After the Snow

by Crockett, S. D.

  I hear the stranger downstairs breathing too.

  In my head I see him look about the room. Head turning one way then another. Smelling me. Looking at the fire and the coats on the floor.

  That gruesome thought work good on my arms I tell you, and pretty quick I pull myself up through that hatch like a rat’s tail slipping in a hole. Pull the cover over quiet as I can. Face down above the ceiling, feeling my breath on the wattle. Whoever it is still pacing around down there. Then the pacing stop. I hear it.

  The door been rattled.

  I can hear the handle on the door shaking. And it open.

  But the person coming up those steps aint worrying about creaking. In two seconds flat they come up those stairs. Now they been right underneath me. So close I can hear breathing—in and out—right under the hatch. Sniffing me out.

  I hear a tinder strike.

  Coc!

  A dim glow seep through a crack in the hatch. I reckon they lit a candle down there.

  And I got to tell you.

  That voice?

  I reckon I know that voice.

  Sound a lot like Geraint.

  Looking for stuff. Just like a stealer.

  But he aint looking for me cos I hear him breathing loud and crashing about gathering stuff up. He’s huffin and puffin down there stealing stuff. Stealing my dad’s stuff. It take my dad nearly his whole life to get all that stuff. Tools like he got aint easy to get and Geraint’s just stealing it all.

  Well I aint gone, Geraint. I’m still here. I’m right up above you and I hear your dirty short fingers poking around in my dad’s stuff.

  You’re putting your dirty fingers in a clean bowl of milk. And if you do that, you’re gonna get it. You know it. You learn that pretty quick as a kid.

  Don’t go putting your dirty fingers in the milk, Willo. Twins gonna get sick, and you’re gonna get a whipping.

  Everyone know that right off.

  So, Geraint. I’m gonna give you a whipping. I’m gonna get you. I squeeze my eyes closed, try not to think about what he’s doing. Cos now I aint scared—I’m about to JUMP DOWN THERE all angry.

  The farmer’s got a gun and he’s twice as big as you. You just stay put in your dark hiding place. You can get him later. We can think about that later when he’s gone.

  Dog come back. Just in time.

  So I say my words to myself. In my head. Not like when I’m in my secret place on the Farngod. Got to say the words quiet now, just quiet in my head.

  Big hares little hares

  come into the circle

  cos the dog gonna talk and tell you a story

  bout the hill and the rock

  and you scratch at the snow—

  Coc! (Down below Geraint drop the candle—cos the light go out.)

  —and dig yourself deep

  when the wind and the eagle come.

  But you aint gonna see me

  with my trap and the wire—

  Geraint ripping the boards off the window now.

  —Big hares little hares

  come into the circle

  cos the dog gonna talk—

  Something fall. I hear stubby hands scrabbling on the floor.

  Geraint down there sticking his fingers in the milk.

  But I know my words roundside about see, and saying them in my head stop me going mad and jumping right down there.

  They really do.

  5

  There been little pricks of light under the eaves and my guts screaming out for food and water. It must be morning. Hands so cold I can’t feel them. Lucky I been wearing my coat else I’m gonna be frozen near to death up here.

  I got to come down sometime, dog. Cos I been waiting up here since I hear Geraint leaving the house yesterday.

  I push the hatch over slowly, inch by inch. Stick my head down to see. It look like a whirlwind come in through the window and tip everything about. But it aint no wind done it. On the floor I see my dad’s box spilled out under the bench. Pages from his book lying on the boards. His writing all spidery on the paper. I drop down from the hatch to the floor. Very slow I creak down the stair. The door at the bottom is open. I stand and wait. Listening. Down to the empty kitchen. Out into the hall.

  The house been quiet. He been gone for sure.

  I open the front door.

  A pile of snow fall in across the step. It been snowing hard all night by the look of it. Soggy gray light coming through the clouds. No tracks left in the snow.

  I guess I got a Plan B in my head. Cos I got to leave this place. I didn’t stop and think it through or nothing but I know in my heart I need a Plan B. I don’t need no dog telling me it’s just a dream staying in the house all winter on my own. Not now.

  I been thinking about Plan B all the time—but without knowing it. It sounds strange to say, cos every plan need thinking on. I mean I don’t just kneel down and put a trap wire any old where when I’m gonna catch a hare. I got to think on where the hare gonna be running and look out for the tracks.

  I’m gonna go to Geraint’s farm. Make that old graybeard tell me what happen to my dad and the others. I’m gonna sneak in at night and tie him up in his bed. Tell Alice what a rat he is.

  I got a racing feeling inside me. I got to get away before the freezing dark come down. While the snow still gonna cover my tracks and I got time to make a shelter out on the mountain. I reckon I got to be careful like the dog say. Cos Geraint got a gun aint he?

  I eat what I can from the pantry and throw a pitcher of water down my neck, I been so thirsty. After that I get the firebox and the tent. I get them from the barn and tie them onto my sled. I aint never been allowed to take the firebox before. That firebox come with us on every journey. The men make it from the metal on the old truck they found. It’s gonna be strange taking it without Dad saying yes or no or giving me some kind of lesson about how precious it is. But I reckon he’s gonna understand all the same.

  I go upstairs to my dad’s room. To Magda’s cupboard—to get the bag of tinder. You aint gonna believe what a fuss it been making those little charred sheets of tinder. Magda know everything about making stuff and looking out for herself though. She tell me she learn it all from her grandma in a place called Poland back in the old days. Her grandma plant a great big field of potatoes every year even though she been about a hundred years old, and every year she haul those potatoes up out of the ground and hang them in sacks in the cellar. Magda say her mum always writing letters saying, Please tell Babula to stop lifting potatoes. We’ll send you money. But Grandma tells Magda, I know what it’s like to be hungry and I’ll plant my potatoes til the day I die. And she was right, wasn’t she? Magda say.

  Magda got her books in that cupboard. Some of them are proper interesting—like the one about every kind of disease a sheep gonna get if you just let it alone and don’t go checking under its tail for maggots and under its wool for maggots and behind its ears for maggots. I tell you, sheep must be like a big pile of shit to flies, cos they sure gonna get a maggoty disease just by standing still. Or be falling off a cliff or giving birth in a snowy ditch or some other trouble if you’re gonna believe what that book tell you.

  The sheep book aint as good as Robin Hood and the Silver Arrow though. I get that out the cupboard along with the tinder. We all learn to read on that book.

  A lowdown feeling creep up on me then kneeling on the floor. It come up from the smells on my dad’s bed and the strip of light that fall across the boards and up on the wall just how it do every morning, but now my dad aint there breathing heavy under the covers with Magda opening her eye and smiling at me. She always hear you sneaking in when you want to creep under the covers.

  I look at that homesome room pretty sad I tell you.

  I finish loading the sled. I got my tent and the firebox, my trap wires, two fur coats from the passage, a goatskin rug, a few tools, and some firewood, got it all loaded and covered with a big leather hide tied down hard for when the snow start blowing wild
and thick. I got all the food I can carry from the pantry in a pack. I step back into the passageway.

  Dog telling me to leave quick.

  It’s still inside the passageway. That old house got a smell. It’s the smell of wood and smoke and people. I aint never really thought about it before.

  Aint no one to say goodbye to. It’s a big lonely feeling closing the door. Stepping out under the scrubby trees. Walking away from the house with that deep winter snow blowing about. I feel like every step just gonna swallow me up. I really do. But I put my feet one in front of the other. Trudge, trudge, trudge. Cos the dog talking the truth. He say I’m gonna have to fight to stop the ground swallow me up.

  I look back from the end of the pass but the wind blow a cloud of snow so thick I can’t see the place no more. Just got to lean into the rope pulling the heavy sled and soon the river and the house and everything I call home been behind me and my eyes aint wet no more and I stop thinking I wish my mother aint dead in the snow when I was just a baby and gonna be here to put her arms around me.

  I tell you, the wind soon dry that kind of thinking right out of your eyes.

  Bide your time, say the dog.

  An eye for an eye, say the dog.

  6

  That sled never been so heavy. It feel like dragging a dead goat over the hill. Really. All the time things sliding over and I got to keep stopping and tying it all in place.

  The snow been outrageous and the howling wind whip up mean and nasty from over the peaks of the Rhinogs and pretty soon anything standing still gonna be buried forever. I got to remember that I aint got no home now. This stuff’s all I got. Never know when I’m gonna need it.

  But I feel like Scott of the Antarctic all the same. If you don’t know, he been a great explorer from before. I read about him in my dad’s book. Scott go out on a long walk in the snow to find the South Pole with a great big sled full of stuff too. But he never come back.

  The only way anyone know about it cos he been pretty mad and write about himself in a book every day—even when he got stuck in the snow and know he’s gonna die he write in that book. He know he’s gonna die so he write Last Entry. Just like that. I mean you got to be some strange kind of person to write Last Entry down cos you know you’re gonna die.

  Funny thing is he don’t need to go on that long walk in the snow with a great big heavy sled. He do it just cos he want to. Why don’t he just stay at home in front of the fire? That’s what get me.

  Thinking all this stuff make me forget that on the mountain weather gonna come down on you quick as an eagle. Just swoop right down with real sharp claws. And if you aint got yourself ready for it you’re gonna be in big trouble pretty fast. But I know that which is why I got myself prepared. I aint no stealer caught out in a storm. And I aint planning to write Last Entry in any book either. Dad always scribbling in his book, and I don’t see no point in it.

  The wind blowing up hard. Picking up the fresh snow and whipping it across the hillside in great sheets. Ripping at my coat seams. The shapes of the gullies and crags fading into the snowmist, storming far off on the flat hilltops. Got to get the tent up quick I reckon, or I’m gonna freeze to death in this storm. Got to do it now.

  When I take my gloves off to get the tent out that wind near cut my hands off. The cover on the sled slapping about in the gale. Got to use all my strength to hold it down, get up the poles, and haul the sled round. But in the end I got it done and struggle under the canvas with the firebox and an armful of wood.

  There been a stillness inside a tent when you leave the wind outside. If I got any advice to you it’s gonna be A don’t forget your tinder and a strike and B keep it nice and dry. Without that you aint never gonna start a fire in the wet and cold. Believe me. You’re gonna freeze to death pretty quick.

  That’s one thing the dog never gonna think of cos a dog just turn his tail into the weather and make himself a hollow in the snow for the night. He don’t make no fire cos like I said earlier, a dog’s a dog.

  It come to me that Geraint’s gonna be out in this snow too. And I hope he aint got no tinder in his pouch. Or no firebox neither.

  I reckon this storm gonna be sitting on top of me for a few days yet. I just got that feeling. But I got the sled downwind of the tent and I got enough fuel if I let it burn real slow, got some food, got a warm goatskin rug to get under.

  But I find out that my tent aint as strong as I think—and every time the wind gust up hard and push it over at the front I got to go out and fix it. It sound pretty easy when I say it like that but it aint easy when you been shivering under the rugs and you got to fight your way out the tent and get near blown off the hillside and covered in snow. You know you only been a breath away from getting eaten by the cold even if you aint thinking it out loud.

  The snow blast at me in great sweeping drafts—it sting in my eyes and get down my coat and the whole thing get to be a proper fight. I shout pretty hard at the wind and the snow and myself too for not making that tent good and strong. If you don’t get angry sometimes you’re gonna get trodden on or swallowed up or just plain washed over.

  But after a while, the snow got blown up around the tent in drifts. Kind of peace reign then with just the ringing of the wind in my ears. So I eat a bit and got down under the furs and a laugh got up inside me real strong. I don’t know why but I been thinking about that man Scott again, thinking on him and his friends on their mad walk to the South Pole. I mean it’s pretty funny, aint it? It aint no wonder they never come back from their journey being so mad as they all been.

  But I’m gonna be all right for a few days I reckon if I still got a laugh like that inside me. Ground aint yet gonna swallow me up. Few days tucked safe in my tent gonna give me plenty of time to think what to do after the storm too. Where I’m going and the rest of it.

  7

  After the storm stop raging I sleep good and proper. When I wake up and stick my head outside I see that the storm clear the sky. New snow sparkling and crispy white.

  You can see Trawsfinnid Lake from up on the other side of the Farngod and over the valley where Geraint got his farm. That’s where I’m headed. But first I got to go to my secret place on the Farngod to get the power and say my words. Get the dog inside me strong.

  The way to the Farngod gonna take me low down through the pass. If the weather turn bad again it aint gonna catch me out so quick there. I pack up the sled and pull the rope across my chest. Hunger starting to grow deep in my guts. I strap on the snowshoes, lean into the weight of the rope and drag my load down through the crags, rutting the fresh deep snow.

  Thing is the freezing wind gonna eat you up if you just let it. So I guess I know I been good and lucky that I aint frozen to death like a stone up on the hilltop. It bring me a lowdown feeling though—thinking on my good safe home I left behind.

  It been thinking like that, and along that side of the pass, that I come on an old house buried in the snow.

  Aint a good house, just a couple of boarded up windows and a small stone shed on one end. I shout out like I always do.

  If you just jump up in front of a house without shouting out then maybe you’re gonna get a surprise you aint been looking for.

  I guess she hear me shouting. The girl I mean. She come out in the crack of the door. She got red lips. That’s the biggest thing I notice cos the rest of her’s so thin and washed out. I mean she got the same color in her skin like a greening winter sky. Staring at me with her red lips like blood on the snow.

  I aint expecting no one to be in the house cos it’s got to be the sorriest place I ever seen on a cold winter’s day. Aint expecting no one to come out of such a place with no smoke coming out the chimney or nothing. The girl got bits of stuff all tied around her feet and just rags hanging off her.

  After she stare at me a bit I come closer and she got a look on her face proper scared then. I forget I got my dog skull on, so maybe she just see the teeth and think I’m some sort of dog man come to get her
in the snow. That’s the kind of thing people always thinking. They always got to see some sort of scary thing in everything. I know I been like that too so I aint saying it’s strange. And she duck back inside that house real quick and shut the door.

  “Where’s your dad?” I shout it out not too scary or nothing, but there aint no reply so I say it again.

  “Or your mum. It don’t matter. Mum or dad.”

  Still no answer. I go right up to the door.

  “I aint a dog,” I say. “It’s just a dog skull—aint gonna do you no harm. Just on my way somewhere but I got stuff your mum or dad gonna want on my sled if they got something for me to eat.”

  I don’t know why I say that, cos if the girl is anything to look at, then her mum and dad aint gonna have nothing to give me. I look around me. The dog tell me I been a bit stupid shouting out all the nice things I got on my sled. I pull back a little from the house which aint too easy with my heavy sled which don’t want to turn around in a hurry.

  “He isn’t here.” It’s the girl. She’s saying something through the door. “He isn’t here.”

  I drop the rope on the sled and look around again. “What, your dad aint here?”

  “He went outside.”

  “Well I’m gonna be on my way cos it’s too cold to stand around waiting aint it?”

  “Have you got any food for us?”

  I don’t know what to say cos I don’t know who’s listening now and I got a bit jittery about this strange place. I start thinking that thin girl in rags look fresh out the city. I never heard of no one living out this side of the Farngod and the graybeards are gonna know about anyone so close to us, I’m sure of it.