Lauren turned around and walked back to the starting grounds. Surely there was someone there who could help her. She thought about calling Shane, but he had only just begun to believe in her and she didn’t want to ruin that already.
As she tromped the long way back to the trail head, the sky began to darken. Days were ridiculously short here. No sooner had the sun come up than it went back down. Would she be stuck lost and alone out here? And what of the dogs?
Her toes grew cold despite her fancy new boots from Lowood’s in town. She had no idea how the dogs not only did it, but loved it.
Just as she was about to give up and call Shane, a four-wheeler approached head-on, slowing to a stop just a few yards ahead of her. “Hop on,” the man said, and she happily complied. He mumbled something back over his shoulder, but she was so cold and so tired she couldn’t make out the words. Instead, she just cozied into the welcome warmth of her rescuer’s body.
A few minutes later, they were back at the starting line, and Lauren spied her whole team tied up outside the truck. A few other teams were also tied off as their mushers recapped the runs they’d just completed.
“Th-thank you,” Lauren mumbled, not wanting to move from the warmth of the kind stranger.
“Ain’t nothing,” the man said. “Happens to the best of us. Maybe not the best of us, but you get my meaning.”
She smiled and accepted a metal thermos from another racer. The hot coffee woke her right back up, made her feel human again.
Both men watched her as she drank, chatting with each other and leaving her mostly to recover on her own. When she’d finished the full thermos, she thanked them again and asked the question that had weighed heavily on her mind for hours now. “You won’t tell Shane about this, will you?”
The men laughed, and Lauren thought that one of the smaller ones might actually be a woman, but it was hard to tell with how bundled up everyone was, especially with the sun already part-way down.
“Your secret’s safe with us, but you hang tight to that bar. Yeah? You can’t see when some bumps are coming and that’ll throw you every time if you aren’t ready.”
“How did you know that’s what happened?”
“It happens more than you might know to rookie racers. Most especially cheechakos.”
“Wh—?” Lauren began to ask, but the woman stopped her with a hearty laugh.
“People outside of Alaska. Like you, I’d wager. Anyway, even the best mushers get tossed from time to time. Lucky for you, you came to this track, and when we saw your team coming in without you, we figured you might need a pickup.”
“So they sent me out with the four-wheeler to go find ya before dark sets in,” her rescuer chimed in.
“And the rest of us corralled your dogs, unhooked ‘em, fed ‘em. Look at ‘em now, curled into happy little husky pucks, ready to go home and take a long rest.”
Lauren glanced toward the dogs, who definitely appeared contented, much to her relief. But who was she kidding thinking she could beat Shane’s time? She hadn’t even managed to finish the track, let alone earn a good time. So much for racing being her blood. Lauren wondered if her father had ever been tossed from the sled, or for that matter, if Shane had. Despite what the other men had told her, it seemed unlikely that anyone besides her could make such a foolish mistake.
“There, there,” the small racer, who was definitely a woman, said as she patted Lauren’s shoulder with a mittened hand. “It’s how you learn.”
“Did you ever fall?” Lauren whispered, feeling more at ease with the woman racer than the larger mixed gender group.
“More than once.” She winked, and Lauren smiled. “And I’ll tell you something else as long as you promise not to let anyone know it’s me who told you.”
Lauren nodded and waited for the big reveal.
“Your boss? Shane?” Her eyes sparkled like the untouched snow at the edges of the field as she whispered, “He has, too.”
“The snow machining accident, you mean?”
“Not just that. He’s made every mistake there is to make. He’s lucky he didn’t get hurt before now. But you know what?”
Lauren took a deep breath to make space for whatever secret this woman could tell her. “What?”
“It’s good for you, taking a tumble like that. If you’re not willing to take some risks, you can never be good at it.”
As the sun sank further toward the horizon, Lauren couldn’t help but wonder if that same advice applied to life every bit as much as it applied to the art of racing.