For What He Could Become Page 24

  A woman walked through the door and approached the front counter. She stood with her back to him, but then she turned her head slightly and he could see her profile.

  It was Ilene.

  Bill got up and ran out the front door. He hit the sidewalk and turned right. His shoes were untied, but he thought they would stay on until he got away. Bile came up in his mouth and he spit it out between breaths. He turned into the alley and slowed to a fast walk. At the other end he crossed the street to the library.

  When he got to the back of the stacks he found George asleep with a book under his head. The sound of Bill’s rapid breathing woke him.

  “What you all heated up about?”

  “I need a drink,” Bill said.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “You got any?”

  “Would I be here if I had any?”

  Bill pulled a chair out and saw the librarian look down the aisle. He grabbed a book off the shelves and opened it.

  George sat up. “You sure know how to ruin a man’s sleep.”

  Bill put the book down. “I either need to get a drink or I need to quit drinking.”

  “Yeah. I’ve heard that before.”

  Bill didn’t respond. The hotel bar was out. Armand had not allowed him to come back in there after that disastrous night. He could beg for the price of a bottle, but Ilene might see him. His stomach needed whiskey…then he’d be okay.

  The next morning Bill stood facing Ilene in the hallway of the Salvation Army corps. In the gray light, he looked tall and strong. The light faded his features and softened the effects of whiskey. He was shaved and combed.

  Major Russell turned to Ilene. “We helped him a little—he cleans up pretty good, doesn’t he?”

  Ilene walked over to him. “Bill, will you take a ride with me?”

  He nodded and followed her out.

  Ilene parked the pickup truck and turned to face him.

  “Bill, I don’t have much time to say this, so I want you to listen real good. I know you’re feeling sick—and we both know why. Only you know why you ran from me yesterday.” She took a deep breath but it didn’t disguise the quiver of her lips. “I came to tell you that Carl is dead.” She waited for his reaction.

  He felt like he’d been hit in the face.

  She continued. “He slammed into a tree while he was training the dogs. I want you to take his team and run the Iditarod.”

  “Hit a tree? Carl hit a tree?” Bill looked out the pickup window. “He did that once when we were kids.” He gripped the handle over the door until his knuckles turned white. He turned to Ilene. “Where? How?”

  “At the bend close to the Old Ones cabin. Looked like the sled skidded and launched him into a big cottonwood.” She looked down at her hand. “We’ll never know for sure, of course—but that’s the way it looked to the troopers.”

  Bill tried to recall every corner of that trail. He had walked it, what now—some thirty years ago. For Carl to die out there alone… . He probably froze too.

  “The dogs?” he said.

  “A trapper heard them howling and picked them up.” She had an expectant look on her face.

  He shook his head slowly and his shoulders sagged. “My God.” He looked at his hands resting on his thighs and moved his eyes along the veins from his wrist to his fingers, like highways to nowhere. He felt exhausted, beaten, robbed of vitality. The unexpected had cleaned him out.

  Maybe I can do this for Carl. I don’t know if I can remember enough of it to make sense, but I can start the race. Give Carl’s dogs a start anyway. If the old Bishop was right, Carl could see that I did that much.

  “And you want me to drive his dogs? He wouldn’t even let me do that when he was alive.”

  Ilene sat on the seat with her back against the door and looked across the pickup cab at him.

  “Take his team….”

  Bill shook his head. “He wouldn’t want me to do it.” Tears were spilling down his cheeks.

  “He would have wanted you to do it—you know he would. He was so happy when you ran the young dogs. He said several times after you left that you were a natural dog driver.”

  They sat silent for a minute, Bill staring at the second hand on the dashboard clock.

  “Ilene…the Iditarod’s a thousand miles. I can’t do that. Look at me! Will you for God’s sake look at me?”

  She took out a Kleenex and wiped tears from his cheeks. “You walked to Venetie, didn’t you? You helped build the AlCan Highway, didn’t you? You led your squad out of the war, didn’t you?”

  “Ilene, Ilene—that was years ago. I can barely stand up. I’m not sure what day it is and I’m sick…”

  “You’re not sick—you’re hung over. Hung over will wear off while you’re on the trail. You know how Carl trained the dogs and you’ll remember how to drive them.” She turned the ignition key on. “The race is starting in an hour.”

  She maneuvered the pickup into the traffic.

  Traffic was heavier now, and as they got closer to the stadium they could see the mushers’ vehicles backed up and intermingled with the spectators trying to park.

  Ilene pulled out the race bib.

  “Here, put this on.”

  It wasn’t the kind of thing that came easy right now, but he got the bib over his head with the drawstring dangling and sat humped over, staring at the traffic. There were choices. The pain behind his eyes would go away and then he could decide, but Ilene was asking him to decide right now. He closed his eyes and wished she hadn’t asked. He was startled by her voice.

  “Bill…what’s to become of you?”

  He stared at her. He didn’t know the answer in the sense she meant the question, but he knew what was going to become of him right that moment. He grabbed the door handle and while the pickup was still moving jumped out and swung the door closed. He stumbled, put his hands out in front of him, then caught himself and didn’t fall. He straightened up.

  A line of pickups a block long was waiting to get in the gate. He stumbled along the snow-covered walk, catching himself several times from falling.

  How the hell am I gonna do what Ilene is asking? Yeah…I remember dogs but a thousand miles…I can hardly walk.

  When he looked up he wanted to see Carl standing there. It was a joke, wasn’t it? To get him out of the drunk tank. Carl…Carl…Carl. You were too good, too strong to die like that.

  He looked back at Ilene. Her eyes followed him and now he was thirty feet from the gate. He could hear conversations, laughter, dogs barking, smell the exhaust.

  “Whoa there, fella,” the gate guard hollered as he stuck out his arm.

  Bill pointed to his bib. “My rig is back there.”

  “Where are your registration papers?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Get me the papers and your sled and dogs, and you can get right to it.”

  Bill began walking back. Ilene was still about a block away.

  Can I do it for you Carl? Can you see me doing it out there thinking about you, standing on your sled, driving your dogs? Ok…I’ll do it for you. It’ll be in memory of you. That’s all I have to give you.

  He started jogging, and the headache moved behind his eyes. He reached the pickup, pulled open the door, and stood on the running board.

  “Registration papers?” he panted.

  “They’re in that folder.”

  He started jogging back down the sidewalk.

  She parked and got out. When he saw her he straightened up and held his hand on his forehead. Each beat of his heart drove a spear through his brain.

  She smiled and held out her clenched hand. “Here. Aspirin.”

  He opened his hand under hers and smiled back. “Got any whiskey to take these with?”

  She pulled back her arm and doubled her fist.

  “How about some water, then?”

  She reached into the equipment bag, took out a bottle of almost frozen water, and handed it to him. It reminded him
of the frozen canteens on the Snow Eifel.

  The announcer called the first racer to the line.

  Someone shouted, “Ilene!”

  She turned to see Carolee waving from the mushers’ gate. Ilene jogged off, and Bill hooked up the wheel dogs.

  He hung the snow hook over the bumper of the pickup, then went to the front and pulled the towline taut. If his stomach would stop turning over and if he could get some food in it and if the aspirin would kill his headache and if he didn’t die from the tomato and sauerkraut juice Major Russell had poured down him this morning… he just might make it out of this park.

  The announcer’ had a loud, clear voice.

  “Number five, Joe Redington Sr., the Father of the Iditarod. Joe is from Knik and has two sons running the race with him this year. He’s starting with a sixteen-dog team and that big black-headed lead dog is Feets. Give him a good round of applause, and Joe—we’ll see you in Nome.”

  Carolee walked up and handed Bill a large bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  “Eat some now, save some for later,” she said.

  “It’ll freeze.”

  “So? Heat it up when you’re cooking the dog food.”

  The announcer’s voice demanded attention again. “Racer number nine, Tim White, hails from Taylor Falls, Minnesota. Tim has fourteen dogs. Tim, are your dogs used to these Alaskan temperatures? Well, he says they are and we wish him well. Tim White on his way to Nome.”

  Carl’s dogs were harnessed, the sled packed. Bill took a look around, then inhaled, tucked his chin against his chest with his arms folded, and held the breath. The queasiness in his stomach and the headache made him weak, and he leaned against the pickup.

  I am where I am because of what I am, and everything I’ve done has led to nothing. I am nothing—I have nothing. Here I am with twenty-five mushers who think they can make it. They don’t have any doubts. They aren’t sick. When Carl trained the dogs for this he must have thought he could not only make the distance but win the race. I have no hopes of winning—doubt I can make the thousand miles. But I can try.

  He exhaled, pulled the hook off the bumper, and let Ilene and Carolee lead the dogs up to the starting point.

  He was third in line. He set the snow hook and walked down the line, looking at the dogs. Ilene adjusted a harness on the right swing dog. Bill got back to the sled. They moved up to the on-deck position.

  Carolee and Ilene were standing side by side, and Bill reached out his arms and touched each of their hands. There were a lot of unanswered questions in his mind, but these two people believed in him. He blinked several times to clear his eyes. He thought of words to say but nothing came out.

  The team in front was tearing down the track, and the announcer’s voice boomed out.

  “The next racer is a substitute driver for Carl Williams of Arctic Village. Carl was killed in a tragic accident recently, and his brother Bill will be driving his team. Bill is wearing bib number fourteen and is running sixteen dogs. How about it, Bill, are you ready to go? Well, he’s nodding. Let’s give him a big hand as Bill Williams heads for Nome.”

  Ilene handed him the snow hook and he stuck it on the bag. He put a chicken leg in his mouth and stuffed the bucket under the tarp.

  The announcer counted down.

  “Five…Four…Three…Two…One! Bill Williams is on his way to Nome.”

  Bill whizzed past Carolee and Ilene, standing on either side of the dogs. He had never gone so fast on a dog sled, and his eyes watered so much he could hardly see the track. He tried to take a breath, but the chicken choked him. He spit it out when the lead dog turned on the first curve, and as the sled whipped around the turn, he lost his grip. He hit the ground hard and rolled. The breath had been knocked out of him; he was struggling for air.

  Major Russell emerged from the crowd along the trail, got his arms under him and helped him up. He was still gasping. A bystander had stopped the team and the Major led him to the sled. He grabbed the drive bow and the Major pulled the snow hook. He could hear the announcer saying …“but he looks all right.”

  Major Russell leaned close to his head and whispered, “Good luck Bill and may God be with you.”

  Bill struggled to look behind him as the team bolted down the trail. The Major was waving.

  The team ran hard until they approached the road crossing at Lake Otis Parkway.

  “Whoa…whoa!”

  He glanced down to find the brake pedal. He pressed it and looked up when the leaders started up the bank. He had his weight full on the brake as it caught a black spruce root. The brake snagged, and as the sled and the team slammed to a halt, Bill’s feet flew off the runners, his hands left the drive bow, and he catapulted over the sled.

  He lay there for a minute, then lifted his face out of the snow and got up on his hands and knees. The dogs were looking at him.

  “Okay. Okay.” Bill looked back at the dogs. “Let’s pretend I’m just learning.”

  He pulled the sled back until the brake sprang up.

  “Hyaaa!”

  Rusty and Napoleon dug in. The sled rose over the edge of the bank, the tow line tightened, and the sled that Carl Williams had built skimmed along behind sixteen dogs going east out of town, heading for Nome, Alaska, 1050 miles to the northwest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The dogs had slowed down. They were moving, but the tug line was often slack. If they were his dogs he would know each of them, be able to tell right away which one was causing the problem and figure out how to fix it. But he didn’t have enough miles with them to know what trouble they could cause or how to get them out of it.

  Carl knew how to train dogs. He and Bill had learned the same things from their dad and Uncle Charlie, so at least these dogs would know what he meant when he spoke to them.

  His stomach felt funny. It was always like that after the whiskey wore off. He inhaled and belched. The good feeling lasted a few seconds, then the queasiness started again. He needed whiskey to take care of it.

  The leaders at the front of the team were forty feet away and Bill found it hard to concentrate, to keep his eyes focused on the backs of the dogs. He closed his eyes and felt the swampy feeling come over him again. That unglued, unhinged, swimmy feeling he always got.

  Why would Ilene think I could do this? I’m gonna have to stop and throw up in a minute. If I make it to Knik it’ll be okay—I can tell her I can’t do it, it’s too much to expect.

  He went dog by dog until he found the one who was causing the problem with the tug line. That’s what you did when you trained, but he hadn’t trained these dogs, he didn’t even know most of their names. Their names were on the harnesses—tonight he would look at them and get the names straight so he could talk to them tomorrow. What a hell of a thing to be driving dogs without even knowing all their names. He reached for the whip.

  The whip cracked and every dog in the team glanced over its shoulder, tongues flogging the air. The man had made his move. They could ignore the man—they had before and they could again—but when the whip snapped over their heads the second time, the message was clear.

  In his present state he couldn’t tell which ones buckled down or exactly when, but the sled jerked, then smoothed out, and for the first time the tug line was taut. They pulled like a team. For twenty minutes they ran that way, ran like it was fun, like they enjoyed doing it, like they were bred to do it.

  When they got to the Matanuska River, Bill stopped on the bridge and took a pull from his water bottle. When the water hit his stomach he felt woozy and his head pounded. Suddenly he was sick and vomited hard, bent over, hanging on to the drive bow to stay upright. The dogs looked at him. He kicked snow over the vomit and wiped his mouth.

  “What’re you looking at?”

  Most of the dogs turned their heads and looked down trail. Bill wondered if he could stay on the runners if they ran over the bridge. He had to chance it.

  “Hyaaa!”

  The leaders, more ca
utious than he thought, took the trail across the bridge at an easy trot. Halfway across he heard a voice and looked behind him. The next two teams were in view, one already onto the bridge. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and a wave of nausea swept over him.

  He could hear the dogs panting behind him and the musher’s brake dragging, then the musher yelled, “Trail!”

  There’s no place to pass here. What’s got into the guy?

  He looked across the bridge. Fifty yards to go. He could make that. He let them run. “Hike!”

  Across the bridge he heard it again. “Trail!”

  “Gee! Gee!” Bill hollered.

  Napoleon leaned to the right and Rusty turned with him. They pulled off the trail into six inches of new snow and slowed down. When the team passed, Bill searched for the face of the musher, but it was hidden in his parka. He looked back to see the second team only fifty yards behind. He kept the team in the soft snow until they passed.

  Suddenly Rusty and Napoleon yelped and leapt forward, straining at their harnesses. They pulled the others along, some jerking, some leaning hard into the harness, pulling the tow line straight as an arrow. Bill almost fell off the sled as it slipped in beside the passing team.

  One of the passing dogs turned her head and nipped at Rusty, and that was all it took. Rusty and Napoleon jumped on her. The dogs tangled and ran into a tight circle that brought both teams to a stop.

  The mushers grabbed the tug lines and pulled. Bill lifted a dog in each hand while it snarled and pawed at the power that had taken it out of the fight. The other musher got his whip, and the crack was like nothing Bill had ever heard before. It stopped all the dogs but Rusty and the female. Rusty mounted her, then the other dogs lost interest and spent the time grooming themselves.

  Bill looked at the other musher standing by his sled, whip in hand.

  “Dammit!” the musher yelled.

  Bill just looked at him. Heart pounding, he tried to get air in his lungs. He sat down on his sled. It would take twenty minutes for the dogs to uncouple, and he needed the rest. His insides were boiling, and he felt unsteady and irritable.