by Irene Brand
“May I?” he asked quietly.
Livia had often fantasized about what it would be like to be held in Quinn’s arms. Her body trembled when he pulled her close, and she locked her arms momentarily around his waist.
Quinn sensed that she was trembling, and he wondered if the cold had caused her to shake, or if she also experienced the exhilarating sensations he felt. Uncertain of Livia’s feelings, he didn’t tighten the embrace as he wanted to do.
Exercising a lot of willpower, Livia removed herself from Quinn’s arms and moved to hug the members of her church. Allen and Les were obviously ill at ease with being hugged, though they didn’t invite nor rebuff the fellowship gesture.
“Since we’re sure that the bell is stable now, how about ringing it to acknowledge the birth of our Savior?” Les said. “I doubt anyone will hear it except us, but we ought to have bells of some kind ringing.”
“I keep thinking how God sent angels to the shepherds to tell them the good news of Jesus’ birth and where to find Him,” Quinn said. “Maybe God will use the ringing bell as a message to people in this area that someone is stranded in the church. By the way, how far is it to nearest house?”
“Oh, no more than five miles,” Les answered. “Actually, it’s only seven or eight miles west, as the crow flies, to the main highway.”
“As clear and still as it is now, the sound of that bell should carry well,” Eric said. “Give it a try, Les, and we’ll see what it sounds like.”
“Stand back, just in case,” Les said as he positioned himself under the bell tower and tugged on the rope. The swaying of the bell shook the ceiling, and Livia held her breath, fearing that the bell might fall through the roof.
After a half dozen or so tugs on the rope, the mellow tone of the old bell resounded loud and clear through the church.
“Sounds just like old times,” Les said, when he handed the rope to Quinn. “Give it a tug or two, buddy. It’s hard pullin’ and takes my wind.”
As Quinn continue to ring the bell, Roxanne said, “Doesn’t it sound beautiful! It’s what we needed to bring our worship to a close.”
“We should ring it at intervals tomorrow,” Quinn said as he let go of the rope. “That bell may bring us some rescuers.”
“Since we’re running low on fuel,” Les said, “I’m thinkin’ we’d better bank the fire tonight while we’re asleep. We can wrap in blankets and stay warm.”
“I’ve got an idea that might keep us warmer,” Quinn said. “Why don’t we put the seats of these pews together and two of us sleep side by side? Body heat will make all of us more comfortable. Eric and Marie can share a set of pews. Livia and Roxanne could sleep together. Sean and I could pair up, as could Allen and Les. It’s just an idea, so no one should feel forced to participate.”
“I’d rather be where I can check the stove once in a while,” Les said. “I won’t disturb anyone if I’m by myself.”
“I’ll stretch out close to you,” Allen said, “so you can call if you need help.”
But the rest of them agreed that they’d like some extra warmth. When Livia lay back-to-back with Roxanne, she was more comfortable than the night before. Wedged together as the seats were, there wasn’t any danger of falling out of bed as she’d done last night.
Although she was physically and mentally tired, Livia’s mind was too busy to go to sleep. The pain of being separated from her family during one of the special times of the year was a blow to her. Still, she was pleased to spend this Christmas season with Quinn. Perhaps she’d read more into his embrace than she should have, but she sensed his feelings toward her in that brief hug went beyond the spiritual regard of one believer to another. If she’d had to choose between being at Heritage Farm tonight or in this abandoned church building with Quinn, which one would she have chosen? She really didn’t know. Perhaps God had spared her the choice.
Livia did sleep finally, but her slumbers were fitful. She was aware every time that Les slipped out of his blankets and checked the stove. But she knew that the elderly man slept some because he snored intermittently.
Roxanne was a good sleeping partner, because she seldom moved during the night, and her deep, even breathing, whether asleep or awake, comforted Livia. She woke up when the dawning of the day filtered some light into the building. Her face felt frigid. If Les or Quinn didn’t stir the fire soon, she intended to.
Trying not to wake Roxanne, Livia sat up. She peered over the back of the pew and saw Allen sitting up in bed. Les’s blankets were empty.
When Allen saw that she was awake, he lifted his hand in greeting. Quinn’s head appeared over the top of the pew where he’d spent the night with Sean beside him. He looked toward Livia, and quietly mouthed the words, “Merry Christmas.”
“You, too,” she whispered back.
Allen walked over to Quinn. Whispering, he said, “Quinn, I’m worried about Les. I woke up an hour ago, and he was gone. I figured he’d gone out for fuel, and I dropped back to sleep. He’s still not here. Shouldn’t we look for him?”
Chapter Eight
“How long has it been daylight?” Quinn asked, throwing back the blanket and vaulting out of the seat.
“I don’t know,” Allen answered. “My watch says eight o’clock. I peeked outside, and it feels a lot warmer, but we’re fogged in. Kind of a strange weather phenomenon, I think.”
Quinn had awakened Sean when he’d gotten up. “What’s wrong?” Sean asked.
Quinn explained quietly.
“What are you going to do?” Sean said, yawning and standing up.
“I’m going to find him. It’s dangerous for anyone to be out in this weather for very long.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sean said. “I’ve had all of this church pew I can stand.”
“It would be safer if two of us go,” Quinn said.
“Quinn,” Allen protested, “I’ll go with Sean. I see you’re still favoring that leg.”
“It needs to be limbered up,” Quinn said. He put on the heavy coat he’d shed before trying to sleep and limped toward the door. After taking a quick glance outside, he said, “Apparently there’s a warm front moving in from the south. A man could easily get disoriented in this thick fog. Only two of us should go out at a time. Sean and I can go first. We’ll look around in the back first.”
“I can do that myself,” Sean said, as he shrugged into his fleece-lined coat, zipped it up to cover the lower half of his face and tied the hood securely.
“We should stay together, because we can easily get separated in this fog,” Quinn said. “I’ll go with you.”
“You’d better take a light,” Allen said. “And here’s a piece of rope that we had left from fixing the bell yesterday. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to tie it around your waists. That fog is so thick, you won’t be able to see one hand in front of the other.”
Believing it was sound advice, Quinn secured the rope around his waist, and handed the other end to Sean. Six feet of rope separated them, allowing them freedom of movement.
They covered the back area where the woodshed and johnny houses were, but they didn’t see any sign of Les.
“I don’t believe he’s been out here,” Sean said. “The wind has covered our tracks from last night, and there aren’t any new tracks in the snow.”
“I agree,” Quinn said. “So that means he went out the front door. Fortunately, it’s not as cold as it was at midnight, but the temperature is still below freezing. We must find him as soon as possible.”
When they went back inside, everyone was up. Marie still sat in the pew she’d shared with her husband, her eyes befuddled with sleep.
“No sign that he’s been in the backyard,” Quinn reported. “We’ll go out front and see what we can find.”
“I’ll help look, too,” Eric volunteered.
Quinn shook his head. “No, only two of us at a time. I can’t believe an old-timer like Les would slip away like this. He can’t have gone far, but let’s do this in shif
ts. When Sean and I get tired, we’ll come back, and you and Allen can go. It might be a good idea for you to ring the church bell every fifteen minutes—that way we can keep our bearings.”
Livia walked to the door with them. When she saw the thick fog, she laid her hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “Be careful,” she said.
He covered her hand with his gloved fingers. “We’ll be all right. I just hope that Les is.”
All of them had grown fond of Les, and when the door closed behind Quinn and Sean, Eric said, “Let’s pray for the safety of all three of them. And then build up the fire so they’ll be more comfortable when they bring him back.”
He took hold of Marie’s and Roxanne’s hands. Livia joined hands with Marie and reached for Allen’s hand. With only a slight hesitation, he joined their prayer circle.
“Why don’t you lead us in prayer, Livia?” Eric said.
“God,” Livia prayed, “Your Word teaches that even a sparrow can’t fall to the ground unless You are aware of it. We believe You know where Les is, even if we don’t. Guide Quinn and Sean as they search for him—lead them in the right direction. Protect them, too, God. Reward them for their willingness to risk themselves for others. For what You have done and what You will do in this situation, we thank You. Amen.”
Quinn took the lead when they stepped off the church’s steps. They’d gone only a short distance when the building was lost to view. Because the fog hovered about a foot off the ground, it was possible to see where they walked.
“I see footprints in the snow,” Sean said.
“Yes, and only one set, so they must be Les’s. Looks like he’s heading for the vehicles.”
“We may be making a mountain out of a molehill. We’ll probably find him sitting in his car.”
“Let’s hope,” Quinn answered.
The steps led past the delivery truck and the Westside Community Church van and stopped at Les’s car.
“The snow is brushed off the trunk,” Sean said. “He must have come down here for something.”
Studying the footprints intently, Quinn said, “That’s probably true, but where do his tracks go from here? I still can’t believe he’d go out alone, when he’s been warning us to stay together.”
They tramped around in the snow, checked drifts, and peered inside the car, but they didn’t find Les.
“Oh, look,” Sean said. “We walked over his tracks. He’s heading back toward the church.”
Giving the younger man a pleased look, Quinn said, “You may not be a country boy, Sean, but you’ve got good eyes. That’s good tracking. The snow didn’t drift in this area between his car and the church van, and our tracks are still there from when we got things yesterday. But I see now, there are fresher tracks that don’t have any snow in them at all.”
“I’m having a little trouble breathing,” Sean said. “This fog is thick, and I seem to take in a mouthful of moist, arctic air every time I say anything.”
“Then we’ll talk only when necessary.”
The tones of the church bell sounded across the snow, and Quinn turned toward the sound, knowing they were heading in the right direction. But when they neared the church, Les’s tracks veered off to the right.
“He must have gone into the cemetery,” Sean said, and they headed in that direction.
Huge drifts lay throughout the cemetery, but Les had circled most of them. At one place, he’d stumbled into a drift and had crawled out of it. They came to a gravestone, where the snow had been swept away. A bouquet of artificial red poinsettias had been laid at the base of the stone.
The inscription read Ray Holden. The birth and death dates indicated that the boy had died at eighteen.
“Must have been Les’s grandson,” Quinn commented.
A short distance away, they came to a plot beneath a tall spruce tree close to a woven-wire fence. Again the snow had been brushed away from several Holden stones. A spray of flowers leaned against the marker of Sarah Holden’s grave.
“The age would be right for these to be Les’s wife and his parents,” Quinn said.
Covering his mouth with his hand to keep out the cold air, Sean mumbled, “I suppose he wanted the flowers on their graves for Christmas Day, and preferred to mourn alone. He took a big risk, though.”
“He didn’t think he could get lost.”
The church bell rang again.
Quinn and Sean exchanged worried glances because instead of turning toward the church, Les’s steps led through a gap in the fence into a pasture.
“He must have gotten disoriented in the fog,” Quinn said. “Are you up to going farther? Or shall we go back, rest up, and send the other guys out?”
Taking a deep breath, Sean said, “We’d better keep going on. If he’s down, we need to find him as soon as possible.”
The bell rang again, indicating they had walked fifteen more minutes. They found Les face down in a deep drift. He looked lifeless, and Quinn feared to touch him.
Sean turned troubled eyes toward Quinn, who knelt beside Les and touched his face. It was cold, but his body was warm beneath his coat. An erratic pulse beat in the man’s forehead. Quinn shook his shoulder, and Les opened his eyes.
“I’m just tuckered out—lost my way in the fog,” he mumbled.
Quinn and Sean took his arms and lifted Les to his feet.
“Think you can walk to the church?” Quinn asked.
“Of course I can,” Les said, took one step and fell again.
“I’ll carry him,” Sean said.
“No, I can walk, I tell you,” Les said testily in a weak voice. Ignoring his comments, Sean knelt and easily picked him up.
Quinn checked to be sure the rope was still taut between them. “I’ll go ahead and break trail,” he said. Glancing over his shoulder at Sean, he asked with a slight grin on his face, “Were you a Boy Scout?”
“Yes. For about ten years. I guess it paid off today.”
“Put me down, I can walk,” Les said querulously, and he grumbled all the way to the church. “Treating me like I was an old man. I don’t want to be carried.”
“Hush,” Sean said. “There comes a time when everyone needs to be carried. Stop squirming around—you’re making my work harder.”
The bell rang again, and Quinn breathed a silent prayer. They’d almost reached the church. When he could see the building, he called out a greeting, and the door opened immediately. He untied the rope from his waist to give Sean more freedom to carry Les into the building. They entered, and Sean lowered him to a sitting position on a church pew close to the stove.
Roxanne and Livia hurried to Les’s side and removed his gloves, checking his fingers for frostbite. They were cold, but not blue.
“What about your feet?” Roxanne said.
“Not much feeling in them,” Les admitted.
Allen knelt and removed Les’s shoes and socks. Using a blanket they’d been warming, Allen wrapped Les’s feet and propped them on a coal bucket so they’d be close to the stove.
“Why did you go out alone?” Allen scolded. “You know better than that. At least, you could have told us where you were going. We’ve been worried about you.”
“If it hadn’t warmed up, you could easily have died,” Quinn said.
“I know, but I thought I could go out and be back in before any of you woke up. I would have, too, but that fog didn’t come until I started into the graveyard. I couldn’t see at all for a while, and I just got turned around. My feet’s starting to sting, so I may pay for my folly by losing a toe or two.”
Examining his feet, Sean said, “I don’t think so.”
“The water is heated,” Allen said, “so you can have a cup of coffee. That should warm you up. Quinn, you and Sean had better have a cup, too.”
Taking a swallow of the lukewarm coffee, Quinn said, “That bell really helped us. When neither Sean nor I had been in the cemetery before, we might have gotten lost just like Les. The snow had broken down the fence, and there wasn’t an
ything to warn us not to go into that big pasture.”
Eric went for more fuel, and he returned with one bucket of coal.
“I hate to be the bearer of more bad news,” he said, “but there’s only a few more buckets of coal left, and not a great deal of wood.”
“But we’ll be all right,” Quinn said. “It’s getting warmer outside, so we won’t freeze although we may be uncomfortable.”
His teeth still chattering, Les said, “If we have to, we’ll tear down the woodshed and burn it. I can rebuild it as soon as the weather clears up.”
Even though Livia didn’t like coffee, she drank a cup, merely to have a warm beverage with the dry doughnuts she ate for breakfast. She was beginning to feel hungry now, because they’d not had much to eat for two days.
“Let’s plan our Christmas dinner,” she said. “Allen, can you think of anything else we can buy from your truck?”
“Preferably something that can be considered holiday food,” Roxanne added.
“How about a canned ham?” Allen said. “And there’s a case of canned sweet potatoes and some cranberry relish. Do I need to bring more bread? It’s probably frozen by now, but I’ll go get it.”
“Before you go, I’ve got something to say,” Les remarked. “I’m thankful to Quinn and Sean for rescuing me, especially Sean, for I ain’t treated him very good.”
“Oh, that’s no problem,” Sean answered easily. “I figured you thought I was a city kid.”
“That’s part of it. I did think you were a spoiled kid that didn’t know much except basketball. But the real reason I didn’t cotton to you was because you remind me of my grandson.”
Quinn and Sean exchanged glances.
“He died when he was still a teenager, and I guess I kinda resented that you were here and he wasn’t. This is the first Christmas without him, and I ain’t come to terms with my grievin’ yet. The reason I was traveling this way when the storm hit was to put some flowers on his grave. There’s a better road to my daughter’s house, but I just had a hankering to be with my loved ones that have passed on. I didn’t know I’d cause any trouble by going to put the flowers on their graves. So, sonny, I’m sorry I’ve been mean to you. May the Lord forgive me for it.”