared about her! In spite of all the cold shoulders she'd given him, in spite of a total lack of encouragement, in spite of all the awful things she'd said, he still cared about her! She'd treated him badly from the very beginning and repeatedly pushed him in Sadie's direction, and yet he'd come back to her. He was here, standing before her, pledging a loyalty she didn't begin to deserve but a loyalty she craved more than anything else on earth.

“Mac,” she said, a quaver in her voice. She raised her hand, her fingers closing lightly around his powerful wrist. “Mac, I—”

Another tap at the door. This time it was Kanemoto. He stuck his head around it, beaming at the sight of them together. “Okay, okay! Time to go! Quick!” he said,
pointing at his watch. “We'll be late! I want to get pictures! Lots of pictures!”

 

M
AC COULDN'T REMEMBER
a thing he ate or drank during the long, drawn-out process of feeding hundreds of people crammed into a hot, stuffy banquet hall, followed by the even longer and more drawn-out process of awarding prize monies and trophies to the top-placing fifteen mushers. It seemed that every musher had to make a long speech that encompassed the race's high and low points, and there were a lot of high and low points over a thousand miles of wilderness trail. And then, of course, they had to thank all of their sponsors, and the luckier ones had a list of sponsors as long as the race itself.

The awards started with the fifteenth musher. It was a good sixty minutes before they awarded the first-place prize to Jim Wilton, who then proceeded to talk on and on about the race trail, the checkpoints, the veterinarians, his sponsors, his dogs, himself, until finally, finally! he ran out of steam. But instead of leaving the podium, he leaned toward the race officials and they murmured together for a few moments. Mac leaned his shoulder into Rebecca's and said, “Can't we cut out of here? It must be about over.”

Rebecca shook her head. “Special awards are next,” she told him. Mac closed his eyes and groaned. He'd never last. He was sinking fast. “Get me some toothpicks for my eyes,” he said, and Rebecca laughed.

Wilton was talking again. He talked glibly and well, making humorous comments that provoked bursts of laughter from the crowded banquet hall. “I've always thought that there were 5,280 feet in a mile,” he said, “but up on Eagle Summit they've added about five thou
sand additional feet to each mile, and every one of them is vertical. You know, there's a musher here tonight I've always envied because she don't weigh no more'n one of my legs. I always thought Rebecca Reed had quite an advantage on all us fat old men, but after watching her sail off Eagle Summit in that stiff breeze I've changed my mind. Rebecca, next time you run the Summit, I suggest carrying some ballast in your boots, like about fifty pounds of lead sinkers in each.”

Wilton rustled some papers in front of him on the podium and took a drink of water. Mac groaned again. This guy was settling in to talk all night.

“I've asked the race officials if I could say a little something about this next award. The Sportsmanship Award, as most of you know, is presented to the musher who demonstrates the best sportsmanship along the trail. The vote is made by fellow mushers, and there's been years when some of us scratched our heads trying to figure out who in hell the nice guy was, but this year's choice was a shoe-in. The vote was unanimous. For those of you who might have been born a few minutes ago, I'll fill you in on a few minor things this particular musher did.

“Me and Beech were camped at Slaven's Roadhouse when Guy Johnson landed his plane right out on the river. It wasn't a good place to land a plane, and the landing was pretty damn rough. Johnson stopped there because he was having some real severe chest pains and he couldn't catch his breath. We carted him up to the roadhouse and were wondering what to do when all of a sudden this rookie musher drives his team up, walks inside, looks old Guy Johnson over in the most steely-eyed way I've ever seen, and the next thing you know he's flying Guy Johnson to Fairbanks. He might be a
rookie musher, but he ain't no rookie pilot. From what I understand, he did a long stint in the navy flying planes onto boats. Guy Johnson's doing okay—he's at Fairbanks Memorial—but he'd be dead right now if he hadn't gotten there as fast as he did.

“So this rookie saves Guy Johnson's life. By hook and crook he manages to get back to where he left his team at Slaven's Roadhouse and he's back on the race trail. Now, when he took Guy to Fairbanks, this musher was running in third or fourth place, right behind me and Beech. But now he's way behind. No chance of winning. That doesn't stop him, though. He gets to Central and finds out we're all pinned down on Eagle Summit, so he fires up his team and charges up the hill. He catches up to us and we tell him about Rebecca Reed being blown off the summit. So what does he do? You guessed it! He rescues her. I mean, this guy would put Superman out of business in about a week! He carries the little lady up a slope you and I couldn't walk up with crampons and an ice pick, loads her into his sled and drives her to a rendezvous with a rescue helicopter at Mile 101. And another thing. This rookie's lead dog is undoubtedly the most phenomenal dog in the race. No one's team was moving on that summit, but this rookie musher says one word to his leader and they're outta there. Me and Beech followed right behind him, and his team broke trail for us clear to Mile 101.

“Did he keep going after he dropped the injured musher at Mile 101? Nope. Me and Beech did, but this guy stayed until the chopper came, and then the next morning he and a race volunteer went back and got Rebecca Reed's dog team and brought it to safety. Only then did he continue on and finish the race.

“This rookie musher's face is plastered over all the
major newspapers in Canada and the United States, and all that publicity paid off for you, Bill MacKenzie, because not only do we have a beautiful fur musher's hat and five hundred dollars donated by MAPCO Alaska Petroleum, but we also have an anonymous donation of ten thousand dollars for this year's Sportsmanship Award winner. Come on up here, Mac, and get your loot!”

Mac sat rooted to his chair. Wilton's speech had paralyzed him. He felt Rebecca squeeze his arm. “Go on, Mac!” She spoke gently into his ear. “Get up there! You deserve it.”

He stood to thunderous applause and earsplitting wolf whistles. The entire room stood with him. He walked up on wooden legs and awkwardly accepted the hat and the check, shook hands with Wilton and the race officials, and was trying to escape when Wilton dragged him in front of the podium for a mandatory speech.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you all very much!” He started to turn away, and Wilton grabbed him again.

“You might as well stand right here, MacKenzie,” he said. “You got another one coming.”

The race marshal stepped up and took over the mike. “This next award is given to the musher who best exemplifies the spirit of the Yukon Quest. I guess I don't have to explain how the race officials came up with the nominee this year, proof positive that this is a race where you don't have to finish first to be a winner. Bill MacKenzie, it is my honor to present you with the Challenge of the North Award and a check for two thousand dollars. I sure hope we see you on the trail again next year!”

Mac accepted the trophy and the check, mumbled his embarrassed thanks once again, but was prevented yet a
second time from making his escape as the race's head veterinarian approached the podium and took her place behind the microphone. She gave Mac a warm smile before beginning her speech.

“Each year the race veterinarians vote on the musher who demonstrates the most humane treatment and overall excellence in caring for his or her dogs throughout the race. This award is a legacy for aspiring mushers to emulate in the treatment and care of their team. I think it's the first time in the history of the Yukon Quest that a rookie musher has won this prestigious award, and I'd like to say that personally, I wouldn't mind being one of Bill MacKenzie's sled dogs. He kept all of his fourteen dogs happy and healthy throughout the entire race, and not only that, he recovered Rebecca Reed's team from a perilous place and brought them to safety at the cost of his own race. Mac, I'm proud to present to you this year's Vet's Choice Award of three thousand dollars, along with this beautiful plaque. I hope you hang it on your wall in some prominent place, because it's something for you to be very proud of.”

Once again he was dragged in front of the podium. He stared out at the blur of faces, dry-mouthed. When the applause eased, he leaned forward. “Thank you again. I have to admit that I'm a little overwhelmed. I wish my dogs were here right now, because they deserve all this praise, not me. They may not have won the race, but they're the winningest team I'll ever have the privilege to drive. As far as my lead dog, Merlin, goes, there's no better dog on the face of this earth. Amen. Thanks also to Sam and Ellin Dodge for sponsoring me right down to the ground, to Donny for all his smoked salmon and to Rebecca Reed for sponsoring my extremely, incredibly excellent dog food, as well as the
tastiest homemade thousand-mile chili I've ever eaten and eaten and eaten!”

He returned to his seat amidst the thunder of applause and another standing ovation, and studiously avoided looking at Rebecca.

Brian leaned toward him. “
Your
dogs, Mac? The least you could have done while you were up there is announce that the team's for sale!”

“Shut up, Brian!” Rebecca snapped, startling the hell out of both Mac and Brian. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with indignation. “Now is hardly the time for that kind of talk!”

Mac turned his gaze to her, astounded and enormously pleased by her response to Brian's comment. “No, it sure isn't,” he agreed. “It's time for bed. Hell, it's past time for bed. Way past. You coming?”

Rebecca's eyes widened. She glanced to see if anyone had overheard. Kanemoto was talking animatedly to someone on his right, and Brian had jumped out of his chair in a sulk to find himself another drink. She looked back at Mac. “Let's go,” he said. He stood up and reached for her hand. When Kanemoto turned to look up questioningly, Mac said, “Here's the key to my truck, Kanemoto. It's parked out back. I'll drive Rebecca back to the motel in her truck and take care of her dogs, if you'll take care of mine.”