Changes of Heart

by Paige Lee Elliston

  “Stop, Richie—please stop!” she’d protested. “I couldn’t... I wouldn’t ever...”

  “Hush, honey—don’t cry. I’m not trying to scare you. I’m an excellent pilot, and I’ve pulled out of bad situations before—flameouts, stuff like that. I lost an engine once, and brought the bird home. I’ve... well... there were other bad times, but here I am, right where I belong, with you. But I need you to promise me...”

  The smell of coffee brewing pulled Maggie out of her memory. To her, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee had more wake-up- and-get-to-the-day power than the most strident of alarm clocks. She unwrapped herself from her blanket, stood, stretched, and rubbed her eyes. The coffeepot was hanging on the rod in the fireplace, the embers just below its bottom a mix of red and dirty white.

  “About time,” Sarah pointed out, moving from the end of the couch to the fire and filling a mug from the still-bubbling pot. The fire was regenerating, licking at fresh wood that Maggie hadn’t heard being placed in the fireplace.

  “I thought you’d never get up,” Sarah said. She handed the mug to Maggie.

  Maggie sipped at her coffee; it was scalding hot and seemed strong enough to melt a steel horseshoe—and tasted simply wonderful. She took a step closer to the doctor. “Is the toilet OK? I’ll get some snow, but I need a bucket.”

  “All set, Maggie. There are a couple of buckets up there, already pretty much full. I woke up early and thought I might as well do something productive. I never realized how much snow it takes to melt down to even a half bucket of water.”

  “I never really thought about it, either—but I’m glad you did what you did. Very glad.” She drank some more coffee. “What’s the radio have to say today?”

  Sarah’s eyes dropped from Maggie’s. “Not good at all.” Tessa unwrapped herself from her blanket, stood, and joined her mother and friend.

  Maggie looked across the room to where Ian and Danny were standing in front of the largest window. They weren’t speaking and, in fact, appeared to be frozen in place, not even lifting the mugs they each held. Maggie felt a quick, sharp pain in the back of her throat. “Maybe...”

  “No,” Tessa said, her voice much older than her years. “No maybes. This is the storm of the century—that’s what the National Weather station called it. I heard the broadcast earlier when Ian turned it on.” She raised her eyes to meet her friend’s. “My Turnip and Danny’s Dakota and your Dusty and Happy and your little Dancer—they don’t have a chance. Cattle are frozen solid, Maggie. The guy on the Coldwater station said that. He said that way back in the frontier days was the last time there was a storm like this.”

  “Those cattle are pastured, Tessa, out in the open, not in a good, stout barn or a mudroom that stops the wind and keeps the snow out. The coat on Sunday, honey—that’s the best insulation in the world. The animals will be cold, and they’ll be hungry and thirsty when we get to them, but they’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  Unless the horses have panicked already and hurt themselves, or broken through their stalls and gotten to the barrels of grain. If they did that, they’d eat until they dropped. It could kill them. And if the temperature is so low that Sunday goes to sleep and freezes to death, coat or no coat...

  Tessa must have seen fear in Maggie’s eyes. The girl turned away, biting her lower lip, and walked toward the kitchen. Sarah began to speak but then remained silent. Maggie glanced over to where Danny and Ian still stood at the window. She and Sarah joined them.

  The window was heavily rimmed with frost, but someone had cleared a rough circle about the size of a dinner plate on it. Outside was a gray, whirling miasma of turbulent snow lashed by a wind that was relentless in its cruelty.

  Maggie touched the veterinarian’s arm. When he turned to her, his face was grim and hard. “No go, at least right now, Maggie,” he said. “My truck would take the snow in four-wheel, I’m sure of that. But I wouldn’t be able to see a foot in front of me. I wouldn’t be able to find the road, much less stay on it. It’d be suicide. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to us,” Sarah said. “There’s absolutely nothing you—or any of us—can do.” She looked at Maggie and mouthed Tessa?

  “She’s in the kitchen,” Maggie said.

  “Let’s leave her there for a moment,” Sarah said. “What about the horses? Danny was saying they could be in trouble.”

  Maggie shook her head. “They could be. There’s no way to know. They’re herd animals, and at least they have one another close by. But if one of them started to take down his stall, they’d all follow, because it’s their nature to do so. Turnip would probably be the culprit—he’s fairly high-strung and a little too smart for his own good. Horses strike out and fight in raw panic. They’re out of food and water by now, but horses can survive amazingly long times without food. The water... I don’t know.”

  “But your barrels are good,” Danny said.

  “Right. I bought the safety barrel with the snap-on tops. They can be knocked over without opening. But I don’t think the top would stay on one of them if Turnip or Dakota backed up and kicked. If that happened, they’d eat themselves to founder and maybe...”

  “I know that,” Tessa said. “You don’t need to keep your voices down.” The clamor of the weather and the urgency of the conversation had covered the girl’s approach. Now, the four adults looked at each other guiltily, as if they’d been attempting to put something over on Tessa.

  The girl managed a smile. “Now, what are we going to do?”

  “Nothing we can do right now,” Danny said. “As soon as there’s the least bit of visibility, I’ll be out there four-wheeling. You can bet on that.”

  “We’ll be out there,” Ian corrected.

  Danny nodded. “Yeah. Sorry, Ian.” He turned to Maggie. “I’m going to need a list of what medicines and supplies you have in your barn. And write down what you’ve been feeding each horse per day—what supplements, vitamins, and so forth. I’ll need to—”

  “What?” Maggie almost shouted.

  Confusion clouded Danny’s face. “I just said that I need—”

  “If you think for one minute that you’re going anywhere near my barn without me, you’re out of your mind, Danny Pulver! Where you came up with such a birdbrained idea is beyond me—but I’ll tell you this: that truck of yours isn’t moving an inch—an inch—without me in it.” She drew breath, glaring at Danny. “Is that perfectly, absolutely, positively clear?”

  “Wow,” Sarah breathed and then began clapping.

  Danny blushed like a little boy caught in a fib. “Listen, Maggie,” he said. “I... uhh... Hold on a minute, OK? I didn’t mean that your help wouldn’t be valuable. I just didn’t want you to expose yourself to what’s out there.”

  “I’ll expose myself anytime I want to!” Maggie snapped.

  There was a beat of silence while what Maggie had just said penetrated the tension. Ian burst out laughing, and after a moment so did Sarah, Tessa, and Danny. Then so did Maggie. “That isn’t exactly what I meant,” she said lamely.

  Danny held up his hands in complete surrender. “OK, OK,” he said. “I give up.”

  “Maggie could be awfully important when you go out there, Danny,” Tessa said quite seriously. “Suppose you needed some cookies baked or coffee made and she wasn’t there? Then what?”

  “Or,” Sarah added, “something crocheted or knitted?”

  “Come on,” Danny pleaded. “I already gave up. Gimme a break, here!”

  Time had a sludge-like quality that day. A Monopoly game failed to hold the group’s interest, as did Trivial Pursuit. The men were antsy and frustrated, spending much of their time looking out the window and pacing about the frigid house aimlessly. Ian spent an hour or so with the Morrison family Bible, and the group started a good discussion on Scripture, but the moaning of the house and the constant haranguing of the wind broke into comments and thoughts.

  When Sarah switched on the radio the group gathered
around her where she sat on the couch in front of the fireplace.

  “... disaster area by the governor at 1:00 p.m. today, and we’re right in the middle of it, folks. The National Weather Bureau says the winds have abated slightly, but you sure couldn’t prove that here in Coldwater. I just looked out the studio window here on Main Street, and the visibility is hovering right around zero feet, and that wind is howling like a mama bear. Windchill right here in town is minus forty-three degrees—that’s killing weather, ladies and gentlemen. Snowfall is guesstimated at about four feet, but I don’t know how they figured that—the stuff doesn’t sit still long enough to settle in that wind. Remember, no travel of any kind, including snowmobiles. I’ll be right here with you, friends, until we can see the sky again. Keep your dial set at...”

  Sarah turned off the radio. “Well,” she said. “The word abated sounded awfully good to me.”

  “Me too,” Danny agreed. “Maybe by morning things will have calmed down enough for us to get out.”

  “I’m going to make some hot cocoa to celebrate,” Tessa said.

  “Easy, honey,” Sarah cautioned. “We don’t know that there’s any reason to celebrate quite yet.”

  “Sure we do, Mom. You heard the radio.”

  “You know,” Maggie said with a smile, “I think Tessa is right. Maybe we were too quick with our doom and gloom.”

  “Maybe so,” Ian agreed. “Right now, I’m feeling better about a Monopoly game to go with that cocoa. Anyone else?”

  It was a long game, but Tessa won again.

  There was no actual dawn to watch Saturday morning. Instead, the more profound darkness of deep night slowly gave way to a half-light that accomplished nothing but to allow Maggie, standing at the window, to see how hopeless any sort of attempt at travel would be. The screech of the wind grated in her ears and on her nerves like the tines of a fork being dragged across the surface of a dinner plate.

  Ian joined Maggie at the window, his hands around a coffee mug. Frigid air from a moments-ago wood-restocking foray surrounded him like a cocoon. Maggie shivered. “No change out there?”

  “No. If anything, I think it’s even colder. Danny says the wind is stronger. That’s the way it felt to me too.”

  Maggie sighed. “I was just thinking how it’d be if I hadn’t come here Thursday. I had the line already strung to the barn, so I’d be able to take care of the horses—if I could hang on to the line.”

  “It’s good that you’re here, Maggie. But, no matter what, I wouldn’t have let you be alone. I’d have gotten to you as soon as this mess started. I mean that. I wouldn’t have let you be alone.” His fingertips, warmed by the coffee mug, very gently touched Maggie’s hand, lingered for a heartbeat, and then moved away. Maggie closed her eyes, and for a bit of time the storm and her fear for her horses were swept away by the intimacy of the moment, by the warmth of Ian’s touch.

  The clatter of a pot or pan to the floor in the kitchen shattered the moment. The weather—and the fear—rushed back to destroy the iota of respite Maggie had found.

  During that third day of the storm, it seemed as if time, like everything else in and around Coldwater, Montana, was frozen solid. There was little conversation in the group, and no laughter and none of the customary teasing. Tessa, curled up at the end of the couch, stared into the fire. Sarah, next to her daughter, held a medical journal open in her hands, but her eyes didn’t follow the copy and she hadn’t turned a page since she’d opened the publication. Danny stood at the window silently, as unmoving as a statue. Ian, deep in his own thoughts, sat in front of the fire, staring at nothing. Maggie sat wrapped in her blanket to the side of the fireplace and dozed.

  Images of Dancer in his stall taunted her. The colt was the most vulnerable of the horses. His young system could least handle an overload of grain, and if they’d all smashed out of their stalls and the geldings began fighting, he could get between them and be injured. Even Dusty, if caught up in rage or panic...

  Sweet Dusty. Her temperament alone was worth a million dollars. She was such a gentle-natured horse. Richie had learned to ride on her, and she was the best teacher in the world. She hadn’t gotten angry once when he’d accidentally yanked on her mouth or miscued her. Maggie was the one who’d gotten mad—shouted, “Keep out of her mouth, Richie!” The look he’d given her—like she’d discovered him whipping Dusty or something—had made her feel awful for yelling at him.

  “You OK?” Danny’s hand was on her shoulder. “I thought you might be having a bad dream. Maggie? You were—” “No. I’m... yeah. Just a bad dream is all.”

  “Dreaming about the horses? Me too. But Sunday, mostly. He’s been—he is—a great dog. I’ve never seen another like him.”

  Maggie nodded. “Sunday’s the best. When you’re out riding he sticks close to me, following me around, watching me do my chores or whatever it is I’m doing. And it’s not because he’s looking for a Milk-Bone, either. We’ve become awfully good friends.”

  The veterinarian swallowed hard before he spoke, and Maggie heard the quiver in his voice. “That’s what he is to me too. I don’t think humans really own dogs like Sunday, any more than parents own their children. We share our lives with them, and they share theirs with us.” His hand, still resting on Maggie’s shoulder, closed lightly and then moved away. “I better get some wood in,” he said. He turned from her, but not before she saw the glisten of tears in his eyes reflected in the candlelight.

  For some reason, sleep came easily to Maggie that night. It was as if she slipped away from the storm and the house and drifted, warm and free and secure, in a world where no horses and no dogs were trapped or frightened. The next thing Maggie knew, a hand was gently pushing at her arm. Then Tessa’s voice said, “Come on, Maggie—the weather’s better. Danny says it’s time to go.”

  Maggie tugged on a pair of Tessa’s snow pants over her jeans. Sarah’s woolen socks made her feet feel cramped in her boots, but she knew she’d need the extra warmth. The loose fisherman-style sweater she wore over the snugger, standard-sized sweater—both of which Tessa had provided—made upper-body movement difficult. That effect was multiplied when she struggled into her own sheepskin coat. She trudged to the window, clutching the mug of coffee Tessa had brought to her.

  A lunar landscape had replaced the Morrison yard, outbuildings, and the Montana countryside. The wind, greatly diminished, nevertheless continued to snipe at and sculpt the snow. The morning light was a washed-out gray filtered through the still-falling snow. Despite the heavy clothes, she shivered briefly. She finished her coffee and carried the mug to the kitchen, where the others were gathered.

  “I’ve got a couple of things to say before we go out,” Danny said, “but here’s what we all need to keep in our minds every second we’re outside: don’t, for any reason, run or exert yourself so that you have to draw deep breath. The radio said the temperature is right around twenty-five to thirty below. Sucking in that air will burn your lungs—mess them up for the rest of your life.”

  “Breathe through your noses,” Sarah added. “That’ll warm the air slightly before it reaches your chest. Keep scarves over your mouths and noses. And keep your heads covered—it’ll conserve body heat.”

  “I’m pretty confident my truck will go over or through anything in our way,” Danny said, “but if it gets hung up somehow, we can’t spend time or energy wrestling with it. We have to start walking back here right away—slowly. OK?”

  “One thing I have to tell you now,” Maggie said. “If we make it to my place, I won’t be coming back here. Until the storm is over and the temperature rises, I’m going to have to walk the horses in the barn—keep them moving as much as possible to keep their body temperatures as safe as I can.”

  “I thought about that,” Danny said. “I’ll stay with the horses. After we get Sunday, you and Ian drop me at your place and go on back here.”

  Maggie shook her head. “That won’t work. Neither Ian nor I can handle that four-w
heeler the way you can. We’d never make it.”

  “Suppose I stay with Maggie and you come back here, Danny? That would—”

  “No,” Danny said quickly. A surprised silence followed. Danny lowered his voice, face flushing. “What I meant was that we all... I don’t know,” he concluded lamely. “Look—the storm isn’t over. The Weather Bureau said it could go another two full days.”

  “I won’t negotiate on this,” Maggie said. “There’s food and a big fire all laid out in my fireplace. I have lots of wood a few feet from my back door. I’ve already run a line between my house and the barn. I have candles and a good radio. The horses need me, and I’m going to stay with them.” She added, “I’ll be just as well off there as I’d be here, except solo Monopoly isn’t much fun.”

  Tessa took a step to the side to face the others. “I’ll go with you, Maggie. If you’re going to be walking the horses, you need help. There are five of them and one of you, and Dancer doesn’t lead terribly well.”

  “Oh, honey, you can’t—” Maggie began.

  “No, Tess,” Sarah said, interrupting Maggie.

  Tessa’s eyes narrowed, and her face became hard. Her voice was flinty, with a tone in it Maggie had never before heard from the girl.

  “I don’t need two arms to lead a horse or a couple of horses up and down an aisle in a barn,” she said. “We’re not talking about hanging wallpaper here. I can do this—and I will do this.”

  After a moment, Ian broke an uncomfortable silence. “Actually, Tessa makes good sense. She’ll be in no more danger at Maggie’s place than she would be here, and she’s right about the horses. If they need to be led up and down, it’s at least a two-person job, right? The aisle isn’t wide enough for someone to walk more than two horses, and that’d mean the others would be in their stalls.”

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “But you’re assuming we’ll get to Maggie’s. I don’t doubt that Tess and Maggie will do fine once they’re there. We have absolutely no guarantee that’ll happen. Suppose we get stuck or I go off the road and can’t get the truck out? What then?”