Years (59 page)

He laid and thought about the horses until he couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Listen, John,” he said as casually as possible. “I gotta roll out a minute.”

“What for?”

Damn you, John, after a lifetime of not asking questions, this is a fine time to start.

“Gotta make yellow snow,” he lied. “But you stay here. I think I can roll over you.”

Outside, he was alarmed to see how quickly the drift was building up around their makeshift shelter. Already it had stopped the free wheel from turning. He flicked the reins off the wagon wheel, and in spite of the cold, took a moment to affectionately brush each horse’s muzzle, whispering into their ears, “You’re a good old girl, Toots... You, too, Cub. Remember that.” Their rumps were to the wind, head down. Snow glistened in their tangled manes and tails, but they stood patiently, unconcerned about whatever befell.

Just like John’s done all his life.

But fatalistic thoughts did no good. Theodore pushed them from his mind and went down on one knee. As his palm pressed a sack of seed corn, he had an inspiration. He leaned low and peered through the opening. “Roll to the back, John. Gonna give us something warmer to lay on.” He took a jackknife from his pocket, plunged it into the bag, and tore a long gash. As the corn poured out he scooped it under the wagon with both hands. It was blessedly warm with trapped heat. “Spread it in there, John.” He had only three sacks to spare. The others were necessary to hold the wagon up and give them an escape hatch. But when the three bags were distributed, the corn made a more comfortable bed. Huddled again, belly to back, the two men wriggled into it, absorbing its warmth.

They’d been snuggled for some time when John asked, “You didn’t go out to pee, did you?”

Startled, Theodore could only lie. “Course I did.”

“I think you went out to turn Cub and Toots loose.”

Again Theodore thought,
A fine time for you to get wise, big brother.

“Why don’t you close your eyes and try to sleep for a while.
It’ll make the time go faster.”

But time had never moved so slowly. After a while the corn shifted, leaving them lying on pebbles and sticks again. What little warmth they’d absorbed from it ended. The shudders began — first in John and eventually in Theodore. They watched the white of day fade to the purple of evening.

They’d been lying in silence for a long time when John spoke. “Did you and the little missy have a fight, Teddy?”

A knot clogged Theodore’s throat. He closed his eyes and tried to gulp it down, refusing to admit why John had brought up such a subject at a time like this.

“Yeah,” he managed.

John didn’t ask. John would never ask.

“She’s pregnant and I... well, I got real ugly about it and told her I didn’t want any more babies.”

“You shouldn’t’ve did that, Teddy.”

“I know.”

And if they froze to death under this damn wagon, he’d never have a chance to tell her how sorry he was. Her image as he’d last seen her filled his mind — standing with a rake in one hand, her eyes shaded by the other, the children scattered all around her like a flock of finches, and the white building in the background with its door thrown wide. He recalled the row of cottonwoods coming in green at their tips, the ditch filled with wild crocus, Kristian raking near the edge of the ditch — the two people he loved most in the world, and he’d been ugly to both of them lately. Linnea had waved and called! hello, but he’d been stubborn and had scarcely waved back How he wished now he had. He ached and felt like crying. But if he cried, who’d keep John from giving up?

To make matters worse, John suddenly snapped. He thrust Theodore’s arm away and shinnied on his belly toward freedom.

“I can’t take it no more. I gotta get out of here for a while.”

Theodore grabbed the seat of John’s overalls. “No! Come on, John, it’s bad under here but it’s worse out there. The temperature is dropping and you’ll freeze in no time.”

“Let me go, Teddy. Just for a minute. I just got to, before night falls and I can’t see no more.”

“All right. We’ll go out together, check the horses and the snow. See if it’s lettin’ up.”

But it wasn’t. The horses were almost belly deep and the
wagon was a solid hillock now. The only opening was on the leeward side, where the wind had swirled, creating a one-foot crawl space for their use. Standing in it, Theodore hugged himself, watching John stretch and breathe deeply, lifting his face to the sky. Damn fool would have frozen fingers if he didn’t tuck his hands beneath his arms.

“Come on, John, we got to go back under. It’s too cold out here.”

“You go. I’m just gonna stay here a minute.”

“Damn it, John, you’ll freeze! Now get back under there!”

At the severe tone of the reprimand, John immediately became docile. “A... all right. But I got to be closest to the opening again, okay, Teddy?”

His childlike plea made Theodore immediately sorry he’d scolded.

“All right, but hurry. If our hands aren’t froze already, they will be soon.”

Back in their burrow, John asked, “Can you feel your fingers anymore, Teddy?”

“Don’t know for sure, but I’m not gonna think about it.”

They fell silent again. Soon the world beyond their shelter grew totally black.

“I think my nose is froze,” John mumbled.

“Well, if you’d turn over here and face the inside or let me be on the outside for a while it might maw. What difference does it make now anyway? It’s night outside, just as black out there as it is in here.”

All John would say was, “I got to have my air hole at least.”

Miraculously, they slept.

Theodore awakened and blinked, disoriented. At his side John was too still. Panic clawed through him. “John, wake up! Wake up!” He shook his brother violently.

“Huh?” John moved slightly. Theodore reached for his face in the blackness. It felt frozen. But maybe what was frozen was his own hand.

“You got to roll over. Come on now, don’t argue.” This time John submitted. Theodore put both arms around him and held him as if he were a child, willing his own fright to subside. They couldn’t die out here this way. They just couldn’t. Why, when they left home Ma had had sheets hangin’ on the line and bread rising in the oven. By now it would be baked and
in the bread box. They were gonna go fishing with Ulmer one day this week. And Kristian was going to be graduating from the eighth grade in four more weeks. What ever would Kristian say if his pa missed the ceremony? And Linnea — oh, his sweet Linnea — she still thought he was mad at her. And she was going to have their baby. He couldn’t die without seeing their baby. Lying in the inky blackness beneath an overturned wagon, with his brother shaking in his arms, Theodore found all these thoughts to be valid reasons why the blizzard couldn’t win.

His ribs hurt terribly. There was no feeling in his toes, and his head throbbed when he tried to lift it off the corn. In spite of it, he dozed again, but some distracting thought kept him just short of sleeping fully — something he had to tell Linnea when he saw her next time. Something he should have told her last night.

He awakened again. John’s breath was steady on his face. He wondered how much time had passed, if it was still the first night. But he felt disoriented and mysteriously weightless. As if his entire body were filled with warm, buoyant air.

He couldn’t keep his thoughts clear. Was he close?

No!

He thrust John back.

“Wha... ”

“Git up, John. Git out of here. We got to move, I think, else more of us is gonna freeze, if it isn’t already.”

“Not sure I can.”

“Try, damn it!”

They rolled out, stumbling. The blizzard was worse than ever. It hit them with the same invincible wall of snow and wind as before. The horses were still there, loyally waiting. They whinnied, shook their heads, tried for a step forward but were thwarted by the drifts beneath their bellies.

The men fought their way to the animals. “Put your hands by Cub’s nose. Maybe his breath will warm ‘em.” Theodore instructed.

They stood at the horses’ heads, trying to warm themselves against anything that would provide the slightest bit of heat. But it was hopeless, and Theodore knew it.

In the eastern sky a dim light was beginning to glow through the driving snowfall. By it he tried to check his watch, only to find that his fingers could not handle the delicate catch to
open its lid. He returned it to his pocket, held Toots’s head, leaning his cheek on her forelock, wondering if a man knew when he’d stretched fate to its limits — the exact hour, the exact minute when destiny needed manipulation if he were to survive.

There was one possible way. But he resisted it, had been resisting it all through the cramped, fearful hours of the long night when he’d lain trying to warm his quivering body against his brother’s, knowing that the rifle lay just behind his back. He hugged Cub’s face with an apology the beast didn’t understand. He pressed his icy lips to the hard bone just above her velvet nose. How many years had he known these horses? All his life. They’d been his father’s even before he himself had grown old enough to take up the reins. Behind them he’d learned the terms and tones of authority. To their long, nodding gait he’d learned to control power great enough to kill, should it turn on him. Yet it never did. Cub. Toots. His prized pair. The ones he kept behind, winters. Older than all the others, but with so much heart there were times their understanding seemed almost human. They had, in their years, provided a good life. Could he ask them now to give him life at the cost of their own?

He stepped back, steeling himself, telling himself they were dumb animals, nothing more. “John, get my gun.”

“Wh... what... y... you... g... gonna... d... do?” John’s teeth were rattling like the tail of a snake.

“Just get it.”

“N... no! I ain’t g... gonna!” It was the first time in his life John had ever defied his brother.

With a muttered curse, Theodore knelt and fished the gun from beneath the wagon. He’d barely regained his feet when John’s hand clamped the barrel and pointed it skyward. They stared into each other’s eyes — haunted, both — neither of them feeling the icy black metal in their frozen fingers.

“Teddy, no!”

Theodore cocked the gun. The metallic clack bore the sound of doom.

“No, T... Teddy, you c... can’t!”

“I got to, John.”

“N... no... I’d r-r-rather f... freeze t... to d... death.”

“And you will if I don’t do it.”

“I d... don’t c... care.”

“Think of Ma and the others. They care.
I
care, John.” They stood a moment longer, gazes locked, while precious seconds ticked away and the blizzard raged on. “Let the gun go. Your fingers’re already froze.”

As John’s hand fell, so did his head. He stood slumped, abject, unaware of the wind howling about his head, throwing fine shards of ice down the back of his collar.

Theodore stood beside Cub, his whole body trembling, jaw clenched so tightly it ached more than any other part of his body. In his throat was a wad of emotion he could neither swallow nor cough up. It lodged there, choking him. I’m sorry, old boy, he wanted to say, but could not. His heart slammed sickeningly as he raised the gun only to find he could not see down the sight. He lifted his cheek from the stalk and backhanded the tears away roughly, then took aim again. When he pulled the trigger he didn’t even feel it; his finger was frozen. He fired the second shot rapidly, giving himself no time to think, to see.

Just do it, something said. Do what you got to do and don’t think. He opened the pocket knife with his teeth because his fingers couldn’t manage it. The blade froze to his tongue and tore off a patch of skin. Again, there was no feeling. He had closed himself off from it, moving with a grim determination that had hardened the planes of his face and turned his eyes flat and expressionless.

He plunged the knife to the hilt, shutting his mind against the gush of scarlet that colored the pristine snow at his knees. He ripped a hole two hands wide and ordered, “Get over here, John!”

When John remained rooted, Theodore lurched to his feet, jerked him around by the shoulder and gritted, “Move!” Ruthlessly, he gave his brother a shove that sent him to his knees. “Get your hands in there. This is no time to be queasy!”

Tears were coursing down John’s cheeks as he slipped his hands into the sleek, wet warmth.

Mercilessly, Theodore turned to utilize the warmth of the second animal. While his hands thawed, he forced from his mind all thought of what pressed against his flesh. He thought instead of Linnea, her hair streaming in the wind, her face bright with laughter, the gold watch on her breast, the child in her womb. As the feeling returned to his hands, the pain grew
intense. He clenched his teeth and rocked on his knees, swallowing the cry he could not let John hear.

But the worst was yet to come.

When his hands had warmed and he could hold the knife, he knelt beside the warm carcass, closed his eyes, and drew several deep, fortifying breaths, swallowed the gorge in his throat, and ordered John, “Get out your knife and gut ‘er.”

But even while Theodore set to work on his own grisly task, John knelt motionless, in a stupor. “Do it, John!” Terror, nausea, and pity tugged at Theodore’s body while he performed woodenly, forcing the gruesomeness from his mind. Several times he had to struggle to his feet and turn away to breathe untainted air and gather fortitude. And all the while John knelt beside Toots’s felled body, rattling now with shock, unable to perform the smallest task.

By the time Theodore finished, he was — unbelievably — sweating. It was arduous labor, the horse’s carcass heavy and unwieldy. Much of the job had to be done by feel, leaning low, his cheek laying against the familiar brown hide while he slashed and pulled.

When at last he struggled to his feet, dizzy and weak, he knew John was incapable of helping either of them in any way.

“Get in, John. I’ll help you.”

Staring, glassy-eyed, John shook his head. Snow had made a fresh drift around his knees. His bloody hands rested motionless on his thighs.