Unforgettable Christmas Dreams: Gifts of Joy

by Rebecca York

  From his vantage point he could look down upon a small ranch where the different colored hens roamed around their fenced yard during the daytime. The sight always made him hungry for fresh eggs. He’d give a lot for a couple of fried eggs, over easy. Maybe the rancher would sell him some. It was worth the try.

  He took off his gloves and pulled his parka aside so that he could check his wallet. He had a five-dollar bill inside, along with his credit cards. Five dollars should buy some eggs.

  He drove the snowmobile as close as he could, then worked his way down the steep hillside, coming out behind the two barns. He walked past an ice-covered pond to the farmhouse and knocked on the door, almost tasting the eggs.

  No answer. He waited and knocked again, as loudly as possible, but still no response. Maybe the family had gone to town.

  It was getting darker and he didn’t want to be driving the snowmobile home in the dark, so he left. But he had to pass by the henhouse on his way.

  A glance at the fenced enclosure showed that the hens were all inside for the night. Were there any eggs? Do hens lay in winter? He didn’t know, so, curious, he opened the door and went in.

  The hens were roosting, all huddled together in two rows. They looked warm and snug. Their nests were off the ground, along the side of the small house. He looked in one.

  Eggs! Fresh eggs in the nest. Three beautiful eggs, chocolate brown in color, unlike any eggs he had ever seen. He picked one up, looked at it, and his mouth watered. He put it back, turned away, then turned back again.

  He’d never taken anything without asking in his life. But three eggs? Nothing much. He wasn’t a thief. He could pay for them. It wasn’t like he was broke.

  Pulling out his wallet he put the five-dollar bill in the nest and took the three eggs. That would more than pay for them. He looked in the next nest. No eggs there, but there were two more brown ones in the third nest over.

  No. The family might need them. Three eggs would be enough to satisfy him. He might come back later on this month and see if he could buy some more.

  Placing the precious eggs in his cap, he was careful to latch the henhouse door when he went out. Past the barns and through the corrals, he had climbed halfway up the steep hill when he heard a dog start to bark, then a shout.

  He stopped and turned around. Two people stood by the corrals. He took a step downward, ready to go back and explain when he saw the shotgun in the rancher’s hand and a huge dog charging towards him.

  Oh, oh. The rancher looked ready to shoot.

  Carlton ran up the rest of the hill as fast as he could, the sound of the shotgun making him hurry faster than his feet could move in the snow, so that he tripped and fell forward, face-planting just before he reached his snowmobile.

  Something broke. He heard it, felt it. Egg! Egg on his face. Had he broken all of them when he fell? He didn’t have time to check. Acute disappointment mingled with panic as he saw the dog running closer, bounding up the hill.

  He jumped onto the snowmobile, got it started just as the barking dog reached him, and drove off through the snow. The dog lunged after him, keeping pace for a few yards, then fell behind. Carlton continued on for a half mile at top speed, then slowed.

  He glanced behind. No sign of the dog, so it must have turned around. It was a beautiful dog, multicolored, a Bernese mountain dog. One of his uncles owned one, but he didn’t think its coat was as beautiful as this one’s. He drove on back to the line cabin, parked, took the eggs inside and looked at them.

  Only one had broken, the other two survived. The sight of them lifted his spirits in spite of the egg on his face. He put the ones not cracked into his small cooler to await breakfast. He washed his face and beard, and then his cap. Egg was not easy to get off, he discovered, and he was glad that none had splashed onto his parka.

  He checked his clothes for buckshot, but didn’t find any. He must have been out of range by the time the rancher fired at him. He’d been shot at before, while stationed overseas, but he always had a rifle with him and could fire back. He’d felt pretty vulnerable, running with a shotgun at his back.

  Carlton examined his face for egg in the cracked mirror hung above the washbasin. He hadn’t brought along much in the way of furnishings, because his grandfather said everything was here. Frank must not have been over recently, or he wouldn’t have said that.

  It looked like he had gotten all the egg washed off, even that caught in his beard. It was getting long and bushy, and needed trimming. He’d stopped shaving right after he moved into the line cabin, as there didn’t seem to be any reason to continue. He’d also tried whacking back some of his hair as it grew, resulting in a pretty sad haircut.

  He looked at his reflection. No wonder that rancher had turned the dog on him. He looked like an old time cattle rustler right out of the mountains. It was a good thing the rancher wasn’t a very good shot. Shooting at someone, over the loss of some eggs?

  Would he have tried to shoot someone who took eggs from him? It seemed an overreaction. Eggs weren’t that valuable.

  Still, he shouldn’t have taken the eggs in the first place, even leaving money for them. He should have looked harder for the family and then asked if he could buy them. Maybe they needed those eggs.

  The more he thought about what he’d done, the more ashamed of himself he became. He wasn’t going back to that place again. Never! Hopefully they didn’t know who he was.

  His grandfather would have his hide if he thought Carlton had stolen anything, much less three eggs. Even though he had left money for them, it didn’t help to ease his conscience any.

  ***

  Helen Ashton lowered her shotgun, which she’d fired to make sure the vagrant didn’t return. She hadn’t shot at him, instead pointing the muzzle at the ground, but he couldn’t know that. Hopefully she had scared him off sufficiently so that he wouldn’t be coming back.

  They had seen the henhouse door open and shut, so knew someone had to be around. She had sent her teenage son, Todd, back into the house to retrieve the shotgun, aiming to scare off any human coyote.

  Coyotes were big chicken thieves, but they couldn’t open a latched door by themselves. The stranger came out of the henhouse and was halfway up the hill before Todd got back with the gun.

  The man had run, so she had shot, the sound loud in her ears. That should keep him away.

  “Did he take anything?” she asked Todd. “Any chickens?”

  Todd hurried over to the henhouse and went inside. He came out after about five minutes, shaking his head. “All the hens are there, Mom. I can’t tell if he took any eggs, but the count is low. We usually have more brown eggs.”

  “Maybe I should have aimed at him.” She stood and squinted in the direction the man had run. Their dog, Rufus, was running back down the hill, fur flying in all directions, his tail following like a furry pennant behind him. “I wonder where he went? There’s nothing out there for miles.”

  “I heard a motor,” Todd replied. His hearing was sharper than hers. “Probably had a snowmobile.”

  “Oh? Maybe not a vagrant then. But what was he doing in the henhouse? Better get the eggs collected,” she added. “If it gets any colder, those eggs will freeze in the nests.”

  She turned and walked back to their ranch house. Like many Montana homes, it had been built to weather deep snow and low temperatures. Parts of two walls were made of the original logs of Lodgepole pine, put up when the land was homesteaded. Her late husband, Ken, had added insulation and sheetrock. The ranch house had lost most of its log cabin feel, but it did a much better job of keeping out insects and the wind.

  Helen unloaded the shotgun and put it back into the gun cabinet. She’d had a crockpot full of venison stew cooking all day. It was time to throw in the few veggies that she didn’t want cooked to death.

  Todd would milk their one cow while she got the rest of the supper ready. She didn’t know what she would do without him. One of these days he would either choose to tak
e over the ranch, or go out and work in some other field.

  He was eighteen, as tall as Ken was when she married him. She and Ken had married just after high school, and Ken went to work for his father on the ranch, while his older brother went on to college. Todd was born the next year, but being young, they felt that they could handle anything.

  They loved the ranching life. She still did. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, but she might have to.

  She tossed in chunks of potatoes and a handful of sun-dried corn. When Ken had first died, she had almost given up in the face of his huge medical bills, but Todd was already fourteen at the time, big enough to handle a lot of a man’s work, and the two of them managed.

  Todd encouraged her to keep the ranch going, so she juggled the bills and paid them off as the money became available. It hadn’t been easy. What hurt the most was being forced to sell off so much of the breeding stock to pay the bills. She was reduced to one bull and twenty cows. It wasn’t enough to re-grow the herd to the point where they could pay off the mortgage on the ranch fast enough.

  She didn’t know what she was going to do. They were running out of ways to earn cash.

  ***

  By the time a snowstorm hit five weeks later, Carlton had finished his basic research and uploaded the last of it into the cloud. He had wanted peace and quiet so that he could get done, and he had had that in plenty, so much so that it had only taken him half as long to complete his work as he had figured on. Instead of early March, he was finished in late December.

  With his research done, all he had to do now was write up his findings and present a final conclusion to his advisor. He had built his graphs and statistical charts as he went along, so those were all finished.

  When he first arrived at the cabin, he had tuned his radio into a talk station where he could listen when he chose to while working, and not listen when he didn’t want to. Then it died, and he found it much harder to work long hours. He grew tired of the sound of his own voice, raised in song or whistling, just to break the stillness.

  He checked the calendar on his computer. A few more days and he’d ride his grandfather’s snowmobile over to the main house and join his grandparents for Christmas dinner. He could almost taste his grandmother’s cooking.

  Afterward he would come back one last time pulling a sled and pack up his belongings. He wouldn’t make a very good hermit. He’d had his fill of quiet.

  Carlton went outside to make sure the snowmobile was in the lean-to, out of the weather. The snow was blowing in, and he threw a tarp over the machine. It was warm enough out that the snow coming down was wet and heavy. Perfect for snowballs, but he didn’t have anyone to throw them at.

  It snowed all that night and the next day, piles of it. The storm brought down his phone line, along with his electricity and internet connection. It was all carried on the same poles, but his cell phone was still charged and he avoided using it, keeping it for any emergency.

  The next night he went to bed early, telling himself one more day and he’d be gone. As usual he turned down the heat from the little pot-bellied stove that stood in the center of the cabin.

  It was a small wood-burning stove. When he’d first arrived, he had taken one look at its size and thought he’d be wearing his coat inside most of the time. Instead, he found it to be more than sufficient, and had to make sure he kept it banked down enough.

  He crawled into the wool blanket that lined his sleeping bag, which he used on the lower bunk. Stretching out, he turned off his flashlight and went to sleep.

  A loud crack, then a crash roused him as the upper bunk shook from a blow. The noise startled him awake. A loud groan and creaking timbers sounded ominous in the night air, but he could see nothing in the dark. Then something wet was dumped on him, as if dropped out of a bucket. Cold and wet.

  He struggled to try to sit up, pushing against the wood of the bunk with his hands, but found he could barely move. He couldn’t see anything as the darkness was complete. Snow covered his face, while his upper body was pinned down by something heavy holding down his wool blanket and his sleeping bag.

  It was pitch dark, probably midnight or later. He turned his head sideways and rubbed it in the blanket until he had the excess snow wiped away. He was wet, but warm, as his wool blanket kept the heat in, snow or no snow.

  Too dark. He could try to free himself, but he couldn’t see his situation, and he might just manage to work his way out of his warm bed into the cold room and he’d be worse off than he was right now. With his heart still pounding furiously, he couldn’t sleep anymore, but he stayed in bed, gradually relaxing, brushing the snow off his face now and then to keep it clear.

  Soon he smelled smoke. He looked around for the light, the flicker of fire, but saw nothing. Hopefully the snow had put it out. He stayed on the alert for a short while, afraid of being trapped in the bunk with the cabin on fire, but nothing came of it, and so he relaxed, ready to wait out the hours of darkness. It was a long wait, an uncomfortable wait. He tried to sleep, but couldn’t.

  As the gray morning light spread illumination into his area, Carlton was finally able to see what had happened. Under the weight of the heavy snow, the roof rafters had cracked and given way, dropping both timbers and snow inside. The entire cabin was demolished.

  One rafter had plowed, beam end first, into his bunk, missing his face by inches. A little more to the left, and it would have killed him. It was what was pinning him down with the blanket.

  It looked like he had somehow survived intact. Now all he had to do was get out of bed.

  He stared at the jagged edges of the timber that had joined him in his bunk. He couldn’t move his arms up and out, prevented by the blanket and sleeping bag. He wiggled the rest of his body.

  His feet were still free, ditto his legs and torso. Squirming about, he bent his knees and shimmied himself downward, out from under the restraining timber. He was still trapped inside the bag, but this one zipped from both ends and he flopped around like a fish on a rock until he reached the zipper tab, then pulled it upward, gaining his freedom.

  He stepped out onto the snow-covered floor and looked around. The scorched flooring around the tipped-over stove showed Carlton the source of the smoke he had smelled. Luckily the snow had kept the flames from spreading. He took a deep breath of the freezing air. He was indeed fortunate.

  Although barefoot, he searched first for his laptop. All his research was on the cloud, but if his computer was damaged, he would have to go buy another to finish out his work. It looked fine, sitting by itself on the table, which had lost one leg, but still managed to stay upright.

  Ok. Now to find his cell phone. He had put it next to his canned goods. He shook his head as he looked at the smashed food that had oozed out from under that particular part of the roof. The entire thing had come down at that point, shingles and all. There was no way he was going to be able to lift the roof off and see if his phone survived.

  He felt cold, so cold that he began to shake. He needed to stop looking around at the damage and take care of himself. Returning to his bunk he reached past it to his duffle bag, still hanging on a nail in the wall. He pulled out a clean set of clothes and dressed warmly, then put on his heavy parka and cap, which was still hanging on a second nail. That was much better.

  He righted his one chair and dried his feet, rubbing them warm before putting on his wool socks and boots. The boots had been close to the stove, but it had fallen away from them. He felt lucky. A person in the snow without boots was in serious trouble.

  He’d like something hot to drink, but there was no way to fix anything. He wouldn’t be able to stay here any longer. It was a good thing he had the snowmobile. If he started now, he’d make it to his grandparents’ home before sundown. Their home was over twenty miles away.

  He thrust his computer into his rucksack, made sure the fire was completely out, walked outside, and tried to close the door behind him. Why he should do that made him wo
nder at himself, since anyone could walk right through the hole in the roof.

  Since the door wouldn’t shut, he left it ajar and walked over to the covered area where he parked the snowmobile. Was it all right?

  It wasn’t. Only one timber had hit it, but that one had smashed the gas tank and sheered off a runner. He’d never make it to his grandfather’s home, yet he couldn’t stay here. There was only one other place close enough he could possibly reach, walking through the deep snow.

  It was the one place he didn’t want to go. He didn’t think he’d be welcome there. Three brown eggs might come at an extremely high price.

  He didn’t have a compass. No snowshoes. He wasn’t at all sure he could find his way there, as he’d be going the reverse direction on the loop that he usually traveled. If he had to stop overnight, he’d need supplies.

  He went back inside and grabbed two wool blankets, a water bottle and some fire starter. His gloves and a pair of glove liners. He folded the blankets, then rolled them into a bedroll with the fire starter and a hunting knife inside. A piece of cord tied it enough that he could throw it over his back, along with his rucksack.

  Now to see if he could make it to that ranch house before it got dark. If he missed it by only a quarter mile, he might end up dead in a snowdrift. He had the entire day to travel, but the winter hours of daylight were short.

  Well, no one’s life came with a guarantee on how long it would last. He took his bearings and started walking.

  The first part was easy, along a small stream that was well marked by the trees that grew next to it. It was when he had to leave the stream and go up on the ridges that worried him. Just where had he come down to the stream?

  Chapter Two

  The sharp knock on the front door stopped Helen in the middle of a sentence. Todd glanced at the door, then back at her. Rufus, their Bernese mountain dog, growled at the same time, the hair raised stiffly along his spine. He sprung to his feet from his place by the fire, teeth bared.