The Alaskan Adventure (5 page)

David met them halfway up the hill. “I thought you'd gotten lost,” he said.

Joe told him about how Ralph Hunter's boat had been damaged and asked about Willy and Hunter.

“They don't get along at all,” David replied. “Haven't for years. But that's not a big surprise. About the only person that Willy
does
get along with is Reeve, Gregg's father.”

Frank remembered Hunter's saying that people were asking him questions about the Iditarod. “Does Hunter have a connection to dogsled racing?” he asked.

“Does he!” David cried. “He used to be the best musher for fifty miles around! He still knows more about dogs than practically anyone. But he had to sell his team a few years ago. One of his kids needed an operation.”

“That's a shame,” Joe said. “But why would people be asking him about this year's race if he won't be in it?”

David looked surprised by the question. “To find out who to bet on,” he said. “The Iditarod is the biggest dogsled race there is. There's a lot of money won and lost every year. Some people around here are even making bets on whether Gregg and I finish the race and which of us comes in ahead of the other. I guess if you can't go cheer for your favorite, putting money on him is the next best thing.”

They arrived at the cabin and took the groceries inside. Then David said, “What do you say to another training run? My team gets fat and lazy if I don't give them enough exercise.”

“Great!” Joe said, answering for both the Hardys.

•  •  •

Frank and Joe helped David harness the team, then they hit the trail. Out on the river the dogs set a fast pace, with their tails curled high and their red tongues hanging out the sides of their mouths.

“Where are we going?” Frank asked.

“Up the Mink River,” David replied. He was standing on the rails at the rear of the sled and kicking the trail now and then to help the dogs past a bumpy stretch. “It's not far.”

“How far?” Joe asked.

“About five miles. That's not far for this team,” David explained.

“Not compared to an eleven-hundred-mile race like the Iditarod, that's for sure,” Frank said. “How many dog teams enter the race?”

David paused while the sled bounced over a protruding knot of river ice, then said, “About seventy or eighty.”

Frank tried to imagine seventy or eighty teams like David's, maybe a thousand sled dogs, all barking and mushing at once. It was going to be quite a sight when they got to Anchorage.

Frank glanced across the river and said, “I'm surprised there isn't more snow on the hills. Does it melt early?”

“There isn't much to start with,” David replied. “It may sound funny, but technically, this region is really a desert. Most years we get less than twelve inches of precipitation.”

“Maybe you should trade in your huskies for camels,” Joe said.

David smiled. “Not me. I love my dogs.” The sled approached a fork in the trail, and he called out, “Ironheart—gee! Gee!”

Ironheart confidently guided the team into the right-hand fork.

A couple of miles farther on, David steered the team off the Yukon and onto a trail that led north on a much smaller river. “This is a shortcut to the Mink River,” he explained.

Ten minutes later Frank realized that their pace had slowed to a fast walk.

“I see it,” David called out to his lead dog. It was almost as if he had forgotten that Frank and Joe were sitting in the sled.

“See what?” Frank asked.

David hesitated, then said, “Soft ice ahead.”

Frank craned his neck. The ice looked fine to him.

“Sometimes a deep spring bubbles up from the stream bed and weakens the ice,” David added. “It happens a lot at this time of year.”

“What do we do?” Joe asked. “Turn around?”

That wouldn't be easy, Frank realized. The trail they were following on the ice was barely wider than a dogsled. If they tried to get out and turn the sled and team, it would put them right on the thin ice Ironheart had spotted.

“Easy, Ironheart, easy,” David called in a soothing voice.

The team was now moving at a bare walk. The huskies looked uneasily from side to side. They must be aware, as Frank and Joe were, of the thin layer of water seeping up over the edge of the ice.

“Easy, Ironheart,” David warned again.

Ironheart stopped and looked around.

“Hike! Hike!” David shouted.

Ironheart leaned his powerful chest into the
harness and led the team toward the bank of the river.

“If anything happens—” David started to say.

At that moment Frank heard a sound like a gunshot. He looked down and saw a crack widening in the ice, inches from the right runner of the sled. The dogs had made it safely to solid ice near the bank, but the weight of the sled was too much for the thin ice in the center of the river.

“David, what do we do?” Frank shouted, pushing himself up into a crouch. “Bail out?”

“No!” David shouted back. “Hang on!”

Another, louder crack echoed in the frigid air. David jumped onto the ice and grabbed the railing of the sled, trying to hold it steady.

It was no use. Frank felt the sled tilt to the right. Before he and Joe could escape, it tipped and slid down toward the dark, freezing river.

When he felt the sled lurch sideways, Joe was getting to his feet. He flung his arms out to each side, trying to keep his balance, but it was no use. The railing of the sled caught him at ankle level, and he fell backward. All the breath in his lungs exploded with a loud gasp as the ice-cold water closed around him.

In shock, he scrambled frantically to reach the surface. Claustrophobic visions of drowning while trapped under the ice flashed through his mind. His boots touched bottom. He pushed upward, leading with his hands, and found himself on his feet in the middle of an ice-free patch
of river ten feet across. The water came halfway up his chest.

“Frank! David!” he choked out. “Help!”

“Hold on, Joe!” Frank shouted back. “We'll get you out of there!”

Joe could feel the icy water draining away his precious body heat. He had to get out of the water as fast as he could, but he also knew he had to remain calm. Struggling and thrashing around in panic would only sap his strength faster.

He began to wade toward the edge of the river, but his boots kept skidding on the bottom. Finally he stopped and stood in one place. He was afraid that if he let himself slip underwater a second time, he wouldn't be able to make it back to the surface. The freezing water felt like thousands of needles jabbing into his skin.

Thanks to the dog team, the sled had not fallen into the water. David and Frank were rummaging through it. What were they after? Couldn't they see this was an emergency? Then David stood up with a hatchet in his hand and sprinted toward the woods.

“Hey, where's he going? I'm freezing to death!” Joe shouted.

“Hold on!” Frank answered. “David's getting something to help us reach you.”

“H-h-hurry,” Joe pleaded, through chattering teeth. “I can't feel my feet and legs.”

Frank got down on his hands and knees and crawled across the ice toward Joe. He had gone only a few feet when Joe heard an ominous popping sound.

“No, Frank!” Joe shouted. “Go back! The ice won't hold your weight!”

“I'm not going to leave you there to turn into a human icicle,” Frank said.

“It won't do me any good if you fall in, too,” Joe pointed out. “Wait for David. He knows about this stuff.”

Reluctance was written all over Frank's face, but he gingerly backed away from the edge of the ice. A few moments later David came running out of the woods with a long birch branch in his hand.

“Frank,” he said, “lie down with your feet on the bank and get a good hold on my ankles.”

“What are you going to do?” Frank demanded.

“The trick with thin ice is to spread out your weight,” David explained. He lay flat and began inching across the ice toward Joe, pushing the branch in front of himself. “Can you reach it, Joe?”

Joe stretched his right arm as far as he could. The end of the branch was only inches away from his fingertips, but it might as well have been miles. “I can't!” he shouted back, trying to keep the desperation he was feeling out of his voice.

David moved forward, this time dangerously close to the line where ice and water met. “Now?”

Joe reached again but still not far enough.

“Come on, Joe!” Frank was still hanging on to David's ankles. “You can do it.”

Joe took a deep breath. He felt his strength draining away.

David pushed the branch out another two inches. “One more time,” he said.

Joe focused his attention on the branch. Then, with all the strength he had left, he lunged forward. He felt his fingers close on the end of the branch and his feet slip out from under him. He was immersed in the freezing water again, but this time he was too numb to feel cold.

“You did it!” Frank cheered.

“Other hand!” David called. “You can do it.”

Joe took a deep breath and scrambled to his feet on the slick river bottom to force himself closer to the branch. He was sure he was going to lose the grip he had, but he managed to bring both hands together on the branch.

“Great! Now, just hang on!” David said. He began to inch backward, towing the branch and Joe after him. Frank helped by pulling on David's ankles. After a few moments that felt like forever, Joe found himself lying on solid ice.

Frank cheered and slapped Joe on his back, but
David said, “No time to lose.” He ordered Ironheart to stay where he was, then told Joe and Frank to follow him onto solid ground.

“He needs a blanket,” Frank said.

Joe stood shivering, his body huddled against the severe cold.

“No,” David said. “First thing, he has to get out of his wet clothes.”

“Here?” Frank asked. “Now?”

“They'll suck the warmth and the life out of him if he leaves them on,” David continued. “You'll find an emergency kit in the sled. There's a space blanket in it. Get him out of his clothes and wrap the blanket around him. I'm going for kindling.”

Joe's fingers were too numb to manage a zipper or button. Frank helped him undress, then wrapped the ultrathin metallic blanket around him.

Joe controlled the chattering of his teeth long enough to say, “Do you think this'll make me a life member of the Polar Bear Club?”

“Count on it,” Frank replied, patting his shoulder. “They'll probably name you honorary president!”

David returned, carrying a double handful of brown tangled grass. He cleared the snow away from a flat place and put the grass in a little heap.

“What is that?” Frank asked.

“A field mouse nest,” David said. He stacked dry twigs over the mouse nest, then took a wooden match from a waterproof holder, struck the match against the scratchy side of the holder, and ignited the nest.

Once the tinder was lit, he added larger twigs, then thin sticks, then larger branches. Soon he had a blazing fire. The three huddled close to it, soaking in the lifesaving warmth. When Joe finally looked up and smiled for the first time, so did Frank and David.

•  •  •

While Joe's clothes dried in front of the fire, the young men ate dried peaches and hardtack crackers from the emergency kit. David melted some snow and brewed up a can of spruce-needle tea to wash down the snack. Finally they felt ready to hit the trail back to Glitter. They put out the fire, turned the sled around, and got the dog team ready again.

“I think we've had enough training for one day,” David said with a grin.

“Enough for two or three days,” Joe retorted.

“More like two or three months,” Frank said.

They mushed back the way they had come and reached the Yukon. Ironheart led the way along the trail down the middle of the river.

A little later David said, “I know, I see him.”

“What?” Frank asked.

“I was talking to Ironheart,” David explained. “There's a team coming in our direction. He spotted it before I did.”

“How'd you know that?” Joe asked.

“You get to know the details up here,” David said. “Little signs.”

“I can't see a thing,” Frank said. “Just a whole Jot of ice and sky.”

Ironheart kept a steady pace for the rest of the dogs, but he held his head high to keep an eye on the other team ahead.

“Is the other team on this trail?” Joe asked.

David nodded. “Yes, it's Gregg.”

“You can recognize him at this distance?” Joe asked, amazed. “All I can see is a black dot on the ice!”

“Out here in the bush, you get to know how to figure things out from a distance. If you don't, you're in trouble,” David said. “I can tell you how big his team is, how fast he's moving, and how good a musher he is from the shapes they make against the sky.”

“What's Gregg doing out here?” Frank asked.

David shrugged. “He's training.”

“I wish he'd do it somewhere else,” Joe said. “I don't feel like meeting anybody right now.”

The two dog teams closed the distance between
them. One glance told Joe that the trail was only wide enough for a single team.

“David?” he called. “Who has the right of way?”

“That's not how we think out here,” David replied.

“I'll bet that's how Gregg thinks,” Frank said.

By the time the two teams were fifty yards apart, it was clear Gregg wasn't going to slow down.

David pressed the brake into the ice-packed trail and commanded Ironheart to stop. Joe and Frank jumped out of the sled and helped him move it to the side of the trail. Then David pulled Ironheart and the other dogs out of the way and ordered them to be still.