Footprints In the Snow

by Ronald Ady Crouch

  “There wasn’t a sign of anyone having been anywhere near him, not a human footprint anywhere in the snow, just my own leading up the hill. Here’s the real mystery. Leading from where he was supposed to be, heading north in the direction of the North Star, was this one set of huge, and I mean huge footprints leading over the fence, across the fields towards the woods, far away in the distance, all the time going in a dead straight line. Even playing a trick, nobody could have walked that far in an unwavering straight line. Nobody. I have no idea how they accomplished it, let alone how they got rid of the snowman’s body. Never did find his hat, my old black trilby or the scarf, blue it was, dark blue. Never found the broom neither. And, answer me this. How come when I got up the next morning, my own footprints had disappeared? Here’s another thing. Those footprints were much bigger than the wooden snowshoes you’ve got there Shawn.”

  I caught dad looking up at the ceiling, shaking his head slowly. He’d heard that story a thousand times before I bet, and he wasn’t buying any of it. I smiled at my grandfather, not believing a word of it either.

  Over the next few days, Jake and I took it in turns crisscrossing the snow-covered fields behind our farm, wearing granddad’s wooden snowshoes. We pretended we were snowmen out for a stroll across the countryside. Snawmon remained standing on top of the hill, overlooking the whole farm, the fields, the woods, the farmhouse and the barn.

  * * *

  I don’t think the farm animals know it’s Christmas Day, at least I don’t think so. They still have to be looked after, fed and watered. A day off for us on the farm merely means that someone else has to take up the slack because of your absence. Jake and I were up early anyway, full of excitement. As we went around doing our farm chores, we made a point of wishing all the animals a merry Christmas, including the chickens. Another white Christmas, big snowflakes swirling all around us.

  Happy, we made our way out of the barn and back to the warmth of the house. Suddenly I felt the impact of something striking me hard on my left shoulder, then exploding around my head in white chunks of snow.

  “Run!” I shouted to Jake, “Head for the woodshed.” Snowballs exploded all around us. Once inside the woodshed I closed the door quietly behind us. “Follow me and don’t make a sound,” I whispered in my brother’s ear. He nodded. We crept to the back of the shed where I knew there was a loose board. I removed it as silently as I could and climbed through to the outside, followed by Jake. Once outside I loaded as many snowballs into his arms as he could carry. Together we stole around to the corner of the shed.

  Our attacker was standing exactly where I expected him to be, at the opposite front corner, with his back to us, just waiting for us to come back out through the door and pelt us with snowballs. I was like a snowball machine gun, grabbing snowballs from Jake and hurling them at my unsuspecting father, taking him completely by surprise. He was so shocked he actually jumped in the air. The battle was on, but we had him overwhelmed by superior firepower and ammunition. Jake was alongside me, together we rained snowballs down on him, fast and furious. He tried to mount a counterattack, but failed to drive us back. Laughing and shouting he ran for the cover of the house, Jake and I in hot pursuit. He was covered from head to toe, not realizing that Jake and I had set up a snowball target weeks before to practise our aim. Jake hugged me, the biggest smile on his face. I hugged him back.

  Mom stood in the kitchen smiling, shaking her head in amusement. “Have I got two boys or three,” she joked. “Merry Christmas boys, get cleaned up, breakfast will be on the table in a few minutes.”

  Later on dad and Jake drove out to the village to collect granddad, he was spending Christmas and Boxing Day with us. Uncle Bill and Aunt Rosemary would be making their way over from their farm soon. Our cousin Jim was fighting overseas somewhere in Italy, I heard Uncle Bill telling dad he was in Sicily.

  “Make sure you bring Dad’s medication,” mom called out after them. I stayed behind to help in the kitchen preparing Christmas dinner.

  “We better make a good job of this turkey, it’s one your Uncle Bill gave us from his farm,” said mom. In the time it took me to peel the potatoes, mom had at least half a dozen things done, I don’t know how she did it.

  “That’s quite the snowman you folks have up on the hill,” said granddad entering the kitchen. “More like a snow giant I’d say. Merry Christmas everybody. Brought a bottle of sherry for the festivities.”

  “Hi Dad, come on in and grab a seat by the woodstove. Shawn, take your grandfather’s coat,” said mom, bustling about.

  “Not grown tired of farm life yet then Penny?” he said addressing my mother.

  “There are days,” mom replied, “but when I look out any window anywhere in the house, I see the fields, the horses, the sheep, the cows, the woods and no neighbours, not for miles anyway. Then I realize how lucky I am, how lucky we all are. Did I tell you, Dan converted the back room into an art studio for me, he did a great job.”

  “He’s a good lad that boy of mine, as is Bill, but in a different way. I trust he’s still treating you like a princess?”

  “I have to remind him every so often,” she laughed. “It’s hard to be a princess when you’re ankle deep in pig … in pig, manure,” she finally said. Mom didn’t like to swear.

  Uncle Bill and Aunt Rosemary arrived in their sleigh, drawn by two magnificent jet-black Percherons. Jake and I ran outside to take care of the horses.

  Soon the kitchen was filled with lively conversation and laughter. Gifts were exchanged, then we sat down to dinner. Granddad at the head of the table. We all joined hands, granddad said grace, followed by a special prayer for the Canadian men and women fighting overseas, especially for my cousin Jim.

  I was sure granddad would want to have a nap after dinner, I should have known better. “Shawn, Jake. I don’t care how we do it, but I want to get up that hill to see that snowman of yours.” The adults around the table looked aghast, about to protest. Granddad raised his hand. “And I won’t take no for an answer! Come on, let’s go, hand me my cane. No, just the boys, the rest of you enjoy some peace and quiet. You can see us from the window.” You didn’t argue with granddad, so no one did, not even my mother.

  Somehow Jake and I manhandled the old man onto our toboggan, it was well made and sturdy. It could have carried two adults, well not two adults the size of my dad. Jake and I grabbed the rope at the front, Pepi running around full of excitement, barking happily. We pulled, the front end went up, suddenly the toboggan felt very light, of course it would have done because granddad disappeared in a backwards somersault off the end. Jake was laughing so hard he had tears running down his cheeks. That started me off. Granddad cursed, his feet up in the air. Together we hauled him back on, a little further forward this time and tried again. This time we were more successful. Good job granddad was only a little guy, even so, it was hard enough for us dragging him all the way up the hill to the top.

  Granddad stood gazing up at Snawmon. “He’s big. No, huge. Magnificent. He looks very friendly.”

  “He is Granddad,” said Jake. “Not a mean bone in his body.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t have any bones, Jake,” I said, laughing.

  Jake smiled. “I know, I’m just saying.”

  “I’m gonna rest my old legs,” said granddad, lowering himself onto the toboggan. “Ahhh!” Jake and I turned, astonished to see granddad flying back down the hill on the toboggan, fighting to get astride the thing.

  “Oh, I hope he misses the mound,” said Jake as we both charged down the hill after the toboggan. Even Pepi, running full out, couldn’t keep up with it.

  Granddad leaned over to the left, unknowingly veering the toboggan towards the mound. He hit the mound and went airborne, like an out-of-control Olympic ski-jumper. Those looking out the kitchen window would have seen daylight between the bottom of the toboggan and the skyline. A lot of daylight, probably could see the clouds too.

  It was like one long, continuo
us scream all the way down the hill, Jake and I running for all we were worth, adults bursting out of the farmhouse. The toboggan came down hard, bounced back up high in the air. At one point even I could see the sky underneath it. It was flying, accelerating away from me, towards my dad, standing at the bottom of the hill. By the time it went flying past him, it had slowed considerably, finally coming to rest ten feet from the barn door. The figure still sitting astride the toboggan remained motionless. I thought granddad had died from shock, frozen in place. My dad and Uncle Bill lifted him onto his unsteady feet and helped him back to the house. He looked very pale.

  By the time Jake and I reached the kitchen, granddad was sitting by the woodstove, a thick wool blanket draped around him, nursing a hot cup of tea.

  “Well boys, that’s enough excitement for today,” I heard him say.

  “We’re sorry Dad,” Jake said.

  “What for? No one got hurt, nobody died, not yet anyway. Unlike your stubborn grandfather, learn from the experience, that’s all I ask.”

  A huge smile crept across my grandfather’s face. “It was fun though,” he chuckled.

  “Fun!” said my mother, annoyed and still in shock. “You could have been killed, that was very irresponsible of you.”

  “It was an accident Penny. I merely sat down on the toboggan with no intention of going anywhere. Without warning it slid on the ice and took off with me on it, that’s all. No harm done.”

  “He’s like a cat,” remarked Uncle Bill, “only he must have more than nine lives, I know from personal experience he used all those up even before I became a teenager.”

  As I said before, Christmas Day is not a holiday on the farm. Before the sun went down, Jake and I still had our chores to do. When the summer came around, we’d be reminded again what hard work really meant, especially when it came to haymaking.

  Mom gave us the okay to erect our Christmas present in the bedroom, a canvas tent. Dad gave us a hand to put it up. Jake and I chattered away late into the night, laughing every time we talked about granddad’s hair-raising toboggan ride down the hill. A perfect end to a perfect Christmas Day.

  Chapter Four

  As spring approached, Snawmon remained standing looking proud on top of the hill. Then it started to get warmer, slowly our snowman began to melt, his carrot nose was now drooping. Both Jake and I were very sad, wishing he would run off to the North Pole to be with all his friends, not that I really believed that. He didn’t, he just stood there dying.

  One Sunday morning I looked out of my bedroom window to see how Snawmon was doing. For a moment I thought I was seeing things, or perhaps, not seeing things. He wasn’t there. I rushed over to Jake’s bed, shaking him awake, telling him Snawmon had disappeared. We dressed quickly in a flurry of clothes, sending pyjamas flying and raced out of the house. I don’t think either of us had ever run up that hill so fast, even in the slushy snow. Other than our own footprints and Pepi’s paw prints, there were no other footprints leading up the hill.

  Finally we reached the top. Where Snawmon had been standing, a brand new set of snowman footprints led down the other side of the hill, over the wire fence and across the fields for as far as the eye could see and on into the woods.

  “Dad,” I said. Jake nodded in agreement. Then I remembered the mystery wooden snowshoes my grandfather had made. Both of them had cracked right down the middle and broken in two. We couldn’t use them anymore, hadn’t used them in weeks. “Come on Jake, let’s check the workshop and see if Dad fixed them.” We turned and ran back down the hill.

  There they were in the workshop, lying broken against the right side of the workbench, where I’d left them.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said dad at breakfast that morning when Jake and I confronted him. “Ask your mother if she knows anything, because I certainly don’t.” They both went to the window and stared up the hill, their brows furrowed. “Beats me,” dad said.

  “I have no idea. That’s just … weird,” said mom. “No other way to describe it.”

  “After Jake and I have done our chores, can we go in search of him?” My parents looked at each other. Often they communicated just by looking at one another.

  “Okay,” my mother agreed. “Wrap up warm, take a thermos of hot chocolate and a snack with you. And take Pepi with you too. Take his leash, there’s a pack of coyotes running out there somewhere.”

  “And don’t go too far,” added my dad. “Not that you’ll make it that far, but if you do reach the creek, you are not to cross it, do you understand?” Jake and I nodded. “This time of the year the ice is thinner, there’s a current in that creek too. You fall through the ice, the current will carry you away underneath the ice and that’ll be the end of you. Shawn, take your compass and Buck Knife with you.”

  Ready like two soldiers on a long march, Jake and I took off once more up the hill with Pepi, my small canvass pack on my back. We climbed the page wire fence by a post then began our long trek across the fields and on through the woods. The woods were huge, a place easy to get lost in if you veered off the trail. I knew better than to do that. It took a long time to get through the woods to the other side, where there were more fields going on for miles. Then we hit marshland, the snowman’s footprints never wavered, they just went on and on in a straight line. They were huge and obviously much bigger than those wooden snowshoes, unless my dad had made a new pair. I wondered about that. The only time the footprints deviated was to go around trees, large boulders and fence posts.

  We followed those footprints all day, mile after mile for as far as the eye could see. Periodically I checked my compass, they remained heading north towards the North Pole. Finally we reached the creek and halted, exhausted. We rested a while, had our hot drink and snack and prepared to head home. At least that’s what I thought.

  “Looks plenty frozen to me,” said Jake, about to step onto the ice and head off across to the other side of the wide creek. I grabbed his arm forcefully.

  “Remember what Dad said? Look down there by the bend. What do you see?” He didn’t or wouldn’t reply. “Open water,” I said. “It’s too dangerous, I’m not even going to let Pepi cross it, and he weighs a lot less than you do.”

  “We’ll never find out where our snowman went if we don’t,” replied Jake, sounding upset.

  “Jake, it’ll be dark soon. Even if we could cross the creek, we’d never find our way back in the dark. There’s no moon tonight to help guide us. If we don’t head back now we’ll be spending the night out here, assuming we don’t freeze to death in the night and are still alive in the morning. Come on, let’s head back now, it’ll be dark before we get home anyway.”

  Jake wasn’t having any of it, he was all for crossing the creek determined to follow those footprints for as far as they took him. He was stubborn, just like granddad. A pack of coyotes began howling and yipping as they do, and they were close by, not that we could see them. Jake grabbed my arm, he looked scared.

  “Let’s go home now Shawn, I think that’s a good idea,” he said, in a trembling voice. I clipped the leash on Pepi’s collar, I didn’t need him running off to become coyote dinner.

  It was dark even before we reached the woods. I’d never ventured through them in the dark, not even with my dad. I didn’t even think to bring a flashlight, never imagined I’d be needing one. Couldn’t even read the compass, let alone see the trail. My heart was racing. I don’t mind telling you, I felt scared, I was scared.

  “I’m scared Shawn. Are you scared?”

  “No Jake, I’m not,” I lied. I didn’t want to make him even more scared than he was already. “Don’t worry, Pepi knows the way home, as long as I hold onto his leash he’ll find the way back home through the woods. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. Make sure you keep hold of my hand. Not that tight, we’ve got a long way to go yet, with that grip you’ll cut off the blood supply to my hand.”

  “You won’t let go of me will you Shawn, you won’t lose me.
” He sounded terrified. I gave my brother a reassuring hug.

  “Pepi, home!” I said. I felt a tug on the leash and we were off at a good pace, Jake and I stumbling along behind. It felt like we were going in circles sometimes and I began to doubt the wisdom of letting the dog take the lead. I was now definitely lost. Completely lost, I no longer knew in what direction we were going. We could have been heading back towards the creek and I wouldn’t have known. My mother’s words came loud and clear inside my head. If you ever get lost, Pepi always knows the way home, just put your trust in him and he’ll guide you home safely. So that’s what I did. The situation became all the more stressful when I heard Jake sobbing gently, frightened out of his wits.

  “It’s okay Jake, Pepi knows the way home, we have to put our trust in him.” Now and again branches struck our faces, stinging as they whipped past us. Eventually the blackness of the woods began to look, not so much brighter, but less dark. I knew then we were heading out of them. I prayed we were heading towards the farm and not the creek. Creatures scurried through the woods around us, some large some small. A twig snapped here and then over there as something unseen moved in the darkness.

  No moon, but stars. We were out of the woods, the North Star behind us, we were heading in the right direction! I could sense we were heading slightly uphill, far in the distance the glow of a lantern, hopefully the light high up on the barn gable, our barn. I squinted, catching a glimpse of two dimmer lights, much lower to the ground, they weren’t stationary, but seemed to be moving towards us. Then the faint cry of my mother’s voice, “Pepi!” being continually shouted. Then my father’s deeper voice. Pepi began barking and pulling harder on the leash, stopping only when we reached the wire fence. Had he not been with us, I would have walked right into it.