Murder on the Iditarod Trail

by Sue Henry

  24

  Date: Saturday, March 9

  Race Day: Eight

  Place: Between Eagle Island and Kaltag checkpoints (seventy miles)

  Weather: Overcast, clearing, wind

  Temperature: High –10°F, low –22°F

  Time: Early morning

  Out on the ice of the Yukon, the leaders of the race struggled into the wind, battling their way toward Kaltag. Trailbreakers had marked the route up the east side of the river, knowing the worst of the wind would hit the west bank. Heading almost directly into the wind for hours at a time demoralizes dogs as well as drivers. Blowing at a steady twenty to thirty knots, the gusts sometimes reached fifty or even sixty, battering sleds and teams the length of the run, from Anvik to Kaltag.

  Past Grayling, on the sixty miles to Eagle Island, the weather deteriorated, catching the race leaders on the ice, with no option but to continue until they reached the checkpoint. Along with increased wind came fine, granular snow and temperatures that dipped to twenty below.

  Even at zero, a person or dog standing still in a fifty-knot wind experiences a chill factor of minus sixty degrees. A team doing even five miles an hour adds another ten- or fifteen-­degree drop. Any portion of a musher’s body exposed to wind risks almost instant frostbite, and many mushers come into checkpoints with patches of white on their faces, the first indications of danger. Ski masks and goggles are worn by most, but they must be closely checked for small openings that would allow windblown snow to filter in next to the skin.

  Under these conditions, a good lead dog is vital. Racers breed for strength, determination, and grit in their best leaders, knowing that somewhere along the Iditarod Trail, the time will come when that good leader may be all that keeps them in the competition. Dogs that will go anywhere, anytime, are priceless. Some mushers have won the race more than once, only to lose their best leader and never win it again.

  To keep their teams moving forward, many drivers get off the runners of the sled and walk, helping the dogs, periodically changing the order of the team to relieve those in front, giving them extra food and rest, but always pushing, always moving toward Kaltag and, ultimately, Nome. For a musher already sleep deprived, the additional physical and mental strain frequently produces a trancelike condition of hallucinations. Far from any trees, on the broad, flat, snow-drifted surface of the ice, a musher may duck to avoid a sweeper, or drive wide around a moose that isn’t really there. It’s not unusual for them to see buildings or people in the trail that disappear before they’re reached.

  Always present is the pressure of the competition. As little as an hour can mean the difference in winning or losing at this point. All the racers watch one another constantly, afraid someone will sneak out and drive to get ahead and stay there. No one sleeps well, for fear they will sleep too well and waste time, or another racer will make better time. Mushers are obsessed, paranoid, and irrational in the last half of the race.

  Jessie and Solomon left Eagle Island before five on Sunday morning, the ninth day of the race, with seventy miles between them and Kaltag. After being crammed into the small cabin for almost eight hours, waiting for the storm to blow itself out, Jessie, like the other eight leading mushers, was frustrated and tired of anyone’s company but her own.

  Although the worst of the storm was over, wind still blasted down the river and the temperature still held at twenty below. She had carefully booted all her dogs before leaving, knowing that the fine snow crystals on the ice would be as abrasive to their feet as they were to her skin, wearing away at any exposed pads and toes.

  “Come on Tank. Let’s take them out now. Hike, Sadie. Go on, Chops.”

  Well rested, they dropped onto the ice and into the wind with more enthusiasm than she felt. She could hear Mike talking up his own team ahead of her as they crossed back to the east bank and headed upriver.

  It was still dark but a thin band of open sky brightened below the clouds to the east, throwing the stunted spruce trees into black silhouette against it. She wished she were alone and couldn’t hear even the sounds of another driver, the way it was on early morning training runs on the Knik Flats at home. This time of day was one of her favorites; the other was the half-lit end of it, when blue and gray shadows softened the landscape. Whistling up the dogs, she hurried them until she caught up enough to call to Solomon.

  “Why don’t you go on ahead Mike,” she said. “I’m going to drop behind you a little. Need some time to myself for a change, after the crowd last night.”

  He frowned. “Sure that’s a good idea? You think maybe we should stay in sight of each other?”

  “Oh, just for a little while. I really need some space, and I like to watch it get light with just the mutts for company.”

  Hesitating, he finally agreed. “But you run in front. I’ll give you ten minutes start. When you’re ready for company, drop back and I’ll catch up. Then I won’t have to wonder if you’ve had to stop.”

  A few minutes later she had her wish and was gliding smoothly along the ice on the back of the sled, with only the sound of the wind in her ears.

  Glorious, she thought. Freedom. She loved the solitude of mushing.

  Three or four miles later, as the light grew stronger, the wind died until she could hear the panting of the dogs and the swish and scrape of her sled runners. The glow before sunrise was reflected off the endless snow and ice. It was like traveling through the inside of a pearl. She removed her goggles and rolled back the ski mask to appreciate the sudden calm, knowing it wouldn’t last long. On the Yukon it seldom did.

  Movement on the riverbank caught her attention, and a lump of apprehension filled her throat. Not again. Not now. What was that shadow that slipped swiftly between two trees above her? “Haw,” sharp and urgent, brought quick response from Tank and the rest of the team, swinging them left, farther onto the ice. Then a second movement from above showed her what she was seeing.

  Wolves. A pair of them, silent as the trees they threaded. Curious, one stopped, then the other. As Jessie and her team passed directly below, they stood like statues, watching their domestic cousins pull that strange thing that carried a human on its back.

  The hair rose on the back of Jessie’s neck. She turned her head to keep the pair in sight as long as possible.

  She had never seen a wolf in the light. Many drivers had reported their glowing eyes suspended in the reflection of a headlamp, but they were almost never observed during the day. In the flat half-light these were only canine-shaped shadows, but a thrill all the same. She felt no threat; her team, having caught no scent, was oblivious.

  What a gift, she thought. And only because I was alone. Two teams and they would never have appeared. She looked around carefully at the shape of the banks and the curve of the river in the soft light and thought of Jon Van Zyle’s stunning impression, painted for the official 1989 Iditarod print. He had portrayed a pair of wolves on the same stretch of the Yukon.

  Spirits raised, she put a tape in her Walkman and began to sing along as they moved north, gathering energy with her enthusiasm. Tank, in the lead, looked back at the sound of her voice and seemed to grin as he trotted out a little faster.

  25

  Date: Sunday, March 10

  Race Day: Nine

  Place: Kaltag checkpoint

  Weather: Clearing, light to no wind

  Temperature: High –11° F, low –24° F

  Time: Late evening

  At six o’clock, Schuller, Martinson, and Murray came into Kaltag, looking as if they had left most of their consciousness on the trail somewhere. They walked around half-asleep and responded slowly to questions.

  As Mick checked mandatory gear, Schuller leaned over his dogs, stripping off booties and inspecting feet. The long run over solid ice had been hard on their pads. The murmur of his voice was comfort and encouragement for the tired dogs.

>   “All present and accounted for, Dale. Pretty bad out there?”

  “Could have been worse.” Schuller groaned as he got to his feet and stretched against the ache in his back. “We may get more of it, if the reports are right.”

  “That’s what I hear. Go on. Get ’em out of here for some rest.”

  Mick walked back to Martinson’s team. The dogs were all spread out, exposing their bellies to the cool snow.

  The big musher opened the bag and stepped clear of the sled, without looking in.

  Mick went through the gear and looked up questioningly.

  “Okay. Sleeping bag, ax, food, booties. Where’s your trail mail, Tim?”

  “Right here, in the back, in that plastic thing.”

  “I don’t see it.”

  “Oh, hell. Let me.” Irritated, Martinson shoved the checker aside and dug through the rear of the bag. “It was right here.”

  He tossed gear from the sled. When half the sled was empty and the mail had not yet appeared, he stared into the bag, as if willing this vital cargo to materialize.

  “Goddamn! It’s got to be here somewhere.”

  He frantically hurled the rest of his equipment from the sled. Cooker, clothing, a jumble of assorted items, but no mail.

  “Could you have left it at the last checkpoint?” the checker ventured.

  “No! Damn it. I don’t take it off the sled. Ever.”

  It was obvious that exhausted and frustrated, he was approaching explosion. Rapidly, he went through the whole pile once more.

  “Son of a bitch!” he shouted, throwing a boot ten feet into a snowbank. “Some bastard son of a bitch stole my mail.”

  “Tim.” Mick tried to get the musher’s attention as a bag of jerky followed the boot. “Tim, hold on. Take it easy. Go through it again. Or, better yet, let someone else. We’ll call Eagle Island and check.” He looked across the crowd that had gathered to watch and meet Alex’s eyes beseechingly.

  Knowing it would only make the situation worse to intervene, Jensen shook his head.

  “Shit,” said the checker. “Somebody go wake up Holman.”

  It was a bleary race marshal who staggered from the checkpoint house five minutes later.

  “Found it yet, Tim?” he asked.

  “No, goddamn it. Hell, no. Somebody fuckin’ stole it.”

  “Aw, you don’t know that.”

  “Well, it’s not here and I sure as hell didn’t take it out.”

  “Okay. Let’s take it from the top. Without all your mandatory stuff, I can’t let you go on. The ham’s trying to raise Eagle Island. If it’s there, maybe we can get it flown up, but you’ll have to wait. If it’s not . . . we’ll have to disqualify you.”

  All the starch and bluster seemed to go out of the big musher. Without a word, he sat down on his sled, his head in his hands.

  Holman stood looking down at him, silent. In the minute or two before Mick came out of the checkpoint shaking his head, nobody moved. It was so quiet that the sound of Martinson’s ragged breathing was the only thing Alex could hear, except for the whine of a faraway snow machine.

  Matt stepped forward to lay one hand on the musher’s shoulder. “Tim,” he said almost tenderly. “Tim, I’m sorry. It’s not here.”

  At this point, half an hour after the first three, T. J. Harvey pulled up the bluff to park his sled beside Gail Murray, who was still waiting to be checked in. He looked at Martinson, sitting dejectedly on his sled, and asked Murray, “What’s going on?”

  “What a bummer,” he said when she explained. “And he doesn’t have any idea what happened to it? Could he have lost it somewhere?”

  “Not likely, the way he takes care of his stuff. You know how picky he is.”

  “Yeah.”

  Mick was now going through Gail’s sled, and she breathed a sigh of relief as he checked off her trail mail and other required items. Leaving her team, she went into the checkpoint to see how much space there was for drying gear.

  The checker started on Harvey’s sled bag. Like Schuller, the musher worked with his dogs while he waited. Martinson, finally on his feet, carelessly shoved gear back onto his sled.

  After a minute of rummaging through Harvey’s bag, Mick stepped back, a puzzled expression on his face.

  “T.J.,” he said. “Ah . . . come here a second, will you?”

  “What?” They both looked in the bag.

  “Is this yours?” The checker held up a plastic container of Iditarod mail.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Then, is this, too?” He held up a second container, exactly like the first.

  “Huh?” Harvey’s mouth dropped open. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Here, in your bag.”

  Martinson, hearing the astonishment in Harvey’s voice, looked up to see Mick holding both containers. He lunged toward Harvey, grabbing the front of his parka.

  “You bastard!” he yelled.

  With one powerful swing, he punched the other musher in the face, dropping him into the snow beside his sled.

  Then Jensen did step in, as did Caswell, who had come out of the checkpoint. They grabbed Martinson before he could swing again. With the help of the checker, they held him as he struggled, to reach the fallen man.

  T.J.’s nose bled profusely down the front of his parka as he sat up and wiped at it with the back of one hand. “Hey,” he said, groggily. “Hey. I didn’t . . .”

  “You stole my mail!” Martinson roared, trying to throw off the troopers. “Should have fuckin’ got rid of it, you son of a bitch.”

  Holman came rapidly around the sled to help Harvey to his feet.

  “Tim!” he shouted, standing between the two mushers. “Martinson. Shut up. Calm down. Give us a chance, we’ll sort it out. Just shut up and get inside.”

  Martinson finally gave up and allowed himself to be pushed into the checkpoint, still swearing. Holman followed with Harvey who wiped at his nose with a grubby bandana.

  By separating the two, it was possible to question Harvey without interruptions from Martinson, but no clear answer came from the session. T.J. swore he hadn’t known there were two containers in his sled, had never seen the second one. In fact, no one could tell which had originally been his. They both looked exactly alike.

  “All I know,” he told Alex, “is that when I checked into Eagle Island yesterday, I had all my required gear, including the mail. If the other one was in my sled, no one noticed it.”

  “Was anyone near your sled at that checkpoint?” Jensen asked.

  “Could have been. We didn’t sit around outside to watch them, with the wind howling all night long. Everybody went in and out to check on the teams.”

  Later, Gail Murray put in a word for T.J.

  “I really don’t think he knew it was there,” she said. “You don’t know him like we do. Besides, why didn’t he get rid of it, like Tim said? Pretty dumb to leave it in his bag for the checker.”

  “What about Martinson?” Alex asked her. “Would he put it in Harvey’s bag to blow it for him?”

  “And risk being disqualified? I don’t think so.”

  “Got any other ideas?”

  She had to admit she hadn’t.

  Holman allowed both men to continue the race, conditionally. They were to avoid each other and, he told Martinson, if there was any attempt at all toward Harvey, he would instantly be disqualified. The threat seemed a sufficiently effective restraint.

  “If there’s one thing Tim’s worried about it’s not being allowed to finish the race,” Matt said to Alex later. “He wants to win it more than anything. Don’t think he’ll take chances.”

  By the time Jessie and Mike arrived an hour later, an uneasy truce had been achieved. Exhausted, cold, and windburned, they ran their dogs into town as the still angry musher stumpe
d off to care for his team. Jessie looked more worn than Jensen had yet seen her, but so did they all. There was a smile of greeting on her face when she saw him. He wanted to hug her, but, because of the crowd around the checker, contented himself with returning the smile.

  “How long here?” he asked, walking with her to a spot near Solomon where she could rest her dogs. She was buoyed up by the performance of her team.

  “Three hours,” she answered. “Fifth. We’re fifth, Alex, and only an hour behind Schuller. Three hours of dog rest is enough.”

  “And you?”

  “Well, no. But if it’s a choice between sleep and winning, I can sleep when it’s over. It’s only three days to Nome. Besides, even fifth would give me enough money to run again next year. Fifteen thousand.”

  Where does she get it? he wondered again. Where do any of them?

  “I saw wolves this morning,” she told him. “Oh, Alex, they were incredible. Dark shadows on the bank above us. They didn’t seem to be afraid at all, just stood there watching us go by. It was like a dream.”

  “How many?”

  “A pair, like Van Zyle’s print. I wish you could have seen them.”

  Watching to see his reaction, she stumbled over a rut in the packed snow. He reached quickly to keep her from falling.

  “Thanks,” she said, regaining her balance. “It’s like being on a boat. You get off and everything goes on moving for a while.”

  He stood looking down at her, his hands still on her shoulders.

  “God,” she said. “I’m so gone I can’t even walk, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  As he pulled her close, he caught a glimpse of Solomon’s shy grin over her shoulder.

  “I know I can’t help you. But is there anything I can do?” he asked when he let her go.

  “You dear man. I’ve got to feed the gang first, but then I would trade half of them for a hot cup of tea with lots of sugar.”