I knew her little body would lose heat faster than mine, so I put on her balaclava, then pulled up the hood on her hot pink snowsuit, and wrapped a fleece scarf around her head until nothing showed but a slit for her eyes. I took my extra pair of mitts, and pulled them over hers. They were so big they came up to her armpits. There was nothing I could add to her feet, but at least she was wearing her fleece-lined snow boots.
While I worked, I spoke to her in my most reassuring tone. My voice was so calm it sounded as if I were drugged. “Bridget, we’re stuck in a snowbank, and we have to walk to that house over there. Can you see it?”
She peered through the slit in her scarf, and nodded solemnly. She had stopped whimpering.
“We’re going to run, or at least walk as fast as we can. It’s really cold outside, and we can’t dawdle.” I remembered my father pretending to be a wolf, chasing me up the Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon. “Let’s have a race. We’ll see who can get there first. Do you understand?”
She nodded again, wordlessly.
I pulled my own balaclava over my face again, then grabbed the flashlight from the glove compartment and stuffed it under my jacket. I gave her one last hug, rubbed her nose with mine through our layers of wool. “Ready, set, go!”
I threw open my door and helped her jump down, then we scrambled around the front of the truck and into the ditch. Immediately the frozen crust of snow broke under my weight and I plunged up to my thighs. Bridget was light enough that she could walk on the hard surface.
I wallowed to the other side of the ditch. We crawled through the barbed wire fence and onto the flat surface of the field. The snow wasn’t as deep here, but every time I took a step the crust shattered and I sank up to my knees. I powered ahead, moving as quickly as I could pull my foot and my leg out of the snow and take another step.
Bridget ran ahead of me. She kept turning to look at me and every time she did, she screwed up her eyes against the blast of icy wind that was coming from our right side and blowing to our left. Her eyelashes were already coated with ice.
I looked across the field. We were lower to the ground now and I could barely make out the trees on the other side. I pulled the balaclava away from my mouth and screamed: “Don’t turn around! Keep going! I’m right behind you!”
Obediently, she trotted ahead of me on the surface of the snow while I wallowed along behind her. I could feel the icy air pulling the warmth out of my body. Wherever there was the tiniest crack in my clothing, the cold air whirled into it like a sucking vortex. The edges of the crusted snow caught my pant legs and pushed them up, and the snow worked its way into my boots and next to my bare skin. Every few minutes a gust of wind would send the loose snow eddying into the air, like a whirling white dervish.
After ten minutes we were about one-third of the way across the field. I was moving more slowly now, gasping and short of breath. My core was still sweating but my arms and legs had started to lose feeling. My feet were like wooden blocks attached to my ankles. Bridget was still ahead of me but she, too, was moving more slowly. Once she came back and took my hand, as if to help me, but I waved her off.
Another ten minutes passed. Each time I took a step I paused, willing my body to pull the other foot free and set it forward again. My thoughts were slowing down and I realized that I was entering that fugue state called hypothermia. Everything around me seemed so far away. The memory of what we had done that morning was like a distant dream.
I fell forward and both hands plunged through the crust, up to my shoulders. It seemed to take forever to struggle to my feet. Bridget came back to me again, and her blue eyes gazed up imploringly between the folds of her scarf. I pointed ahead to the farmhouse, too exhausted to speak.
I floundered forward a few more yards before I fell again. Got to my feet, went three steps, and fell. Got to my feet, took one step, and fell. I wanted to lie down and rest for a few minutes, but I fought the urge with all my strength. I looked toward the farmyard. We were only halfway there.
I wasn’t going to make it.
Bridget ran back to me and put her arms around my neck. I couldn’t hear her over the wind, but I could see the tears spilling from her eyes and freezing. I drew her close, pulled the edge of her hood away from her ear, and shouted. “Bridget, run to the house and get help. Run as fast as you can!”
I pushed her away. She ran a few steps, then turned and looked back at me again. “Go! Go!” I screamed, waving my leaden arms. I fell forward onto the hard surface and lay full-length on my stomach. I watched her bright pink snowsuit move farther away. She was running. She was so light that her boots hardly made any impression on the frozen crust, and the blowing snow quickly obliterated them.
I closed my eyes for a minute. When I opened them again, I saw a bright pink figure on the snowy field. She wasn’t running anymore, but she was still moving. She looked so tiny.
I closed my eyes and prayed. I don’t know how long my eyes were shut. When I opened them again, the sound of the wind had receded into the background and everything was strangely quiet. A feathery white duvet was covering me. I wanted to pull it up to my chin and sink into a dreamless sleep. The sun was touching the horizon and the lavender shadows were creeping across the white surface like spilled ink.
My eyes scanned the field. At first I didn’t see anything, and then I caught sight of a bright pink spot, not far from the trees. It was lying on the surface of the snow, motionless.
My baby was dying.
I summoned my remaining strength and tried to run to her. My arms and legs moved feebly and then not at all.
Please God. Not like this. I felt myself give a cry of anguish, but I couldn’t even hear my own howl over the howling wind. Why had we left the truck? I could have held her in my arms and sung her to sleep before we went together to the next world. I could have sung “Toora, loora.” We could have fallen asleep together, like the mother and her children in the cabin. Now she would freeze to death alone, without me.
I felt my heart rise out of my chest and reach out to her, felt it fly across the snow like a flaming arrow, wrap itself around her, cradle her, comfort her, and lift her to her feet just as I had done a thousand times before in her short life.
She was moving again.
I gave a harsh sob as I strained my eyes, trying to penetrate the blurry blue-white glare of the snow. There was a hot pink flash against the black background of the trees, and then it was gone.
The sun fell below the horizon and the darkness came rushing across the snow.
22
April
I opened my eyes to complete blankness: white above me, white all around me. I struggled to move my arms and legs, but they were weighted down. Was I buried under a blanket of snow? My fingers moved, clutched the edge of a snowy white duvet — a real one. I was lying in a bed.
I was alive.
“Mama!” A white door opened in a white wall and Bridget ran through it and flung herself across my chest. “You’re awake!”
The tears rushed into my eyes. I lifted my arms and held her to me tightly, feeling her warmth, smelling her hair, tasting the sweetness of her as if for the first time. I hadn’t felt so much love and gratitude since the moments after her birth. We lay together, soaking each other up in a long embrace.
A woman appeared in the open door. “So you’re finally awake! I’ll get you a nice fresh cup of coffee.”
I struggled to a sitting position. Under the covers, I was still wearing my sweater and my ski pants. The woman reappeared, carrying a steaming mug with an image of a green and yellow John Deere tractor on one side. She set it on the carved wooden chest beside the bed. “I put in plenty of cream and sugar. You must be starving. You didn’t have a bite to eat last night!”
I took the mug in my right hand, still clutching Bridget with my left, and gulped the strong coffee gratefully. “Thank you so much.”
The woman sat down in a straight-backed wooden chair beside the door. Her f
ace was pleasant and open, and like most women’s faces up here, it was free of makeup. She saw the question in my eyes and answered it. “I’m Olga Penner.”
From her greying fair hair and her German-sounding name, I knew that she must belong to the community of Mennonites who farmed in this area. Lisette told me they had a reputation for being devout and hardworking.
“Mrs. Penner, can you please tell me what happened? I don’t remember a thing after I passed out in the snow.”
“I found you lying in the field, and brought you back here on the toboggan.”
“You did? All by yourself?” I looked at her more closely. Her body was thick and strong, her forearms heavily muscled.
“Yes, ma’am. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I heard banging on the back door and found this little angel standing there. I thought she’d dropped down from heaven!”
Bridget grinned as if this were a huge joke. Mrs. Penner grinned back at her.
“There wasn’t a minute to waste, so I told her to stay in the kitchen and get warm. She was shivering from head to foot, poor little thing. I threw on my parka and ran out to the shed. It’s the worst luck that both my husband and son were away with the truck.”
It had taken me all of thirty seconds to drain my mug. Mrs. Penner left the room briefly to refill it with more coffee before she sat down again.
“I turned on the big yard light, started the snowmobile, and hitched up the toboggan. That only took fifteen minutes or so, but it was black as coal outside by then and I was afraid I wouldn’t find you.” She shook her head. “I nearly didn’t.”
Bridget put her arms around my neck and gave me another squeeze.
“I headed out to the field and drove around in circles, keeping my eye on the yard light and getting farther away from the house until I had pretty much given up hope. I decided I would have to call the police. I knew they wouldn’t get here for a couple of hours, and by then it would be too late.
“I was making one last turn when I saw a flicker. It was the beam from your flashlight, pointing straight up into the air.”
She looked solemn. “The Lord must have guided my way, like the Bible verse says: ‘His lamp shone over my head, and by His light I walked through darkness.’”
I remembered putting the flashlight in my pocket, but I had no memory of turning it on. It must have been the last thing I did before I lost consciousness.
“I raced over to the light at full throttle and found you almost buried in snow. Only your face was showing, and your hand holding the flashlight was sticking up like a torch. I wasn’t even sure you were still alive. I rolled you onto the toboggan and tore back to the house. I was flying along so fast I was afraid you would fall off!”
Bridget hugged my neck again while Mrs. Penner continued to speak.
“You might notice a few bruises because I had quite a time dragging you up the back steps. Once I got you inside, I found that you were still breathing. So we got your coat and boots off, right on the kitchen floor. Then we wrapped you in an electric blanket. And when you started to come around, we helped you into bed.”
I had a vague memory now of crying out in pain.
“Your toes had a little nip of frostbite, but I could tell by the colour they weren’t too bad. They used to rub frozen feet with snow in the old days, but that was a mistake. We put two pairs of socks on your feet. The little angel had a bowl of soup, and then she snuggled in beside you for warmth. You’ve been asleep for twelve hours. You’ll be right as rain after a good hot breakfast.”
Bridget smiled and stroked my cheek.
“But Mrs. Penner, I still don’t understand. How did you know I was out there?”
She frowned as if I still weren’t in my right mind.
“Well, this little angel told me, of course! She just hollered at the top of her lungs, over and over. ‘My Mama fell down and she can’t get up! Please go and find her!’”
Four hours later, we arrived home, fed and wonderfully clean. Before leaving the Penner household I had a steaming shower, my first shower in months, the hot water cascading over my head and shoulders, while Bridget had a bubble bath in the tub.
As I stood under the shower, my tears fell as freely as the water pouring from the shower head. Bridget had almost died. I had almost died. We had almost died. Those three sentences kept circling around in my head like Fizzy chasing his own tail. My thoughts were thick and slow, as if my brain still suffered from the effects of hypothermia. I wondered if I were in shock.
The fact that Bridget had spoken to another person would rear its head like a fragile blossom in the snow and then disappear again, crushed under the weight of the terrible knowledge that our frozen bodies could have been lying in the Juniper hospital morgue this morning. I lifted my hands and gazed at them, rosy and pink under the sluicing water. I almost felt as if they belonged to someone else. I was alive. Bridget was alive. We were alive.
Finally, I got out of the shower and helped Bridget dry off. I cupped her little face in my hands and stared at her until she struggled out of my grasp. “Come on, Mama, let’s get dressed!” We put on our clothes and went out to the kitchen.
The Penners had been busy. After John Penner arrived home this morning, he towed Silver out of the ditch with his tractor. He drove it into his shed, plugged it in to warm the engine, and refilled the gas tank. Mrs. Penner called Frank Cardinal at the reserve and asked him to plough our driveway again since it would be blocked after yesterday’s wind. Now she bustled around the kitchen, preparing breakfast.
We sat at a plain bleached pine table covered with a length of blue gingham oilcloth and ate piles of crisp bacon served with delicious heart-shaped waffles, made in a special round waffle iron with five heart-shaped sections. These were smothered in sweet white custard, flavoured with vanilla. Mrs. Penner told us this was a Mennonite specialty, served on special occasions.
“Do you want another one, my little angel?” she asked Bridget, who nodded silently.
“That tastes like more, doesn’t it?” She added another waffle to Bridget’s plate. “It’s an old Mennonite expression: if something is really good, it tastes like more!”
I choked down a slice of bacon while I watched Bridget eat, marvelling at the way she sat on her chair, chewing and swallowing, smiling at Mrs. Penner like they were old friends, although she still didn’t say a word.
I didn’t care if she never spoke again. She was alive.
After breakfast, I said goodbye to the Penners with tears of gratitude in my eyes, and even Bridget allowed herself to be hugged. I had a bad moment when we climbed into the truck again, but obviously we had to get home. The animals were waiting for us.
When we pulled into the yard, there was no smoke coming from the chimney and the place looked deserted. The windows were thick with frost, and a snowdrift covered the back steps. We pushed open the back door to find two very lonely and hungry animals. Riley licked Bridget’s face while Fizzy wrapped himself around our ankles, mewing pitifully as if we had been gone for a week.
It felt as if we had been gone for a month. The house was stone cold, and we could see our breath inside. The linoleum floor felt like a skating rink. Without taking off our outdoor clothes, I crumpled paper and stoked the stove with kindling and firewood while Bridget fed the animals, crooning over them and petting them ecstatically.
I made several trips outside, lugging the battery into the back kitchen, and then bringing the frozen groceries from the truck and unpacking them on the kitchen counter. Within minutes, my fresh fruit and vegetables — the oranges, the peppers, the tomatoes — began to thaw and drip. They were clearly inedible.
While I waited for the ice in the kettle to melt so I could pour hot water down the pump shaft and get the water flowing again, I walked over to the kitchen window and melted a palm-sized hole in the thick frost.
There was nothing to see but a dead landscape. The cruel wind flung handfuls of ice like stones against the windowpanes. It made a shri
ll, keening sound, as if luring us to come outside where death waited to pounce. The dark clouds massed themselves into a purple army overhead, preparing for another attack.
As I watched, it started to snow again.
April 2, 1925
Sure it must be spring in the old country, but here winter still has us by the throat, shaking us in her clenched jaws like Riley shakes a rabbit. I felt much like that rabbit today after my narrow escape. It is quite the closest I have come to losing my life, and whenever I think of it, a shudder runs through me.
George had gone over to the McKays to discuss plans for spring seeding, and I was feeling the symptoms of madness at being confined to the house, a very real condition known as “cabin fever.” It has caused many a settler to lose his mind. The Mountie brought one woman into town, leading her horse behind, and she in a straitjacket. The poor woman was “bushed” and had gone completely mad. Her husband put her on the train back to Philadelphia, from whence she had departed only six months earlier. Six short months was all it took to unhinge the poor woman. I have been here nine months, and I can see how easily it might happen.
It was bitterly cold, but I went outside for a short walk to see how the beavers were faring. One can see their breath coming through the ice and I thought it might be helpful to my state of mind to think of them under the creek, snug in their little den while the rest of the world lies silent and cold.
I was returning homeward along the bank when I stepped into a trap. George catches the occasional lynx and red fox and sells their skins to make some extra money. The vice snapped most cruelly on my right foot, gripping my instep behind my toes. I cried out in pain, but I was not worried at first because I knew the foot wasn’t broken, and I thought I could free myself easily.
Unfortunately, this was not the case. There was a spring on each side of my trapped foot. I could step on the left spring with my left foot, but when I did, my foot sank into the snow and the spring would not unlatch. I couldn’t reach the right spring at all.
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