"Hey James, you taking your dogs out?" Walter Evans asks even though he can plainly see I'm hitching up my squirmy, barking team. "Looks like a storm might be coming."

"Make yourself useful, Walter. Hold my sled the way you'll need to at the starting gate. You are helping me at the Nationals, right?"

"I sure am. Can't wait to go to Fairbanks." Walter says with a broad smile and twinkling eyes that project mischief. The beak of a baseball cap peeks out from the fur ruff on his parka hood.

"For the races, not the partying. True?" I swat his broad back with my glove.

"Oh, I'll be rootin' for you." Walter ducks out of my reach and takes a firm grip on the sled. He's a year younger than me, but strong.

"And not for Brooke? I thought you had a crush on her."
Walter answers with a no-comment roll of his eyes. He tugs on the sled to hold back four harnessed dogs as I get them attached to the sled. "Did you hear about her running into a bear at Trapper Pete's cabin?" He sounds a little breathless.

"Yeah. Makes me feel like a jerk for picking on her the way I do sometimes."

"That's an old habit, isn't it, jerk?" A broad grin spreads over Walter's pure Athabascan face.

I ignore his insult. "Walter, hold on till I get these last dogs hooked up."
When all the dogs are harnessed, my buddy calls, "Go, man."

Luger, my leader, takes off like a true racer on the same trail Brooke took yesterday. My plan is to follow it through an expanse of spruce trees, onto Yukon River ice for a while, then up the bank into forest again toward the trapper's cabin.

Everything goes smoothly through the forest, but not at the river. When out on the ice, the runners hiss over clear, wind-swept ice, sounding like a wet log sizzling on a roaring fire. In bright light, something ahead looks not quite right.

I quickly call, "Haw, haw."

Luger turns the dogs sharply right, and I push on a boot to give the dogs help up the riverbank. From the bank, I suspect a dangerous problem developing. I halt the team and shove my goggles up. The river shows a hazard.

"Hey, an overflow." A crack in the ice allows water to run up from the depths of the river and a deep pocket of water is forming. Luckily, I have the team up on safe ground so we move cautiously by.
Back on the wooded trail, we soon reach the trapper's cabin. Curiosity gets me to halt the dogs and look around. There is a patch of trampled snow marked with a sea of bear and dog tracks. A tree branch has fallen from a bare cottonwood and there's plenty of damage around the door. No doubt a bear has been here.

The thought of Brooke being charged by a grizzly in this spot sends a chill through me. I stare at the scene until a big, cawing raven grabs attention. Black wings spread wide as the large bird lands on a torn-up flour sack. It squawks again and that brings another raven swooping in.

I yell at Luger, and we press to a wide open meadow where I get the dogs up to top speed. We circle the meadow over and over. Nine red tongues hang low as if the dogs are smiling over every mile. This training run goes so well I decide to head back toward the village.

The afternoon sun begins to dim behind thickening clouds. Shadows of trees cast long stripes across the snow, reminding me of smoked salmon strips hanging freely on racks. The dogs push hard on the trail until we're near the overflow area. I brake the team to a cautious trot with both my feet on the runners.
Silence is pierced by a distant noise. I bring us to a halt and listen hard. The sound of a snow machine is coming closer. Beyond a thick stand of trees, a swift shadow flies by.

I whistle then shout, "Hold it, hold it!"

The driver hears only the machine's howling motor. Then total silence happens. No motor.

"Go, Luger." We rush along the riverbank and in moments the overflow is in full view.

Slammed into an ice ridge is a Skidoo, lying on its side.

"Ugh, ugh!" sounds come from a man in the river. He is floundering against the current, gasping for breath and clawing at sheets of ice that break under his weight.

"Hold on!" I bolt from the sled and grab my safety rope. I loop it around the nearest spruce tree then tie it around my waist. I drop down on the edge of the ice and crawl toward the man as his movements slow in numbing cold.

It is Brooke's kind and gentle uncle. "I'll get you, Earl. I'm coming."

"Ja....Ja..," he gasps as I get close enough to flip the rope over his head.

With the sound of a gunshot ice beneath me cracks. I sprawl, stretching to distribute my weight across a sheet of ice. Earl thrashes in his heavy parka but manages to get the rope under one arm. I begin to roll back toward shore.
I didn't take time to tie the team down. Only the brake of the sled was set. The dogs stand at attention as if they know what's happening. Barking erupts as I edge toward them.

It's at least the length of three hunting rifles before I hit thicker ice. Standing up, I tug on the rope with all my strength. Earl inches his water-soaked body half way onto a sheet of thin ice. It breaks, submerging him again. The abrupt plunge jars me to my knees and bends the thin spruce tree like a twig. The rope flips off the tree.

The knot around me is secure and still holds around Earl shoulder. There is slack between us as he flounders in water. I struggle up to the sled, push the rope off me, and wrap it around the back of the sled. I release the brake and command Luger to move the sled forward. The dogs strain for traction, stabbing their paws into crusted snow. Slowly they inch up the riverbank.

Like magic, they pull Earl onto solid ice then on solid land. With the brake set, the dogs wait patiently while I help Earl to his feet. Until now, I was on autopilot. With no time to panic, my only thought was to get him out of the river. Now what?

Earl is still in critical danger. He is a man with ice coating his eyelashes, ice water saturating his parka and filling his boots. "I.....get... parka off," he stutters, shivering violently.

"Yes, then we'll get you home, Earl." In panic, I pull the soggy coat off over his head, but all his clothes are just as wet.

"Too, too... far ... Trapper Pete's?" His trembling lips are blue.

"I know where the cabin is." I grab a fur hide off the sled. "Wrap up in this and we'll get you there in a jiffy."