Read Online Four Quarters of Light by Brian Keenan - Free Book Online

‘I’ll carry your weight,’ he said gruffly. I could not for the life of me understand what he meant by that, for how could he, but then I really was an infant at this game.
    After some fifteen minutes of charging through the bush I wasbecoming accustomed to the experience. I relaxed back, did what I was told to do and let Dan carry the weight. I began to enjoy it, quickly understanding what Dan had meant by needing something to sustain you, something stronger than coffee. Without all this wet gear and wind- and thornproofing I could not have lasted more than a few moments in the bitter, bone-shattering coldness of the bush. This was my first ritual experience of the Alaska we know about – panting dog teams and snow and cold too fearful to contemplate – and I was enjoying it the way my sons enjoyed me racing them in their buggies.
    Soon the adrenalin rush translated into a strange kind of impatience. I wanted to be physically part of the thrill of this ritual ride. I really was just another piece of cargo and felt a bit like a dead log being hauled back for Dan’s magnificent fireplace. I wanted more than this. I wanted my arms and legs to be embroiled in the experience, to be working like the team charging with exhilaration in front of me. After what seemed like half an hour I raised my left arm in the air and made a circle, signalling to Dan that we should turn back. I hoped he would understand, and he did: with a few commands the whole team circled in a great arc, bumping over ditches and dead logs, and then started their excited charge back again. After some minutes in more open territory where I was taking fewer blows to the head from bushes or low branches, Dan reined in the team with a single command.
    â€˜We’re two miles out,’ he said. ‘Do you think you could manage the team back?’
    I wasn’t sure if Dan was reading my mind, but the musher and his dogs had already got to me and I was already unbuckling my sleigh pram. The words tumbled out of me: ‘If you want to put your life in my hands, let’s go for it.’
    Dan just smiled, and with a nonchalant ‘okay’ began giving me instructions on how to handle the team. ‘Remember, these dogs can sniff out every nook and cranny and everything that’s buried beneath the snow before you and I can see it or sense it. Their nose moves faster than your eyes or mine.’ There was something in Dan’s own eyes that impressed me. I was being taken for a ride,only this time it would not be in the smothering safety of my Alaskan pram sleigh. I was full of questions, to which Dan seemed oblivious. ‘Here’s your riding platform. When the going is easy stand here and let the team do the work. If the ground is rough and the dogs are straining, jump off and I’ll encourage them. Once they are moving, get on quick or you’ll fall flat on your face and this bunch won’t wait for you. When you come to a turn, lean against it; it stops the dead weight going to the dogs and stops the thing going into a roll, otherwise we will have to pick ourselves up, unhitch the teams and start unravelling the lines and harness. The dogs don’t like that, and boy, do they let you know.’ Dan’s words were no longer genial; there was a stern warning in them. As I listened, my enthusiasm quickly became sheepish. ‘You don’t need to use your weight much. There’s enough between the two of us but you can slow the sleigh as it comes into a turn. Reach out your foot, dragging the snow as you come into the turn. It will stabilize everything without losing the drive, and when we get back to the cabin throw out this anchor.’ Dan lifted up a small object that looked like a boat anchor only several sizes smaller. It worked on the same principle of dragging and biting into the ground, where it locked itself on a pivotal spring so that even if the dogs wheeled about they could not uproot