I didn’t even have matches. Lot of good those pine splinters would have done me.
“Keep walking,” I told Tommy
“I can’t,” he said.
I didn’t listen. I threaded his right arm through my left at the elbow, let my right hand grab Crabtown’s reins, and we walked. Walked, the wind driving us, the storm’s fury never dulling. Walked until Crabtown collapsed, blood frozen to his legs. This time, I couldn’t get him up. I knelt by him, rubbing his neck. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was, wanted to put him out of his misery, but I had no gun. Couldn’t even open the jackknife in my vest pocket. I left Crabtown, bridle, even that worn-out saddle I’d bought with those soap coupons what seemed like a thousand years ago. I locked arms with Tommy, and we abandoned Crabtown to be buried by snow and ice.
“Leave me,” Tommy said.
Those were the last words spoken. For how long? I ain’t rightly sure.
We couldn’t talk. Not as cold as it got. Can hardly breathe when it’s that cold. Head bent, I put my gloved right hand over my mouth and nose. That helped. Tommy done the same, using his left hand. We walked.
Right. Left. Right. Step. Step. Step. Stop. Rest. Right. Left. Forward. Forward. Keep the wind at our backs. Right. Left. Step. Step. Step. . . .
Please, God.
* * * * *
It had to be nigh dark. Hard to tell when you can’t see the sun, can’t see a thing except a raging blizzard, can hardly see two feet in front of you.
Tommy had fallen again. Now I had to drag him. I’d make, I don’t know, five yards, then halt, trying to catch my breath, trying not to freeze the insides of my throat, my lungs. I’d drag him, stop, make sure he was still alive, then get as good a grip as I could on his coat, and pull, pull, pull.
The wind drove whirling snow into my face until I couldn’t see. I dragged him, until I backed against something, and slid down, felt my coat slightly tear. Turning, I reached up blindly, grabbing, groping. My hand gripped . . . something . . . pulled myself up . . . stared closer.
The fence! Icicles snapped as I ran my gloves over that strand of Mr. Jacob Haish’s S-shaped barbed wire. The fence. The stretch of fence that Tommy and John Henry hadn’t torn down. Only the top rows of wire hadn’t been covered with snow, but I could make it out, the wire and a crooked cedar post.
I fell to my knees, jerked Tommy close, slapped his face until his eyes fluttered with faint recognition.
“The fence!” I whispered. I helped him to his feet, forced his hands on the top of the wire.
I pointed. Stepped in front of him, grabbed the wire with both hands. I took a step to my left, but stopped.
The wind wailed. I looked down the wire, but saw nothing but a world of white and gray. It was growing darker.
Which way?
The wind was at my back. Left was east. Wasn’t it? I wasn’t sure. Go east, I told myself, to the end of the fence. Left meant east. Sure. Wind’s at my back. It hadn’t changed directions. We hadn’t walked in circles. Or had we?
Yeah, your mind don’t think straight. Not in twenty below.
Left. I nodded, trying to convince myself. Left meant a chance at life. Right meant death.
It had to be.
I took a tentative step. Made myself keep going. Kept looking back to see Tommy.
“I can’t feel my legs,” he told me.
I grabbed his hand with my right, moving down, pulling him, praying.
* * * * *
I reached out for the wire, found nothing, and fell. The fence had ended. Tommy collapsed on top of me, and I thought we’d both be buried in three feet of snow. That barbed wire had gotten us this far. The rest had to be up to me and Tommy. And God.
That’s right. Infidel cowhand like me . . . praying.
Tommy was unconscious. Maybe dead. I couldn’t be certain. I slapped him, but he wouldn’t come around, so I dragged him. Dragged and rested. Dragged. We went down the bank, and I slipped, rolling to the Sun River. I clawed my way out of the snowbank, blundered to Tommy, lifted him again. I hadn’t guessed wrong. We had to be close to the cabin. I felt the ice of the frozen river under my feet.
Going down the embankment was one thing, but now I had to climb up. Had to pull Tommy. We’d get part way up, then slide down. Or roll down. My whole body felt encased in ice. I’d given up trying to wipe the frozen snow off my clothes. Moved like I weighed a thousand pounds. The scary thing was that I started feeling hot. Sweating. That was terribly dangerous. Deadly. If that sweat froze, I’d die. So would Tommy.
I grabbed Tommy’s shoulders, began pulling dead weight. My boots found a ledge, and we moved sideways for a few yards, then I backed into a fallen tree. I used it as a ladder, somehow, working slowly up the bank. Reached the clearing. Felt the wind.
It was dark.
Dragging Tommy, I moved. Bouncing off trees now, finding some shelter, though not much, from the wind.
I had to be close to the cabin. But how close?
I turned, saw nothing, and screamed: “Help!” My lungs burned. Why? Wasted breath. Nobody was there. Nobody could hear me. Where was the line shack?
I started, stopped, cursed my stupidity. I had almost forgotten Tommy. Mind’s going, and my strength ebbed. It was a miracle I’d gotten this far, but wouldn’t that be ironic? To die, so close to a cabin that I couldn’t see. I could hear Busted-Tooth Melvin joking about that come spring. Joking over my grave. If anyone found our bodies.
Grabbing Tommy again, I pulled, heaved, backed up. My back pressed against something solid. Too flat for a tree. Boulder? I turned, hands groping, feeling, flattening, running from side to side.
The cabin!
No. But it was a structure. Privy. The privy. But I couldn’t get my bearings. Which way to the shack? Which way to life? I moved past the outhouse, the wind blasting me, and my side pressed against something. Firm. Small. A rope.
Rope!
A rope, tied to a post next to the privy’s door, stretching out into the white darkness. Before he had left the cabin, I thought, John Henry must have secured the rope, to use it as a handhold, to find his way from the line shack to the privy. Follow the rope, and I’d find the cabin. My heart pounded. I grabbed Tommy again, one hand holding the rope, one hand lugging Tommy. Moving, half crawling, backing, biting, praying, struggling through the snow. Knowing that we were going to live.
And . . . just like that . . . all those hopes died.
The rope ended, but not at the cabin. It had been tied to a corral post. The rope had been put up as a guide from the privy to the corral. To check on the horses. There had to be another rope, then, to the cabin, but I knew I could never find it. Didn’t have the strength to pull Tommy from the horse shelter to the cabin. I barely had enough strength to open the gate.
I left it open, somehow managed to get Tommy underneath the lean-to. I fell on frozen hay, brought Tommy close to me. A horse snorted. I must be dreaming. There couldn’t be anyone at the cabin. John Henry had to be long gone. No, one of Tommy’s string. Or could it be? Someone had put that rope up. It hadn’t been there before we left. I tried to stand, but couldn’t. Didn’t have an ounce of strength left in me. Weakly I leaned against Tommy, letting our body heat warm us, if only slightly.
Stay awake, I told myself. Go to sleep and you’ll die.
It didn’t matter, though. I was dead anyway. I pictured Mrs. Gow. Wondered if my face would look so horrible when someone discovered my body.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The smell of coffee lured me out of a bottomless sleep. My eyes opened, and, for a moment, I saw nothing but raging torrents of snowflakes, felt myself rocking in the wind. The vision, or nightmare, passed, and a roof came into focus. Then John Henry’s face. Then nothing.
When I next awoke again, I saw the dim glow of a lantern, surrounded by darkness. Above the moaning wind, I made out what sounded like humming. Certainly not angels singing. I tried to move, but couldn’t, and felt a presence hovering over me again. A
voice spoke, and the lantern revealed a face. John Henry Kenton’s face. He said something. At least, his lips moved, but I didn’t hear. I felt his hand on my forehead, cool. Cool. It felt so fine. I was burning up.
On fire. After being so awful cold, now I raged from heat. Sweat streamed down my cheeks. Hot. Blazing hot. I must be in hell.
“Rest,” his mouth moved, and I slept again.
* * * * *
Don’t know how long I slept, really. At some point, I was lucid enough to ask John Henry, or what at that time I figured for an apparition of John Henry Kenton, about Tommy.
“He’s all right,” the ghost spoke. Sounded just like John Henry. This time I had heard him, too. Not just read his lips. This time I didn’t feel so infernally hot.
* * * * *
I woke again. No longer sweating, or chilled. Things became clear. I lay on a cot in the line shack. My mouth was parched, and I tried to throw off the heavy woolen blanket, but didn’t have the energy. Boots thudded, and John Henry sat beside me.
“It stopped snowing,” he said.
“Water,” I begged.
He left, returned, lifted my head, and let me drink from his canteen.
“Not too much,” he said, pulling the canteen from me. I sank back on the bed.
“Hey,” I suddenly blurted out, “I’m alive.”
He smiled, a sad smile, and I slept again.
* * * * *
“Can you eat?” John Henry asked as he propped my head up, using my sougans as a pillow.
“A little,” I answered. Staring across the room, I spotted Tommy O’Hallahan lying on that bearskin rug by the fireplace, kept looking at him until I was certain the blankets covering him were rising and falling over his chest and stomach. Yeah, he was breathing. He was alive.
So was I.
John Henry brought a bowl, sat beside me. He give me a hard look.
“Jim,” he said, “I want you to listen to me. Before you eat.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Listen. I had to take off the pinky and the tips of two fingers on your left hand.”
I jerked my hand up, stared, not quite believing.
“But. . . .” I turned back to John Henry. “I still feel them.”
“I had to do it, Jim,” he said. “You’re lucky that’s all you lost.”
My hand dropped on the blanket. I looked again, flexing the fingers I had left. I could still feel those digits. Sometimes, even today, I still look down, can’t believe they’re gone.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, smiling again. “How many cowboys you know with all their fingers?” He held up his hand, wiggling his pointer, showing the missing top that he’d lost on a dally down in Texas. “I always looked at it as a medal of honor. It ain’t so bad. It’s your left hand, and that little finger ain’t much use to anybody. You can still rope. Still ride.”
I started to cry. He put the bowl on the floor, pressed his hand on my shoulder.
“You’re alive, Jim. Don’t you forget that.”
After swallowing, I wiped my eyes. “Tommy?” I asked suddenly. “Is he all right?”
Slowly John Henry bowed his head. “Some toes on both feet. Both boots was filled with snow. Had to cut the things off, they was frozen so. Cut off his boots, I mean. He lost two toes on both his feet, but he’ll be fine. Boy’s tougher than a cob. So are you. Couple of toes and fingers is all you lost, when by all rights you both should be dead. Now, you best eat.” He brought up the bowl again.
* * * * *
The next day, I got out of bed, poured myself a cup of weak coffee. We didn’t have much in the way of supplies. The line shack had been stocked for one cowhand, not three. I sat staring at the bloody ends of my fingers. It would take some getting used to, but I figured John Henry was right. I was alive. Wasn’t sure how, but I was alive.
“How’d you find us?” I asked John Henry when he came inside with an armful of wood.
“Went out to check on my horse,” he said. He stoked the fire, tossed on a chunk of wood, the water from the snow sizzling, and leaned over Tommy.
“How you doing?” John Henry asked.
“All right,” Tommy said sleepily. “Where’s Jim?”
“Right over yonder,” John Henry answered.
I wet my cracked lips.
“My feet feel funny, John Henry,” Tommy said in a far-off voice, and my head dropped in shame.
* * * * *
Wearing a pair of moccasins that John Henry fetched from his saddlebags, Tommy limped over to the table the next afternoon—first time he had gotten out of bed, and collapsed in a chair.
When I looked down, Tommy’s fist slammed on the table, almost knocking over my cup.
“Don’t you pity me, Jim!” he snapped. “I’ll be just fine!”
My head bobbed slightly, and John Henry sat between us.
“I thought you’d be long gone from here,” Tommy told him.
“Was my intention,” John Henry said. “Got caught in the storm, too. Rode back. Problem was, I’d taken Tommy’s string with me. Figured the Bar DD owed me that much. Took the string and the mule. Lost them in the storm. We only got one horse.” He shook his head. “Never thought I’d see you boys again.”
“I’m glad you did,” I told him.
He laughed.
“It snowed for ten days. Practically all the first day, then stopped, then started up again. More snow out yonder than most folks would see in thirty lifetimes. Somebody brought a thermometer, a real good one, here, and nailed it on the tree right outside the door. It was minus forty-seven degrees one night. I went out to bring in some wood. You two were in fits then. Wasn’t sure you’d come around. Went out, and on a whim, I held out the lantern and read the thermometer. Might have gotten colder after that, but I wasn’t curious about how cold it was after I seen that. Couldn’t get much colder than that anyhow. At least, not by that thermometer. It don’t go no lower than fifty below.” He sipped coffee, and shook his head. “I bet the company that made that thermometer never even thought it would ever get that cold.”
“What’s it like now?” I asked.
“Cold. Windy. Cloudy.”
“What do we do?” Tommy asked.
“We wait,” John Henry said.
* * * * *
Which is what we done. Waiting for that Black Wind to free Montana. John Henry fashioned a rough limb into a cane for Tommy, and he got to where he could move around the cabin pretty good. Limping badly, of course, but far from crippled. I mostly forgot all about my missing digits.
I remember opening the door, just looking in amazement at a world of white. When I wondered about the cattle, John Henry snorted.
“What cattle?” he said.
I closed the door.
* * * * *
The Chinook came. Boy, did it ever come, a gale wind roaring from the west off Castle Reef, blowing like a furnace at fifty or sixty miles an hour.
John Henry had shoveled out a path to the privy and corral, and a little patio area outside. Not that we had any need to step out of the line shack for most of January, but we did when the Chinook came. We ran out—ran out without our shirts—laughing at the warmth. Forgetting all of our troubles. We were alive. Melting snow glistened like diamonds. I threw a ball of snow at Tommy, and he slipped, giggling, falling into the wet snow. For a minute, I felt bad, expecting Tommy to lash out in rage, but he pulled himself to his mangled feet, still laughing, shaking his head. He even joked about it.
“You wouldn’t be able to do that if I had all my toes.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “I done that with my left hand.” I’d actually used my right. “Don’t have all my fingers, and still knocked you on your fanny!”
He made a big snowball, and returned the favor.
We played for a few minutes, then went inside. And things went all wrong.
“Let’s play some poker, kiddoes,” John Henry said. “One of you boys must have some playing cards.”
I went to frying up some corn
mush, while John Henry searched for a deck. He opened my war bag, and I started to tell him I didn’t have no cards, but then he pulled out that picture. The picture I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten everything.
As John Henry stared at it, his face went all white, and he turned.
“What kind of sick . . . ?” He shook the photograph Bitterroot Abbott had stuck in that canvas sack. “What is this?”
Grabbing his cane, Tommy limped over, took a quick glance at the photograph. He looked at me, his face hard, worried, sickened.
“Her name,” I said slowly, walking away from the cast-iron skillet, “was Velna Oramo.” Surprised I could even recall her name.
Somehow, we’d forgotten all about what had happened. I’d blocked out everything before the blizzard: John Henry derailing the N.P. train at Little Blackfoot Crossing. Killing that nine-year-old girl and three men. John Henry posted for murder. Lord, I had even forgotten why me and Tommy had gone out before the blizzard hit.
“Major MacDunn,” I whispered. I closed my eyes.
“What happened to this girl, boy?” John Henry snapped. “What fiend carries a picture of a dead kid?”
With a heavy sigh, I opened my eyes.
“She was on the Northern Pacific you derailed, John Henry,” I said. Only it sounded like somebody else was talking. A voice far away, deep in a well. But it was me. I was telling John Henry. I was remembering everything. “She was one of the four people you killed.” I walked to the door, opened it, feeling the Chinook’s warmth. Again, I softly spoke the names of Major MacDunn and Mr. Gow.
Behind me, paper crumpled. When I turned back, John Henry was standing by the fireplace, watching the photograph burn. Tommy limped over to me.
“Funny,” he said.
I stared at him. Funny? What could be funny?
“That wire,” he said after a moment. “Barbed wire.”
Bewildered, I shook my head.
Hard Winter Page 17