My Lead Dog Was a Lesbian

by Brian Patrick O'Donoghue

  My trip to Oz was rudely interrupted when the dogs plunged over a ten-foot cliff, the result of a pressure ridge formed by past movements in the ice. I hadn’t noticed that we were climbing a big fold. The sudden drop flipped the sled and sent me crashing hard. I hung on, landing chestdown on the ice and smacking both knees. That one hurt. I wondered if my legs were broken. The dogs sensed my distress. For once, they passed up a chance to drag me.

  Nothing was broken. I pulled myself together and resumed the march. Herrman was the first to arrive in Koyuk, checking in at 5:25 A.M. Traveling about 45 minutes behind, I watched the other teams entering the village. Drawing closer, I could see headlamps moving near a brightly lit building. Had to be the checkpoint.

  The trail swung left, looping into the village. Observing the activity by the checkpoint, Chad made a beeline for it. Too drained to protest, I concentrated on hanging on as the team crashed through several backyards, dodging parked cars and snowmachines, before finally emerging on the street below the checkpoint.

  “Why didn’t you follow the trail?” the checker asked sternly.

  “These guys had other ideas,” I mumbled, terrified he might make me reenter Koyuk using the marked trail. I was at my limit, ready to beg. Please. Please don’t make me do that. But the villager was just curious.

  A mushing angel appeared at my side.

  “There’s a good place for the team over there,” said Catherine Mormile, aiming her headlamp at an open spot between two houses. “Need help?”

  “Please,” I said.

  After parking the team, I unhitched Raven and tied her to the sled, separated from potential lovers. I heated water for the dogs, petting and scratching them while I waited for it to boil. I served them a meal. Then I grabbed my sleeping bag and trudged inside the checkpoint on leaden feet. The long room echoed with snores. Finding a clear spot near a video machine, I carefully spread my sleeping bag on the floor and flopped on top of it. Still dressed in my snowmachine suit, bunny boots, and three layers of facial masks, I fell asleep instantly.

  I was falling off the sled. Reaching for the handlebar, I awakened inside the Koyuk checkpoint. I wasn’t capable of sleeping more than a few hours anymore. None of us were. Trail rhythms were too ingrained.

  Feeling groggy, and a little foolish about awakening with a lamp still strapped on my head, I went outside to check on the dogs. They were fine, luxuriating in piles of fresh straw, which I didn’t even remember spreading. I threw each of them chunks of frozen beef and liver.

  It was gray and blustery. Gusts of wind picked at a mound of Iditarod trash outside the checkpoint and sent scraps dancing in the street. Inside the checkpoint, the others were talking about staying awhile. A monster of a storm was on the way.

  Sticking around sounded fine to me. The dogs and I were running on reserves. I walked over to the Koyuk general store. Strolling down the aisle, I found myself staring at a packet of spaghetti. Practically drooling, I scooped up the noodles, a fat brick of hamburger, and sauce.

  There was a long line at the cash register. Waiting my turn, I realized that I had other needs besides food. I crossed my legs. I shuffled from foot to foot. There was a white outhouse across the street. I could see it in my mind. It wasn’t far. I was close to making a run for it when my turn came at the cash register. I collected my change, and bolted for that outhouse.

  I threw down my shopping bag. I yanked the suit zipper, the vest zipper, pulled up my fleece shirt, fumbled with the drawstring on my pants … and … sighed as the burning stream ran down my right leg and pooled inside the rubber boot.

  The wind was blowing even harder, if that was possible, when Daily left the shelter cabin at Lonely Hill. But it was daylight. He could see a marker, maybe two. And, if he waited any longer, dog food was going to become a problem.

  The team hadn’t gone more than a few miles when Bogus quit again. Daily tried each of his leaders. Each refused to go. On a hunch, he placed Diamond—the slow leader he had bought from Barve—in front. The dog balked. So Daily bit him in the ear. That got Diamond’s attention. Moving at one mile per hour, the old dog led the team across the ice, traveling marker by marker.

  In Koyuk, like many Alaska villages, most homes lacked running water. People made do with a public shower and laundromat. I made an emergency visit, toting an armload of dirty gear and chewed dog harnesses. After loading the washer, I climbed in the shower and soaked for the second time since leaving Anchorage. While I waited for the laundry to dry, I patched the dog harnesses. Part of me was embarrassed at squandering racing time in a laundromat. But, even barring my outhouse mishap, having clean clothes was beneficial. Sweat reduces thermal protection in cold-weather gear. The final miles would be warmer thanks to this village pit stop.

  Later, I walked over to the village school to see if I could borrow a Coleman stove to cook my spaghetti.

  “The kids in the village really enjoy seeing you guys,” one teacher said. “Most of the mushers pass through the village in such a rush they don’t often get a chance.”

  I’ve always enjoyed talking to school groups about my profession. I offered to return in the morning and speak to an English class about careers in journalism, or just talk about the race, if that’s what the kids wanted. My presentation was scheduled for 9:30.

  Owing to the approaching storm, a scheduled basketball game with another village had been canceled. Concern was also growing about Daily, who had left Shaktoolik the night before. Villagers were talking about sending out a rescue party when Tom was finally sighted in the distance, late Thursday afternoon.

  I was talking to an AP reporter on the pay phone when Tom walked in. I collared him, Herrman, and a few other mushers who happened past and put them on the phone for interviews. It was part of my campaign to make sure the Iditarod headquarters didn’t forget us.

  “You should see O’Donoghue,” Daily told the reporter. “Skin’s falling off his face. He looks hideous.”

  I was a little nicked, that’s all. Coming across the ice, wind had leaked between my goggles and the face masks and burned a line across my cheeks and nose. The shower had left the branding raw and bloody. It looked worse than it felt, but I was embarrassed by the way people kept gasping.

  Later, Daily trudged up to the laundromat with a load of his own. Cooley was already there and had beat him to the bathroom. Tom shrugged and put his clothes in the washer. Long minutes passed. Cooley remained busy in the bathroom stall. Finally, Daily couldn’t wait any longer. He knocked. There was no response. Yanking open the door, he found Doc sitting on the toilet, sound asleep.

  Back in the checkpoint, I cooked my spaghetti feast in a dog pan. Other mushers laughed as they saw what I was doing.

  “You’re not going to eat all that yourself, are you?”

  “Watch me.”

  We were shell-shocked. Twenty days on the trail, and Nome was another 170 miles yet. But no one was complaining tonight. Half a dozen mushers agreed to accompany me to the school in the morning. Don Mormile was in rare form, mumbling songs and waltzing across the floor with a broom.

  “We’re going to be here until spring,” someone cried.

  “You already are,” another musher shot back.

  It was indeed March 21, the spring equinox. The concept seemed ludicrous.

  A television, tuned to the state’s rural satellite network, was blaring in the kitchen area. A news program was on. No one paid much mind until the Iditarod update started. “Snowmachiners are out searching for musher Tom Daily,” the announcer said, looking grave. “The rookie, traveling in last place, has been missing since Wednesday and is feared lost in a storm….”

  Inside the checkpoint, all eyes turned to Daily, who was also watching the broadcast, munching a handful of caramel-coated Screaming Yellow Zonkers.

  “Gee. And I didn’t even know I was lost,” Tom said, beaming. “Should I be worried?”

  By morning, the sky had cleared. Below the village, the next section of trail
stretched before us, flagged by tiny markers streaming bright orange tape. Other mushers scrambled to depart. I had an appointment to keep at the school. Let them go. I figured I could catch the slower teams without difficulty.

  Looking at the bright faces of the school’s older students, I was glad I had kept my promise. Life is so cloistered for kids in Alaska’s small villages. Personal contact with outsiders can have a big impact. I’d learned that traveling to small villages as a reporter. It was even more true for a visiting Iditarod musher, a role that bridged our two worlds.

  Sepp Herrman was the only musher left when I returned to the checkpoint. He was sweeping it out. The small contribution made him feel a little less ashamed of the Iditarod trash blowing through the streets outside. It may have been piled neatly when the front teams passed through Koyuk, but ten days of wind had spread the mess the length of the street.

  Leaving Sepp working the broom, I crossed the street to my team. The males, now rested, were enraptured by Raven’s alluring scent. Cyrus was a hopeless case. The young male was on his feet, straining toward Raven rigid as a pointer, barking and barking. The other dogs stretched and sniffed each other as I moved through the team checking their feet. Their paws looked remarkably good, even those that had been sporting cuts a few days before. Coastal snow was kinder to sled-dog feet.

  A sudden snarl spun me around. Harley had Chad on the ground, with his big jaws clamped around Golden Dog’s neck. You could hardly call it a fight. Chad, limp, was on his back in complete submission.

  Herrman had come over to look at my team. He understood the situation instantly. “You have a bitch in heat. Yes?” the German said. “The males fight for the lady’s love.”

  No blood was spilled. I shifted Harley to the rear of the team and tried to shelter Raven among the females up front. The lesbian promptly spun around and tried to mount her.

  Herrman remained behind in Koyuk, but caught me within the hour. We shared a snack in another crude shelter cabin, then he left me behind.

  Out of habit, I grabbed teetering markers whenever I could, firmly replanting them for the teams following behind. Did that for an hour or two, before a startling thought stopped me in midmotion. I was again mushing the last team on the Iditarod Trail. Chuckling, I slipped the marker into my sled bag. With Nome a mere 100 miles away, I had room for a souvenir alongside that damn Lantern.

  If it weren’t for the rooftop-high drifts and the spider web of snowmachine tracks, Elim, population 220, could have been a small suburban community anywhere in the United States. The streets were laid out in a grid with matching modular houses arranged in neat rows, the legacy of a federal housing project. Within those homes, however, resided a traditional Eskimo community, which had taken root here around the turn of the century, tending the local reindeer herd.

  Daily was staying with a family that had only recently moved into their new government house. There was no curtain on the new shower, but the musher wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity for a soak. He cranked the hot water valve and nearly leaped out, scalded by the first truly hot water to touch his skin in weeks.

  A feast was waiting at the family’s dinner table: moose, caribou, and fresh buttery cinnamon rolls. Afterward, Daily’s hosts sat down around their television to watch an hourlong Iditarod special.

  “If you folks don’t mind, I think I’ll take a nap,” Tom said.

  He’d been asleep for about an hour when a conversation on the family’s CB radio roused him. In a voice that creaked with age, a village elder delivered a warning.

  “Don’t let those mushers leave,” the man said. “They’ll be lost on McKinley.”

  The argument continued over the CB, with what seemed like half the village chiming in. A young-sounding local musher declared that he would personally lead the Iditarod teams across Little McKinley, a treacherous hill overlooking Golovin Bay. Listening from his bunk, Daily thought that we probably ought to do what the old guy said.

  My host was a young teacher. Sue and her boyfriend, Marty, shared a house in the center of the village. Outside, children, sporting furry parkas, flocked around, spreading out straw for my dogs.

  As I requested, Sue awakened me after a two-hour nap. “Is there anything I can get you?” she asked.

  Three more checkpoints lay between me and Nome. White Mountain was the only place I planned to stop. My thermos was already filled with hot Gatorade. I had the teacher place a few spoonfuls of instant coffee in a sandwich baggie. It was a secret weapon for the final push. I was ready to start racing again.

  Sue’s boyfriend Marty led me out of Elim on his snowmachine at about 11:30 P.M. It was dead calm and dark. Snow was falling in wet, feathery clumps. About a mile out of town, I saw a headlamp behind me. The team closed in on us depressingly fast. It was Plettner. Exchanging a few words, she took off like a rocket.

  Snow was coming down hard as my team climbed Little McKinley. Rainy and Harley weren’t the least bit bothered. I was running blind myself. There were hardly any markers. I was thankful for the tracks of the other teams. It was hard to miss the groove, six to eight inches deep, which they had kindly left behind.

  Descending the formidable hill was more of an adventure. It was a steep sidehill slope. The teams ahead had cut an erratic weave of traversing paths. I tipped my sled, riding on one runner, fighting to hold the team in a straight line. But it was hopeless, too many of the teams had already slipped sideways, carving cutaways that repeatedly slammed my sled into downhill bushes and trees. Roughly halfway to the bottom, I caught Plettner and the others. The convoy was stalled. Our lone Iditarod veteran was furious.

  “None of them knows how to find a trail,” Plettner said. With a sigh, she slouched down against her sled.

  After a lengthy pause, word was relayed back up the line that Sepp Herrman was in trouble. That was a jolt. I hated to imagine a situation Sepp couldn’t handle.

  More shouting back and forth yielded word that Herrman’s team had charged off a mountain cliff, or something to that effect. Cooley and a few others had heard the trapper shout “help” from below. Doc was leading a party to investigate. Naturally I was curious. But our parking spot was precarious. It wouldn’t take much for the team to bolt and crash into the others directly below us.

  “Send a gun!” Cooley’s message was relayed by Urtha Lenthar, who was positioned midway down the hill.

  “What?”

  “Cooley says to send down a pistol,” Lenthar repeated.

  Terhune figured the comment was directed at him. Cooley knew Terhune was packing a large-caliber pistol. Well, the vet was asking the wrong guy for help. Terhune had no intention of lifting a finger to assist Super Trapper. “Fuck Sepp,” he snarled.

  I turned to Plettner.

  “What could be going on?”

  “Maybe he injured some dogs, and Cooley wants to put them out of their agony,” she suggested, shaking her head at the thought.

  Throwing my sled on its side, I stuck my borrowed. 357 in my pocket and set forth down the slope. The snow on the hillside was waist-deep. Half-walking, half-sliding past scrubby bushes, I made my way to Urtha.

  “Give it to me,” he said, demanding the gun.

  “No way,” I said. “It’s my gun, I intend to see how it’s used.”

  Joined by Daily, I continued slogging down the hillside. It was a long hike to where Cooley was waiting. Using snowshoes might have been a good idea. It also occurred to me that it was going to be a lot tougher climbing back up.

  We found Cooley bent toward the ground, studying tracks left by Herrman and the local musher.

  “You brought the gun?” he said.

  I handed it to him.

  “Good. They must have been attacked by a moose,” Cooley said, aiming his headlamp several feet ahead. “Look at those tracks.”

  A line of moose holes stretched across the tracks of both dog teams. The intersection was marked by a large patch of churned snow. “I didn’t want to go any further witho
ut a gun,” Doc explained. “Be careful, we might have an angry moose on our hands.”

  Shouting Sepp’s name, we trailed the sled tracks into the thickets. It was hard work. Every third step the crust would give way beneath our boots. The effort was wasted. We never found Herrman, or any sign that either musher had so much as paused.

  “I just can’t understand it,” said Cooley, who thought very highly of Herrman. “Where I come from, you don’t yell ‘Help!‘ and take off. And I heard him. I know I heard him.”

  Later, listening to the story, Terhune decided that Herrman probably did cry for help, and that it was probably a deliberate trick. Now that Herrman was close enough to make it to Nome without bumming dog food, Terhune figured the so-called cry for help was a trick to slow everyone else down. Terhune chuckled at the way Super Trapper had the rest of us fooled.

  Cooley and the other mushers at the front of the pack were reluctant to try Herrman’s kamikaze route. But no one could find any markers.

  “More of the void,” mused Daily.

  By the time I climbed the hill to my team, I was drenched in sweat. Before long, chills were invading my clammy gear. I needed to change clothes before continuing. But everything I had with me was wet. Everything, that is, except my green wool, military-style sweater. As cold as I had been so far, it gave me confidence knowing that I had the sweater in reserve, one more layer in case it got really bad. But I was reluctant to dig it out. If I put the sweater on and still felt cold—then what would I do?