Love Is Snowblind

Chapter 1-2

Greyson DeVille Trammel III—“Grey” to friends—clumped down the stairs from the airplane to the tarmac. The savage bite of the bone-chilling cold shocked him. Even through the layers of parka, long johns, and all the arctic gear he’d donned for the last leg of his travel from the warmth of Southern California, he felt its teeth. For a moment, he considered scampering back to the plane’s shelter, but no, he’d waited too long and come too far for this. He’d adjust, adapt, and make good. It was his choice this time, not something foisted off on him.

Beware of what you wish for…

He spared a crooked grin as the old adage crossed his mind.

So this is Alaska. He looked at the landscape tinted in shades of gray, hardly any color to break the monotony, except for the splotches of bright parkas worn by the ground crew attending to the plane.

A strange exultation filled him. At long last, I’m really here. Ever since childhood he’d dreamed about the frozen northlands, absorbed the books of Jack London, Bud and Constance Helmericks, and others who had lived the adventures. Of course, everything was more modern now, but all the technology in the world would not change the harsh reality of the snow, the cold, the wind. The stark, unfriendly environment defied humans to adapt. He expected that would always be the same.

He’d dreamed of and worked hard for this day. Armed with several cameras and a ruggedized notebook computer, he was ready to cover the races leading up to and including the famous Iditarod. If all went well, he’d be staying to do more journalistic coverage of sports and other activities in the northernmost state. This was the career and locale he had chosen, both as remote as possible from the Burbank-located family law firm and related accounting enterprise, which he hated with a fierce passion.

A bit later in his hotel room, which boasted satellite TV and high-speed internet, he almost forgot where he was, but as he watched the local news, a flood of reminders came to him. The local reporter spoke to several of the contestants starting the Season Kick-Off Race in two days’ time. One was a bearded giant of a man who looked like a great golden bear with his hirsute face and the bulk Grey was sure would be impressive even without the puffy parka.

The man’s name tweaked his curiosity. What kind of a man would be named Dylan Norgard? The first name was clearly Celtic, while the surname sounded Nordic. Dylan carried connotations of a poet or an artist, not a rugged, rustic outdoorsman, but Norgard brought the vision of Viking warriors laughing at the cold. Grey laughed to himself for his fancies.

Then his breath hitched and his heart stuttered. For a long instant, the camera zoomed in for a close-up of Dylan’s craggy face. His deep-set eyes seemed to gaze directly into Grey’s for a couple of heartbeats. They must be blue given the frosted golden color of his hair, but if blue, they were such a dark hue they appeared black. The musher smiled at some remark of the reporter’s that Grey didn’t hear, then the big man’s face went stern again. Grey shook his head.

“No, we’ve never won, but I think we have a good chance this year. My new lead pair are exceptional dogs and the rest are worthy to follow them, trained up and ready. It’s in the hands of fate, though, as always. All we can do is give the run our best effort and pray that’s good enough.”

As the camera’s roving eye shifted to another of the entrants, Grey made a personal vow to seek out Dylan Norgard the next day. There was something about the big man that reached out to him on a bottomless, visceral level, something he knew he had to explore.