Blizzard 1946

Love never dies.

During the last week of February the heating coal finally ran out, so the man and woman made their first trip to town in four months.  The twenty mile ride to Billings over a bleak prairie trail took thirteen hours of hard travel in a bitter wind, and they had to dismount twice to help the horses drag the old wagon through deep drifts.  They arrived well after dark on the outskirts of town and went to the small rooming house where they stayed on their infrequent trips.  The man climbed off the wagon and held out his hand to his wife.  She immediately went inside the house to get out of the wind while he drove the wagon to the corral where he unhitched the horses and fed them. By the time he returned from the corral and kicked the snow from his boots, she had hot food ready in the dining room.  

It was their first trip to town since mid October, but they had no time to enjoy it.   They were up early the next morning to find the few provisions they needed, but mostly they needed coal.  Around midday, they went to a dealer near the railroad yards where the man bought a ton of hard Montana anthracite.  The horses started nervously when the coal dropped from the conveyor belt, but the man held their heads against his chest and they calmed.  The woman watched him from the wagon seat as he steadied the horses.  She understood why he refused to buy a truck; it went far deeper than his thin excuse about gas rationing.

 By the morning of the third day, when they left Billings, the wind had calmed.  They made good progress for several hours, but early in the afternoon at a place they called Ten-Mile Coulee, the front wagon wheels sank into a fresh snowdrift and the horses stopped pulling.  The woman shoveled coal from the wagon bed into a bucket and the man carried the coal, a bucket at a time, across the drift and a hundred yards to the far bank of the dry creek.  When they finished moving the coal, they helped the horses drag the wagon out of the big drift and up the steep bank on the far side of the coulee. Then without saying a word to one another, the man shoveled the coal into the wagon and the woman cooked food over a small fire.  For a few minutes while they ate, the sun broke through the clouds and warmed them.

Another storm slowly moved in from the north and they tried to get back to the ranch before it struck.  But they rode the last few miles to the ranch against the bitterly cold wind and the thick snow that blew straight at them.  The two huddled close to one another for warmth and they held their heads down to shield their faces from the stinging snow.  When the exhausted horses finally stopped in front of the low ranch house, the man helped the woman carry the boxes and sacks into the house before he drove the wagon into the barn.  He unhitched the team, and fed the other livestock in the barn.  By the time he finished a half hour later, the storm was a full blizzard.

He stomped the snow from his boots as he opened the kitchen door.  

“Something scared the cows while we were gone and they broke down the side of their stall.  They’re out in that storm somewhere and I need to go find them.” His hat and coat were covered with snow. 

“You can’t go out in this, John,” she said.  There was a tone in her voice that was half threat and half plea. “Those cows will take care of themselves tonight.  If you go looking for them in this storm and something happens to you, there’s nothing I can do to help you.  Wait until tomorrow when it’s light enough to find them.” 

The man stared at the worn pine floor, then sat himself stiffly on a bench next to the big iron cook stove. 

 “Here’s some coffee.” she said. “It’ll warm you.”  

He took it from her and started to say something, but stopped.

“John, you don’t need to worry. Things will work out; they always do.” He looked up at her, and she saw the deep worry lines on his worn face.  

“Thank you, Leah,” he said quietly as he held the hot cup in his wind-burned hands.  “You’re a good woman.”

They sat for a while by the stove and talked quietly while the blizzard outside howled.  Just before the old mantle clock chimed three times, they finally climbed the stairs to their cold bedroom in the attic.  The man fell asleep quickly, but the woman stayed awake and listened to the wind as it shook the windowpanes.  A loose sheet of roofing tin banged somewhere outside in the storm.  The man quietly snored and as she listened to him, she was somehow comforted. Before she fell asleep, she gently touched his worried face with her hand and whispered something to him.

The storm was still raging when they awoke after seven.  The woman watched as her husband got out of bed and stared out the window.  

“What does it look like this morning?” she asked from the bed.

“It don’t look good, Leah.  I can’t even see the barn through this blowing snow.  Worst storm since we moved here.  It was never this bad before and it’s almost March.”  

“It’s almost spring and the calendar don’t lie,” she said.   She saw his shoulders sag and she thought he already looked defeated as he climbed down the stairs to build a fire in the kitchen stove.

By the time she got to the kitchen, he had a fire burning in the stove and the room was almost warm.  She started cooking and soon the smell of eggs and bacon filled the kitchen.  Courage comes in a skillet this morning, John, she thought as she filled his plate 

“Those cows are probably in a coulee somewhere, waiting out this storm. They’re alright,” she said. He didn’t reply and they both ate their food in silence.

When he finished eating, he pulled on his boots and a heavy coat.  “I’m worried the wolves will get those cows.  The neighbor said he saw one last week when he was out riding his fences.  It was so big he thought it was a colt at first.”  

He put on his hat. 

“I’ll be home for lunch,” he said as he opened the door and walked out into the storm.

She watched him through the kitchen window as he leaned into the wind.  The snow was blowing so hard that only an outline of the barn was visible.  She worried about him this morning, but she didn’t dare tell him.  His horse could find its way home, even in a storm like this, but something could happen to the horse or to the man out in this weather.   But she was most worried by the way his shoulders sagged and by the weariness that covered his face like a dark veil.  He looked like he had lost his will to fight.

She slowly turned from the window when he disappeared into the barn and busied herself in the kitchen.  She tried to keep her mind off him out there in the storm, but each time the clock chimed, she thought about him again, and worried.  When the clock chimed one, she tried to convince herself that he was o.k. and that he was on his way home.  When it chimed three times, she went to the parlor and sat in her chair.  The storm still shook the windows, but at least the coal fire had finally warmed the house.  She didn’t enjoy sitting in the parlor by herself, because she felt lonely in a room that held too many memories for her.  She tried to close her eyes and rock herself asleep in her chair, but sleep wouldn’t come to her even though she was bone-weary from the trip to Billings.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw the two framed pictures of their son on the mantle next to the clock.  She tried to look away but didn’t and felt the grief as strong and as intense as it was on the day last spring when a big green Chevrolet drove into the yard. 

She was surprised to see the car. People didn’t drive much since the war had started and the government rationed gasoline.  She wondered who it was, until she saw an Army star on the car door.  A sharp fear tore through her when she saw an army officer and the preacher from a church in Billings get out of the car and walk to the house.

They asked for her husband and she told them he was working out in the field.  The officer went to find her husband while the preacher stood on the front porch.  She didn’t talk to the preacher or open the screen door and invite him in.  As long as she stayed behind the thin wire mesh, the terrible news they brought couldn’t get to her.  Then she turned from the preacher and sat in her chair. 

It took more than a half hour before the officer returned with her husband.  He tried to see where she was even as the preacher shook his hand and said something to him.  When he opened the screen door and walked toward her, the realization that her son was dead washed over her.  She grabbed her husband and sobbed against his chest as he gently seated her on the sofa.  She didn’t hear any of the details they gave.  All she remembered was that her husband had held her tightly while the officer told the story and when he finished, the room was quiet except for the ticking of the old clock.  Her head was still buried against her husband’s chest and she felt like she wasn’t even in the room, that she was floating above it and had watched all this from the outside.  She wanted to believe that the officer’s story was meant for someone else.  Some other son was dead, but not hers.  Hers was still alive somewhere, she knew it, and soon he would be back to help her husband with the ranch work, just like always.  For a long time, she sat there quietly thinking while her husband held her.  The other two men said nothing as they sat on the sofa across from the man and the woman.  

Then she pulled herself back into the room and tried to say something to the two men, but the only think she could think of was to ask them if they wanted to eat something before they went back to Billings.  They thanked her for her kindness, but declined her offer.  Their job was difficult and they wanted it over, so they walked to the big green car and drove away.  The man continued to hold the woman as they sat there and they both wept until the room was dark.

They didn’t talk much that day, and never about their son.  Their life together on the ranch died with him.  When spring finally did arrive, it came without hope.  The man tried to drown his grief with work, but his grief chafed on him and left him raw.  In the evenings when he came home, he sat and stared at the wall.  She tried to comfort him as best she could, but her own grief was still as raw as his and she didn’t have much comfort to give him.  When she was alone, she sat in her chair in the parlor and quietly wept.  

Later in the spring, they heard that the war in Europe was finally over and by late summer, young men from the county started to return home.  One or two of their son’s friends made the long trip out to the ranch, but each time, the scab was pulled off their grief and their wounds were fresh and bleeding again.  The man and the woman rarely left the ranch after the death of their son and they went to town only once or twice during the year.  Their grief cut them off from the rest of their world and fed on their loneliness.

The woman sat in her chair with her thoughts until the chiming of the clock brought her back to the present and she realized it was almost dark outside.  The storm had died down some and she could see the barn clearly for the first time all day.  She also saw that one of the barn doors was ajar and she could see a lantern light.  John’s home, she thought, and she put on her coat go greet him.

When she walked into the barn, she saw the horse was tied to a stall, but she didn’t see her husband.  “John?” she called, but there was no reply.  She paused to listen.  “John?” she called again and she went stall to stall looking for him.  Panic rose like a lump in her throat. “John, where are you?”she shouted.  

Then she saw his foot by the horse stall.  He was face down in the fresh straw and his coat was covered in snow.

“John, what happened?  Are you o.k.?” She rushed to help him.  The man didn’t respond as she rolled him over and his eyes were closed.  She held her ear close to his face and he wasn’t breathing.  “John,” she screamed, “you can’t do this.  You can’t leave me.”  A strange anger stirred in her and she shook him to wake him up, but he still didn’t respond.  She grabbed the oil lantern and placed it by the man’s head so she could see his face.  She opened his eye but there was no movement.  She moved him so she could hold his head in her lap and she tried to squeeze life back into him.  She held him this way until her arms and back started to ache, so she relaxed and stroked his hair with her hand.  The awfulness started to creep into her mind and it went through her like a hot fire that raged her heart and slowly burned through each of her veins. The burning made her sick but she held him tight until her tears started to fall on his face.

After a while, a change came over her.  She opened her eyes, clenched her teeth, and gently moved his head from her lap.  She walked out of the stall and untied the horse.  After she fed it, she led the horse to the barn door, and shooed it into the night.  Then she went stall by stall to feed and free the other livestock.  When she finally finished, she went back to the stall where her husband was lying and she held him again, but this time she didn’t cry.  She started to softly sing as she rocked him back and forth.  While she sang, she remembered details of their lives together and how they moved to this place when they were desperate and the Depression had left them with no place else to go.  She thought about the man and how their son was so much like him.  She remembered the good years at this place when they were together and they had hope.  It was late when she finally stopped singing to the man.  The storm outside slowly blew itself out, but she didn’t hear it.  She was alone with the man and her thoughts were far away.  

When she finally opened her eyes, she stared for a long time at the oil lantern that still burned dimly.  Her face turned hard and determined, and with her eyes half-closed, she slowly and deliberately kicked it over with her foot.  She saw the oil drip onto the straw and watched the fire spread with the oil.  The fire grew and warmed her.  It grew hotter and bigger.  She held her face over the man’s face and her hair hid the flames from her eyes. 

Over in the dark house, the kitchen stove grew cold.