Across a Thousand Miles (7 page)

“I don't know, Sam,” she heard Mac saying as she
pulled the door shut behind her. His voice sounded strangely muffled, as if it was coming from inside a deep well. “I'd like to think you're right, but I just don't know. What I do know is that I have to pay her back what I owe her, and the sooner the better.”

Rebecca could see Mac's legs sticking out of the rear cockpit of the huge yellow Stearman. She could also see Sam standing near the top of the stepladder on the plane's off side, but neither man had noticed her. “I'd like to start all over again without that big debt hanging over my head,” came Mac's voice. “And who knows, maybe that won't help. Maybe nothing will change her opinion of me. I seem to be in competition with a dead man and I'm losing. Do you have any idea what that does to a man's ego?”

Rebecca felt her face flush. She reached back, opened the door again and slammed it hard behind her.

“Sam? You in here?”

“Over here, Rebecca,” came Sam's slow, mellow voice.

“Ellin's made a batch of her cinnamon rolls and she's just taking them out of the oven.” Rebecca walked toward the old plane. She saw Mac's legs writhe about wildly as he wriggled, twisted and levered his body out of the cockpit.

Rebecca waited until he'd extricated himself and was sitting on the back of the pilot's seat. “What are you doing in here?” she asked. “I should think you'd be out running your dogs. If you plan on entering the Quest, you'll need to put at least another thousand miles on them. Better hop to it! Oh, and by the way, that was an interesting technique you employed yesterday coming down the Mazey Creek trail.”

“You liked that, did you?” Mac said.

“That was without a doubt the most spectacular crash I've ever witnessed,” Rebecca said. “And the most miraculous recovery, I might add.”

“Coming from you, I take that as high praise.”

Rebecca nodded. Mac was dressed in dark-green wool army pants and a thick red-and-black-plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled back. His arms and hands looked strong and powerful, and she had no doubt that they were. For him to have held on to that sled yesterday had required Herculean strength. She noticed his fancy Rolex watch was missing. “Look, Mac, don't take this the wrong way, but you don't have enough experience to run the Yukon Quest.”

“Maybe you think I don't, but the dogs, you have to admit, do,” Mac said, narrowing his eyes on her.

“The judges on the race committee don't base their decision on the dogs. They want to be sure the musher is qualified to run a long-distance race, and you have to prove yourself by finishing some shorter races, like the Fireplug and the Percy DeWolf. They won't let you run the Quest.”

Mac's grin was irritatingly arrogant. “They've waived that requirement,” he said with a casual gesture of the pliers he held in one hand. “Sam told them I'd been trapping up on the Flat with my brother's team of dogs and they figured that was qualification enough. I'm good to go.”

“Good to go?” Rebecca stared at him incredulously. “You can't be serious! You have absolutely no idea what you're getting yourself into!”

“Ignorance is bliss,” he said.

“Baloney! Ignorance can kill you out there!” she snapped. “Sam, I can't believe you fronted his entry fee knowing how inexperienced he is!”

“Well,” Sam said, dusting off his coveralls and avoiding her eyes, “I'd better get inside. Ellin's cinnamon rolls don't like to be kept waiting…”

“Trapping up on Flat!” Rebecca scoffed when the door had closed behind Sam.

Mac eyed her defiantly. “I lived there for four months with the dogs.”

“You trapped one fox and you let it go!”

“Would it have made me a better musher if I'd trapped two hundred wild animals and killed them all for their pelts?”

“That's not the point! This race is about being tough, about having tough dogs, about being able to travel across a thousand miles in some of the worst weather and over some of the most gruelling terrain there is. Believe me, it isn't like that Walt Disney movie
Iron Will.
You can't live on a piece of fruitcake for two weeks, never feed your dogs, and end up winning enough money to save the family farm. You can't fake it out there. It's for real, and it can get really, really nasty!”

Mac's eyes narrowed speculatively again. “You don't think I'm tough enough, is that it? You think I'm too much of a greenhorn to go the distance?” He pushed himself off the side of the cockpit and descended the ladder propped beside the plane, stepping off the bottom rung to stand beside her. Even in his stocking feet he stood a good ten inches taller. He braced the palm of his hand against the plane's fuselage and looked down at her with those clear, piercing eyes. The nearness of him scrambled her thoughts. She felt her heart rate accelerate and a curious warmth flush her face.

“I don't think you can get the miles on your team,” she said. “You'll need at least a thousand training miles.
Competitive mushers put more than twice that many on their dogs before they run that race.”

“I'll put the miles on them.” He reached for his boots beneath the tail of the plane. “I've got until February and it's only November now. We'll be ready.”

“Good to go, right?” she said caustically. “Look, Mac, if you're running the Quest to finish in the big money, I'll tell you right now, you don't have a snow-ball's chance in hell.”

He paused, boots in hand. His expression was carefully polite. “Why, thank you, Rebecca Reed, for your inspirational vote of confidence. You don't know what it means to me to have your support.”

Rebecca pulled an envelope out of her parka pocket and held it out to him. “Here,” she said. “Take this. If you're really serious about running the race, you'll need every cent you can get.”

Mac recognized the envelope and a muscle in his jaw tightened. “That's your money,” he said.

“You pawned your watch to get it, didn't you?”

“That's right. And I'll pay you the rest of what I owe at the end of February. Keep it, Rebecca,” he said, and his eyes were steely. “I mean it.”

Rebecca dropped her arm and stuffed the envelope angrily into her pocket. “If I were you,” she said, glaring at him, “I'd be harnessing my dogs right now.” She whirled and stalked out the door into the weakening afternoon light. She stood for a moment, letting the keen-edged air cool her temper. The arrogance of the man! Didn't he understand that it would be his team that suffered from his inexperience on the race trail? She turned back and opened the hangar door, intending to pursue her argument until he came to his senses, but instead, she froze, transfixed by the sight of Mac walking across
the hangar to where his dogs were tethered. He held a multicolored mass of harnesses in one hand and he was moving stiffly now, limping in his worn-out pack boots, unaware he was being watched.

“Hey, Merlin,” she heard him say to his brother's lead dog, whose ears flattened and entire body wagged in response. “Hey, old man, what do you say? Let's burn some trail. Let's put on some miles.” The dog waited until Mac drew near before rearing onto his hind legs and placing his front paws on Mac's chest. Mac, still holding the harnesses in one hand, used the other to rub Merlin's shoulder. They gazed into each others eyes. “You're a good dog, Merlin,” he said quietly. “You know that, don't you? You're the best.”

Rebecca backed out and closed the door quietly behind her. She was moved by the interaction between man and dog in a way she couldn't have begun to explain, and she felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes. She raised her hands to the sides of her face, overwhelmed by the flood of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. “Oh, Bruce,” she whispered past the tight pain in her throat. “In so many ways, he reminds me of you.”

“Rebecca?” Ellin's voice jarred her. She quickly brushed her palms across her face and turned toward the cabin. Ellin waved from the doorway to get her attention. “Hurry up, my dear, these cinnamon rolls are getting cold!”

“Thank you, Ellin, but I don't have time!” Rebecca called back. “I've got to get home and run some dogs!”

I
T WAS SNOWING
heavily on December 10 when Rebecca drove her fourth group of clients to the airport outside Dawson to catch their shuttle back to Whitehorse. She waited for the plane to disappear into the whiteout, then returned to her truck, where Tuffy had taken her usual place on the passenger's seat. It was just past noon. Rebecca would have time to pick up some groceries in town and get home before evening chores if she hurried. The roads in town were protected from the wind by the buildings, but outside town the drifts could get really big, really fast.

She was just passing the Eldorado Hotel when the truck's engine quit. She depressed the clutch and turned the engine over. It sounded fine but wouldn't catch, even with the clutch engaged. “My luck,” she muttered, wrenching the steering wheel hard and guiding the truck over to the curb with the last of its fading momentum. She popped the hood and leaned in to check a few of the obvious possibilities, like fuel flow to the carburetor and spark-plug connections.

After ten shivering minutes she went to phone the local garage from the Eldorado's lobby. The mechanic promised to send a tow truck, “but we won't be able to get to it sooner than tomorrow morning,” he said. “We're backed up here real good.” Her pleading fell on deaf ears. “It's always an emergency, ma'am,” he
said. “Sorry, but tomorrow's the best we can do. Take it or leave it.”

“I'll call you back,” Rebecca told him, and hung up. She dialed Ellin's number next, relief flooding through her when Sam answered. He listened to her for a moment while she described what happened, and then another male voice broke onto the line.

“Rebecca? Listen, call that mechanic back and tell him you're all set,” Mac said, and the sound of his deep voice caused her heart rate to accelerate.

“But I'm not,” she said. “The truck won't start—the engine just died on me. It's getting gas and everything else seems okay, but I have to get it fixed! Someone'll have to feed my dogs tonight, and if you could do that for me, Mac, I'll pay you. Same as I pay Donny. Twenty dollars. I know it's not much, but—”

“Listen to me,” Mac interrupted. “I'll take care of things over at your place, and then I'll come into town and fix the truck myself. It'll save you a bundle of money and a lot of time, and it'll only set you back maybe forty, fifty bucks.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because that's just about what an ignition module costs.”

“But…how do you know?”

“Because I just know,” Mac said patiently. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” she said.

“It's half-past twelve now. I'm going over to feed your dogs. Go get yourself some lunch, buy some groceries, do some window-shopping. I'll drive my team into Dawson and meet you at the wharf on Front Street, the place where the stern-wheeler ties up, in about three hours. I'll pick up the part we need, and we'll fix your
truck. You'll be sleeping in your own bed tonight, and I'll get a good long training run on my dogs.” Mac sounded smug. He had it all figured out. “You with me?”

“I'm with you,” Rebecca said reluctantly.

She hung up the phone, called the garage and then wondered how she was going to kill the next three hours. She wandered over to the farmers' market on Second Avenue to pick up her groceries. She loaded them into the cab of the truck, ordered Tuffy to stand guard over them, and then ate a hamburger in the Eldorado's lounge as slowly as she could. With an hour and a half left, she walked up to the Palace Grand Theater, past Diamond Tooth Gerdie's Gambling Hall, and was wandering past Hank's Trading Post when a familiar object in the display window caught her eye. She stopped and stared.

She entered the store and worked her way to the register, where the proprietor was immersed in the local newspaper.

“Hank, you have a watch in your display case,” Rebecca said.

“Ah, yes,” the man said, lowering the newspaper and peering at her over the top half of his bifocals. “The Rolex. A beautiful watch, Rebecca. Beautiful!”

“Is it for sale? I didn't see a price tag.”

“Certainly it is! Here, let me get it out of the case for you. I've never seen a finer watch, that's for sure. I'm surprised it doesn't have a color TV built into it,” he said with a laugh, pulling a tiny key out of his pocket and making his way to the display case. He unlocked it and removed the Rolex, laying it ceremoniously in her hands. “This is a very valuable watch!”

“It may be valuable,” she said, “but it isn't new, is it?”

“No, it isn't. If you look at the back, you'll see that it's inscribed. The man who sold it to me showed me his ID so I can vouch for the fact that it definitely wasn't stolen. See the inscription?”

Rebecca turned the watch over and read the four tiny lines of neat engraving on the back:

 

Captain William Kimball MacKenzie
For Outstanding Service
1997-1999
VF92 RAG, Mirimar

 

“Like I said, he showed me his military ID. It's a real nice watch, and watches like that don't lose value over the years.”

“How much?” Rebecca asked, frowning.

“Well, that's real quality, what you're holding in your hands. Real quality.”

“How much?”

“New, that watch probably runs well over five thousand dollars. You'll be getting the bargain of a century to pick it up for, oh, say, one-fifth of that.”

“One thousand dollars, Hank?” Rebecca was incredulous.

“That's right. And worth every penny.”

“But you only paid him three hundred for it, isn't that right?”

Hank blinked his surprise behind his bifocals. “Well, what I paid for it and what I sell it for aren't going to run along the same lines, now, are they? You're a businesswoman. Do you sell dog food to your customers for the same price you paid?”

“Hank, I know this man,” Rebecca said, bristling.
“The only reason he sold this watch was to pay back a loan I made him for dog food.”

“Well, a man does what he has to do.”

“But don't you see? He should never have sold it.” Rebecca looked at Hank. “I'll buy it back for what you paid and return it to him,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “The price is one thousand dollars, Rebecca, and I won't budge on it.”

“This man dedicated years of his life to the service of his country!” Rebecca said earnestly. “I think he was a mechanic for his unit, and he deserves to keep this token of their appreciation! It's morally wrong for you to want to make a profit on it!”

“Young lady, I beg to differ. Besides, this is Canada, in case you haven't noticed. I owe no allegiance to ex-soldiers from the United States of America. And another thing,” he said with an unpleasantly snide laugh, “there's no way in hell that watch ever belonged to a mechanic!”

 

I
T WAS SNOWING HARD
when Mac stopped his team at the wharf. He wrapped the sled's snub line around the nearest piling and waved up at the small figure who stood huddled on the dock above. “Hey!” he said. “We had a great run! The team never dropped out of their lope—they ran the whole way. Twenty-five miles!”

“That's great,” Rebecca said, scrambling down the ladder onto the river ice. She helped him run a picket line and snap the dogs onto it, unharnessing them and pulling their booties off. “Do you want to snack them?”

He shook his head. “Don't want to slow them down for the run back. We must have kept up a steady fifteen miles an hour coming down here. What time is it now?”

“Quarter to four.”

“Jeez, we made great time. Great time!” He gave Merlin an affectionate rub as he walked past, flashed Rebecca a grin and patted the pocket of his parka. “I have the part for the truck. Sam had a spare. All the tools I need are right here,” he said, lifting a sack out of his sled bag. “Where are you parked?”

Thirty minutes later he had finished the repair job and was sitting in the driver's seat turning the key. The engine roared obediently to life. “And that,” he said to her with a grin of pure satisfaction, “is how we do that.” He patted the passenger seat beside him amd Tuffy sat up and wagged her tail. “Climb aboard, and we'll take her for a test drive. I'm sure Tuffy won't mind riding in the back seat.”

Rebecca was suitably impressed and very grateful. “I'll buy you a beer,” she offered, and was surprised when he gave his head a rueful shake.

“There's nothing I'd like better, but I can't. I've got to get the team back on the trail, get home and feed my dogs. I'll take a rain check, though.”

They drove back to the wharf, and she helped him harness, bootie and hook up his fourteen dogs. “Want me to lead Merlin around and get him pointed in the right direction?” she offered as Mac walked to the sled. The team dogs were jumping, yelping and barking in their eagerness to go.

“No need,” Mac said. “Merlin really knows his stuff. Watch this,” he said with a proud grin. He pulled the safety knot on the snub line, freeing the sled from the piling. “Merlin!” he snapped to his lead dog. “Come haw! Come haw!”

Rebecca jumped back as Merlin immediately sprang to his left and then quarter-turned again, bringing the entire team—all seventy feet of gang line and thirteen
galloping dogs—back toward the sled at about a hundred miles an hour. “Mac, watch out!” she cried just as the sled whipped around behind the dogs, slammed its right runner against the piling and flipped upside down. She caught a glimpse of Mac flying through the air, landing hard behind the sled and making a desperate grab for the trailing snub line as his team and sled took off without him. Moments later his body was bouncing over the rough pack ice as he clung to the line.

“Let go, Mac!” she screamed, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Let go of the line! You'll be killed!”

Mac might have heard her, but he obviously wasn't about to follow her instruction. She knew that just as surely as she knew that she wouldn't have let go, either. She scaled the wharf ladder with frantic haste, leaped into her idling truck and sped down Front Street, focusing her eyes onto the dimly illuminated river ice and marking where the team was. There! There they were, a long dark blur right below her, still running hard, dragging Mac behind.

She gunned the engine and raced through town, hoping to reach the Klondike cutoff before the team did. She parked across from the RCMP building, headlights pointing down at the river, and plunged through the deep snow toward the riverbank. She fell several times in her haste, each time getting up and struggling on. The riverbank dropped her down onto the ice, and in the darkness she paused and listened. Nothing. Had the team already passed?

No, there was something—a noise coming from the direction of town, the musical chime of neckline snaps, a man's muffled voice swearing. She ran out onto the ice, falling several times on the uneven footing. “Mac!”
she shouted. And then she saw the dogs, their dark, wolflike forms barely discernible in the darkness, coming toward her. She could hear their panting breaths and the muffled drag of the sled through the fresh snow, but there was no reply from Mac.

She turned to run in the same direction as the team. Merlin overtook her, followed by the point dogs, the team dogs, the wheel dogs and, finally, the sled. When she saw the nose of the toboggan out of the corner of her eye, she dove for it, feeling the solid slam of the driver's bow against her shoulder. She reached blindly to grasp it. The sled was still on its side, and she lay on it for a moment, catching her breath, before reaching over the sled bag and fumbling for the snow hook. She felt the cold steel and drew it out with one hand, keeping a death grip on the driver's bow with the other. The sled was pounding over the ice like a bucking bronco. She tried to stab the hook into the ice. For a moment the sharp points just skittered over the surface, then all at once they dug in and held. The sled came to an abrupt stop, jolting the dogs back in their harnesses and nearly dislodging Rebecca. She got off the sled and stood on shaky legs, afraid to let go of the sled in case the dogs pulled the hook loose.

“Mac?” She wished desperately that she had her headlamp! She peered into the darkness. “Mac!” She reached down and gave the snub line a tug. Something was definitely still holding on to it, and she heard a muffled, “Okay, okay.” Slowly, with tremendous effort, she began to reel him in like a giant fish, hand over hand, keeping one knee braced against the sled, ready to grab for it if the dogs should pull the ice hook out. “Dammit, Mac, you're a heavy load!” she said, fear giving strength to her arms and shoulders. And suddenly there
he was, on his hands and knees with the snub line wrapped around one arm.

“Get up!” she said. “Hurry! The dogs could pull the hook out at any moment!” His dogs were already beginning to move, jumping and barking and raring to go. She stepped on the ice hook with one booted foot to keep it secure as the dogs put more and more pressure on the gang line. “Hurry!” She tugged on the snub line again, jerking his arm, and he crawled the last few feet. “I'm going to tip the sled onto its runners. Do you understand?” In the darkness she thought she saw him nod. “When I get it upright, I want you to sit on top of it and hold on. I'm going to drive the team to the Klondike cutoff and turn them around.” She took her pocketknife out of her parka and cut the knotted snub line away from his arm. The last thing he needed was to be dragged again. “Ready?”

“I'm okay. I can drive,” he said, his voice sounding very faint. “I can drive them back home.”

“Sure, Mac,” Rebecca said. “Just get on when I tell you to.”

She heaved on the driver's bow and tipped the sled back onto its runners. “Get on!” she said as the dogs renewed their forward lunging.

“I'm okay,” he said. “You go on back to your truck.”