Chapter 13

The sun had long set; even the twilight was gone. It was cold out on the ice of Spearfish Lake, a a short ways out from the shoreline, off of the city beach. It was above zero, but with the clear skies, that wouldn't last; it was going to get chilly tonight. That wasn't all bad; Josh could stand it getting down a bit colder, since the dogs would be less likely to overheat. There was a gentle breeze, not enough to move the inch or two of snow that had fallen the night before -- just enough snow to smooth out the ruts and divots from the trail breaking. Best of all, a big, fat full moon was rising -- a "Runner's Moon", he'd once heard Jim Horton describe it, and he knew from his own experience that the dogs ran their best on clear, cold, moonlit nights.

Six times now, Josh had stood out on the ice of Spearfish Lake, waiting for the Warsaw Run to start; five times, he'd been a starter, and he'd finished the race the sixth time. Still, there was an excitement as the clock clicked down to the start time.

He remember the first time like this. Mark and Mike had started just before full darkness, with only five Pound Puppies each, all in their first year of running. A hundred miles had seemed like a lot to ask of the dogs, and it was a big step into the unknown. The next year, there had been six teams, of seven dogs each, and one of them had been his. Crosstie had been his leader that year; in fact, this would be the first time Josh had started the Warsaw Run without the faithful, intelligent old dog.

None of the ten dogs still on the picket line from the truck had been among the other six dogs; it had been what had seemed to him a good team then, that mangy pack of mutts he'd spent every spare minute for months training. He could still remember their names: along with Crosstie, there had been Polly, Stinker, (who had a digestive system that produced the worst dog farts he'd ever experienced), Jack, Shadow, Headlight and Truck. Three of those dogs would be making their fifth Warsaw Run start, along with him, but in other teams. Shadow had been one of his best wheel dogs, and had been a candidate for training this year, but probably only had a year or two left and definitely would have been too old for his plans for two years off; still, Jim Conger had been glad to have her. Smaller than the average wheel dog, she made up for it in sheer strength and traction. Jack was running in the lead for Dave Stitely; Josh had always had better leaders around, so Jack had rarely led, and never in a race, but he'd helped Dave build up a pretty good team, which included Truck. Both of them -- both dogs he'd gotten from Woody, years ago -- were nearing the end, too; this was probably their last start. Stinker and Headlight had run in the Pound Puppies race earlier in the day, and Polly had helped give rides to kids; she'd saved second for him, that first year he'd started his own team, and though well beyond racing now, she still enjoyed getting in harness. She'd been a tough dog to part with, and Josh had only let her go with the understanding that her retirement was mainly going to be spent as a pet.

Josh hadn't counted, but there were probably fifteen or twenty dogs that had passed through his or Tiffany's hands at one time or another running in the twenty-three teams out of the twenty-six starters that weren't from Run-8 Kennels. He couldn't remember all their names, right now -- some, he'd only had for a short time -- but it only helped underline just how good the team he had for this race was. It was a darn good team. Winning, even as defending champion, was not a foregone conclusion; after all, he'd won last year's race, after hope was gone, mostly on a lucky fluke. But, even assuming no flukes, there were at least seven, and perhaps as many as ten teams there that stood a good chance of winning. Tiffany had a team that was at least every bit as good as his; even running pure Siberians, Greg Mears couldn't be counted out; Fred Linder, from Warsaw, had built up a very strong team the past couple of years; his leader was a dog that Josh had given up on, but who had worked well for Fred. Given a couple of breaks, even Phil Wines, running Josh and Tiffany's backup dogs, couldn't be counted out, since many of the backup dogs were relatively untried yearlings that showed a lot of potential, and were strong candidates to go to Nome in another couple years. Having Switchstand in lead was an entirely unknown quantity; the Siberian/grayhound mix had speed to burn, and if he'd developed the endurance to go with it, could be tough to beat. Phil's relative inexperience was the only real weak point, but he had the intelligence to overcome it.

Leadership, of course, was the big unknown quantity in Josh's team. Alco could be counted upon to give a good account on the trail, and with Geep alongside, the two probably made up as much command leader as he would need. Both had given excellent accounts of themselves in training, especially the last few days, but they were essentially untried. In a few hours, he'd know if his rather enforced gamble was going to pay off.

"Ten minutes till starting time," Ryan Clark's voice came over loudspeakers set up in the icy corner of lake off the Spearfish Lake beach where the mushers, friends, dog boxes, trailers, and over 250 dogs were gathered around.

"We better get organized," Mike said, loud enough for the group standing between Mark's and Josh's dog trucks to hear. Mike was still beaming; in spite of everything, including limited training time, he'd finally pulled off his first honest-to-pete Pound Puppies win earlier in the day, if you didn't count the first Pound Puppies/Warsaw Run, which Tiffany had helped him with.

Tiffany already had her White sprint sled set up, gangline stretched out for ten dogs. "I'll grab 'em," Josh said. "Tiffany, you hook them up." Josh went over to the picket line, selected George, who would lead, slipped on his harness, and told the dog, "You run good for Tiffany." Jackie took George by the collar, and led him over to the head of the gangline. Dancer followed, with Mike putting on the harness, handled to the waiting gangline by Gil Evachevski. Dasher and Prancer followed, then Hemp and Snoopy, then Comet and Donner, and finally, Mongo and Pipeline in wheel. Excitement built among the dogs as the team filled out; already, they were ready to run, jumping up and down, eager to go.

"They look ready to rock and roll," Josh told Tiffany as he helped her on with her racing bib, Number 4.

"Yeah, they look like it to me, too," Tiffany said, a little subdued by the same pre-race butterflies Josh was feeling.

"Good luck, kid," Josh said. "See you in Warsaw. I gotta get Phil ready."

"Good luck to you, too," she said.

Half a dozen other people grabbed necklines, and helped Tiffany take the dogs out to the line gathering by the starting chute; with the excitement of the dogs, that might not even be enough, but there would be others at the starting line that would help keep the dogs under control. "OK, Phil, we gotta get ready," Josh said. Next to where Tiffany's sled had stood, Josh's old wooden Gravengood sled sat. It was a good racing sled, not quite up to the lightness of the Whites, but a darn good one, one of the last ones Mark had built before his main business took him out of his sledmaking sideline. A somewhat longer gangline had already been laid out; they knew from long experience that Switchstand ran best in single lead, mostly because he was a lot faster than most dogs they could pair him with. There were still hands around to help with the hookup, which had to be quick; Phil already had bib number 7 on, and he and Mark had already been harnessing dogs while the rest of the crew had gotten Tiffany going.

Given the harnesses already on the dogs, hookup didn't take that long. Switchstand went on in front, then four other pairs of dogs, with Marmaduke running in single wheel. It was sort of a scratch team, but a good one; Josh would have been happy to run a team this good any year before this.

"Good luck, Phil," Josh said as he hooked Marmaduke up to the gangline. "I don't know what else I can tell you, except to try to hold Switchstand down the first leg, so he doesn't burn everybody out. Let them run hard the first couple of miles, then try to bring them down to a trail pace."

"Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for having the confidence in me."

"Hell, you can handle it," Josh said. "Just bring 'em back in good shape, and be ready to tell us how everyone did."

"I'll do my best."

Ryan Clark's voice came over the loudspeaker. "Now in the chute, starting as number one, Jim Horton of Warsaw."

Josh looked over to the starting chute, which was empty. A couple of years ago, they'd picked up on an Iditarod tradition; bib number one was reserved for Jim Horton, who hadn't had a dog team in almost thirty years. But, he'd been the last of the pre-snowmobile dog mushers in the county, and even now, though in his late eighties, his experience and wisdom about handling dogs were still sought by Spearfish County mushers, not the least Josh and Tiffany. In a sense, he'd taught them all. It was a special moment, and Josh knew that if Jim felt up to it -- and he didn't always, these days -- he'd see him in Warsaw.

"Hold up another couple minutes," Josh said loud enough for Phil's handlers to hear, "Then get down and get in line."

The two minutes lasted about thirty seconds; even the handlers were excited. No loss, though. Josh turned to Mark, the only one remaining. "We better get started," Josh said. "We've got half an hour, but a lot to do."

There hadn't been room enough to lay out three sleds and ganglines, but there was now. Mark carried Josh's own White sled over to where the other team had stood, then started to lay out the gangline and all the other lines, while Josh went to harness his own dogs. He was just getting the harness on Geep when he heard Clark's voice on the loudspeaker, "Now in the chute, from Run-8 Kennels here in Spearfish Lake, Number 4, Tiffany Langenderfer-McMahon." Josh stopped what he was doing, stepped up on the bumper of the truck. From the higher vantage point, he could see Tiffany's team in the starting chute, between two rows of plastic snow fencing. The whole team was hopping and jumping, ready to run; in the floodlights, he could see Tiffany's purple racing parka and snow pants, the "Run-8" patch on her shoulder. It was too far away to make out the details, but Josh and Phil had a similar one, a pair of racing dogs superimposed on a diesel railroad engine. Tiffany had wanted to use "Trailbreaker Kennels", but the name was already taken, and a cab ride on the SD-38s one time as they walked a load up out of the Kremmling pit, bellowing and shaking the earth, sold her.

Clark was standing next to the timekeeper; he counted down, "Five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... MUSH!" At the last word, a starter's pistol went off, and instantly Tiffany's team was accellerating down the floodlit chute, ten tails strung out behind ten madly-running dogs, Tiffany kicking off the back, to try to help them pick up speed. In a matter of seconds, they were beyond the floodlights, off into the night.

"Too bad you didn't draw higher," Mark commented.

"Not all bad," Josh said. "These guys like to pass people. Keeps their interest up."

That was said as much for some of the other mushers standing around as it was for Mark. Starting twenty-first, Josh would have a rougher trail to deal with than the early starters, and passing teams slowed both teams down. At least, he had the option of doing a lot of the passing on the railroad grade, where the broken trail was wide, making for a fairly quick pass, and the hard layer of older snow beneath the new snow wouldn't get cut up too badly. It might even be in his favor; it would make him and the dogs hustle more between passes. He'd know when he got to Warsaw and the starting differentials were equaled.

In order to make the first one back the winner, the 26th starter was only allowed a four hour stop.The 25th starter had to stay four hours and two minutes, and so on, until Bib Number Two, the first starter, had to make a four hour and fifty-two minute stop. Some felt the longer rest slightly favored the early starters, but that was a matter for discussion, anyway. The restart times on the board in the Warsaw fire station would tell the real story. Josh hoped to be somewhere near the fifth and tenth arrival in Warsaw, depending on which teams got in ahead of him, and hopefully would be in the first two or three to restart.

Josh only got another couple dogs harnessed before he heard, "Now in the chute, from Run-8 Kennels here in Spearfish Lake, Number 7, a rookie, Phil Wines."

"That was nice of you," Mark said.

"We owe him," Josh explained as he hopped up on the bumper again, "And this gives us a chance to evaluate some of the dogs under fire." He stood there waiting until the starter's pistol went off, and watched Phil race out of the floodlights. Switchstand predictably took the team out fast; Josh rather doubted he'd see Phil before Warsaw.

Josh and Mark turned back to harnessing dogs, and were down to the wheel dogs when some of the people that had helped Tiffany and Phil to the starting line returned. They finished the harnessing, and Josh selected dogs and gave them a last minute check, Mark and Mike hooked them to the gangline. First to go over were the lead pair, Alco and Geep. Alco had a lot of trail miles on in lead, especially this year, and Geep, while green, was taking commands better than Alco. If the pair worked out, he'd have his main leader problem solved, and there was a good chance that Switchstand might make it as a long-distance leader, too. Neither Alco nor Geep ran the team with the confidence that Crosstie and Switchstand did, but they were still young dogs, and had the potential to develop.

Next up were the swing dogs, Baldwin and Scooter. Both of them were good, strong dogs, and both would lead on the trail, if asked, but preferred to have another dog alongside for confidence. If Josh were going to have to develop yet another command leader, this is probably where he would consider starting. Baldwin was a two year old, out of the same litter as Geep and Alco, and had proven to be a good team dog. Scooter was a Pound Puppy, one of the last that Josh had taken in, two years ago. Mark had turned him up, and had seen the potential of a good sled dog, but the dog had been mistreated, and had had some real behavior problems. It had taken a long time and a lot of training, neither of which Mark had the time for just then, but Scooter had proven to be a good race dog in the end, strong and fast, so in spite of his unknown bloodline had been a logical candidate to breed with Shack. It was still too early to see how that experiment was going to come out, but the puppies looked good and acted like they wanted to grow up and be race dogs.

Next up were U-Boat and Morse, the last of the Diesel Dogs, the first George and Nimbus litter. U-Boat was a strong, fast team dog, but didn't appear to have the confidence to want to run as a leader; a little on the passive side, but a solid dog. Morse was actually a slightly better dog, in Josh's opinion, but had had a sore paw a couple weeks before. It seemed healed now; the dog had been running well in practice, and was a better candidate for the trip than Zephyr, the one dog they'd left behind out of the now 31 racing dogs.

Following them were Boxcar and Sidetrack, brother and sister. Both dogs had come from Greg Mears; one of his prized purebred Siberians had been in heat and caught by an unknown dog at a race four years ago, and Mears had spread the resulting puppies out among his friends, for what they were worth. What they were worth was pretty good. Sidetrack was about as classic looking a husky as you could ask for, with a pair of ice-blue eyes you could fall into; Boxcar wasn't as striking, and had one blue and one brown eye. Now in their second year on the racing team, both were fast dogs, with good legs and good wind; Josh wouldn't have minded having another couple of dogs out of that litter.

The wheel dogs were Pumper and Throttle. Pumper was an older dog, one of the most experienced on the team. He'd acquired her from Fred Linder, in exchange for a couple of promising pups, when he'd been looking for a larger dog that could work as a wheel dog. Pumper had a pretty good shot of malemute, and a lot of something else, probably some Siberian, maybe a little lab, maybe a little Irish setter. About ten pounds heavier than the rest of the team, she had a tendancy to go fat, so had to be run more than the other dogs and her feeding had to be watched carefully, but the extra trouble was worth it on the trail. At her age, it was a tossup whether she had Nome in her future, but she lent stability to what was otherwise a pretty young team, and her size helped guide the sled on crooked trails. Throttle was the one remaining dog out of the first litter they'd bred, out of Mark's Cumulus and Bullet. They'd had great hopes for that litter, but most of the dogs had turned out rather mediocre. Throttle wasn't slow, and had been bigger than the rest. A competent wheel dog, Josh occasionally put him into swing in situations where the leader needed some extra help steering the team.

Ten dogs, easily the best team Josh had ever assembled, the team he'd been working toward for years. He'd have felt better if the leaders weren't quite so green, but if they proved out this year they'd be up front for another few years. The dogs didn't know it, but if his plans worked out, most probably had Nome in their future. They looked excited, ready to go; Josh had held off hooking them up as long as he'd dared, just so they wouldn't waste energy jumping up and down while still tied to the truck. And, jumping they were; they were eager to go, doing wheelies, four-off-the-floors, lunging, trying to pull.

He looked around. The dog lot was getting empty now; only a handful of other teams were getting assembled, and a few vehicles had already left, to watch the race at the 919 crossing, and later, to head on to Warsaw for the midway pit stop. He looked over at Crosstie, tied out beside the pickup truck. The dog was anxious to be going, jumping up and down like the rest, with that mournful, "They're leaving me behind," yowl that huskies had. It was tough leaving Crosstie behind -- they'd gone through a lot together, but life was going to be easier for her from now on. She'd stay outside this winter, since she still had a heavy winter coat, but maybe next summer he'd think about converting her to an inside dog. There were worse things than having Crosstie laying by your bed while he slept, he thought.

Being careful -- he still had a couple minutes -- Josh went down the line with a flashlight, checking hookups. Not that he didn't trust Mark and Mike, but an extra check couldn't hurt. He thought about having Boxcar and Sidetrack switch sides, but couldn't come up with enough reason to actually do it beyond a nervous urge to fiddle.

"Got your gear?" Mark asked.

Josh shined the flashlight into the sled. The snowshoes were tied into place, as was the sleeping bag, and a small duffel bag contained a few items of emergency gear. Another small bag contained trail snacks for the dogs; he'd snack the dogs on the trail, and give them a full feeding at Warsaw, although the food, already mixed with warm water and sitting in a cooler, would be brought up by Mark in the pickup, along with pans and a few other items needed for the layover. Josh bent over and unzipped both bags, to make sure they actually had what they were supposed to have. He was going to have to carry considerably more gear on the Beargrease, enough more that he'd have to take the new toboggan sled that he and Mark had built over the summer.

"Let's do it," he said, pulling on a pair of cheap sunglasses, to try and limit the damage the floodlights were going to do to his night vision; two hundred yards out, he'd rip them off and throw them away.

Mark and Jackie and Mike and Kirsten and Gil and Josh each grabbed a dog by the collar, and Mark led the crowd down to the short line of racers waiting to start. While they stood there waiting, Josh pulled up his snow pants -- he'd let the suspenders dangle, to try to stay cool -- then pulled on his hunter orange camouflage parka. The parka, with its Run-8 Kennels patch, was as much his own trademark as Tiffany's purple one. He checked to see that the headband holding his headlamp on was tight over his fur hat, and quickly checked to see that it was working. With the full moon lighting up the scenery, he didn't plan on using it much before Warsaw, but there were a couple narrow spots, where the crossover ran from the lake to the grade, and at the Spearfish River crossing.

Four minutes to go, and he was as ready as he could be. This was the longest wait of all. The dogs were ready, he was ready. The Warsaw Run wasn't quite as big a deal as it had been for him in the past, when it had been the only distance race he'd run all winter; now it was just the first and shortest of three, or maybe four. But, it was a home town crowd, and that made it more special; more special, indeed, in that only he had been in all of the Warsaw Runs, even the first demonstration. In his mind's eye, he could see the trail unfolding ahead of him, going over the race in advance.

"Now in the chute, from here in Spearfish Lake, Number 21, a rookie, Jim Conger," he heard Clark's voice on the loudspeaker. Ahead of him, Jim's handlers, and the start line helpers, pulled the dogs up into the start chute; only the nose of the sled was behind the starting line. Jim had run the Pound Puppies several times, but this was his first Warsaw Run start. He had a solid team, if not a fast one, and Josh knew from talking with Jim both last summer and at the musher's banquet that his leader was marginal. Still, it would be good experience, and Jim was a friend, too; Josh had been one of several local mushers that had helped Jim get started, and he hoped that he'd do well and be back in the future with a better team. Josh's old Shadow would be solid for him, anyway. But now, he was competition, to be passed as quickly as possible and left as far behind as possible.

Clark counted Conger down to the start; the starting pistol went off, and Jim was on his way. Even as they were still in the floodlit chute, where Josh could see them, he could predict trouble; the leader was running slower than the other dogs, almost to the point of tangling. They'd better get that out of their systems real soon, Josh thought, or is was going to be a long night for Jim.

Now it was his turn. His handlers led the dogs forward, as Josh trailed behind, walking behind the sled. Some of the starting line handlers came out and grabbed a dog by the collar, and they brought the little White racing sled to a stop just at the starting line. Clark's voice again came over the speaker. "Now in the chute, from Run-8 Kennels here in Spearfish Lake, Number 22, the 1992 Warsaw Run defending Champion, Josh Archer." There was a little cheer from the couple of hundred people assembled around the starting chute. Josh waved his arm to acknowledge them, then stepped on the sled runners and took a good grip on the drive bar. Time, which had dragged so slowly for the last few minutes, now went by like a shot; it seemed only an instant before he heart Clark's voice count down, "Five ... four ... three ... two..." At two, Josh yelled to his team, "UP" to get them ready, as if that were needed. " ... one ... MUSH!"

"HIKE! HIKE! HIKE!" Josh yelled as the handlers released the dogs at the sound of the starting pistol. "ROCK AND ROLL! HIKE! HIKE!" Switchstand could not have done a better job of taking the dogs out of the chute; it was an effort to hang onto the sled during the starting rush. A blur of people and snowfence whizzed by, and Josh kept yelling "HIKE! HIKE!" to his eager team.

In only seconds, they were beyond the snowfence and the floodlights, and for an instant Josh was almost blind from the sunglasses. He freed a hand, ripped them off and tossed them away in one motion, and he could see again. With the big moon rising in the sky, he could see quite a bit, clear across the lake, where the trail had been plowed out fifteen yards wide; off in the distance, down in the dim shadows by the shore, he could see the blinking yellow highway warning light that marked the trail's entrance to the crossover path to the rail grade. Not far in the distance, he could make out Conger's team, not going very fast. Crosstie would have led them better than that, and for an instant he'd been sorry about not thinking to offer to loan her to Conger, but it was too late for that, now.

His own team was going like a son of a gun, now; once he got them up on the grade, he hoped to get them down to a better trail pace, but they reeled Conger in quickly, even before they reached the edge of the lake. As they came up on him, Josh swung around to check behind -- "check-six", he called it, picking up the expression from a black fighter pilot friend of Mark's that had visited earlier in the year -- although any team coming up on him just then would have to have been solid grayhounds and not planning on going much farther. With a quick glance, he saw no one was there, so he yelled to his team, "ON BY HAW", telling them to pass on the left, and followed it with "TRAIL! TRAIL! to let Conger know he was passing. Conger was well over to the right side of the trail, anyway, and as Josh's team passed, he could hear Conger cussing at his lead dog. Hopefully, up on the grade, they could develop a more even pace. One down; Josh had figured he needed to pass about a dozen teams, more if possible, in the easy passing area between the start and Warsaw.

By the time he was well past Conger, the flashing yellow highway construction light and barricade that marked the trail leaving the lake was coming up on them, and the team raced past it and shot up the crossover trail, hardly slowing down. The crossover had been plowed out since he'd last come down it behind Switchstand and the pack of seventeen dogs three days before; now, it was wide and easy, hardly an effort. A couple of hundred yards up the crossover, the trail bent to the right and joined the railroad grade.

It was time to be trying to slow the dogs down to a trail pace. "Easy, easy," Josh called fairly lightly; he was willing to take a couple miles to slow them down, and, in fact, he didn't really want to slow them down much. The leaders did drop the team down a little, helped by a couple touches of the sled brake. The trail here was in good shape; a crew from the Vietnam Veterans, one of the race's sponsors, had borrowed the snowmobile trail groomer from the DNR garage after the Pound Puppies race, to bring the trail out to the club back up to racing shape. They'd done a good job; the trail was smooth and solid, and while Josh could see where the rails were, they wouldn't be a problem to cross. Now, he could relax a little bit, and his eyes had pretty well recovered from the floodlights. He took a glance to his right, where Orion hung beautifully in the starfilled, clear sky. He could feel the cold of the night settling down on his face; not enough to matter, just enough to tell him that it was cooling down.

A few cars and a small knot of people were waiting alongside the state road overpass, one of the few places where it was possible to watch the race from out on the trail. It was fairly open here, and Josh could make out another team in front of him. It wasn't moving very fast; just past the overpass, Josh called "TRAIL" to move them over, and his own team went by without breaking stride. He saw the number "16" on the other musher's bib, but didn't recognize the team; someone from down in Camden, he thought. The team seemed to be running in good order, if not terribly fast; perhaps they had to have had trouble, to have dropped that far out of order. Two down.

It wasn't much farther up to the crossover trail that ran up to the North Country Trail, the way they would return. Josh called "ON BY! ON BY! to his leaders, since heading up that trail was a frequent training trip, but Alco and Geep didn't even give the side trail any attention. "You guys are doing just fine," he called to his two leaders. There was another training trail crossing, a mile or so farther on, the route that Tiffany usually took to school, but these dogs rarely took it, and Josh didn't even bother with an "on by" command. He did give them one at Busted Axle Road; the dog lot lay half a mile up the road, and there might have been some dogs that wanted to go home, but not these dogs, at it turned out; once again, nobody had the idea of going home. There were a handful of people here, as well, and Josh thought he saw Mark's truck with its dog box on the back. His own truck had 20 bays, enough for Tiffany's and Phil's teams, but not his own, as well, so they had gone to the starting line in Mark's truck.

They went by Busted Axle Road -- that wasn't its real name; officially it was County Road 542. People had called it Busted Axle Road on account of its roughness for years, but they were were beginning to call it "Dog Town Road," thanks to the Run-8 kennels, plus Mark's and Mike's, all located within a quarter mile of each other.