Christmas with Tucker (17 page)

Then someone gripped me by the jacket and yanked me to my feet and began to drag me away from the ice. I remembered where I was and what I was doing and struggled to get loose. I yelled, “The cow!”

“Leave the damn cow,” my rescuer swore, tossing me over his shoulder.

I shuddered convulsively in the clothing that was frozen to my body, my feet aching. I tried to resist. “We can’t let her drown.…”

“Yes, we can.”

With me resting on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, Frank Thorne climbed onto the big IH, slid the transmission into gear, and headed back to the house.

He pushed open the back door and carried me into the bathroom. He dropped me into the tub and immediately turned on the spigot, allowing life-giving warm water to pour over my frozen body.

Moments later my grandmother pushed open the back door and followed the trail of ice, snow, and mud into the bathroom. She took one look into the bathtub and screamed. Frank Thorne left before I could open my mouth to thank him.

IT WAS
afternoon by the time I stirred under a pile of blankets. Grandpa Bo and Grandma Cora were sitting by my bed. I felt something that I had not known if I would ever feel again. Sweat. I reached up and brushed it from my brow. I felt another source of warmth pressing against me. Tucker was stretched out beside me, his tail thumping against the mattress the moment I woke up.

My grandmother sprung from her chair and scooped me up in her arms. “Oh, George, are you all right?”

I felt fine and knew I was going to recover. I could feel bandages on my right foot, but as warm as the rest of my body felt, my toes still seemed frozen. It would be days before they felt normal—and a miracle that I didn’t lose any of them to frostbite. “I’m going to be fine. I’ve swum in that old pond a hundred times before, just not in the middle of winter. That’s all.”

“Why is Tucker here?” I said, now holding him close.

My grandma answered. “Thorne asked if you would mind taking care of him again. He said he’s got some personal business
to attend to, and he thought you might enjoy Tucker’s company while you were recovering.”

“Where’s he going and for how long?”

“He was vague about that. You know by now how private a person he is. But at least a few days, he said.”

“Frank Thorne saved my life, you know,” I said quietly, stroking Tucker’s silky ears.

“Yes, George. We know,” Grandpa said, speaking his first words to me. “And Tucker did, too.”

Thorne had told them Tucker was the first to hear me hollering for help and was throwing a fit. When he walked outside to find out why the dog was barking and carrying on, Thorne, too, heard my yells and found me at the pond.

Tucker’s warm fur was the best medicine I could have hoped for. I held him tight, and I’m not sure which of us was more pleased to be with the other. Tucker let out a mournful little groan that seemed to suggest that some missing part of his soul was put back in place. With each other, we both felt restored, whole.

After a while, I got up and tried to walk. The bottom of my right foot hurt like crazy, so I put on some extra socks to add cushioning. Tucker followed me while I limped around, and I knew that I owed him a great debt for his loyalty. The dog may have very well saved my life. I had no idea how to repay him, or how I would ever thank Frank Thorne.

We ate warm soup at the kitchen table. I was exhausted, but at the same time it felt good just to be alive, safe and warm. More important, it felt good to have Tucker back.

My grandmother insisted that I stay on the sofa for the remainder of the day. I slept away the rest of the evening and most
of the following day. Each time I woke from my slumber, Tucker was right there.

By the afternoon of the second day, our county was still shrouded in ice, but at least I was able to convince my grandmother that I was fully recovered.

AROUND FOUR O’CLOCK
on December 21, I grew restless, wondering if my mother was going to make it. Without phone service, we could only assume that she was headed our way. How she would get through the last thirty miles on these roads was another question.

There was no more putting it off: I needed to start packing. It was hard. I tried to make two piles: things that should go to Minnesota and items that should stay in Kansas. Trouble was, I still couldn’t figure out exactly which pile to put myself in. Tucker, standing there in my room wagging his tail, made that choice even harder.

While I was regaining my strength and caring for Tucker, my grandfather had been strangely absent, working on what seemed to be a secret project off-site. When I asked him where he’d gone off to in the maintainer the night before my little mishap at the pond, he’d been vague. Now he was gone again for hours when he wasn’t doing the milking or other chores. He wasn’t grading roads on this ice, and whatever he was doing seemed to involve daily walks to and from the farm. He did let on that he’d been
at Hank Fisher’s house, but what was he up to there? Maybe, I thought, he was working on some secret Christmas present for Grandma Cora and using Hank’s tools, though Grandpa did not seem to have enough holiday spirit to be playing elf these days.

My grandmother, though grateful that I was okay, was not too happy about my cattle-rescuing effort, and her mood was as bad as I had ever seen it. Grandpa’s project was also irritating her. She said she still had no idea where he’d gone that night, though he’d returned home right after Thorne brought me back to the house.

He had developed a nasty cold that seemed to be turning into a full-blown case of the flu, which he considered nothing more than a nuisance. She was very worried about him and, as I stood there in the kitchen, her voice rose to a point of irritation that was uncommon for her.

“Your grandfather got an extra dose of stubborn and only half a dose of common sense. He’ll likely die from pneumonia before spring planting.”

“Is he that sick?”

“I’ve never seen him sicker.”

“Well, maybe I should help him?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I feel fine, Grandma. I’m ready to get at it again.” For the last few days, I had been exempt from milking duties, but now I was actually eager to help out again. I felt useless sitting around the house, and I certainly did not want to pack.

She turned away in a huff. “Did you think you were a polar bear jumping into that freezing water? You swimming in the pond in the middle of winter and him hiking around on the ice all day—what is wrong with you two?”

“Nothing. I feel fine.”

“That’s not what I meant, George.”

My feet were still tender but much better, and I could walk with almost no pain. I put on my coat and hat, and got Tucker’s leash out. He grew excited the minute he saw it, as eager as I was to get outside.

“Where are you two going?” Grandma asked suspiciously, probably worried that I’d disappear with Grandpa.

“Afternoon milking, that’s all.”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “You are a McCray.”

The wind was whistling, but the temperature did not seem unbearable. There was no sign of my grandfather anywhere in the barnyard or the implement shed. The maintainer was gone, but I hadn’t heard Grandpa start it up or drive it off the property. Keeping Tucker well heeled on the leash, I pushed open the big sliding door into the milking barn. To my surprise, milking away, like nothing had happened, was Grandpa.

My grandmother was right. He looked tired and whatever he had been working on seemed to have taxed him to exhaustion. I put my hand on his shoulder; otherwise, I’m not sure he would have even noticed us standing there, watching him milk.

He looked up with his blue eyes that were mired in dark black circles. “Well, hello, George. Looks like you are feeling a lot better. I wish I could say the same.” He reached over and patted Tucker, too. “Hello, old boy. You’re quite the rescue dog, aren’t you?”

Skipping all pleasantries, I just asked, “Are you ever going to tell us what you’ve been working on? I haven’t seen much of you for the last couple of days, and Grandma is going crazy wondering.”

“I can tell you this much, George. You are going to like it.” He coughed several times and offered nothing further by way of an explanation.

Hoping to get a real answer this time, I continued, “Did the maintainer get stuck on the road that night? I didn’t see it in the shed.”

“Nope. Hank Fisher and I have been working on some alterations. Should be ready—real soon.”

“Hank?”

“Hank has an electric generator. With no power, I needed it for the arc welder.”

I still didn’t understand what he was doing or why he seemed so evasive.

He coughed again and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his shirtsleeve. “Don’t worry, George, you’ll see. You know, it was your idea; you said that we had to do something.”

It was a two-mile walk to Hank’s place and I couldn’t imagine walking that distance in this weather, but somehow Grandpa had been making the trip on foot. “Isn’t it hard walking that far on the ice?”

He leaned off the milking stool and lifted up one of his legs with a grin. He pulled his pants up above his ankles and showed off the bottoms of his boots. “With these little rascals, it was a nice morning for a walk.” He had taken roofing nails and hammered them into the soles.

“It worked?”

“Like a dream. That’s where I got the idea, the night before you took your swim.”

“What do you mean?” He obviously wanted to surprise me, but I was growing impatient.

He sniffled but did not answer, so I asked, “Do you feel all right?”

“Lousy. I need to get some sleep.”

Just then I heard the heavy rumbling of a big engine growing closer; the maintainer had pulled into the driveway. I hurried outside and my grandfather came along behind. Hank Fisher was behind the wheel and he had a giant smile on his face. He got down out of the cab and my grandfather shook his hand.

“Howdy, neighbor.”

Hank pointed to the maintainer with pride. “Well, what do you think?”

My grandfather walked around the machine, inspecting. “You did a great job.” He stopped at the wheels. It seemed that they had made a few modifications based on my suggestion.

Now I knew what they had been up to. I put my hand on one of the giant rear tires. “Wow!”

Hank stood back, proud of his work. “It was quite a job,” he said. “First, I had to find every logging chain I could get my hands on and cut each one to the right length. Welding the logging chains and the clasps together was the easy part. These babies are what took me all night.” He ran his hands over hundreds of small steel studs that had been welded onto the chain.

“How did you do it?” I asked.

“I had to cut steel rods into small studs. Then I laid the chain out flat so I could weld the studs onto the chain. I’m hoping the welds will hold. We won’t know for sure until we drop the blade.”

My grandfather coughed out his thoughts. “We’ll need to adjust the grading angle so that we turn the gravel over without pushing it off the road.” He pulled a locking pin up, which allowed
him to swing the blade so that it was perpendicular to the maintainer. He locked it in place by dropping the pin back down in the hole.

Hank nodded. “We can try to bring the drier gravel up from the bottom of the roadbed and bury the icier gravel.”

“The studs alone won’t be enough, but I got another idea that will hopefully make the difference. It’s an old trick I learned years ago with deep snow,” Grandpa said.

I could feel his excitement growing and I urged him on. “What?”

“When the snow is deep, the maintainer will do just fine on level ground and will do even better on the downhill stretches. It’s pushing snow uphill where you need more traction and power than the maintainer can deliver. George, remember that night after you got stuck in the yard? I said I needed to try something.…”

“Yes.”

“Well, that was it. I tried grading only on the downhill sections and flat sections. In the barnyard, you were trying to push on a slight uphill grade. When I turned down our hill, going west, it was much better. It was almost there. If we only grade going downhill, with the chains and the studs, I think we can make it.”