Lone Wolves (13 page)

Once the dogs were fed and settled, their fires stoked, Denny collapsed by the main fire to gather her strength. Jasper opened his eyes, looking around him, perplexed.

“You're safe,” Denny said, adjusting the bag to better cover his neck.

“My dogs?” he croaked.

“They're alright, too. They're right over there warming up,” replied Denny, deciding not to tell him that his sled and two of his dogs had been lost in the river.

Jasper nodded in appreciation and then closed his eyes and fell asleep again. A little later, when he came to, he asked, “How long was I out?”

Denny pulled up the cuff of her parka and looked at her wrist.

“I dunno. My watch is broke. The water must have ruined it. But it must have been at least a couple hours.”

“It looks old,” said Jasper, looking at the face of the watch.

“It was my grandfather's.”

“I'm sorry. Can I see it?” he replied.

Denny thought from his tone that he must have heard about her grandfather, have some understanding of what the watch meant to her. She removed it and handed it to Jasper, who studied the face and the back.

“Maybe I can fix it,” he said. “Band's in pretty bad shape, but I bet the guts can be repaired. Maybe just a good drying out. Can I borrow it?”

Denny nodded.

He tucked the watch into a pocket.

Denny told Jasper about his sled and his two dogs. The whole time Jasper just stared into the flames of the campfire. She knew how hard it would be if she had lost two of her dogs that way.

“How long were you in the water?” she asked.

“I don't rightly know. Too long,” he replied slowly, without looking up from the mesmerizing flames.

About then, other teams began to arrive. One man gave Jasper a pair of dry long johns and dry pants. One shared his thermos of hot coffee.

“That'll warm up your insides,” he said as Jasper took a sip. “You're lucky to be alive. Good thing the kid came along or you'd be a goner. You guys gonna scratch? You want me to contact the race officials and get some help?”

Denny looked at Jasper cradling the warm plastic cup of the thermos in his hands. He shook his head weakly.

Denny nodded that she understood.

“No,” she said defiantly. “We're going to finish this race.”

Seeing that the two mushers were okay, the other racers stayed only momentarily before they left, finding a safer place to cross downriver. Several took photographs of the hole in the ice. The finish line was close, less than thirty miles away, within easy reach.

It was hours before Denny and Jasper were ready to hit the trail. By then, every team still in the race had passed them. When she was ready, Denny tied Jasper's dogs to her team, with Taz in front to lead the way. With Jasper lying in the sleeping bag in the basket of the sled, still suffering from the effects of hypothermia, Denny drove the twenty-two-dog team—the largest in the race—along the edge of the frozen and windswept sea toward the finish line.

Looking up at the stars shivering between breaks in the clouds Denny couldn't help but be reminded of the terrible night her grandfather died.

The story of Denny's heroism and sacrifice beat her to the finish line, carried on the tongues and in the hearts of every racer who finished before her. By the time news arrived that she was only a few miles out of town, photographs of the accident were already making their way to newspapers and television stations. Some websites were already carrying the story. By morning, the whole world would know that 16-year-old Deneena Yazzie had her chance to win the race, but gave it up to save a fellow racer—Jasper Stark, no less, the three-time world champion.

It seemed as if every resident of the town lined both sides of the trail for the last half mile to the finish line. As Denny's team of twenty-two dogs passed through the cheering crowds, spectators waved handmade signs with her name, and children ran alongside the sled for as long as they could. Jasper waved feebly at the people from inside the sleeping bag in the sled's basket.

They had finished together, the very last team to cross the finish line. There would be no trophies, no new truck, and, most importantly, no prize money—no means by which Denny could support her team or get home. Although she smiled and waved at the people and the photographers, on the inside Denny was sad. She had come so far and worked so hard to be in the race. She had proved the worth of her team, almost winning, only to fail miserably.

Denny's disappointment was bitter in her throat.

As soon as her team came to a stop, medical doctors carefully helped Jasper from the basket and led him away to check his condition, and a race official awarded Denny a red hurricane lantern, a token traditionally bestowed on the last-place team as a symbol of a beacon of light to guide them safely home through the darkness. Like the Olympic torch, the little red lantern was lit when the race started, and it would only be extinguished after the last musher crossed the finish line, marking the end of the race.

Suddenly, Denny was smothered by reporters asking questions and by people congratulating her and shaking her hands. She couldn't figure out why they were congratulating her. She had lost. Much was made of the irony that Jasper Stark had predicted another win, even that he'd break his record, and yet he finished dead last. The reporters asked Denny what she was going to do next and if she was going to enter the race next year. Denny couldn't think that far ahead. Exhausted as she was, all she could think about as reporters shoved their microphones into her face was feeding her dogs and getting something to eat and going to bed.

“I don't know what I'm going to do,” she replied in a haggard voice while rubbing her eyes. “I don't even know how I'm going to get home. I had hoped to win enough money to pay for a plane ticket and to buy food for my team for a year.”

Finally, the crowd melted away like a late spring snow, going home or back to school or to work. After caring for the dogs, feeding them, and bedding them down for a long, deserved rest, and with no place else to go, Denny made her way to the Race Headquarters Office. Someone brought her a hot plate of pancakes covered with tinfoil, which she ate ravenously. While she ate, a nurse came in and told her that Jasper was going to be okay.

“Glad to hear it,” Denny replied, putting down her cup of coffee. “Thanks for letting me know.”

After breakfast, Denny sat on a chair beside the crackling barrel stove, took her diary out from her backpack, and wrote an entry, doodling in the margins.

Dear Nellie:

I didn't win the race. I had it, but then I lost it. I didn't win any of the prize money. Not a dime. I have no idea how I'm going to get home. But that doesn't worry me as much as what will happen to my team. Mother's going to sell off all the dogs. I worry most about Taz. What will happen to him? I'll have to let him go. But I guess with a spirit as free and wild as his, he never really was mine in the first place. I don't think I can face the people back home. Everyone's going to make fun of me saying stuff like, “There's that girl who thought she was better than everyone else!” Truth is I never thought I was better than anyone. I just don't believe that being a girl should keep me from following my dreams. All I ever wanted was to be connected to the land and to the old ways like Grandpa taught me. Everyone will think I couldn't have won anyway. They'll think I'm a loser because I was last. Grandpa would have understood, and he would have been proud of me. But I'm afraid no one else will.

Denny

18

K'edze' ghak'ae

Homecoming

T
he last thing Denny remembered was lying down on a cot that two volunteers had brought in for her. Several hours later, she was shaken awake.

“Are you Deneena Yazzie?” asked the bearded man leaning over her.

She struggled to wake up.

“Yeah,” she answered groggily, hoping it was only a dream.

“I'm your pilot. It's time to go,” said the man, looking down at her with his arms across his chest. “Your village airstrip is a pretty tough approach. I want to land before dark.”

“Wha . . . what?” asked Denny, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and stretching out on the narrow cot. She had no idea how long she had been asleep.

“I'm supposed to take you home. Your team and your gear are already loaded. Time to get up, Sleepy Head. Let's go. Chop, chop. We're burning daylight.”

As she was climbing into the plane, a red pickup drove up, the driver honking his horn and flashing his headlights. Jasper Stark stepped out from the passenger door and waved. Denny climbed back out from the cockpit.

“I wanted to catch you before you left,” he yelled above the sound of the airplane engine. “I have something for you.”

He handed Denny a small box with a card.

“What's this?”

“It's a gift.”

Jasper leaned closer to speak above the engine noise.

“For saving my life. Go ahead, open it.”

Denny opened the card, which read, “I'd be proud to share the trail with you any day.”

Then she opened the box, which contained her grandfather's watch, only instead of the worn out leather band it had a brand-new gold band adorned with gold nuggets, quite expensive and quite fashionable by Alaskan standards.

“I thought you'd like that back. Hope you don't mind that I replaced the old band.” Jasper smiled and winked. “I got it at a souvenir shop in town.”

Denny saw that the second hand was moving.

“You fixed it!” she cried, and then she hugged Jasper.

“All it needed was a good drying out . . . like me.”

From her seat beside the pilot, Denny looked out the windows as the small plane followed the frozen river. She saw herds of caribou on the hillsides and moose on the flats or among the patchwork of scraggly trees in the whiteness. Against the immense landscape, the small aircraft was little more than an invisible mote, a gnat, droning across the cloud-tangled sky. The pilot made occasional chit-chat with her.

There's so-and-so river or so-and-so lake, he'd say, pointing to some landmark below.

Finally, Denny got the nerve to say something she had been thinking about.

“I don't have any money to pay for this flight.”

“Don't worry about it, kiddo. It's taken care of.”

“You mean someone paid for it?” she asked incredulous. “Who?”

The pilot looked at Denny and smiled.

“Mr. Stark took care of the bill,” he said.

Denny didn't say anything for a while after that. Although she was glad that the airplane debt was paid, she still worried about what would become of her team. Her mother had said she could keep the dogs only if she won enough money in the race to feed them. But Denny hadn't won a penny.

Now she would lose her team.

Worst of all, she would have to give up Tazlina.

Finally, Denny could see her village crouched along the northern shore. From above, the village looked tiny and misplaced in the vastness of the wilderness. The pilot banked the plane, turning toward the small airfield a mile out of town. After lining up the plane with the runway, he pushed in the throttle, checked his airspeed, trimmed the flaps, and spun a small, black wheel to change the angle of the nose as he began his approach to the airstrip. A few minutes later the craft landed, bouncing only once when the landing wheels touched down. Safely on earth, the pilot taxied toward the little parking area where Denny could see her mother's truck with a small trailer waiting to pick her up.

But after the prop stopped spinning and the pilot opened the door, Denny was surprised to see Silas step out from the driver's side.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, after climbing out the small door and ducking as she passed beneath the wing.

“Your mom asked me to come get you. She said she was too busy.”

The news hurt. Denny thought for certain that her mother would come get her. She thought she might even be a little proud of her for finishing the race.

I guess it's hard to love a loser
, she thought.

“Well,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “let's load up the dogs and my gear and go home.”

Without saying a word, Denny transferred her team from the airplane to the back of the truck, one at a time, while Silas moved the bags of gear and loaded the sled onto the trailer, being careful to tie it down securely.

As Silas drove down the little road to the village, the empty plane took off, passing low above the truck, tipping its wings as it headed back to the city.

The village seemed asleep. No one was on the streets, except for a few roaming dogs that ran out and barked at the truck. Denny had imagined that some people might have shown a little interest in her adventure, at least asking how she did in the race.

“I need to stop here for a minute,” said Silas as they were passing the community center where bingo and potlatches were held.

“Why?” asked Denny, looking at the empty parking lot.

“I need to do something,” said Silas. “Why don't you come in with me?”

“I can't. I gotta put these dogs away and feed them. Besides, I'm pretty bushed. I haven't exactly got a lot of sleep lately.”

“C'mon. It'll only take a minute,” replied Silas, with a pleading smile, as he turned off the engine.

Grudgingly, Denny climbed out of the truck and slammed the squeaky door.

“This better not take too long,” she said in a defeated tone.

Silas opened the outer door to the community hall for his friend.

“Age before beauty,” he said, knowing that Denny was a few months older.

Denny stuck out her tongue.

“More like
age before ugly
,” she said with a sly smirk, while opening the main door herself.

As soon as the door swung open, a loud chorus of shouts greeted her.

“S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E!”

It seemed as if everyone in the entire village was in the building. A large banner reading “Welcome Home Denny!” was strung across the room. Balloons were everywhere. When Denny stopped in her tracks, the hall burst into applause.

Several voices in the crowd shouted, “We love you, Denny!”

“Way to go!” a lone voice called out.

Silas stood beside her. He put a hand on the small of her back.

“This is all for you,” he said, nudging her into the room.

With people still applauding, Denny crossed the plank floor and stood before a long table with three large cakes, each with one word written in frosting. Together, the three cakes spelled out, “Welcome Home Denny.” Bowls of punch sat on either end of the table. A fourth, smaller cake, was shaped like a bone with the names of all eight dogs written on it.

Taz's name was the biggest.

Denny's mother and grandmother stepped out from the crowd and hugged her. Silas stepped back and watched, smiling and clapping. After the long embrace, Delia turned toward the audience and raised a hand. She spoke in a loud, practiced voice, used to addressing the community in the great hall.

The room slowly settled.

“I'd like to thank all of you for welcoming my daughter home,” she said in a proud, strong voice.

Then she turned toward Denny.

“While you were gone, the whole village followed you on television, in the newspapers, and on the radio.”

“And on the Internet!” some young person shouted.

“Yes, on that, too,” Delia chuckled. “We watched you every day. All the kids at school made posters and maps to show where you were. We heard how you lost because you stopped to save another racer's life. We were all proud when the television reporter said that you had the biggest heart of anyone in the race. But we al
ready knew that. Many reporters even came here to film our village to show the world where you come from. They pretty much talked to everyone.”

The room filled with laughter.

“We're all proud of you,” said Delia, her sweeping hand gesturing at all the smiling people in the large room. “I'm proud of you, too. And I know your grandfather would be very proud of you.
You
are his legacy. He lives inside
you
.”

Denny's eyes welled up. She had to look down at the floor.

Her grandmother took her by the hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You done good,” she whispered into her granddaughter's ear. “Make you granddaddy proud.”

“So,” said Delia in a more upbeat tone, “let's get this party started!”

Everyone applauded again.

Delia raised her hands to settle the crowd once again.

“But before we cut these cakes, I'd like to thank a few people. First, I'd like to thank Denny's father who helped me to organize this party and pay for part of it.”

Everyone looked around the room for Denny's father. It seemed as if everyone was whispering something to the person closest. Then Denny saw him. He was standing in the back of the hall by himself, leaning against the wall near the door with his arms across his chest.

When their eyes met, he smiled and bowed his head in acknowledgement.

Denny managed to smile back while wiping away tears.

“And the rest of the money?” said Delia. “The entire village donated the rest.”

The room burst into applause yet again.

Once again Delia raised her hands above her head for quiet. When the applause died down she said, “I've saved the best for last. Just this morning our tribal office received an email for you. I'd like to read it so everyone can hear.”

Delia took out a folded piece of paper from her back pocket, cleared her voice once, and read the letter aloud.

Dear Ms. Deneena Yazzie:

The entire world watched in amazement at how you gave up the chance to win the world's greatest dogsled race to help an endangered fellow racer while others thought only of the finish line. Your brave and selfless actions were the embodiment of sportsmanship. We here at Husky Dog Foods would be proud to support you. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I am authorized to award you a one-year contract of sponsorship, which will pay for your dog team's food and veterinary care, the costs of entry fees, transportation, housing to participate in races, and a monthly stipend to cover other financial needs. We would be honored if you would wear our company logo on your outerwear.

Regards,

J. Roderick Clark, President

As they had done several times before, the entire community applauded. Some people in the audience whistled, and someone shouted, “You go, girl!”

Denny thought the voice sounded a lot like Silas'.

Delia gave the letter to her daughter and picked up a long kitchen knife from the table.

“Now, let's have some cake!” she declared.

As was done at potlatches, young people served, carrying slices of cake on flimsy, white paper plates to the elders. Most of the helpers were high school students. Even Mary Paniaq helped, even though Denny thought her belly looked so large that it might burst. Denny chuckled at the way Mary waddled about like a fat penguin.

Wherever she turned, Denny was shaking hands. The school teachers all hugged her. Valerie Charley grabbed her by the arm when she passed.

“I want to thank you,” she said above the din of the celebration.

“For what?” asked Denny.

“For giving me the courage to follow my dreams. I told my boss I'm going to quit at the end of summer so I can go to college in the fall.”

“Good for you! I know you can do it.”

“
Tsin'aen
,” replied a beaming Valerie, using the Indian word for thanks.

Denny saw her father still standing at the back of the room, close to the door, as if he needed to be near a way out. He looked as nervous as a caged wolf. She walked across the wide floor to bring him a piece of cake.

“I'm glad you're here,” she said, handing him the small plate.

“Me too,” replied her father.

Neither said a word for a couple minutes; they just stood side-by-side watching other people in the room, her father taking bites of the cake.

Denny broke the awkwardness.

“Thanks for helping Mom put on this party.”

“No problem.”

“That's not all he did,” interrupted Delia, who had been standing nearby eavesdropping on their conversation. “Your father's the one who left the envelope on the door with enough money to pay for a hotel.”

Denny was astonished.

“
You
did that?” she asked. “Where did you get the money? I'm sorry. That doesn't sound very thankful. I don't mean no disrespect.”

“That's alright,” he said, obviously uncomfortable. “I guess I got that coming. I raffled one of my potlatch rifles during Bingo Night.”

“But . . . how did you guys know I needed money?” Denny asked.

Delia looked down at the floor.

“I . . . I read your dairy,” she replied sheepishly. “You left it on your bed one day.”

Denny's face showed her terror.

“How . . . how much did you read?”

“All of it,” replied her mother, sheepishly. “I'm sorry. I was worried about you.”

Denny was concerned about some of the things her mother must have read in the pages. In her mind, she thought about certain passages, especially the critical ones about her mother. But her mother gently took her face in both hands and looked deep into her heart through the blue wells of her eyes.

“You're wrong about one thing,” she said tenderly. “You're my daughter. I love you with all my heart.”