Shortgrass Song (42 page)

Caleb turned to look at the moon. A thick mist had snuck under it, cutting its light in half. Even as he watched it, the mist thickened. There were no stars in the north. A storm was coming. A blizzard!

He cinched Five Spot tight in his hull and climbed aboard. His bootprints proved easy enough to follow back through the buffalo trail. An hour from his friends! Out of the buffalo tracks, he spurred Five Spot to a lope. The moon withered behind veils of clouds. The trail was harder to follow than a dream, barely visible.

A swirl of cold air crossed him: the first breeze he had felt all night. A gust whipped in from another quarter. The playful winds that rode before the storm caressed him with icy fingers. The moon? Gone. Only a silver fringe on the clouds. Three quarters of an hour from his friends, and the blizzard was about to strike. The trail: almost invisible.

The storm announced its own arrival. Caleb braced himself, held on to his hat. He heard the winds roar a full minute before they struck. Sleet spattered against his brim, and the full force of the norther hit him like a wall. Almost immediately the trail vanished in slush. But the wind had hit him directly in the face. In a cruel way, it would guide him.

Head into the wind, and you will find your friends.

The mare hated it. He had to fight her constantly to keep her going. Ten steps, then she would turn. The sleet stung her eyes. She felt compelled by some ancient instinct to drift south with the winds.

Even the snow was black now. Caleb navigated by wind direction alone. Five Spot turned with every three steps. He faced her into the wind again, spurred her. She took three steps and turned. He spurred her back into the wind. She faced it, turned the other way. He spurred her again, pulling at the reins. She refused to move.

Terror swept over him with the cold, biting wind. What now? A gunshot? Three rounds for distress. He pulled his pistol out, pointed it in the air. But the other boys were in the same fix. He had heard none of them shoot. They were too far away to hear. Besides, he might bring Indians instead of friends. He put the pistol away.

Maybe the mare, in the ignorant wisdom of animals, knew something he didn't. Would he stand there and let her freeze, or would he allow her to turn south. Yes, south. He could find cover somewhere. A rill, a creek, a canyon.

You're not going to die. You're going to be cold and miserable, but you will live. Lost and alone, yes. Dead, no.

He loosened the blanket lashed down behind the cantle, pulled it around his shoulders, and turned his back to the wind. Snow fell in stinging frozen flakes. He pulled his collar up around his ears. The leather gloves were worthless against the ice. The boots all but conducted the cold to the very bones of his toes. Five Spot had the reins. She dropped her head into the lee of her own body and trudged south.

The blanket froze stiff around him, a cocoon of ice. Warmth was something of distant memories. He had a fear of falling from the saddle, so he refused to ride without a hand on the horn. He kept the other hand under his armpit. Stiffness set in. His feet ached. He tried to move them but wasn't sure they obeyed. He knew he had to get down and walk. The exercise would thaw his limbs.

He got down and pressed himself against the mare's neck, the reins looped around one elbow. The wind howled so that he couldn't hear her footsteps, and the cold numbed him so that he couldn't feel his own. Walking was a mistake. It made him tired. It didn't warm him at all. He climbed back into the saddle, his hands so numb they wouldn't grip the horn. The shivering started. It became an uncontrollable shudder that shook his whole body.

Am I dying? Am I freezing to death?

Five Spot stopped. He was almost unaware of it, except that the rocking motion under him ceased. He spurred her, but she wouldn't move. There was something in front of her. He dropped stiffly from the saddle, felt ahead of the horse with his boot. His foot slipped out from under him, and he landed on his rear. His feet dangled. She had found a canyon, a gully. Maybe just a ditch. Maybe there was wood. He had matches in his saddlebag.

Turning right, he searched the rim of the bank. He began to see the size of it. It was a black fissure in the mottled gray world of nighttime snow. He could see the other side, only yards away. But if it was six feet deep, just six feet, it would shelter him from the winds. The brink became a slope. He could sense it angling into the gully. He led the mare downward, probing with numb feet. Down by inches, carefully he dropped into the crack. The wind ceased to press against his pants legs, his blanket, his hat brim. He was in. Out of the wind! He came to the bottom of the prairie trench.

Just deep enough. Streams flow east here. Turn left, downstream. The gully will get deeper. Find wood.

Caleb stumbled on until his feet snagged a shrub. That will burn, he thought. He felt around with his legs. Scrub oak. Maybe cedar. It will burn. He found a steep cutbank to the north, maybe eight feet high. It would cut the wind. He was thinking of fire now. He had to stake the horse, get the matches, gather something that would burn. He heard Burl Sandeen's voice in his head: “Two dry sticks will burn a green one, son.”

His hands were freezing. They gripped with the strength of an infant. His fingers grappled helplessly with the latigo. Only by using his teeth could he loosen it around the saddle ring. He dragged the saddle against the bluff, set it upright on its fork, and huddled against the horse warmth that the fleece lining held so briefly. He let Five Spot keep the saddle blanket and unfolded it to cover more of her back. She had the Palouse-country blood. She would survive the cold. She wore a stake rope around her neck, but Caleb knew he could never drive a pin into the frozen ground. He tied the rope around his waist instead.

Floundering in the dark, he gathered brush and grass to burn. The rope kept him from straying too far. Some of the scrubby bushes had gnarled bases wrist-thick. He kicked them, stomped them, clamped them in the crook of his elbow, and pulled them up by the roots. He herded the fuel up against his saddle.

He needed tinder. What will light easily? He remembered the lyrics to “Hell Among the Yearlings,” written on a scrap of paper in the mandolin case.

He pulled his saddlebag and his instruments into the fleece-lined curve of the saddle. He had only one piece of paper. One chance to light the fire. He would have to plan carefully.

To block the wind he pulled the stirrups in against his legs and draped his blanket over his head. He kept the paper dry in the mandolin case, slapped the sticks together to knock the ice off, built the firewood up, small stuff on the bottom. He pulled the rope running to Five Spot over one knee to keep it out of the way. Now he would get a match ready, slip the paper under the wood, and light it.

His frozen fingers fumbled helplessly in the saddlebag. He could not feel the matchbox, let alone hold a match to strike it. He peeled the gloves off with his teeth and pushed his numb digits under his coat, into his armpits. He sat for the longest time, shivering, waiting for his fingers to warm. Finally he yanked his bare hands back into the cold, found the paper, placed it, struck a match against the box, and held it under the lyrics.

God, if you're there, give me fire.

His wind block worked well. The paper took the flame easily. A twig crackled. The initial flare from the burning paper died, but small orange flames clung to the grasses and twigs, reaching up to the bigger stuff. Caleb fed the meager flickers with blades of grass. One of them began to grow, and he let the others die to keep the one alive. It spread to a new twig, and his heart leaped. It burgeoned and began to thrive.

Cupping his hands over the flame, he began to feel hopeful again. The wood was burning slowly. It would last. He wanted to chunk up the fire to roaring but knew it would eat fuel too fast. Better to burn it slowly, catching the heat under his blanket and under his hands. They ached terribly as they warmed. He reached for another shrub and stripped a branch from it.

The flickering light made him think to look around at his gully. He couldn't see much with the blanket over his head and the firelight in his eyes. He had harvested most of the nearby brush. There were a few small rocks peeking out of the snow here and there. Rocks! He had seen red-hot rocks used to heat whole rooms before. They took in warmth, held it, released it slowly. He craned his neck to see under his blanket and grabbed every rock within reach. They were small and few, but he stacked them around the fire.

Coals began to drop among the cold stones. Wisps of smoke burned his eyes and lungs, but he put up with it by squinting and holding his breath. Feeling warmer, he stoked the fire with more brush. He touched one of the rocks. Getting warm.

You're smart, boy. You're going to make it. You're going to live. Damn, won't Pete like to hear about this one?

Suddenly a cramp seized him below the ribs, and the fire passed under him, bursting all around in a spray of orange coals. The blanket flew away and let the frigid wind cut him. The horse was dragging him! He heard a snarl and a yelp. The rope slacked, then jerked him again. A mass of soft, wet fur brushed by. Wolves! The mare bolted as he pulled at the half hitch around his waist. The knot slipped, the rope whirring against his corduroy jacket. The hooves clopped away, muffled by snowfall.

“Son of a bitch!” Caleb stood and drew his pistol. He fired a round. The horse made another pass! He could barely see the dark Appaloosa spots on her white rump. He heard the hooves lashing the brush, the hum of the rope around skinny branches, the popping teeth of the wolves. He fired again, the powder flash giving him a glimpse of two wolves in a running blur.

There was silence again. Then he saw the spots and chased after them. “Whoa, girl!” They stayed just beyond his reach in the blizzard. Something caught his ankle, throwing him down. The spots! He jumped and ran again, but the spots lurched ahead of him. Where were the wolves and the sound of hooves on the ground? Caleb stopped, panting, his lungs aching with cold air. He blinked. The spots were under his eyelids now. Snowflakes lit by the pistol blasts. The mare was gone.

“You stupid fool.” His gloves were gone. His blanket, gone. Where was he now? Where was his fire?

Don't panic. Stay in the gully. The fire, the saddle, the blanket. They are all in the gully. Search one way, then the other.

Caleb found the coals barely glowing beside his saddle. He found a warm rock, cradled it in his hand for a moment. He had to work quickly. The coals had little left. He pushed a few scattered embers together with a rock, broke some twigs and stacked them on the coals. He blew until he felt dizzy. The brush was too wet. It wouldn't catch. He needed dry wood.

The fiddle case was made of wood. He clawed at the latches, took the instrument out, and bashed the case against the ground. It splintered. He put the dry flinders on the coals and blew until his lungs ached. Suddenly there was a flame. He nurtured it, piled on more fuel, found the blanket, nestled back into the cup of the saddle, covered his head, stacked the rocks.

Safe again. And lucky.

Exhaustion overwhelmed him. It was work to pick up the wood and apply it to the blaze. But the shivering ceased and the feeling came back to his hands. The feeling was mostly pain. His brush pile had scattered when the horse dragged him through the fire. There was little left. He dumped the mandolin out. Its case was leather stretched over a wooden frame. When the time came, he propped it, too, over the dwindling flames.

How long had he been in the gully? Two hours? Three? How long till daylight? Hours yet. Nothing more to burn. The saddle tree was covered with leather. Rosin! For the fiddle bow! He found the chunk and placed it on the fire. It flared fantastically, crackled, gave good heat, but didn't last. The bow! He could get another cheap. It snapped in his hands like a twig. The horsehair gave a terrible stench, but the slender length of hardwood warmed him for fifteen minutes.

He needed a barrel of rosin and a cord of fiddle bows. The fire was dying again. Hours yet till dawn.

The neck of the fiddle felt frail in Caleb's hand. He broke it across his knee with surprising facility. It was so delicate, he wondered that he hadn't broken it before. That night in Milt Starling's saloon in Black Hawk, when he got drunk, fell off the stool, and dropped it; it should have broken then.

The ebony, spruce, and maple burned hot. The rocks reddened. The neck of the fiddle was his Yule log. He fed the fire slowly, trying to make it last.

He felt warmer now, and he wanted to feel warmer yet. He wished for a guitar. He wondered how long a bass fiddle would burn. The mandolin snapped with a hollow sound and a quick slacking of vibrating strings. It reddened the rocks even more. He thought about crawling around for more brush, but he was too stiff and tired. The last flicker slipped back into the red coals. They died quickly. Hot rocks were all that stood between Caleb and freezing.

He crossed his legs, Indian style, around the rocks and sealed the blanket under him to hold in the warmth. He could hunker over the rocks and hold his hands just above them. When they cooled some, he put his hands directly on them. The wind was still roaring across the prairie above, and the blanket was taking on layers of ice. He was so tired, he didn't know whether his eyes were open or closed. He felt stiff and sore and lonely for a while. Then he felt nothing at all.

*   *   *

A noise woke Caleb, and he found himself almost paralyzed with cold. There was a tiny hole in his blanket that let in a dull thread of light. The sound he had heard was that of snow-muffled hooves. He tried to move but felt as if he had forgotten how. His hands felt like clubs on the ends of his arms. Summoning every morsel of strength he had, he lifted his arms and pushed the blanket up around him. Snow poured into his lap. He heard the horse grunt and leap.

“Whoa, boy,” a voice said. “Damn, what the…”

Caleb's head and chest were poking out of the snow, the collapsed cone of the frozen blanket lying beside him.