Broken Trails (37 page)

"I'm right behind you."

Lainey grinned at the inherent threat of his words. Rather than take the bait, she ordered her dogs toward the check out point. It was time to put some distance between them, at least for a little while.

CHAPTER FORTY

THE STRAW LASHED to her sled made the ride a bit ungainly, but the good weather compensated for the extra weight. Cool temperatures and the setting sun made for decent trail. Anything that had softened up during the day would freeze over in the night. Lainey's team trotted along in the footsteps of thirty mushers with little difficulty. She joined the dogs, stripping off her parka to combat overheating as she ran alongside the sled.

They passed through an abandoned mining town, with old and deteriorating cabins on either side of the trail. This was Poorman, once a booming metropolis in the early 1900's when the siren's song of gold had plucked the string of many a man's heart. Even after they left Poorman behind them, occasional mining camps sat desolate and forgotten off to either side. Lainey almost wished she could stop and explore. If it were not for the threat of Roman overtaking her she might have. Instead, she sighed and continued to run with her dogs.

The team climbed to high ground for a bit. When the team dropped to Sulatna River, Lainey hopped back onto the runners. Iditarod markers were easy to see, which was fortunate. Along this stretch there were many trails, evidence of wildlife, trappers and trail breakers. Even with the well marked paths, it was easy to be distracted onto a different one and Lainey was forced to keep her attention on the trail instead of sight see. It was just as well since the sun would be setting soon.

Lainey went over her notes while on the easy sections, though she kept her eye open for sweepers. She expected some difficulties once they hit the road. Chuckling, she said, "What the hell is a road doing out here?"

No answer was forthcoming, but her timing was good. The road in question loomed up before her, and the team ran along it. Up ahead was the Sulatna Crossing, a steel bridge spanning a creek. According to trail markers, Lainey was supposed to go right over it, but she halted the dogs. The bridge looked pitted and worn in her head lamp, just like Poorman had. Was it truly safe to cross?

Lainey snacked her dogs and checked Heldig's paws. She still had one bootie on, and Lainey put on three more. Then she walked back to the bridge and peered down. The drop was about fifteen feet, no worse than falling off the roof of the cabin. But at least there she would not have a heavy sled and fifteen dogs to tangle in if she slid off. She reached out and thumped the steel. It seemed solid enough, and there were no tracks showing mushers taking a different route. She had not gotten lost because the way had an official Iditarod marker.

She heard barking behind her and ran to her sled. Damn. Roman was coming. She would be damned if she let him catch her ogling. "Let's go!"

Her dogs, eager to keep ahead of the approaching team, bustled across with ease. Lainey glanced back to see Roman coming up to the bridge. She envied his assurance as he never wavered, letting his team pull him across without a second thought. Was she more cautious than he was? Or did he simply have the benefit of hearing Iditarod tales as he grew up?

In any case, he was here now, and she could either urge her dogs forward or let them run at their own pace. Lainey had to remind herself that the race was already won and she still had days to go before reaching the end. Risking her dogs now would do nothing but force her to scratch before Nome when they became too exhausted.

Keeping that firmly in mind, Lainey refused to become too disgruntled as Roman passed her with a grin. Much. Her trash talkers had other ideas, though, as they bitched and kvetched at Roman's dogs, who returned the favor with lots of swagger and tail wagging. She laughed at her team, proud of their attitude. "That's right, you tell them," she said.

The trail continued on the road for several miles. They followed it between two lakes and across a creek. There was some overflow here but nothing too dangerous. A decent breeze pushed through the area, causing small drifts that smoothed into the trail, but even that difficulty hardly slowed them.

Lainey passed Roman while he was snacking his dogs, and tried not to grin too impudently. They were evenly enough matched that he would pass her when she stopped to do the same.

Apparently the road followed switchbacks that the trail did not. Her team went off the road for a time only to return to it for a while longer, then repeated the procedure. In the dark it was a rude surprise to find herself suddenly in a ditch due to glacier like run off crossing the trail. A couple of times Lainey balanced on one runner to keep upright. A spiteful little voice hoped that Roman would have the same difficulties.

They passed a highway maintenance shed, though there was no way this road could be termed a highway, even without snow and ice covering the pavement. Providing there was pavement under the snow. The breeze was stronger here, but the treeline kept it to a minimum. It was not long before the trail climbed out of that meager protection.

Here the wind was stronger and had scrubbed parts of the trail clean. Lainey learned firsthand that the road was not paved as her teeth rattled from going over bare gravel. Rather than worry about Roman overtaking her, she now ran along with her team to lighten the weight of the sled, hoping the runners would survive the rough ride. She had spare plastic runners to replace the coverings that were shredding, but if the metal parts of the runners themselves were damaged . . . Lainey only had one other sled waiting at a checkpoint, her sprint sled at Unalakleet, and that was two hundred miles or more away.

The sled trundled along for some time, the occasional patch of remaining snow giving sharp contrast to the grating of the road and the wind pulling at Lainey's parka. Finally, the trail dipped back into the protected tree line, and snow once more carpeted the ground. Lainey breathed a sigh of relief.

She passed a sign, Mile Point 30. It would be time to stop soon. Lainey turned off her head lamp and looked behind her, not wanting to give Roman a chance to see her if she could help it. His lamp was nowhere in sight. Either he had dropped back or he had turned his lamp off for the same reason. Lainey grinned.

More signs, these indicating the trail where it ran through a summer village called Long. Everything was boarded up for the winter, but the buildings were well cared for, not like the aging Poorman she had passed outside of the last checkpoint. According to her notes, she was at the halfway point between Cripple and Ruby. If she went much further, she would be back into exposed wind and weather. Again she glanced back. Had Roman stopped for a rest break? Should she?

Outside of Long, Lainey pulled her team to the side of the trail. She turned on her head lamp to read her watch and was surprised to see she had only been out for four hours. She still had two more to go before reaching her recommended run / rest schedule. Two more hours would put her almost to Ruby. It would be ridiculous to rest then, knowing she only had twenty miles to the checkpoint.

Lainey snacked the dogs, giving them moose liver chunks which they snapped up as if starved. Then she returned to her sled to grab a bite for herself and think.

Scotch was at Ruby already. Lainey really needed to talk to her about increasing the fat intake of her dogs. Besides, she missed her. They had not been separated for this long since Lainey's arrival in June. It had been over twenty-four hours since Lainey had seen her. If she were to follow her original plan and camp out, she might miss Scotch in Ruby.

On the other hand, running the dogs on through might be a hardship for them. She had confidence they could handle the extra mileage, but worried that it would upset her carefully planned schedule. Why had she put a rest break here?

Lainey flipped through her notes. They were a combination of Scotch's trail notes blended with Thom's Iditarod days and Lainey's personal research. She sipped at a juice pack, absently nibbling at a frozen Twinkie in between pages. It took her a few minutes, but she finally located the reason she originally planned a full rest break.

When Thom had been running the race, the trail between Cripple and Ruby had been over a hundred miles long. For various reasons Lainey was not privy to, the trail had been altered a few years earlier, cutting that mileage to just over seventy. Scotch's notes showed a good place to camp out near Long, but Scotch also tended to blow through checkpoints and park away from people. Lainey had combined the older trail information with Scotch's camping spot, and assumed she would need to park before reaching Ruby.

She frowned at the bale of straw lashed to her sled. Damned if she could drop it out here for no reason; it would be the same as littering. She would look like ten kinds of fool bringing it into Ruby. Lainey blew out a breath. Oh, well, nothing to be done for it now. At least she could take the time to go over her sled runners and change them out if needed.

It was too early to feed the dogs, so Lainey gave them a second snacking instead. Then she began the process of unloading her sled in order to turn it on its side. A few minutes later, she was pleased to note that the sharp gravel had not done as much damage as she had thought. She chewed her lip, wondering if she should give the runners a good waxing before packing up again. Her team sprawled on the snow, some catching a quick nap and others watching her as if to ask, Are we staying or going?

If she stayed much longer, all her dogs would be sleeping. She would play hell waking them up. An interruption like that might cause them to give her trouble for disturbing their slumber. She set her sled upright and quickly packed it again, talking loudly to her team to keep them awake.

By the time she tied the straw back on, most of them were at least sitting up. Lainey went down the line, scratching, petting, and wrestling with them until even Bonaparte was ready to go. She returned to her sled, popped the snow hook, and called, "Let's go!"

They were back on the trail before she thought of Roman again. Where was he? Surely he would have passed her by now. Lainey turned to look behind her but saw nothing. Maybe he had had far more difficulties than she did on that stretch of gravel. Either that or he had the same outdated information she had and was holed up for a nap.

The dogs took her through a quiet little valley. With no sign of pursuit, Lainey's eyelids began to grow heavy. She yawned and forced herself to stand up straight. Now was not the time to snooze. Rummaging in her personal bag, she pulled out a fresh battery pack for her iPod. Soon she was dreaming on with Aerosmith.

After hitting mile post 18, she climbed a high ridge, maybe thirteen hundred feet in altitude. On the other side was a gradual downgrade. She was still on the road so overflow and ice was still a problem, making an easy run hazardous. The trail bottomed out and crossed a bridge before rising again. She went up and down hills with some regularity, always on the road. In some cases, her head lamp illuminated nothing to her right, indicating steep a drop off. She kept a wary eye on the trail at those points. An overflow heading down hill could force her toward the edge before she knew what was happening.

At the top of the last hill, she realized she was at an intersection. Grinning, she could see lights in the distance. Ruby was just ahead. As the sled battled the icy road, she made out large square shapes on the side. At first she thought they were small buildings or tree trunks, but one was near enough that her head lamp lit it well. It was a sign, a crudely drawn picture of a dog team with a childish scrawl over the top - 'Welcome to Ruby Checkpoint, Iditarod Musher!'

Lainey laughed. Six hundred fifteen miles done, and only four hundred ninety-seven to go!

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

IT WAS THE wee hours of the morning when Lainey pulled to a stop beside the log community center. The check in procedure was quick and painless, though one of the volunteers wondered aloud why she had a straw bale with her.

"Weight training," she said. She was glad the skin of her face was chapped from the weather. At least her blush would not be readily apparent. "Is Scotch Fuller here?"

The checker, an amused expression on his face, looked over his clipboard. "Yeah, she is. She'll probably be getting ready to leave soon, though." "Thanks."

Lainey directed her dogs to the parking area and got them fed and bedded down on the straw from Cripple. After the longer run on this stretch, she planned on taking a full eight hour break here. There were two mandatory eight hour breaks; the next one would be on the other side of the Yukon at White Mountain. She had not planned on taking her mandatory here, though, so she had not notified the checker of her intent to stay a little longer than usual.

Her team comfortable, she grabbed up wet dog booties and gear and headed to the community center. Hopefully there would be someplace to dry at least some of this stuff before she had to head out.

Inside, her sinuses promptly clogged from the change of temperature, but not before she caught a whiff of delicious moose stew.

"Hey, hey! The prodigal rookie arrives!"

Lainey grinned and waved at Howry, but it was the sight of Scotch sitting beside him that caused her heart to beat a little faster.

Strauss was returning to the table with a cup of coffee and stopped to give her a one armed hug. "You can put your stuff in the back there," he said, nodding toward a mass of makeshift laundry lines dangling over a large stove, "and grab a bowl of stew and join us."

"Yes, boss," she said.

He chuckled. "Wow! You must be exhausted to be calling me 'boss'."

Lainey stuck her tongue out at him and slipped from under his arm.

After arranging her stuff to dry and getting food, she finally sank into the chair beside Scotch. She took the time to kick off her boots and liners, giving her feet a chance to air out, before applying herself to the stew.

"So, how's it going?" Strauss asked. "Any problems out there?"