NOME -- If the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race gave an award for pure, old-fashioned, American tenacity, this year's winner would most certainly have to be 37-year-old Montanan Celeste Davis.

When Chicagoan Pat Moon was being evacuated from the trail shortly after hitting a full-grown tree coming down Pass Fork in the Alaska Range early in this race, Davis was down in the Dalzell Gorge having her own issues with a tree stump. By all rights, it should have knocked her out of the race, but it didn't. A dog driver since childhood, Davis had waited most of her life to run Iditarod, and by God she was going to finish come whatever.

Moon was a different story. A 33-year-old man weakened by a battle with cancer, he probably shouldn't have been on the trail, and by the time he got into the Alaska Range he knew it. He apologized over and over to Iditarod officials for the events leading up to the rescue. The runners of his dog sled slid into a tree. He subsequently hit the tree with his head. He got bounced off the sled and was knocked out for a moment. European medical student Sam Deltour found Moon out cold in the middle of the trail. In the best musher fashion, Deltour immediately rushed to the team to anchor it down and make sure no dogs got hurt.

By the time Deltour turned to minister to Moon, the musher later said, the Chicagoan was sitting up in the trail wondering what had happened. What had happened, race volunteer Jim Gallea, a veteran musher would joke, was that Moon had come too close to Deltour, soon to be nicknamed the Belgian Black Angel of Death because anyone who spent much time around him seemed to end up in some sort of trouble that forced them out of the race.

Deltour, a good-natured guy who appears destined to become the kind of physician we'd all like to have, laughed at that as much as everyone, and pointed out that not everyone around him got in trouble. This was true. The 25-year-old veteran, once employed by the kennel of Iditarod champ Mitch Seavey, eventually finished the Iditarod in 41st place with teams in front and behind.

One of those behind was Davis, who Iditarod fans will know by now collected the red lantern, bringing the Iditarod to an end in Nome Saturday. Some will likely also have seen photos of her broken nose and black eyes. Those were taken at McGrath and from there, it seemed, all along the trail.

For better or worse, no one took her picture at Rohn when she looked far, far worse. Maybe it was because no one had the nerve to put a camera in the face of a woman who looked so bad. Maybe it was because she was tiptoeing around the checkpoint like the timidest of mice, which no one would recognize until later was near opposite her personality when not suffering from a concussion. I saw Pat Moon just after his collision with a tree. He didn't look that bad. I've looked a lot worse after many a mountain bike crash.