For What He Could Become Page 29

  “Hyaaa!”

  Rusty and Napoleon jumped. They leaned into the harness and pulled up the bank. Bill held on to the sled, was jerked out of the water, and skidded over the ice onto the bank. His mind was awhirl. The dogs had to dry off, and he had to get a fire going in minutes. He moved the dogs up to the flat alongside the river and set the hook, then ran up and down the team to see what shape they were in. With the exception of a little leg ice, all could take care of themselves.

  He tore four good-sized pieces of driftwood from the ice, stacked them into a teepee, and ran to the sled. There were three railroad flares in the sack that must have been put there for signaling. He tried to light one with his mittens on, then pulled them off with his teeth and struck the flare. It didn’t light. He struck it again. It fizzled but finally caught, and he stuck it under the logs. First came steam and then dripping water, then the driftwood turned gray and caught fire. He pulled the gunny sacks out and spread them in a circle.

  By now the fire was blazing. He twirled in front of it, holding his arms out like a scarecrow, dancing around and around between the fire and the dogs. When he got warm he dumped the water out of his boots, replaced the felt liners, and rubbed his feet in front of the fire until they were dry. They were still numb, but he didn’t think they were damaged and he put on new socks and walked around with no feeling below his knees. It was hard to walk on numb feet with nothing to tell you what your feet were doing.

  He had started bringing the dogs over to the fire one at a time to check them when he heard yelling behind him. Another team came up over the bank, running well. They pulled to a stop and the musher walked over to the fire.

  “Hi. I’m John Scribner, out of Palmer. Seen where you went into a hole…you all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’re the dogs?”

  “I was just looking at them.”

  “You Bill Williams?”

  Bill nodded.

  “Not every day a guy goes swimming at thirty below. Let’s take a quick look at your dogs—wow, you got them on sacks already.”

  “Did that while I was waiting for the fire to get hot enough to warm me up.”

  John looked at the large logs burning. “What did you start that fire with?”

  “Railroad flare.” Bill smiled. “Old Indian trick.”

  John laughed. He picked up a dog’s foot and spread the toes. “This one’s fine. You’ve still got sixteen dogs, and they look good. They’re easy to follow.”

  “Yeah…I figured you guys wanted me to break trail all the way to Nome.”

  “You’re gonna do that, aren’t you?” John said.

  “Just as soon as I warm up.”

  Another team topped the bank and stopped behind John’s team.

  “Holy Cow,” the musher said, “I thought the meeting was gonna be in Nome.” He pulled off his glove. “Walt Peski.” He stuck out his hand.

  “I’m Bill Williams.”

  “Oh, you’re the one Ilene picked up the bib for. Well…you’re doing good so far.” He tugged his glove back on. “Dogs looking good too.”

  “Yeah…I was a little out of it when I started off. Jim Beam took me for a ride.”

  Walt smiled. “Old Jim knocked out some guys at McGrath, too.”

  “Two,” John said. “They scratched when they couldn’t find their team or remember how to get on the sled. Damn shame.”

  “And a waste,” Walt added. “To have come so far.”

  “You’ll be okay?” John said.

  Bill nodded. “Good of you to check on me.”

  Walt turned back. “We’re gonna camp up by Long Creek. There’s room for your team too if you want to pull in.”

  “Thanks for the offer.”

  Bill smiled when he went by their camp and didn’t awaken a dog, much less a musher. Long Creek was in the middle of his four-hour run, and he was going to work this schedule until he got to the Yukon River.

  He had been kicking since they left the Sulatna, and the exertion had kept him from freezing. If he could keep kicking another two hours, he was sure the tingling feeling would be gone and his feet would be warm. It was getting colder, the air was dry and harsh, and the numbness in his face told him that this night was going to be the coldest yet.

  Shortly after he made camp the northern lights started, and somehow he felt that was a good omen. This didn’t seem like just any night. It had an aurora of its own. It was going to dance and deepen and be very cold, and he knew that intense cold was a taker of life. But he had spruce boughs and food and a good fire going. He and the dogs would be all right.

  Nothing moved as he went about fixing the meal for the dogs and himself. He chopped frozen beaver and salmon into the melted snow water and stirred and urged the dogs to eat and drink.

  In the bottoms it was searing cold. A tree popped—it sounded like a rifle shot, but it was the cold in the tree. He put four caribou skins over the boughs as far back as he could under the tree drift, tied the sled down, and piled enough wood to feed the fire until they started off again at first light. Had he forgotten anything? He lay down, tucking the skins around him.

  He waited for the warmth to begin. It had to be at least thirty below. It had been that cold when he and his dad killed the moose on Trail Creek. The moose had frozen as fast as he cleaned and skinned it, and it was colder here tonight. Maybe it was fifty below. At sixty below your spit freezes before it hits the ground. He almost got up to try it, but the warmth hadn’t come yet.

  Did I get too cold before I got in? He pinched his butt. Some feeling there. He needed more time.

  The lights danced, and he watched them for awhile. And then, just when he was thinking he would have to get up and roast himself by the fire, the warmth started coming and he could feel the tips of his fingers. He relaxed, and sleep came.

  In the morning, he knew he would have died had there not been coals for a new fire. He had never been so cold in his life. The mucous in his nostrils froze with every breath. His eyes ran and the moisture froze on his eyelashes, freezing the lids shut when he blinked. He had to cup his hands over his mouth and eyes and blow warm air into the pocket to thaw his eyelids, then make sure he blinked his eyes only part way so they wouldn’t freeze shut again. He danced around in the partial dawn and slapped himself with his arms, flailed his arms and legs about, did calisthenics, scared the dogs. He would get warm, by God, no matter what it took. A person who’s moving around can’t freeze.

  Dammit—where’s my blood gone?

  The stillness didn’t answer. It absorbed every word he said. He was alone there—and it had to be seventy below zero.

  He approached Ruby with a tired team. John and Walt would surely pass him here, but running four hours and resting four was keeping him in the lead, and he needed the rest.

  He checked in amidst a group of the local people, who were happy and proud to see an Indian man leading the race. One young boy took hold of the lead dogs.

  “Come to our house,” he said with a broad smile.

  “How far is it?” Bill asked.

  He pointed to a cabin fifty yards away. “Over there.”

  Bill looked to see if he would be able to tell when other teams went through and decided it didn’t make any difference

  “Okay,” he said, and the boy took off running with Napoleon’s tug line in his hand.

  At the house, Bill spread the sacks while the boy got water. Two dogs were not drinking.

  “You have to hold their mouths open to drink?” the boy asked.

  “Just these two. They’re too tired to drink.”

  “Pry these bowls apart and put one in front of each dog,” Bill said. The freezing bowls sizzled when Bill ladled the warm food into them.

  He had finished feeding the dogs when John and Walt drove into Ruby and greeted him.

  “Hey, you didn’t camp with us last night,” Walt said.

  “You guys looked so comfortable I didn’t want to wake you up.”

>   “Is that musher talk for I want to stay in the lead?” John said.

  “I told you I’d clear the trail for you to Nome,” Bill said.

  Walt grinned at him. “You and the dogs okay after your bath?”

  “Yeah, we’re all clean now. We even smell good.”

  “Okay,” John said. “See you down the trail—it’ll be faster on the river.”

  “See you in Nome,” Bill said.

  He went into the cabin with the boy, who lifted the lid and stirred the pot. The air filled with the pungent smell of meat and fish stew.

  The boy led him to a small bedroom.

  “This is my room. You can sleep here.”

  “Thanks. Will you wake me in four hours?”

  “Don’t you want something to eat?”

  “Something besides pemmican and Kentucky fried chicken, maybe?”

  “How about stew with fried bannock bread?”

  “Okay.”

  The woman introduced herself as Pauline Mercer. Her husband was away on his trap line, and her son Peter had asked her to invite a musher to their house.

  “Where did you camp last night?” Peter said as Bill ate the thick stew.

  “The other side of Long Creek.”

  “Peter,” his mother said, “let the man eat.”

  He did, but not for long.

  “Did you drive during the night?”

  “Sure did.”

  “How could you find your way?”

  “The moon.” Bill patted his pocket. “I have a compass and a map, so I know where I’m going.”

  “But when it’s dark you can’t see the trail,” Peter said.

  “My lead dogs can find the trail.”

  He was forcing himself to stay awake and knew he would soon lose the struggle.

  “I need to go to sleep now. Thank you for the food, it was very good but I’m too sleepy to enjoy any more of it.”

  He was asleep within moments of lying down on the bed.

  Peter shook him awake. “It’s four hours.”

  “Okay.” He tried to sit up, but the softness of the bed wouldn’t let him rise. Peter was sitting in a chair by the bed. “Peter—take my hand.”

  Peter took both his hands and pulled him to a sitting position.

  “Hand me my liners.”

  He bent until he thought he would break, slipped the felt liners onto his feet, and then, holding to the bedpost, stood up.

  “Getting old,” he said.

  “You aren’t old,” Peter said.

  “I’m old and stiff.” He ran his hands over his chest and stomach. “But you know something? I’m alive.”

  He went into the main room, where Pauline sat reading the Bible beside the stove.

  “Did Peter watch over me while I slept?” Bill asked.

  Pauline nodded and lifted the Bible. “So did this one.”

  “Well, He has so far. I hope He keeps looking out for us sinners and old fools. In the meantime, thank you for your hospitality. And the good food. I won’t forget this.”

  He went into the arctic entry and put on his outerwear.

  “You look a lot bigger when you get your cold clothes on,” Peter said.

  “That’s to scare the bears,” Bill said. He rubbed the boy on the head. “I wish I had a son like you.”

  Peter smiled. “Can I go with you?”

  Bill smiled back. “Afraid not. I have to travel light.”

  “Will you come back?”

  “Maybe next year.”

  “Promise?”

  When did I ever promise anybody anything?

  “Yes. I promise.”

  “Can I help you with your dogs?”

  “If you do what I say.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  They opened the door onto a clear day. The thermometer attached to the unpainted door casing said it was thirty-five degrees below zero.

  Bill put on the sunglasses the checker had given him at Rainy Pass Lodge. He couldn’t remember his name but he remembered his face, the mustache, his smile—and his kindness in giving him the glasses. He didn’t expect them back and he hadn’t asked money for them. He’d just given them to him because he needed them.

  “First we have to snack the dogs and give them some water,” Bill said.

  Peter took the bucket in his hand and headed for the water.

  Bill looked down the Yukon River. From Ruby to Kaltag they would be on the river. Flat and fast. He could make good time. It was about a hundred miles to Galena—he’d need a stop somewhere along the way, but he might get fifty to sixty miles in before stopping. He wondered where John and Walt were.

  Just then three teams came into the checkpoint and stopped. The fast teams were catching him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  On the Yukon the dogs stretched out, and he let them run while he watched the riverbank to see if he could determine how fast they were going. The trail hugged the south bank of the river where the snow-machiners had created it. The trees whizzed by, and he judged they were doing maybe twelve miles an hour.

  The four-hour run ended about the time the sun began sinking below the tops of the Kaiyuh Mountains. Three of the dogs were slacking on the tug lines, but they all perked up as they came to a pullout where Walt and John must have stopped. Bill sunk the snow hook and stretched his back. He doubted there was another human being within fifty miles. There was an aloneness here that was at once stifling and expanding.

  Evening settled in while he cooked the food and checked the dogs. The three slackers seemed okay but wouldn’t look him in the face, a sure sign that they were ailing. He hand-watered them, felt their ribs, and gave their legs a massage, then took out a towel and rubbed them all over. It was dark by the time he was through, and most of the dogs were asleep. He tried to stay awake but he nodded, then lay down on the sled and pulled the tarp over him. He would just sleep a couple of hours, and then they’d be off.

  His thoughts drifted from Major Russell to Mike O’Leary to Corporal Sims and finally to Ilene. That was the last he remembered until he heard wolves howl. He peeked out of the tarp and realized how stiff and cold he was. The dogs were howling with the wolves. It was a good time to head towards Galena. He was running more at night now, and he would get a new flashlight there.

  The moon illuminated the river trail, and the tracks John and Walt had left were easy to follow. There’d been no storms here since the trail was made, and Napoleon and Rusty didn’t even slow down when they struck unbroken trail.

  So—Walt and John are camped someplace close by.

  They were in the lead again with nothing but white around them, the only sounds the soft whoosh of the runners sliding through the snow and the occasional creak from a wheel-dog harness. The surroundings pulled at Bill’s senses, leaving him the distinct impression that the world was made up of a forever flat place in the snow with a few trees in the distance, and that mankind was on a sled being pulled through that flat place with no goal in mind but the running through it. That the beginning was too far back to remember and the end too far ahead to see. His eyes fluttered, his mind drifted, and then he dozed.

  The sled veered into deep snow and jolted him awake. The team stopped, and he walked up to the leaders. They were sitting down and looked at him like they expected him to put the sacks out so they could camp. They were five yards off the trail and stuck in the snow.

  “Napoleon, you know better than that. We’re running four hours, then we’ll camp. Okay?” He pulled the dogs back onto the trail. In a few minutes he dozed again, and the leaders pulled off the trail and stopped. The stop awakened him again. He set the hook and walked forward.

  “Rusty—you tired? Napoleon—what’s the matter, boy? We’re running now. We’ll camp later. We need to keep moving now.” He rubbed the leaders’ ears and face. He led them back onto the trail, pulled the hook, and got back on the runners. In a few minutes he was dozing and the team stopped again. He looked around him and took a deep breath.

/>   “So. The driver can’t doze if the dogs can’t sleep. Is that what you’re telling me? I need to stay awake?”

  He took out a stick of jerky, then put it back, took out a Hershey bar, peeled back the wrapper, and stuck half the frozen chocolate into his mouth. He couldn’t close his lips around it until it melted enough to break up. He chewed on the chocolate, letting the sweet taste stay in his mouth as long as he could before swallowing. Then he put his mind to thinking about something that would keep him awake until they got to Galena.

  He traced the arrival of the 106th Infantry Division in the Snow Eifel step by step and arranged it into days. He could remember the cold and the driving rain that turned to snow when they arrived after the long truck ride. He tried to remember each man, each foxhole he dug, the action, how he felt when they surrendered, and their escape. He smiled at the memory of wading the Our River in the dead of winter, and compared it to falling into the Sulatna River a day ago.

  It’s one thing when you’re twenty and another when you’re forty-eight. And a foot or two is different from going in up to your armpits.

  He caught himself between consciousness and sleep again, and he started to whistle while he pulled out a rope. He tied the rope around the drive bow, took two loops around his waist, and tied the other end to the drive bow on the other side. If he fell asleep, at least he wouldn’t lose the sled and team. They would still be a unit even though they might drag him a hundred yards.

  The latchstring was out on the Galena check point cabin. Bill pulled it and looked inside. A sleepy voice said, “Yes?”

  “I’d like to check in and out,” Bill said.

  “Just a minute.” The checker came out in a bathrobe.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t know anybody was running at night. And who might you be?”

  “Bill Williams. How far you figure it is to Nulato?”