Four Quarters of Light (7 page)

Whether Dan realized I was genuinely laughing at his story or whether he wanted to encourage the fantasy, he decided then to pour us some whiskey. I explained I didn't drink spirits and he looked at me with mock surprise, said there wasn't an Irishman alive who didn't drink whiskey and proceeded to triple the amount of the stuff in my tumbler with the remark, ‘Nobody up here cares too much what you do or don't do, and anyway, once
you've drunk that you won't impress me about saying you don't drink spirits.' I shrugged my shoulders in compliance. Part of me thought that Dan was just being macho again. He must have read my thoughts. ‘You'll need something warm inside you if you are going out with the team,' he said. ‘Coffee's fine, but it doesn't sustain you out there.' There was something solicitous in the remark. Dan was after all as practical as his comfy cabin had presented itself to be.

I suggested that he play one of his favourite classical CDs. He laughed. ‘Oh no,' he said, ‘music is for listening to when everything else gets done and there's nothing else to do but listen.'

‘Okay, that seems fair,' I said.

Raising my overfull tumbler of whiskey, I dashed off as much of the three swallows I could without gagging and choking and suggested we make ready with the dog team. After all, that's why I was there.

What I wasn't expecting was the amount of preparation one has to do before going out to hitch the team. Dan rummaged through the gear hanging up in the kitchen, pulled out an old box of more gear and threw clothes at me like a rag picker, saying, ‘Put that on, that should fit, if it doesn't roll up the sleeves, it doesn't matter if the gloves are too big,' shouting orders at me while I just stood in obedient silence trying to fit on all these clothes.

‘What's all this for?'

‘It gets very cold out there, very cold, and when you're charging through the bush the cold doesn't care too much for you so you need plenty of layers, plenty of thermals.'

Soon Dan had me dressed in an outrageously sized pair of waterproof and windproof leggings, a top coat to match a huge pair of fur-lined gloves, a pair of his own special boots, a cap with fur muffs to cover my ears and another coat with a hood to tie around that again, a scarf to ensure my mouth and nose were covered, and finally a pair of sunglasses. I looked in his small kitchen mirror at my bulk and size and said, ‘How are the dogs going to pull all this weight?'

Dan's answer was quick. ‘A dozen of those dogs in front of you will pull faster than the same number of elephants. Remember, you ride on top of the snow, not through it, and you'll have to learn to hold on tight.'

On the porch I stood and watched like the abominable snowman in second-hand throwaway clothes. The evening was chill and there was a sense of a new crispness because of the snow that lay all around us. The dogs silently watched for a very brief moment, but as soon as Dan laid out the tracelines and guidelines they jumped up and began howling, yelping and barking with great excitement. The noise was deafening. There was a kind of ritual to this preparation, Dan explained. The dogs get very excited and want to run all the time. You have to be careful to put them in order to stop them bolting off before you are ready to go. You always choose first the older, wiser and calmer dogs who know how to sit and wait; put the younger dogs in last and always put your guide dog in after everything else is done – he will determine the pace and the line you take. I watched amazed at the dexterity of his fingers in a cold I knew to be bitter even in my well-wrapped-up condition. Not once did the dogs stop yapping. This is what they lived for, and I could understand that after sitting half the day in the cold and snow suddenly having this opportunity to go racing off would certainly excite any creature.

When Dan had finished attaching all the dogs to the sleigh he invited me to climb in. I thought the contraption was ridiculously small and equally ridiculously frail, but I settled myself in. There was a thick kind of tarpaulin that was secured around the incumbent's waist the way it is done in a kayak to stop the water flowing in. The purpose I suppose was the same here – to stop the spray of snow falling off trees and bushes as you passed from settling in around you.

‘We only really use this for cargo, it's really a cargo sleigh,' Dan explained. ‘The tarpaulin is to keep everything dry and everything safe, but for today you are the cargo.'

I watched as Dan finished his own preparations – fastening and zipping up his ancient anorak, pulling down the fur over his face
and pulling on his long, filthy-looking mittens. I thought how ridiculous we both looked. I suppose in a way he looked like a deep-sea diver; all he really needed was one of those brass helmets. Then I thought of my own position, strapped into this sleigh; I felt like a child of about two years sitting in one of those ancient Pedigree prams you used to see children wheeled about in during the fifties. I was so enclosed and encased in clothes and the greasy old black tarpaulin that not one piece of my flesh peered out. Dan had made sure that no skin was showing, giving me a meticulous once-over.

Then, without warning, we were off with a sudden jolt. Before I had time to realize what was happening we were tearing through the bush. Dan was right: these dogs could pull a sleigh faster than my imagination had thought possible. Pieces of bush and twig slapped into my face as we careered helplessly through the countryside. I now understood why Dan had been so insistent that no part of my flesh or face show: had one of these twigs caught me in the eye or in the face it would have left a scar I would have remembered for a long time, and not with much gratitude. Dan seemed to use only three or four expressions of encouragement to the dogs, directing them left or right as the trail opened up, then for long periods he would run, jumping on and off to negotiate the sleigh without a word of direction to the lead dog or any of the dogs in front of me. The lead dog seemed to know when to turn right or left and when to charge on bullheaded, and instinctively when to slow.

I clung helplessly to the low side rails of the sleigh waiting to be tossed out as the dog team charged into a sharp right or left turn, but it never happened. Trying to be helpful, I occasionally leaned into the turns as they came up or sometimes leaned back against them. On one such occasion Dan commanded me not to roll with the turns or resist them. ‘I'll carry your weight,' he said gruffly. I could not for the life of me understand what he meant by that, for how could he, but then I really was an infant at this game.

After some fifteen minutes of charging through the bush I was
becoming accustomed to the experience. I relaxed back, did what I was told to do and let Dan carry the weight. I began to enjoy it, quickly understanding what Dan had meant by needing something to sustain you, something stronger than coffee. Without all this wet gear and wind- and thornproofing I could not have lasted more than a few moments in the bitter, bone-shattering coldness of the bush. This was my first ritual experience of the Alaska we know about – panting dog teams and snow and cold too fearful to contemplate – and I was enjoying it the way my sons enjoyed me racing them in their buggies.

Soon the adrenalin rush translated into a strange kind of impatience. I wanted to be physically part of the thrill of this ritual ride. I really was just another piece of cargo and felt a bit like a dead log being hauled back for Dan's magnificent fireplace. I wanted more than this. I wanted my arms and legs to be embroiled in the experience, to be working like the team charging with exhilaration in front of me. After what seemed like half an hour I raised my left arm in the air and made a circle, signalling to Dan that we should turn back. I hoped he would understand, and he did: with a few commands the whole team circled in a great arc, bumping over ditches and dead logs, and then started their excited charge back again. After some minutes in more open territory where I was taking fewer blows to the head from bushes or low branches, Dan reined in the team with a single command.

‘We're two miles out,' he said. ‘Do you think you could manage the team back?'

I wasn't sure if Dan was reading my mind, but the musher and his dogs had already got to me and I was already unbuckling my sleigh pram. The words tumbled out of me: ‘If you want to put your life in my hands, let's go for it.'

Dan just smiled, and with a nonchalant ‘okay' began giving me instructions on how to handle the team. ‘Remember, these dogs can sniff out every nook and cranny and everything that's buried beneath the snow before you and I can see it or sense it. Their nose moves faster than your eyes or mine.' There was something in Dan's own eyes that impressed me. I was being taken for a ride,
only this time it would not be in the smothering safety of my Alaskan pram sleigh. I was full of questions, to which Dan seemed oblivious. ‘Here's your riding platform. When the going is easy stand here and let the team do the work. If the ground is rough and the dogs are straining, jump off and I'll encourage them. Once they are moving, get on quick or you'll fall flat on your face and this bunch won't wait for you. When you come to a turn, lean against it; it stops the dead weight going to the dogs and stops the thing going into a roll, otherwise we will have to pick ourselves up, unhitch the teams and start unravelling the lines and harness. The dogs don't like that, and boy, do they let you know.' Dan's words were no longer genial; there was a stern warning in them. As I listened, my enthusiasm quickly became sheepish. ‘You don't need to use your weight much. There's enough between the two of us but you can slow the sleigh as it comes into a turn. Reach out your foot, dragging the snow as you come into the turn. It will stabilize everything without losing the drive, and when we get back to the cabin throw out this anchor.' Dan lifted up a small object that looked like a boat anchor only several sizes smaller. It worked on the same principle of dragging and biting into the ground, where it locked itself on a pivotal spring so that even if the dogs wheeled about they could not uproot the empty sleigh and go charging off again.

Dan's instructions were curt, but their brevity emphasized how absolutely fundamental they were. He left me in no doubt that this was a once-only lesson and that apprenticeships in running a dog team lasted as long it took to explain these simple rules.

I tried to absorb what I had been told in the same manner as I had been told it. Dan's words had implied but left unsaid something that was now echoing in my ears: in the bush you learn fast or you get left behind. However, my tutor didn't leave me much time to dwell on this unspoken speculation. Like an eel he was inside the tarpaulin, fidgeting himself into a comfortable position. In no time his face disappeared behind the thick fur of his parka, his eyes hidden behind the shiny blue-black lenses of his sunglasses. Squatting against the whiteness of the bush he looked like
a hideous insect newly emerged from its chrysalis. I quickly jumped behind Dan and his dogs, took a firm grip on the sleigh rails and hung on like grim death.

‘Mush' was the word to say to get us moving, but it felt so foolish and so childish an expression, which indeed was exactly how I was feeling at that moment. I was master of nothing. No part of me was connected to the animal engine that was driving us. My hands held me to the sleigh, but that's all they did. There was no ‘hands on' manipulation from me. I had no steering wheel to direct our passage, no clutch, gearbox or accelerator to control the speed. A pilot in the air has his joystick and a whole bank of computerized controls to draw on. I had nothing, not even a pair of reins to connect me and give me power over the creatures that were now charging ahead at breakneck speed. Even a sailor in his small yacht has more control, for he can shed sail or manually position himself against the wind. I had nothing but a pack of mad dogs working with one mind, setting its own course to the tune of Ben the lead dog, and plunging precariously through this snowbound outback. I was simply hanging onto their tails, letting them drag me where they wished. Stupefied, I clung on, trying to replay Dan's instructions, but my mind could not compute as fast as the team could pull.

Then Dan roared out something short and inarticulate to the dogs and almost simultaneously rotated his head in a half turn and told me to ‘Lean hard left, Brian, lean hard left!' Without questioning him I squatted on the runners and pitched my upper torso as far over to the left as I could. I dared not be too inhibited. In Dan's language, hard left meant hard left, so that's what I did. Part of me imagined a downhill slalom skier weaving between markers down a sheer slope. It worked! My weight-bearing lean seemed to correct the rolling tendency of the sleigh as the dogs made a hard right. I was mesmerized and flushed to selfcongratulation, but had little time to relish it. Dan was roaring orders again.

‘Two more turns. Wait till the lead dog has made his move and drop your foot to slow us into the turn. After the second turn it's
open country. They will see it before us and go into a fast run. Make sure you give plenty of foot brake and then lean, then brake, but lighter this time.'

The instruction, as always, could not have been simpler. I did as Dan demanded and we travelled in and out of the turns with an effortlessness that made me feel like grace revealed. The dogs must have felt it too, at least I wanted to think so, for they ate up the open ground as if each of them had grown another set of legs. I was riding on the crest of their enthusiastic yelps, wanting to yelp myself. Then the cabin loomed and in no time we were sliding up to the dog enclosure with my foot and sleigh anchor guiding us up to the porch. Dan soon had the team tied up securely.

I watched, wanting to pat some of the dogs, but that seemed as silly as wanting to shout ‘Mush!' at the team. Dan called out a few words of praise to two of his dogs, Samson and Caesar, then ushered me into the cabin. For a second I wondered about these names. I only knew of the lead dog, but to me Samson and Caesar were characters out of a childhood memory of history, and I wondered if the names Dan had chosen indicated something about the man himself. Inside the cabin I suggested to my host that he might have named some of them Beethoven or Bach. In response, Dan explained that most of the animals had come to him with those names. ‘Just like you,' I remarked, hinting at Dan's secret past. He just laughed and answered, with good-natured dismissal, ‘Just like me!'