Ned had pulled his sister, Tess, to school on a sled that day, and at lunchtime the children coasted down the hill into the draws. Carrie watched them wistfully, and when recess time came early in the afternoon, they invited Carrie to join them.
“Aw, come on, Miss Brown,” Ned wheedled. “You ain’t, I mean, you’re not that much older than us. You got to like coasting.”
“Well.” Carrie hesitated. It took only a little more encouragement from the children to make her admit, “Coasting is one of my favorite things.” Carrie pulled on her felt boots and headed out the door. She ran across the ground, flopped on the rickety sled, and headed down the draw. She hit the bottom breathless and laughing.
Carrie was barely back on her feet when Ned called down the hill, “Miss Brown, you better come look at this.”
Carrie trudged up the hill and looked to the northwest. The sky was dark. It had been snowing all day, huge flakes almost the size of walnuts. But since lunch the snow had stopped.
Carrie looked up at Ned. “What’s it mean, Ned? You’ve grown up here. I’m new to the west.”
Ned looked worried. “I think it may be a good old-fashioned blizzard. Wind’s been from the south all day. Could blow it all north of us. But it’s so quiet now. The wind can change fast.”
“Well, we’d better get a good fire started. There’s plenty of coal in the coal shed.”
“We can keep warm. That ain’t the problem. The wind comes up, it just might blow that schoolhouse right off those blocks. Then we’d all freeze.”
Carrie looked doubtful. “You really think it could be that dangerous?”
Two or three of the older students gathered round. “You ever seen it snow sideways, Miss Brown?”
No sooner had Carrie dismissed school than parents began arriving to collect their children. “You done right, Miss Brown,” one father commended. “This could be a bad ‘un. I don’t like the look of those clouds one bit. You get home as quick as you can, you hear?”
In less than an hour the children had all been collected. All save Ned and Tess Carter. The black wall seemed to be approaching more quickly from the north, and Carrie grew concerned.
“Pa was headed up to Lincoln today to take some hogs,” Ned explained. “He went with Jim Callaway. Didn’t know when he’d be back. Told us to get our own supper.” Ned reassured Carrie. “We can make our way home, Miss Brown. It ain’t—isn’t—that far. You go on. We’ll be all right.”
Carrie had heard about Ben Carter’s visits to Lincoln before. They usually began with the selling of something, and ended in one of various “establishments” the temperance leagues were doing their best to close down. “Ned, you’re a strong young man, and normally I’d let you go, but I just can’t take responsibility for your being out alone. Not when you have to head right towards that wall of clouds. What if you two come home with me? You can stay at the Callaway farm tonight. I’ll leave a note on the blackboard for your father so he’ll know you’re safe.” Carrie added, “Besides, Ned, I’d feel better about having company on the way home in case I get caught by my first Nebraska blizzard.”
At the thought of becoming protector for Miss Brown, Ned quickly agreed to accompany her to the Callaway farm. Carrie insisted that Ned and Tess ride Lakota. “She knows me better, Ned. If it starts to snow, she’ll follow me home with no trouble. She might not want to follow you.” As if to agree with Carrie, Lakota nodded her head.
Ned reluctantly pushed Tess into the saddle, climbing up behind her and taking hold. The trio headed south towards the Callaway farm, and had just reached the road when the storm hit.
Suddenly a terrific wind crashed through the osage hedge on the west side of the road, scooping up snow off the ground and swirling it in the air. It was as if a great white curtain had been dropped over the road. Carrie turned to encourage the children, but the wind ripped the sound of her voice away before the children heard her. Laying a hand on Lakota’s nose, Carrie reached towards the children. She could no longer see them. She felt along Lakota’s neck towards Tess.
Ned leaned towards her to hear. Carrie screamed up at him, “Ned, unbutton your coat and wrap it around Tess, too. Hold on tight. Don’t you fall off. Whatever you do, don’t fall off.”
Carrie stumbled back to Lakota’s head and they plunged ahead. They were lost in a thick, enveloping whiteness, a cloud of vapor that shut Carrie off from everything around her. Fear clutched at her as she wondered, How can it be dark—and yet everything be white. She struggled to hold onto Lakota’s reins while holding a scarf up to her mouth. Lakota’s nostrils were caking over with ice. When Carrie turned into the wind to claw the ice away, snow covered her own face so quickly she feared her eyes would freeze shut.
Her only sense of direction came from the wind. She knew the storm had come from the northwest, so she turned her back to it, praying that they were going in the right direction. The osage hedge had disappeared from view long ago. They were surrounded by a high, white wall. Already it was a struggle to move through the deepening snow.
They struggled on for only a few moments when Lakota began pulling at the reins. Finally, with a shrill whinny, she stopped dead, bracing herself against Carrie. Trust the horse, Red Bird. The horse knows the way home. Who had taught her that? Soaring Eagle. Surely he knew more about Nebraska blizzards than she. He had broken Lakota himself. He had said she had good sense. Trust the horse.
Her mittens were frozen to the reins. She pulled them away and draped the reins about Lakota’s neck. Making her way along the little mare’s side, she touched the legs of the half-frozen children and screamed through the wind. “I can’t see the way. Lakota will take us home. I’m going to hold onto her tail and let her take us home.” Making her way to the back of the pony, Carrie grasped her tail and hung on. The minute she was given her head, Lakota turned them in the opposite direction and began to pick her way through the ever-deepening snow.
Jim Callaway had left Lincoln with a load of supplies as soon as he saw the clouds to the north. His traveling companion, Ben Carter, had been located—dead drunk—in a local saloon. Slamming two quarters on the table at the saloon, Jim had asked the bartender to give the man a bed for the night. “This looks bad. I’ve got to get home to my wife and baby. Tell Ben I stopped at the school for his kids. They can stay at my place until he comes for them.”
The wall of snow hit Jim when he was only a half mile north of the school. It was directly in his path for home, and he rejoiced to read the note Carrie had scrawled on the blackboard. “All children sent home before storm hit. Ned and Tess Carter with me. Went to Callaway’s, three miles south.” Good girl, Carrie. At least I know LisBeth’s not alone.
A mile south of the school, the wind lifted Jim’s wagon like a toy and tossed it on its side, covering the supplies with snow almost immediately. Jim struggled out of the snowdrift he had been tossed into and tried to help his big, rangy team right the wagon. When it became obvious that they couldn’t do it, he quickly unhitched the team. With numb fingers, he used the long driving reins to tie himself to his horses, yelling at them to “giddap,” following them into the white night, trusting them to take him home.
On the road only two miles ahead of Jim Callaway, the little mare Lakota was doing her best to break a way through the huge drifts. The two children perched on her back hunched over against the wind, clinging to her mane, half unconscious from cold and terror and weariness. Behind Lakota, Carrie floundered through the snow on numb feet, grasping the black tail with one increasingly numb right hand. The hem of her dress was decorated with a double row of pleats and braiding. Snow had been driven through her coat and lodged between the rows of braids, making a huge roll of frozen snow about her ankles. Walking was nearly impossible unless she held up her skirt. The snow changed from wet flakes to dry powder, but intense cold had frozen Carrie’s clothing, damp from sweat, into a solid armor about her. She had stopped shivering long ago, stopped thinking, stopped praying. Now all she could do
was concentrate on the unbelievable effort it was taking to put one foot before another—one more step—one last step.
Suddenly, Carrie was floundering in a huge drift. She reached out feebly to catch Lakota’s tail, but the tail was gone. The white wall had closed her in and she was alone. She called for the children, screamed for them, but there was no answer. Move on, Carrie, move on. With supreme effort, Carrie got her feet beneath her and managed, somehow, to walk a little farther. She no longer knew if she was headed toward the farm or not. She stumbled on through the swirling snow for what seemed like hours until she ran into something. Thinking she had at last found Lakota, she began to cry with relief, but the animal she had run into was a lone cow huddled up to a haystack. Hay! With the last of her strength, Carrie made her way inch by inch to the south side of the stack where the snow was not quite so deep, the wind not quite so strong. Desperately, she clawed her way toward the middle of the haystack. Once she was buried in the middle of the stack, she began to cry. Dear God, Dear God, the children! The children! Tell Lakota how to find the way, God. She sobbed and prayed aloud until her frostbitten cheeks began to hurt too much. Then she prayed inwardly until the muffled roar of the wind lulled her into an unnatural sleep.
Jim Callaway’s team found their way home. They ran straight into the west wall of the barn and stopped in their tracks. Staggering between them, Jim reached out to feel the wall of the barn and shouted praises. He felt his way along the barn to the corral gate. It was already open. Jim lead his team away from the northerly wind and inside the barn. Snow was being driven through every crack in the barn, piling up in the corners, covering the hay, sprinkling the stock with a fine dusting of powder.
Jim pounded his hands against his knees, trying to get circulation back so that he could tend his team. He had his back to the other stalls, but the sound of a low nicker and a human-like whimper made him turn around. Lakota was peering at him from the last stall at the far end of the barn. Still clinging to her back were two half-frozen children.
The moment the storm began, LisBeth Callaway had lit several lamps and placed them in every window in the house. She worried and paced, praying that Jim had stayed in Lincoln and that Carrie Brown had had the good sense to keep her students at school. J.W. spent the evening playing happily, until the wind tore a shutter loose. Then he whimpered while his mother opened the door to refasten the shutter. The force of the wind threw her back into the parlor, and it took all her strength to reclose the door. In the few moments the door was open, snow flew in and over the floor. Once the door was closed, LisBeth scooped the snow into a cook-pot and set it on the stove to melt, afraid to open another door. She dragged a thick comforter off the bed and nailed it over the window with the missing shutter before picking up J.W. to comfort him.
Sometime after the baby had gone to sleep, LisBeth made coffee with the snow water and sat down at her kitchen table with her Bible. She was trying to read and pray when a strange sound made her go to the back door. It was flung open and Jim staggered in with two children in tow.
Relief, tears, and praising lasted only a few seconds. As the children were being freed from their frozen coats, Ned stammered, “Miss B-B-Brown. She, she’s lost. She had Lakota’s tail, said she would hang on, said Lakota would bring us home.”
“I’m going to find her,” Jim said grimly. “Keep those lamps lighted, LisBeth.” Hurrying into the bedroom Jim threw off frozen clothes, dressed in layer after layer of dry clothes, and pulled on his old buffalo coat and fur mittens. He grabbed a fur-lined hat from a hook by the door, loaded his rifle, and went back out the door into the storm.
LisBeth worked to calm the children’s fears while she tried to thaw them out. The wind abated long enough for her to bring in two crocks full of snow. “You children put your hands and feet in this snow. We must thaw you slowly and carefully. Are you hungry?”
Tess whimpered with pain as her fingers and toes began to thaw. Still, her eyes sparkled when LisBeth brought out bread and butter and cold chicken. Tess and Ned ate heartily and drank nearly a quart of warm milk each while LisBeth replenished the crocks with snow.
LisBeth kept the two children awake as long as possible, thawing them out carefully, but it wasn’t long before exhaustion set in and they threatened to fall out of their chairs. Then she put them to bed buried under a mountain of quilts and comforters. They both fell into a deep sleep, their cheeks having taken on a rosy glow that told LisBeth that somehow they had managed to escape the savage storm with no frostbite.
She returned to the kitchen, washed dishes and crocks, made more coffee, and settled again by the window to wait for Jim. Please, God, let him find her. You know where she is, Lord. Help Jim to find her. LisBeth prayed over and over again. She was jolted awake by the opening of the back door. An unrecognizable form entered the kitchen. Only when she had broken through the solid crust of ice that coated the man’s entire body, including his face, did LisBeth recognize Jim.
His voice was filled with despair. “I can’t find her, LisBeth. Not a trace. Can’t see anything. Can’t make a way through the snow. Wind must be fifty miles an hour. It feels like it’s fifty below.”
LisBeth looked into the gray-green eyes. They were angry, hurt, and afraid—the same eyes she had seen when Jim first came to this farm, haunted by his past. LisBeth wrapped her arms around her husband. “You did what you could, Jim. God knows where she is. Now we must wait upon Him.” Her own sobs were joined by Jim’s and the two stood for a long time in the kitchen of the old farm house, clinging to one another.
The storm lasted until daylight. As soon as the wind stopped, the silence woke everyone on the Callaway farm. Ned and Tess got up sleepily, rubbing their eyes and staring about them stupidly, having forgotten how they got wherever it was they were. J.W. crawled over to the bed where he pulled himself up to stand and pound on the quilts. He blinked at Ned and Tess, amazed that two strange faces confronted him. Looking about the room, he saw his mother come to the doorway and gurgled happily.
“Good morning, you three,” LisBeth murmured. “Storm’s over. Come and see.” LisBeth scooped up the baby and beckoned to Ned and Tess. “You’ll be all right. You can stay here until your pa comes for you.”
“Where’s Miss Brown?”
LisBeth stopped in the doorway and looked back at the two pairs of eyes that looked at her soberly before Ned repeated, “Where’s Miss Brown?”
LisBeth cleared her throat. “Well, Miss Brown didn’t—” a lump formed in her throat. “Mr. Callaway couldn’t find Miss Brown.”
The full meaning of the statement sunk in. Tess blinked a few times, and began to cry. Ned wiped his own tears away to comfort his sister. “Aw, Tess, it’ll be all right. She probably just sat it out in somebody else’s place, that’s all.”
Tess looked up at her brother. “There’s no other place between the school and here, Ned. You know that.”
LisBeth interrupted. “Mr. Callaway has gone out this morning to look for Miss Brown.” LisBeth swallowed hard. “I’m sure he will bring her home to us.”
Ned and Tess Carter were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast when Jim Callaway kicked open the door and rushed inside with what looked like a bundle of rags in his arms. Without a word, he rushed passed LisBeth and into their bedroom. LisBeth followed him, coming back quickly to the kitchen for a pair of scissors. Tersely, she ordered the children, “You stay in this kitchen where it’s warm. Ned, you keep an eye on J.W. for me.”
LisBeth and Jim had to cut Carrie’s frozen clothes off her. As they worked, they exchanged glances. “She was crawling through the snow, LisBeth. Couldn’t walk,” Jim explained.
Carrie’s cheeks and nose were black with frostbite. She seemed unable to speak, and her hands and feet were ominously dark. But her blue eyes watched them gratefully as they worked. Jim hauled a huge washtub into the bedroom and filled it with snow. They plunged Carrie’s frozen feet and hands into the snow, trying to thaw them slowly. The pai
n began as circulation returned to her face and hands, and Carrie bit her lips to keep from crying out.
LisBeth worked for hours until Carrie fell into an exhausted sleep. Still, LisBeth continued her ministrations, bathing Carrie’s feet in kerosene, trying to remember every remedy she had ever been told for frostbite.
Ned and Tess Carter proved to be very capable children. They entertained J.W. and made their own lunch. They played quietly in the parlor and looked out the kitchen window towards the barn. Snow had drifted against the entire north side of the house so that the windows and door were completely blocked. A drift at the front of the barn would have made it possible to step out of the haymow in the loft and slide to the ground unharmed. Jim tunneled his way to the well and the barn. He and LisBeth held a whispered conference in the kitchen after which Ned and Tess saw Jim go outside again. They went to the kitchen window and saw Jim mounted on his buckskin gelding, headed toward Lincoln. To their amazement, he rode the horse up and over where the farmyard fence stood, without breaking through any drifts.
“Mr. Callaway has gone to Lincoln for Dr. Gilbert,” LisBeth explained. “He’ll come and check on Miss Brown for us. Mr. Callaway will also let your father know that you are both safe. Your pa stayed in Lincoln during the storm.”
Tess and Ned Carter looked at each other in a way that told LisBeth no further explanation was necessary.
“Can we see Miss Brown?” Ned wanted to know.
“She’s sleeping, Ned.”
“She gonna be all right?”
LisBeth answered honestly, “I don’t know, Ned. I hope so. It was terribly, terribly cold last night, and she’s had her hands and feet frozen. We’ll just have to see what the doctor says.”
When Dr. Gilbert arrived from Lincoln, what he said changed Carrie Brown’s life.
Red Bird Page 20
