Across A Thousand Miles

…and somehow Mac had gambled away half his dog-food money.

One hot shower and thirty minutes later, he was standing in the vet’s office counting those same bills again. Then he pushed all but sixty dollars toward the receptionist. She counted it primly before writing him out a receipt. “I’ll get Callie for you now,” she said, and disappeared into the back room. Mac stared at the remaining bills in his hand with a feeling of doom. “Oh, God,” he said to the empty room. “I’m flat broke.”

When he finally got Callie comfortably ensconced in the passenger seat of his old truck, he was stunned to realize that it was nearly 10 a.m. He had an early-morning appointment to pick up nearly a ton of dog food from a beautiful widow named Rebecca Reed, who lived about an hour outside of Dawson…and who didn’t sell dog food on credit.

“Oh, God,” he said again, putting the truck in gear and heading down the Klondike Highway. “I’m a dead man.”

“YOU’RE LATE! Rebecca said, hands on her hips. I could have trained three teams of dogs in the amount of time I’ve spent waiting around for you.”

A stiff wind bent the tops of the spruce, and the overcast sky gave off an ominous thundering. “I’m sorry,” Mac said. He stood at the foot of the porch steps looking about as apologetic as she’d ever seen a man look. Those broad military shoulders were hunched, and his hands were shoved deep into his parka pockets. His tawny hair was tousled, though clean and freshly trimmed, and he had obviously shaved, revealing more clearly the strong, masculine planes of cheekbone and chin, but his eyes mirrored his abject guilt.

“Well, I’m not going to help you load the dog food. That’s your job. Back your truck up to that door on the end of the dog barn. Your food is on pallets stacked to the right of the door. Forty bags, though I seriously doubt your truck will take the load.”

He nodded again, looked over his shoulder at the old rusted truck, then dropped his gaze to the toes of his worn-out pack boots. He stood silently at the foot of the cabin steps until Rebecca felt a knot forming in the pit of her stomach.

“What is it?” she said.

He sighed and dug his hands deeper into his parka pockets. He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. A snowflake fluttered down from the leaden sky and brushed over his shoulder unseen. “Well, the thing is, I’m a little short of cash,” he said in a low voice, speaking to the ground at his feet. “The vet bill turned out to be higher than I expected. You see, Callie ate this big rock…” He raised his eyes and pulled one hand out of his pocket, fingers unfolding to reveal the smooth egg-shaped stone cradled within.

Rebecca stared at the rock and crossed her arms in front of her. The wind was cold, but a curious feeling warmed her blood. “I see. Yes, that certainly is a big rock. So. You spent all your money on what had to be the most expensive surgery ever performed in the Yukon, and I suppose now you want me to extend credit to you?”

Mac shook his head. “I have enough left to buy a couple of bags. I can come up with more money. I’ll sell some stuff up at the cabin. A couple of bags will hold me over till I can hock my watch. I have a good one. A Rolex.” He bared his wrist to display the watch, but Rebecca was unimpressed. Another snowflake whirled through the air, a tiny dance of white, a promise of winter. He watched it land and disappear, then raised his eyes to hers. “I’m not asking to buy on credit. I’ll get the money. Callie’s okay, and right at this moment that’s all that matters.”

Rebecca’s arms tightened against herself. Bruce would have done the same. He would have sold his soul to the devil to save one of his dogs. And truth be known, so would she. “Take the food,” she said shortly, “and pay me when you can. Your brother, Brian, did very well with his trapline. I expect you’ll be able to make good on this loan in a month or so. I can’t abide the thought of those good dogs of Brian’s going hungry, and they can’t live on chum salmon…and egg-size rocks.”

Mac stared at her until she felt the cold knot in the pit of her stomach return with a vengeance. “What is it now?” she demanded.

“Trapping.” His eyes pleaded with her to understand, and the flush across his cheekbones deepened. Rebecca waited, grim-faced, for him to continue. “I tried trapping. I set the traps like Brian showed me. For a while there was nothing, and then I caught a fox,” he said. “When I came to check the trap, the fox was… It had…” He half turned away from her and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. His shoulders rose and fell around a silent sigh. “I let the fox go. It just didn’t seem right.”

Rebecca looked at him for a moment and then turned her back abruptly, raised her hands to her mouth and coughed behind them to hide her smile.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do to earn the money, but something’s bound to come up.”

She turned around, her face composed, and nodded curtly. “I’m sure you’re good for it. Load the dog food. You have a long trip ahead of you, and it’s starting to snow.”

She watched him back the old truck up to the barn door and let her hand drop to rest on the head of the dog who was forever by her side. “He can’t trap wild animals, Tuffy,” she said softly, a bemused smile curving the corners of her mouth. “Who can figure the heart of a man?”

IT TOOK MACKENZIE a good thirty minutes to load the bags. Rebecca spent the time mixing her own batch of dog food for the evening feeding. The cabin was warm, and she lit an oil lamp against the early twilight. The hardest part of living in the north was the lack of daylight in winter months. It wasn’t so bad now, but come December the nights would be endless, and sunlight all but a precious memory. She gave the stew pot a stir and poked the pan of sourdough bread rising on the warming shelf, shifting it to a cooler spot. A light tap on the door drew her back onto the cabin porch. MacKenzie stood humbly before her. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be off now.”

“Good,” she said.

He nodded. “I’ll pay you within the month.”

“I’m sure you will.”

She couldn’t keep the edge of sarcasm from her voice. He nodded again and turned away, walked down the three steps and crossed the yard to where his truck was parked. He paused before climbing into the cab. “Need any mechanical work done on your truck?” he asked hopefully.

“Nope.”

“Two weeks,” he said. “I’ll have the money in two weeks!”

She didn’t reply, and he climbed into the cab and slammed the door. The truck started right up, but he had to work to get it into first gear. He pulled ahead with a lurch that stalled it. He started it again, waved his arm out the side window when the engine finally caught and slowly rumbled out of the yard, the old truck’s springs sagging under the heavy load. As he drove cautiously down the long rutted track that led to the main road, it began to snow in earnest, the flakes whirling past on a strong westerly wind. By morning there would be a foot or more. Winter came all at once in the north country and stayed for a very long time.

She stepped inside to fill the buckets with dog food, hurrying now to beat the darkness and the storm. The dogs howled with delight as she reemerged bearing their supper, which she ladled into the feed pans attached to the sides of their houses. “We’ll run tomorrow, Thor,” she promised the black lead dog, another of her husband’s favorites. “Maybe even with the sled.” She’d been training the dog teams with a four-wheeler since the weather had cooled in August, letting twelve dogs pull the ATV down miles of dirt roads, and while rig training was important, she couldn’t wait to get back onto the sled. Nothing compared to a fast run behind a good team of well-trained dogs. Rebecca had come to love the dogs and the lifestyle they represented. She had come to love this little place on the edge of the wilderness, the timeless cycle of the seasons, the ebb and flow of life, and the hard, harsh laws of the wild. If not for the aching loneliness that had hollowed her heart since losing Bruce, she would be quite content here.

“Okay, Quinn, I’m coming with the chow. Hold your horses!” She dished out the food quickly, moving amongst the whirl and dance of the excited animals with practiced ease, speaking each dog’s name as she fed it. Finally she dropped the scoop back into one of the empty buckets with a weary sigh. “Done and done.” The snow was already turning the ground white, and strong gusts of wind lifted it up in streamers. “Wild night ahead.”

She wondered how MacKenzie was making out on his long drive home, and no sooner did this unbidden thought enter her mind than the dogs erupted into a frenzy of barking, all eyes focused on the dirt track that led to the main road. She followed their gaze and after a few moments picked out the dark shape of a man moving through the thick veil of wind-driven snow. “It can’t be!” she said.

But it was. MacKenzie trudged into her yard and veered in her direction. His hair was plastered with snow. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said over the roar of the wind. “My truck broke a U-joint about half a mile from here, just shy of the main road.”

Clutching both empty buckets in one mittened hand, she stared at him. “I guess it was too heavy a load,” she couldn’t resist saying.

“I guess,” he said.

“You got into that soft spot, didn’t you?” she said. He nodded. “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

“I was wondering if I could borrow your phone.”

“You’re assuming I have one. Who do you plan to call?”

“God,” he said.

“I don’t have that kind of a phone. Mine is a limited-signal radio phone, and the best you can do with it is to call over to Sam and Ellin Dodge’s place. They have a ham radio and can call into Dawson for a wrecker, but nobody will come out tonight with a storm brewing. And even if someone does, a wrecker won’t get you home with a load of dog food for a pack of hungry dogs.”

“No, ma’am, probably not.”

“And if you don’t get home tonight, who’s going to feed your dogs?”

“Fred Turner. He’s staying at my place till I get back.”

“Fred Turner?” Rebecca glared at Mac. “Fred Turner’s about as dependable as one might expect an alcoholic amnesiac to be. If you left any liquor in your cabin, he’s drunk it all by now. Lord only knows what shape your dogs’ll be in when you get back.”

“I can fix that U-joint in jig time. All I need is the right part. I noticed you had an old, broken-down Ford parked behind the dog yard…”

“That old, broken-down Ford is my snowplow, mister, and you aren’t laying a hand on it! Sam Dodge has some junkers over at his place. He may have the part you need. Like I said, you can use my phone to call him, though you won’t be able to do much in the pitch-dark.”

“I have a headlamp in my truck,” Mac said. “Hell, I could work blind if I had to. I’m a fair enough mechanic. How far away do these folks live?”

“Sam and Ellin? Not far. Five miles down the trail, east of here.”

“Which trail?”

“That one.” Rebecca raised her free hand and pointed. “If you hurry you could get there and back in my four-wheeler before the snow gets too deep, but we’d better call ahead first.”

“I appreciate this,” Mac said, following her into the warmth of the cabin. He stopped inside the door and looked around while she hooked the radio phone to the twelve-volt battery. She noticed him staring at Bruce’s clothing on the wall pegs near the door and the pair of man-size Bunny boots behind the wood cookstove. “You have a real nice place here,” he offered. She said nothing, dialing Sam and Ellin’s number by heart and hoping that they had their phone turned on.

They did. Ellin answered on the second ring. Her voice was always warm and welcome to Rebecca’s ears. “’Becca! Sweetheart, how are you? I hope you’re all ready for winter, my dear, because its here!”