Chapter One
"It was clear and cold. The aurora borealis painted palpitating color revels on the sky. Rosy waves of cold brilliancy swept across the zenith, while great coruscating bars of greenish white blotted out the stars."
—Jack London, "A Daughter of the Aurora"
Jessie Arnold halted her team and stomped in the snow hookto secure the sled, though as far as they had come and thislate on a chill mid-January night there was little chance thather dogs would proceed without an encouraging word fromtheir driver. They had traveled almost two hundred miles intwo days and nights of regular alternating stages—four hoursof travel, four hours of rest—with one longer, six-hour campand a few short pauses. With an important distance race—theYukon Quest, from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Fairbanks, Alaska—comingup the next month, she was scheduling her training toadjust both the dogs and herself to the extended rotations ofrunning that would be required.
The Yukon Quest was Alaska's second most important distancerace and Jessie had decided to try it for the first time,forgoing her usual participation in the Iditarod, for the twowere very close together on the calendar and it would havebeen difficult to run them both.
She was looking forward to testing herself on a new race,and the Quest had established a reputation as the toughest sleddog race in the world, because of the extremes in temperatureand terrain experienced by its participants. The route wouldtake Jessie and the rest of the racers over more than a thousandmiles of the most remote, inhospitable region of North Americain the heart of winter, measuring their ability, raw courage,and sheer will with temperatures that often fell between -30°and -50°.
Jessie was particularly interested in traveling this race routebecause the relentless, demanding trail would trace the sametrails used during the Alaskan and Yukon gold rushes, whichhad been natural and vital links for mail and freight mushersbetween communities during this era. The race would also bea challenge because the participants were only allowed to useone sled for the trip, like the mushers who had traveled theearly mail routes and repaired their own sleds, if damaged.The Quest would therefore also test the self-sufficiency of eachmodern musher, leaving some cursing the unrepairable fragmentsand splinters of their transportation, often nursing theirown injuries.
The trail Jessie and her team would run passed throughfewer checkpoints than the Iditarod, with greater distances betweenthem, and would include long stretches on the unforgivingYukon River, the "Highway of the North," its icy surfaceoften repeatedly broken and refrozen into a jumble of iceblocks the size of boxcars as it settled into winter immobility.Three extreme summits higher than any on the Iditarod wouldhave to be crossed, and as she paused with her team on thistraining run, she was thinking about confronting the physicaland mental challenges of this new race.
From his place at the front of the team, Tank, her leaddog, looked back as if wondering why they were stopping soclose to home, then lay down in the snow. Two of the youngdogs in the team remained on their feet for a minute or two,but, like the veterans, soon relaxed in their places, taking advantageof the pause to rest.
They're adapting fast, Jessie thought, generally pleased withthe response of these twelve huskies to the extended trainingrun they were about to complete. Opening the sled bag, sheretrieved a large insulated container of warm water mixed withvitamins, electrolytes, and the food scraps left from a feedingat the last four-hour rest stop. When each dog had been givena metal pan of this tempting liquid, she watched to be surethey were all drinking thirstily, then took a bag of high-energydog snacks and moved along the line to give some to each,along with a minute or two of individual attention.
"Good dog, Bliss. Good girl. Hey, Sunny. You hungry,Wart? Oh ... just want that magic spot behind your earsscratched, yes? Okay. All right, Darryl, I'm coming. How aboutyour other brother, Darryl? Here you go, pups."
The two wheel dogs, who ran closest to the sled, werelittermates named for the pair of Darryls on the old BobNewhart television show, and were often referred to simply asOne and Two. They looked so much alike it was hard to tellwhich was which, though Jessie knew that Darryl Two haddarker ears and was more inclined to wolf his food. Very mucha people dog, he greeted her with an affectionate lick on thehand as she presented his snack.
"Kisses for the pack leader? Thanks. Good job today, guys.Good dogs."
Replacing the supplies, she pulled the big fur mittens thatreached almost to her elbows over a thinner pair of wool glovesthat protected her fingers when the mittens weren't on. Nothingwas as warm as fur, and they hung on an idiot stringaround the neck of her parka, where they would not be accidentally,disastrously lost. With the dark, which came in midafternoonthis time of year, the temperature had dropped belowzero and was still falling. Jessie was extremely careful to keepher hands warm, exposing them as little as necessary, but muchof the work of caring for the dogs and herself could not bedone in the clumsy mitts. Wiggling her fingers to encouragecirculation, she left the team and turned to look around her.
The headlamp she wore revealed a trail well packed by themany mushers in the Knik area who used it for training, all ofwhom did their part to keep it groomed. Beyond her light theghostly white trunks of the tall birches that lined the trail fadedinto the dark on either side, branches bereft of leaves untilspring.
Pushing back the hood of the heavy down parka that hungto her knees, Jessie took a deep breath of the cold night airand sighed, placed her hands on the small of her back, andstretched to ease the weary ache between her shoulders. Sheknew a couple of mushers who had back problems and wonderedhow they stood the jouncing of the sled for over a thousandmiles during a race, or the hundreds of everyday trainingmiles, for that matter. Almost immediately she forgot her minorphysical discomforts as she became aware of a spectacular lightshow above. Reaching up, she switched off the headlamp andwaited for her night vision to return.
Low on the horizon she could see the glow of the city ofAnchorage, but overhead was a completely different story. Inthe subzero temperature and clear air, hundreds of stars sparkledbright as diamonds against the inky blackness of the sky.Across them, swirling, shimmering curtains of the aurora borealisappeared to have snared their brilliance in a gauzy net, thebrightest of the greenish white bands so vivid they almost obscuredthe glittering points of light beyond them. Along thenorthern edges of the aurora were pale hints of rose thatpulsed, grew, and spread, only to wane and slowly vanish asanother part of the moving splendor increased in intensity.
Silent and motionless, Jessie stood gazing attentively upwardas she almost held her breath in wonder. How manyhundred times have I seen the northern lights? she mused. AndI am still arrested and awed by them—enthralled as a child ata fireworks show.
Watching the ribbons undulate and gradually elongateacross the dark sky, she remembered seeing photographs fromspace probes of the rings of similar auroras above the poles ofJupiter and Saturn. It made her feel somehow closer to andmore accepting of the two distant planets to know that theyshared such extraordinary and inexplicable phenomena.
Time to go, she told herself. With one last look at thesplendor of the heavens, she turned and went to fasten thesled bag and whistle up her team. When they were trottingrhythmically along the trail again, the reflective tape on theirharnesses winking as it caught the light from her headlamp,Jessie was glad to be almost home and began to consider whatawaited her back at the cabin on Knik Road.
Her snug log cabin would be empty, but not cold, for BillySteward, the dependable young handler who cared for the restof her kennel in her absence, would have maintained at leasta small fire in the potbellied stove to keep the house fromfreezing. A couple of chunks of wood would soon have its castiron cheerfully glowing and would quickly spread comfortablewarmth through the small living space. In the refrigerator shehad left enough of a large kettle of stew for one meal, knowingshe would be tired and in no mood to cook when she returned.The rest of the stew had gone with her on the training run,but after eating it for two days, she now found that the ideaof more did not appeal in the slightest to her growing appetite.Another lesson relearned, she realized, and began to mentallyrevise the menu she would prepare and have shipped to checkpointsfor her first attempt at the Yukon Quest in February.
From several years of running Alaska's most famous distancerace, the Iditarod, between Anchorage and Nome, shehad noticed that having a variety of foods perked up her appetiteand gave her something to satisfy the hunger produced inthe strenuous physical requirements of a thousand-mile race.Long days of racing with little rest drained mushers and exhaustedtheir bodily reserves, necessitating a calorie-rich, high-energydiet. But an exhausted musher could lose all desire forfood, or crave certain things she had forgotten to include inher supplies. It was too easy to concentrate on planning justthe right food for the dogs and ignore the human athlete inthe equation. A well-balanced, successful team required both.
So ... what do I want for dinner tonight? The thoughtmade her tired, knowing that caring for her team would continueto demand her undivided attention when they reachedthe dog yard. Ready for a long rest, the dogs must still bewatered and fed before they settled for the night. With thehandler gone home for the night, it would be up to Jessie tofeed and carefully check each animal for small injuries orstrains, though this would also give her the opportunity to petand congratulate each on a job well done. But with these choresahead it would be at least an hour before she even wentthrough the door of the cabin.
She wished that someone else would be there when shearrived. Not to care for the dogs—she liked doing that herself—butsomeone who had already put wood in the stove,someone with dinner waiting. More than anything, she wanteda shower and not to have to make decisions. It would be wonderfulto have a plate—of anything but stew—put in front ofher on the table when she was clean. How nice it would be tocurl up warm and stationary on the big sofa by the stove,wrapped in a cozy afghan, with a mug of hot peppermint teathat someone else had made for her. However much she lovédrunning with her dogs, she also loved coming home and relaxinginto the comfortable fatigue that resulted from long,successful days on the trail.
"Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?" she sang out.
The dogs pricked up their ears at the sound of her voiceand trotted a little faster down the trail.
Alex, where are you when I want you? she thought, feeling,not for the first time, the absence of her friend, housemate,and lover, Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen, and wonderingagain just how long he would be away.
It had been after eight o'clock, at the end of a training runmuch like this, when she had arrived at home to find himtossing clothes hurriedly into a suitcase. Just a week beforeChristmas.
"Hey, trooper, where're you off to?"
Tall and rawboned, he turned from his packing, handlebarmustache askew, light hair with just a touch of silver at thetemples standing up from where he had run his fingers throughit, a grin replacing the frown on his face. Gathering her intoa hug, he kissed each of her wind-burned cheeks and herchapped lips, tousled her short honey-blond curls, and lookeddown into her wide gray questioning eyes.
"You're home, but you're still cold. Must have been a lotof flying snow today," he said.
"Yeah, it was blowing a bit and piling up drifts out there.Where're you going? Out-of-town case?"
He stepped back to hold her at arm's length, his expressiononce again serious.
"Not this time. My mom called an hour ago, Jess. Dad hada stroke last night. He's in the hospital and I have to go down."
"Oh, no, Alex. How bad was it? Is he going to be all right?"
Jessie had never met Alex's parents, who lived on a rancha few miles outside Salmon, Idaho, but she had grown quitefond of Keara Lacey Jensen through frequent letters and phonecalls. For Alex's father she felt a warmth and respect, gleanedmainly from his son's affectionate comments, for, after a reservedgreeting, the reticent Nels Jensen invariably passed thephone to his more loquacious wife.
"It was evidently pretty bad. They medevaced him up tothe big hospital in Missoula and the doctors say they won'tknow much for a few days yet. For now it's one of those wait-and-seethings."
"How's your mom?"
"Mom's doing okay, I guess, considering, but she soundedfrightened and sort of fragile. I've never heard her sound likeshe was just barely hanging on. Wish it wouldn't take me tillsometime tomorrow to get there."
"Shall I come with you?"
"There just isn't time, Jess. Besides, you need to be hereto take care of the dogs and get ready for the race. I'll see howthings are and let you know, okay?"
"Sure. Whatever works best. I could come later, if youneed me."
"Right."
"What can I do to help, then? When does your planeleave?"
"I have a reservation on the red-eye to Seattle, where I cancatch a Horizon flight to Missoula at six-thirty tomorrowmorning."
"I'll drive you in. Just let me grab a shower and somethingto eat. There's time, right?"
"You won't have to, Jess. Caswell's already on his way here.I didn't know for sure when you'd be home, so I called himas soon as I'd made the reservations. Don't know how long I'llbe gone, so I've got to stop by the office and get the paperworkon my cases in some kind of order to turn over to Becket. Heand Ivan are meeting me there."
Jessie knew that if Ivan Swift, the post commander, wasshowing up, it definitely meant Alex might be gone for quitesome time. Jessie, typically, swung into action mode.
"Okay. What else can I do? Have you had dinner?"
"Yeah, I ate a little, but I'm not really hungry. There's aroast chicken keeping warm for you in the oven. You couldmake me a couple of sandwiches to take on the plane—mayo,mustard, maybe some of that sharp cheddar. I can't eat thatplastic food."
"You've got it. What else?"
"An orange? Maybe a couple of your Snickers." He smiled,knowing Jessie bought Snickers by the box as high-energy trailfood and that they both ate oranges for the vitamin C.
"There's a load of laundry in the drier. You could fold itwhen it's dry. I'll need to pack some of it. Socks. Long underwear.Won't be any warmer there than here."
"Sure."
In less than an hour fellow trooper Ben Caswell had comehurrying into the cabin, said, "No, thanks," to a drumstick,and efficiently swept up Jensen and his duffel.
"I'll call you when I get there," Alex told her at the door."As soon as I know ... whatever."
"Let me know if you need anything. Give your mom mylove."
"You know I will."
Looking up at his face after he kissed her good-bye, sheassessed the distraction in his eyes, the lines of concern thatframed the mouth below his handlebar mustache, and laid apalm on his cheek.
"I'll be here. Better call me late. I'll be running the muttsalmost every day."
His focus shifted to her and he smiled. "Do good work,musher. That race is coming up fast. I love you."
She nodded. "Too."
He turned, clattered down the front steps, and climbed intohis friend's waiting pickup, which was quickly swallowed upin the dark as it turned onto the road from the long driveway.Red taillights flashed momentarily between distant tree trunksand he was gone.
Jessie had closed the door, enveloped by a silence thatseemed loud after the clamor of unexpected departure.
On this late evening in January, when Alex had been in Idahoalmost three weeks, Jessie changed her mind and went into herempty cabin as soon as she arrived. She pulled up by the frontsteps, stomped in the snow hook, and dashed inside, whereshe added wood to the still-glowing coals in the stove and leftit to warm the house while she went back out to the yard totake care of her team.
More than an hour later she took a long steaming shower,ate a cold tuna sandwich with a hot bowl of canned tomatosoup, went directly to bed, and slept for eight hours, uninterrupted,except once when she woke to hear several of her dogsbarking in the yard.
For several nights a moose had wandered close to the cabin,exciting the dogs and provoking them to vocalize loudly atwhat their tethers prevented them from chasing. Jessie hadgrinned to herself at the tracks she found in the snow, for thehuge ungulate seemed to exhibit a sense of humor in comingexactly close enough to cause a ruckus without actually challengingso many canines. Its passing had left large dividedhoofprints at the bottom of holes in the deep snow as it movedeasily around the circumference of the yard on long ganglylegs, munching on the willows that grew by the drive, evenlying down to rest in a stand of birch and spruce to the north,pointedly ignoring the protests of the restless dogs.
Now, as she heard them barking again, Jessie smiled drowsily,rolled onto her left side, and drifted back to sleep in themiddle of the big brass bed she usually shared with Alex. Therewould undoubtedly be more tracks to be found in the morning,but they were really nothing to worry about. A bear might havebeen different, for some bears would kill and eat dogs, especiallythose that could not escape. But, thankfully, all the bears,plump from a long summer banquet, were elsewhere, tuckedup securely into their dens, keeping warm in their heavy fur,contentedly slumbering the winter away.
Though the dogs barked once or twice after that, Jessie didnot wake again. She was unaware that, after the cabin hadbeen dark for over an hour, a dark figure had slipped stealthilyinto the dog yard from between two large spruce trees; that hehad watched Jessie come home from her training run, care forher dogs, and go inside. Walking slowly between the straw-filleddog boxes, he picked one, knelt, and silenced the dog bypetting its head, rubbing its ears, and speaking in a low voice.
When he stood up and moved on to another, the first dogfollowed to where its tether should have stopped it, but foundthat it was unexpectedly free of restraint. It stopped, not usedto being without impediment, then moved on, pursuing theman. When it found a running mate was also loose, the twodecided it was time to play, and enthusiastically accompaniedthe provider of their liberty as he quietly made his way out ofthe yard and down the long driveway to Knik Road. Reachingthe truck he had parked a bend or two away, they willinglyjumped up into the cab at his invitation and rode away withhim into the night.
* * *
"No. I won't do that. Who do you think you're talking to? Andthey would find out—somehow. I have to sign the papers thatsay those dogs can ..."
"You'll do it. I'll destroy you if you don't ... and here'show."
The voice behind the threat was low, but sharp, cold, andas full of menace as the handsome face of the man who madeit. The grin that bared his perfect teeth held no hint of humoras he flipped a yellowed newspaper clipping onto the deskbehind which his victim sat angrily protesting.
The sight of the headline and picture included in the articlecaught the man for whom it was intended like a blow. Hisanger leaked away like the air from a punctured balloon, leavinghim pale and sweaty, feeling as if something slimy hadlanded on the desk in front of him.
"Oh, Jesus. Where the hell—"
"Shut it, dummy, and listen up. The goddamned thingsmove—don't they?"
Almost beyond listening, the seated man had recoiled in hischair and was glancing desperately around the room for anescape that didn't exist, mentally scrabbling for safety.
"Don't they?"
The ominous tone of the question yanked him back to theedge of panic. He shrank into the chair, focused his horror onthe yellowing scrap of newsprint, and panted out an answerwithout looking up.
"Yes. They can, if they're not placed right."
"So, they'll just think this one moved when they can't findit. They won't know the difference. Pretty good chance of that,huh? Still, they'll be unwilling to let it slide through, right?Now, be a good boy."
"Yes ... they'll expect some of them to move, so they'lllook thoroughly—carefully. If they can't find it anywhere,they'll have to ... Where ... how did you get this?"
The shaking finger he pointed at the clipping and its accompanyingphotograph was ignored by his assailant, whoplaced both hands on the desk, leaned forward until his facewas less than a foot away, and hissed, "And you'll fix it so youdo the searching when necessary, won't you? Then you canfind it. You can report it. By the time somebody else takes alook, it'll be too damn late, won't it?"
"But how—"
"Goddammit, you son of a bitch, I don't care how. You'lljust do it, right?"
"But why? And why me?"
"You don't need to know why. And it's you because Ihave ... this, you pervert. Because I say so. Right?"
"Right."
Strangled by frustration and fear, his resignation was expelledon a breath, barely above a whisper.
"Louder."
"Right."
"If you screw up—"
"I won't." It was almost a sob, as he covered his face withboth hands.
There was silence, the soft sound of a door closing gently,and when he looked up the office was empty. The repugnantnewspaper clipping lay where it had been tossed on the desk.
He did not look at it directly again, but after a minute ortwo struck a match taken from a desk drawer and held it to onecorner of the paper. Obsessed with the burning, he watched itblacken and curl until it scorched his fingers, forcing him tostomp out the last scrap where it had fallen to the floor, leavinga narrow black scorch on his office carpet.
Continues...
Excerpted from Murder on the Yukon Questby Sue Henry Copyright © 2000 by Sue Henry. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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