I checked my watch again. Remembering Gerry’s reward system, I gave the dogs some biscuits. I adjusted the straps on my boxes. The most dangerous chapter of my life had arrived, and no one could be troubled to see me off. I paced up and down in the snow. Could anyone be counted on? Were humans even capable of being true? I kept practicing the address I was about to give, but the more I went over it, the more I rehearsed the words, the more hollow they sounded. Out in the white, wild dogs circled and pawed. Somewhere beyond my vision, mastication was taking place.
Finally, several dog teams approached. When their drivers pulled up and lifted their goggles, however, I saw it was not my father or Trudy, but Gerry and his kids. Their sleds were packed, and the kids were equipped with foul-weather boots and proper snowshoes. “We’re coming along,” Gerry said. “The kids want to visit their old lady after you visit yours.”
There was no irony in Gerry’s voice at all. It was as if he’d convinced himself that the woman he loved really was alive, that she was off at a dude ranch having a high old time. I looked at those kids, glassy-eyed with the hope of seeing their mother. Just the idea of a bunch of kids being dependent on me gave me the willies, let alone taking them down a road that would never lead to their mom.
“I appreciate the offer,” I told Gerry, “but I’ll move faster alone.
“Oh, it’s no bother,” Gerry said. “It’s no trouble. There’s not much for us here, and we’re happy to help pull some extra weight.”
Wouldn’t those kids quit looking at me? I wasn’t the one who’d been feeding them lies. I didn’t electrocute anybody’s mother.
“There’s no way,” I told him. “You can’t come. I’m finding my own old lady.”
Gerry said, “Hey, who do you think just built your sled, Hanky?”
Farley pulled up, dogs howling. Dad was in the litter. He threw me a handheld GPS tracker. “We don’t need maps,” he said. “The satellites still work.”
“Dad, Farley,” I said, “I’m glad you’re here. Someone needs to tell this guy he’s not coming with me. Tell him this is a one-man mission.”
When I looked at the sled Dad and Farley were driving, though, I could tell that it, too, was outfitted for travel through cold country.
“Hey, there, now,” Farley told me. “We’re all coming with you, eh?”
Dad shot me a look that said, Get real. “You can’t do this trip alone,” he said.
I addressed all of them: “This trip will be long and perilous. There’ll be great obstacles, unforeseeable dangers, general loneliness, and little hope of success. I can’t ask anyone else to risk their lives. I can’t be responsible for that.”
I was starting to scare the crap out of myself. Talk like that was really weirding me out. I had to get out of there; luckily, Trudy and Eggers were sledding up.
Trudy set the snowbrake, and Eggers jumped up from the litter, wearing all his old Clovis gear. It was a nice show of solidarity. His richy-rich parka and perpetual watch had been replaced by buckskin breeches and a big Clovis coat.
“Sorry we’re late,” Trudy said. “Last-minute shopping.”
When I went to their sled, there weren’t any supplies.
“Where are my provisions?” I asked. “What am I supposed to eat for the next two weeks?” On their sled were several shoe-boxes, and a whole raft of potato chips. “What is all this?” I asked, staring at the chips. They were suddenly incomprehensible to me.
“Easy, Dr. Hannah,” Eggers said. “We got some goodies for you, too.”
“I don’t want new sneakers,” I said. “I need staples. Rice and flour. Meat.”
“You don’t need provisions,” Eggers said. “I lived for a year without provisions. We’ll find stuff along the way.”
“I’ve got news for you,” I said. “You’re not going along,” I started rifling through the stuff they’d brought. There was a Frisbee, a box of dog treats, and a new set of barbecue tongs. “I can’t eat any of this,” I told them. I picked up a golf club. “What the heck is this?”
“It’s only a nine iron,” Eggers said. “So I brought one club. So kill me.”
There was a large sack from the pharmacy. I tore this open. It was filled with hundreds of little discs, each disc ringed with little white candies. “You brought candy? I asked you to do one simple thing like keep me from starving, and this is what you come up with?”
Trudy snatched the bag from me. “These are my birth-control pills,” she said. “If I’m going to be the last woman on earth, I’m not taking any long trips unprepared.”
Gerry said, “Hey, now, you’re not the last woman on earth.”
“Yeah,” I said, “you’re not the last woman on earth. That’s what this trip is about. That’s what I’m about to kill myself trying to establish. But it doesn’t seem like anybody gives a crap about that. This is just a big picnic to some people.”
Eggers lifted his hands. “What say we lighten up a little, Dr. Hannah? How about we go easy on the negativity? Maybe Trudy and I got a little carried away, but you’re really not one to talk when it comes to packing dogsleds. You’ve got about six hundred pounds of computer paper there, and that suitcase is designed for overhead bins, not long-distance mushing.”
I walked to my sled and lifted the snowbrake. I said, “I’m sorry, but this is something I have to do. If I’ve misled anybody, I apologize. If I haven’t lived up to your expectations, well, so be it. I figure it will take me two weeks to find Yulia and at least two to get back, assuming the snowpack holds. Until then.”
“Why are you taking Junior?” Trudy asked. “If you’re coming back, why are you taking your research with you?”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
I simply said, “I’ll see you in four weeks.”
Farley threw a thumb toward the lake, though you couldn’t see anything through the falling snow. “If water starts coming over the dam,” he said, “it’s only a matter of time till the abutments erode. Town might not even be here in a month.”
I stepped onto the sled runners. When I lifted my whip, the dogs stood.
“Dr. Hannah,” Trudy said, “what’s wrong? What’s gotten into you?”
“Listen to me,” my father said. “Do not do this.”
Eggers came up to me. “People stick together,” he said. “Do you remember the night you taught me that? I didn’t know that. I’d made it to graduate school without learning that. You don’t turn your back on the people who need you. That’s what you said to me. Those are the words my own father never taught me.”
“Yet you went off anyway,” I told him.
“Well, I was wrong,” Eggers said.
Gerry’s kids were giving me this spooky look. It was blank and expectant, and they were relentless with it. I had to leave right then, I had to get out of there while I still had an ounce of resolve, or I would simply crumple. I turned toward the river. I popped the whip, and held on tight when the sled lurched.
“Dr. Hannah,” Eggers called after me, “this is a low-down and lonesome thing you’re doing.”
Chapter Twelve
Racing through the riverbed, I barely glanced at the corpses. I thought of them all together, as a single entity. You sad bastards, my mind said to them, you poor stooges. My vision was blurry. I kept wiping my eyes, but honestly, I couldn’t see a thing. “Hya,” I yelled. “Hya!”
The snow had begun to settle in the Missouri bed, but it was thin, and believe me, you knew when the skids hit a “bump.” Here’s where all the dogs were, some lying casually across river-softened corpses, lifting their muzzles whenever they needed to horse down soft tissue, while others were recumbently engaged in digestive naps. When I raced through them, though, they took great interest, agitatedly charging me in little bluff-runs as I crossed the channel. They spread out into flanking lines that paced me on either side, just beyond my vision through the snow. I hadn’t gone a quarter-mile before my hamstrings were burning from holding on so tight. Every bump was a near spill. Each drift we punched through shook the pulp in my teeth.