by Robin Moore
Traveling on these winter days, Maggie found that it was easiest to transport the bread on the toboggan. She and Annie had made the toboggan long and narrow so it would pass easily down the trail; it was nine feet long and a little less than a foot wide. In front, the staves were bent up into a graceful curve, like the front of a horse-drawn sleigh. Maggie lashed the bread bundle down with a long piece of rope.
As she was completing the lashings, she saw Annie toiling up the mountain trail, clomping along in her snowshoes. Like Maggie, she was dressed warmly, in a thick woolen blanket coat, layers and layers of warm stockings, thick boots, and a knitted cap and mittens.
"Merry Christmas!" Maggie shouted. Her breath made clouds in the air.
Annie took off her mittens so she could sign properly.
"Some storm," Annie signed. "It's good to be outside. Are you headed down to the house?" Maggie nodded.
"Good," Annie signed. "Because Papa sent me to fetch you. We're having a big gathering at the house tonight and Papa said you're to come and bring some bread."
"Your father thinks of everything," Maggie said. "But I thought your mother disapproved of parties."
Annie laughed. "Papa talked her into it this year. He says it's important for his political career to have everyone in the valley over for a party. He's going to make a speech."
Maggie smiled. "I wouldn't miss that for anything," she said. "I hope your mother isn't too upset by all the festivities."
"The storm helped a lot," Annie signed. "Mama got so stir-crazy from being inside that she even got out needle and thread and helped me string popcorn chains for decorations."
Maggie was hungry for sociability after her days of solitude at the cabin. "Let's go!" she shouted.
They started down the mountain trail. Annie walked ahead, breaking the trail with her snowshoes. Maggie walked behind, dragging the toboggan behind her. It slid easily over the packed snow. Because the snowshoes were so clumsy to walk in, both girls carried walking sticks to help keep their balance.
About halfway down the mountainside, well into the thick hemlocks, where the trail shot steeply downhill, Annie stopped. She turned around on the trail and removed her mittens. Maggie knew she had something to say.
Annie's hands moved gracefully through the cold air.
"This is too slow," she signed. "Let's just hop on this thing and ride down to the mill. We'd be there in no time."
Maggie had never attempted the mountain trail on the toboggan, but she saw the sense in what Annie had said. It was a fairly straight shot down to the flatlands, she reasoned. They could probably take the turns all right, and if they got going too fast, all they had to do was put out their feet and stop themselves.
Maggie made the sign for "I agree." They knelt and began unlashing the bundle so they could shift it back in the bed of the toboggan, making room for them to sit in front, directly behind the bow. They lashed down their walking sticks and snowshoes. Maggie seated herself in front and Annie pushed them off and jumped on behind, locking her arms around Maggie's waist.
It was amazing how quickly the toboggan picked up speed. The girls hurtled down the mountainside, the wind tearing at their clothes and hair.
Then it happened. Maggie didn't even see the half-buried log lying in the center of the trail. Even if she had, there wouldn't have been a way to avoid hitting it.
The bow of the toboggan glanced off the log and they went flying off the trail, careening down through the woods. They whipped through a blackberry thicket. The branches stung their faces as they flew past and kept right on going. Trees flashed by in a blur. Maggie felt Annie clinging to her waist in sheer terror.
For a moment they were headed directly for a huge hemlock tree, which would have smashed them to splinters. But somehow they managed to lean to the side and veer the toboggan away at the last moment.
Then Maggie saw it up ahead, a deep sinkhole filled with boulders and drifted snow. Before Maggie could put out her legs to stop, the toboggan shot out over the lip of the sinkhole and dropped like a rock.
It seemed as though they fell in slow motion. The toboggan dropped away from them and Maggie caught a glimpse of it flipping end over end, down into the sinkhole. The lashings came loose and the blanket flew open, scattering the bread out across the snow, all around the lip of the depression. The toboggan struck a piece of rock that jutted out from the snow and stopped dead on its side.
Maggie and Annie hit the snow, came down hard, and kept rolling. Maggie put her arms out to stop herself but then realized that the snow underneath them was sliding as well. They had created a tiny avalanche that was pushing them down farther into the hole. Annie came pinwheeling along and, quite by accident, the girls collided. Annie's heavy boot heel swung and caught Maggie on the forehead, just above the left eye. After that, Maggie passed out.
Maggie had no way of knowing how long she lay there in the deep snow. When she came to, everything was quiet and dark and still. She couldn't hear the wind. All she heard was her own breathing.
She tried to move, and was terrified to find that she couldn't. She willed her arms and legs to move. But they wouldn't. She thought they must be broken. She felt a terrible weight resting on her back, holding her, facedown, in the snow. Then a thought leaped into her mind that sent a shiver of panic through her whole body. She must be buried. Buried alive in the drifted snow at the bottom of the sinkhole!
Straining every muscle in her upper body, Maggie managed to turn her head to the side. She could tell by the feel of the snow against her face that her breath had melted a small cave around her face. As she rolled her head around, her cheek struck something fuzzy. It was her hand, covered by a frozen woolen mitten. She realized that she must have fallen with her left arm underneath her and her right hand close to her face. She worked her fingers inside the frozen mitt. They tingled painfully as the blood began to quicken in them.
She began working her hand back and forth, inching it forward like an underground animal, burrowing a hole through the snow. She moved it ahead a few inches and was eventually able to punch her way
up into the cave near her face. The cave had increased in size due to her exertions. Using her right hand, she moved the snow around a little, pushing it back against the chamber walls, making the space even larger. The space was now the size of a bushel basket but only her arm and head were free.
Then she struck something hard. As she poked at it, it frightened her by wiggling. Then she realized it must be Annie's hand. Maggie thought, Annie must be terrified. Without speech or hearing, Annie's only remaining sense was the feel of Maggie's hand.
They gripped hands. At least Annie was still alive.
Maggie rested, her face lying in the snow, her breath coming in tortured gasps. It was exhausting to work in this position. Annie squeezed her friend's hand encouragingly. Even through the frozen mitten, Maggie felt Annie's friendship, urging her on.
They lay there for what seemed like hours. Then Maggie got the strength to thrash around with her right arm. She struck something in the roof of her breathing cave. She reached up and closed her mittened hand around it. It was one of their walking sticks. Somehow it had landed in the layer of snow above them.
Maggie grabbed the tip of the stick and pulled it down into the cave, then thrust it up. She felt some resistance for a few feet, then felt the top of the stick break through the surface of the snow above them.
She quickly calculated. The walking sticks were five feet long. That meant they must be buried under at least four feet of snow. All hopes of digging their way out vanished. They were trapped.
Maggie thrust the stick up at the roof of the cave. Snow poured down the hole, covering her head, but she kept thrusting, then moved the stick around and around in rings until she had made a hole about three inches across. A weak shower of light fell down through the hole, along with a draft of fresh, clean air. Now they would have air. Maggie pushed the pole up as far as she could get it a
nd lodged it there. Then she rested, gripping Annie's hand.
She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, Annie was wringing her hand and startling her awake. They were both aware of the danger of drifting off to sleep in their situation. They both knew that that was the way people froze to death, by allowing themselves to give in to the drowsiness that is the first sign of freezing to death. Maggie had worked hard and was very tired and would drop off to sleep easily if Annie didn't remain vigilant and wring her hand whenever the grip went limp.
Maggie started to drift in and out of consciousness. At times she didn't care anymore. She just wanted to be allowed to sleep. She was furious with Annie for gripping her hand so tightly and tried to pull away, but Annie held her firmly by her mitten.
The anger was good because it kept her awake.
In one of her more lucid moments, Maggie began to calculate their chances. She knew they probably wouldn't be missed at the house until nightfall. If the folks at the mill came out to find them, would they be able to see the toboggan trail in the dark? And would they know where to dig even if they found the toboggan lying on its side in the sinkhole? Maggie knew that they had to be found tonight. She knew the two of them would never survive the night in the terrible, bone-chilling cold.
She was hanging on the edge of sleep as if she were hanging on the edge of a high cliff, waiting to fall, wanting to fall.
Maggie lay awake like that for hours. It grew darker. She was half awake and half asleep, waiting out the terrible cold and fighting off the almost irresistible urge to close her eyes and drift off into what she thought would be the softest and most comfortable sleep she had ever known. And then she could resist sleep no longer.
Chapter Nine
Jake Logan felt like a fool for traveling in this weather. But he knew if he kept pushing, he would make Maggie’s cabin by nightfall.
He felt a powerful urge to visit Maggie on this Christmas Eve. She was a link with the human world. And he cherished that link.
Just as the sun was dipping down, Jake broke out into the clearing. He smiled as he remembered how Maggie had looked that first day she had come into the valley. He had walked right up behind her that day. He wouldn't be able to do that now, he thought. Her ears had gotten sharper. And he had gotten older.
It was strange, he thought, to get old in a land he thought would always be young and full of life. He once heard an old hunter say that it was never the mountains that quit a man, it was always the other way around. He thought maybe he was beginning to understand what that old-timer had meant.
Jake opened the door and hollered inside. No answer. He crept around in the darkness. The coals in the hearth were still warm. Her snowshoes were gone. Then he remembered that she was planning to spend Christmas Eve at the mill. He had forgotten about that. Well, he thought, he'd just build up the fire and wait for her and welcome her when she returned the next day.
Jake went back outside to bring in a load of firewood. Then he saw them, a herd of white-tailed deer, picking their way down the trail. Strange for them to travel in such deep snow, he thought. They usually stayed holed up somewhere in weather like this. Jake was puzzled until he noticed that Maggie's toboggan had packed the snow into an easily traveled trail. The deer must be taking advantage of the path to forage for food, he concluded.
Seeing the deer reminded him that his meat bag was empty. And couldn't he use a taste of fresh venison hump tonight? He went back inside for his rifle, which he had left leaning against the cabin wall.
He checked his rifle in the dimming light. There was already powder and a ball in the barrel. He opened the flashpan and poured in a spot of gunpowder from his priming horn, then snapped the frizzen shut. He was ready. But he had better move fast. The light was failing.
He crept down the trail. All his senses were alive. The wind was to his face so the deer wouldn't scent him. He would follow the deer quietly, then circle around and take his shot while there was still a glimmer of light on the horizon.
The deer were stepping right in the toboggan tracks. That made the tracking easy, even in the failing light.
Jake noticed the toboggan tracks veering off the trail.
Then he saw them, herded up around the lip of the sinkhole, sniffing and pawing at the snow and pointing with their noses. He raised his rifle to shoot, centering in on a large doe poised on the edge of the snowy precipice.
Maggie's dream flashed into the old man's mind. He lowered his rifle and took another look at the deer. She stood near the edge of the sinkhole, pointing with her nose. At her feet was a half-eaten loaf of bread. Down among the boulders and the drifted snow, he could see the other loaves. Then he saw the toboggan lying on its side in the sinkhole.
All at once, everything came together in the old man's mind. Jake set his rifle against a tree and slid down into the sinkhole. His sudden movements spooked the deer and all of them snorted and bounded away.
Jake found the nub of the walking stick jutting up through the snow. He began digging furiously with his mittens. The first thing he saw was Maggie's head, her hair frozen to the snow. Using his mittens like twin shovels, he dug her out. Her face was blue with cold. He scraped back most of the snow but when he tried to lift her out he saw that her hand was frozen to something.
It was then that he discovered Annie's hand and realized that she was buried as well. Quickly, he swept the snow back from Annie's dark form.
All the while he was digging, his mind was working furiously, considering the things he could do. He could gather wood and strike up a fire. But that would take time and he didn't know if he could thaw them there in the open. No, he would have to get them in out of the weather.
He considered strapping them to the toboggan and pulling them up to the cabin. But that would take even longer.
Then he realized what he must do. He would have to take the girls downhill, down to the mill. It would be fast and sure and even though he knew McGrew might make trouble for him when he got there, he
realized it was the girls' best chance.
Jake wrapped the girls in the blanket the bread had been in and lashed their bodies to the toboggan. He checked their breathing by placing his ear down close to their lips. They were still alive, sure enough, but Jake knew they were in that deep frozen sleep that comes before the white death.
With his rifle in one hand and the toboggan drag-rope in the other, he heaved them up out of the sinkhole and backtracked to the mountain trail. Jake skidded them downhill fast, trotting along through the deep snow to keep up. When he reached the mill, he was surprised to see that the yard was a mass of sleighs and horses. Inside he could hear the laughter and shouting of dozens of people.
He kicked the door open and dashed into the house, pulling the snow-covered toboggan right across the wooden floor and up to the blazing fire in the hearth.
The guests, seated at the table and lounging around the fire, gasped in terror. John, who had been standing near the door, moved to bar Jake's way. "What's the meaning of this?" he demanded.
Moving forward like an old bear, Jake swung one of his huge mittened hands and knocked the young man out of the way, sending him sprawling out across the floor.
The wind howled in through the open door. Jake knelt and threw back the blanket that covered the girls' faces. They lay like two corpses, half covered with ice and snow.
Someone in the back of the room started wailing. It was Mrs. McGrew. She broke through the crowd and fell on her knees by the toboggan.
"They're dead!" she screamed. "Dead and gone!"
The old man shook his head. "No, they ain't. Now lookee here, gimme your hand." He took Mrs. McGrew's hand and placed it by Annie's lips so she could feel the shallow breathing that still ebbed and flowed within her.
Jake turned around and looked at the rest of the people. They stood wide-eyed and stunned by what they saw.
The old man's voice cracked like a whip. "No time fer standin' and
starin' now! There's still a trickle o' life left in these two and we kin bring 'em back if we move smart now! Git that door closed! Some o' you men, get that fire roused up! You women bring kettles o' coldish water over here to bath 'em in! Move, now!"
People began scurrying about like ants. McGrew brought out an enormous set of bellows and began building up the fire. Some women knelt down by the girls and began to cut the frozen clothing off their bodies with bread knives and sewing scissors.
Once the girls were wrapped in warm blankets by the fire, Jake coached the women on how to soak the girls' feet and hands in lukewarm water and warm them up slowly.
When their frostbitten toes and ears and fingers began to thaw, Maggie and Annie came out of their sleep and began howling in pain.
Maggie, wild-eyed, grabbed Jake's sleeve and drew him down to her.
"Can't you make it stop, Jake? The pain's something awful."
The old man nodded. "I know, girl, I know. Froze a couple toes in my time, that I have. But you should be glad, girl. Be glad yer alive to feel the pain."
Maggie nodded, her eyes closed. "I know, Jake, I know."
The old man chuckled. "It was yer dream. Them deer led me right to ya."
Maggie didn't understand that. And her mind was too clouded with pain for her to care. But she realized that Jake was right. She was lucky to feel the pain, she and Annie. They were lucky to be alive.
Jake stood up and glanced at the front door of the McGrews' house, bolted against the cold weather. It was a dozen steps away. If he moved quickly through the confusion, he thought, he might be able to slip out the door and make his getaway.
People had begun to celebrate now, raising their glasses and shouting, doubly merry because the girls
were safe and sound. Across the room, Jake saw McGrew watching him. The big man sat down his tankard of cider and shouldered his way through the crowd. Jake prepared himself to fight his way out if need be.
McGrew stood facing the old man. "I saw you looking toward the door," McGrew said. Then he smiled broadly and extended his hand.