Brides of Alaska (50 page)

Rita pulled on her snowshoes and led the dogs out. There was no clear direction that beckoned Rita more than another. She looked for anything that might indicate civilization or symbolize a connection with the Iditarod race, but there wasn't anything. She pulled out her compass and depended on it alone to guide her in a direction that would lead them to safety.

Hours later, the biggest mistake Rita had made was, once again, ignoring the weather. The snow moved in from the west and with it came the wind.

Old snow blew with the new, and soon Rita found it again impossible to see. The dogs whined and slowed, and Rita felt her courage slipping away. She halted the team and tied a rope to the sled and to herself. Using her headlamp, Rita left the dogs behind and ventured ahead to find some sign of shelter.

“I can't give up,” she said, even though she knew she was now several days behind the other teams. She had no way of knowing that the other racers had just been allowed to leave Ophir.

Finding nothing to aid her on her way, Rita turned around and headed back to the dogs. She retraced her steps following the rope, and then she felt her heart skip a beat. The rope had come untied; the sled was nowhere in sight!

C
old permeated the insulation of Rita's coveralls. She stomped aimlessly through the blowing snow, watching, calling, and hoping.

“Dandy!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, but the wind muted the sound even as the word left her lips.

The dogs were nowhere to be found and visibility was impossible. Rita knew the seriousness of the circumstances. Without the dogs, she would most likely die!

“I have to keep moving,” she reasoned. “I'll freeze to death if I stand here and wait.” She thought of building a shelter with the snow. Her aunt Julie told her that once such a shelter had saved her life. Rita remembered that her aunt Julie had survived two days just off the Bering Sea in a haven she'd built with her own hands out of snow and ice.

“No!” Rita spoke aloud. “I'll find the dogs. Dandy would never have left without me.” But, even as she said the words, Rita knew it was improbable that the team was awaiting her return.

Step after step, Rita forced herself forward. Her feet were beginning to ache and her legs were cramping from the strain. It was fast becoming a hopeless situation.

After what seemed hours, Rita was ready to face the facts. “I'm not going to make it,” she whispered. “I'm going to die out here doing the one thing I dreamed a lifetime of doing. All I wanted was to race the Iditarod and now it's going to kill me.”

But running the race wasn't all
, Rita's conscience quickly reminded her. Winning the race was what you planned on.
Winning was so important that you ignored the advice of seasoned racers, people who knew the trail and have more experience than you could ever hope to have
.

“I've been extremely foolish,” Rita said and stumbled forward another step. Her thick boot caught the edge of a fallen tree and sent her sprawling, face down, onto the snowy ground.

Why get up?
She challenged herself to find a reason to go on. There was none. “This is God's punishment for ignoring Him and turning away from my mother,” she announced. She had never felt so alone.

The thought of her mother made Rita's heart ache. All her life she'd wanted to feel close to Beth and, in spite of the times Rita had determined to put her hurts aside, inevitably, she added another brick to the wall between them.

“
When times are difficult and you are most alone
,” her mother had told her,
“God is no farther away than a whispered prayer
.”

The wind lessened and with it the snow, but Rita couldn't see anything but white. A whispered prayer came to Rita's mind, but not of her own making. The prayer she remembered was one from her childhood memories. It was her mother's prayer at Rita's bedside that came to mind.
“Father, this child was given to me from You and by Your love. I give her back. Watch over her, Father, as only You can, and help her to know Your voice when You call her.”

Such a sweet, yet simple prayer
, Rita thought, and the memory warmed her. Nothing to offend or harm, only a mother's desire for her child to know God. The memory wasn't painful, it was pleasant, and Rita wondered silently how she could have allowed such hatred to grow against others, especially her mother.

Rita struggled to sit up and pulled her knees tightly to her chest. “I'm afraid to die,” she whispered. “I know the truth, just like Mother said. I know what God did for me by sending His Son, Jesus, to die for me. I've always wanted God to somehow make Himself real to me. Yet, even sitting here waiting to die, He still doesn't seem real and I'm not convinced He'd listen to me even if I whispered that prayer.” Absentmindedly, Rita began packing snow around herself to form a shelter.

Mark saw the reprieve in the storm as a godsend, but he also noticed the heavy clouds that pushed in from the west. The air was strangely still around him, and Mark found the silence almost hypnotic.

He urged his team forward, but knew he'd lost track of the trail markers some time back. “God, give me the wisdom to find my way through this. Guide me to find Rita and safety, Amen.”

Just then a blurred image in the distance came into focus. It was a dog team. No, Mark realized as he squinted his eyes, it was Rita's dog team!

Having worked with those dogs since they were pups, Mark gave Dandy a whistle that the dog instantly recognized. “Here Dandy, come,” Mark's authoritative voice called.

Dandy perked his ears and heeded the command. Mark anchored his own team and stomped across the frozen ground to retrieve Rita's team. He searched the horizon for Rita but found no one following the team, not even at a distance. Maybe she was in the basket, injured or sick, he reasoned. But when he finally brought the team up even with his own, Mark could see that Rita was not with them.

“Where is she, Dandy?” Mark questioned, giving the dog a rub on the muzzle. Dandy gave a yip, as if trying to answer the question.

“I wish you could talk,” Mark sighed. “I'd best feed you all instead and then we'll push on to find Rita.” The delay cost Mark precious time, but he knew that the dogs had to be cared for. He piggybacked the sleds and harnessed Rita's dogs to run with his own. All the while, Mark kept eyeing the skies and the ominous clouds that threatened his success.

When Mark finally put out once again to look for Rita, light was fading quickly. He scrutinized the trees for any sign that Rita might be nearby. There was nothing.

Mark was losing hope when flakes of snow began to fall. “God, please help me!” he called out. Just then Dandy yipped and followed it with a deep throaty howl. Mark halted the dogs and watched Dandy's actions. The dog strained in his harness and pulled to the right as if he planned to pull the entire team with him if necessary.

Mark turned the team and brought Dandy to the lead. “Take us to Rita, boy,” he urged. “Find her for me.”

Dandy began barking in urgency then. He knew what Mark expected of him and was more than willing to respond to the call. Mark moved the dogs out and allowed Dandy to choose the course. Within moments, Mark spotted something red in the distance. Rita had worn red coveralls. It had to be her.

When he got closer, Mark began to panic. She wasn't moving or acknowledging his calls. “Please God, don't let her die,” Mark whispered.

Mark anchored the team and hurried forward to where Rita sat in a tight ball. She'd obviously tried to pack a wall of snow around her. “Rita!” he called, and knelt down to push back her parka hood.

“Cold,” Rita whimpered. “So cold.”

Mark pulled her close and Rita moaned in agony. “Don't you go dying on me, Texas Rita.” Mark tried to drawl good-naturedly. “Otherwise, you'll never see Texas, where the sun shines all the time and it's never cold.”

Mark knew he was babbling, but his mind couldn't accept the possibility of Rita being anything other than healthy and strong. Hurrying back to the sled, Mark pulled out Rita's sleeping bag and his own as well. He brought both to where Rita had still not moved and began to work to get her wet parka off.

“Listen to me, Rita,” he said as he unzipped her coveralls. “I've got to get these wet things off of you. Hopefully, the clothes beneath your coveralls are dry. When we finish with this, I'll put you inside the sleeping bags. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Rita whispered.

Mark wasn't convinced. “What do you understand, Rita? Tell me what I said.”

“You're going to put me in the sleeping bag,” she said in an irritable tone, “and you didn't call me Texas Rita.”

Mark grinned. She still had fight left in her. He wasn't too late!

“What about my dogs? I lost my team,” Rita mumbled.

“Dandy found me,” Mark answered. “They're safe and in good shape. I only hope we can say the same thing about you.”

Mark knew that once he had Rita inside the bags, he'd have more time to set up a proper camp. He was one of those few racers who liked to have a tent along in case of an emergency, and this time, it served its purpose well. He put Dandy with Rita before going to work.

Camp was set up in record time. Mark soon had the tent up, with a hearty fire glowing in the cookstove. The time would have been even shorter had he not run back and forth to check on Rita.

“The tent's ready,” Mark said as he lifted Rita in his arms. “I'm going to put you inside and then I'll get you something hot to drink.”

Rita said nothing until Mark had deposited her inside the tent; then, with teeth chattering, she thanked him. “Mark, I don't know how you managed to find me, but I'm glad you did.”

“Me, too,” Mark said and reached out to touch Rita's frostbitten cheek. “You have no idea.”

Then Mark went to get the hot coffee. When he returned with it, Rita wasn't sure she could even handle the cup. She felt as though her hands were on fire as they thawed, and her mind still seemed blurred.

“Drink it down and I'll make you some soup. I've got packages of dried-chicken noodle,” he said with a grin. “Isn't that supposed to be a cure-all?”

Rita smiled even though it hurt to do so. The skin on her face felt tight, as though it might pull apart at the slightest movement. “I think it'll take more than chicken soup to cure what ails me.”

Mark nodded. “I told you not to go out. I wish for once in your life you would have swallowed your pride and realized that sometimes others know best.”

“I know I was wrong,” Rita admitted. “I know it only too well.”

“Well, this is a different side of you,” Mark commented in surprise.

“Some people have to make their own foolish mistakes before they realize what fools they are. I guess I was one of those.” Gone from Rita's voice was the severity and aloof reserve. “I just wanted to win the race. I wanted to show everyone that I could do it … that I didn't need anyone looking out for me.”

“And now?” Mark questioned.

“Now, I know better,” Rita replied. “I was scared to die, Mark. Not because I would never again see Mom or Dad, or even you….” She fell silent for a moment. “I didn't know what would happen. I didn't know where I would go or what death would really mean. I kept thinking about the Bible and the stories I'd learned as a child and a teenager. I thought of my mother's lectures on needing to be saved from my sins and I thought of what my father told me on the way to Anchorage.”

“What was that?” Mark asked with a feeling he knew what Rita would say.

“Dad said, ‘Rita, you must let go of the fear you feel inside.' He told me, ‘Trust isn't an easy thing, but trust in God is something that will never let you down, because God will never let you down.'”

“Did you believe him?” Mark's face was stern, but his eyes were soft and warm.