I didn’t need to get cleaned up and head across the tracks to meet mom for lunch at the Dominion Café. The ban that kept me from going uptown was still in place, and nothing suggested it would be lifted soon.
When handing out her punishment, Mom had told me, “I’m sorry, Buddy, but one of the things you had better learn from what you did is that you have lost the trust of the community. Every time you go into the department store—if they ever decide to let you in there again—they will be watching you like a hawk, knowing you have been a thief. Recognize that you not only broke my trust and your family’s trust, but you have done the same thing to this town that is helping to raise you.
I had tried to argue that I could avoid going into the Met and still go into town, but that wasn’t good enough. Mom may have thought that if I wasn’t permitted to go anywhere uptown, I would learn a bigger lesson, and she was right. Not being able to go to the movies, or check out the new things in store windows, or even go to the library, was killing me. If she ever found out that I had also stolen some comics from Mr. Bromley, my stay-away order might have been extended for life. As it was, it had been in effect for almost a month, and it already felt like a life sentence.
For Valentine’s Day, a couple of weeks before, I had made cards for every female in the house. They all seemed happy with my efforts. The women were actually impressed by the art and the messages I had written, but the girls, I thought, couldn’t have cared less. I also made and gave cards to Aunt Tootsie and to Gramma Davis, who started to cry when she held it up close to look at it. Of course, I didn’t tell anyone the reason I had to make the cards, rather than buying them.
At school I didn’t give out Valentine’s Day cards to anyone. I sure wasn’t going to give one to Dorothy after she had squealed on me. And I couldn’t bring myself to give one to the Red Witch either. She did see to it that I got one—but then she gave one to everyone in the class. Riel and I would never think of giving each other a card. Besides, he still wasn’t talking to me. I got one from Mokey, which I thought was hilarious, and took that as a good sign. I felt his giving me one meant that as soon as Riel was ready to let bygones be bygones, Mokey would instantly become my friend again. But under the watchful eye of Riel, Mokey ignored me when I tried to thank him for it. I also received a few Valentines from secret admirers, but I didn’t bother trying to figure out who they were. I was just glad the stupid holiday was over with. It wasn’t even really a holiday anyway. Thankfully, it happened on a Sunday, which took some of the silliness out of the whole thing at school.
I was now faced with how to fill yet another boring Saturday. Riel wasn’t ready to start talking with me—at least not anytime soon. And since he was kind of Mokey’s bodyguard, both of them saw me as off-limits. That left me hanging around home reading, or playing Monopoly with Pearl and Maisie, as I had done for all the previous Saturdays. I didn’t have much to say when it came to writing in my diary. I either needed to find someone else to chum around with, or be satisfied with doing something on my own.
There was actually no one that I really wanted to do anything with. If I was honest, I was still feeling down, with memories of Gramp haunting me. A headache most every day didn’t help.
Playing cards with Gramma Davis was fun, but spending a whole day with my older friend wasn’t something I thought I could handle. I had been visiting her a lot, a couple of evenings a week and once in awhile on weekends. She loved it when someone came to play cards with her. I didn’t mind the smells of different kinds of salves and liniments in her house. Neither did I mind that her home looked pretty beat up.
Her place was really messy and needed a lot of repairs. It must have been very tough on the poor eighty-something-year-old lady, only being able to see a tiny dot of something, compared to how I could see everything around me. She was sure a kind old soul, though. She told me she thought I was a lot kinder to her than she was to me, happy that I helped her with her garden in the spring and fall, and that I kept her walks clean in the winter. I knew that she was most pleased about my playing cards with her so often. I also knew I was gaining weight from all the cookies and milk she had stuffed me with over the past month. I found myself writing about her kindness in my diary.
By noon, after getting up early, cleaning the clinker out of the furnace and stoking it with coal, I had finished the Hardy Boys book I had been given for Christmas. Nan only put up with me lounging around in my pyjamas because I was reading. I decided to sneak into the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat, when she caught me.
“No you don’t, you lazy little fart. Get your butt off the couch and get dressed. You’re not going to waste away the day in your pyjamas. When you can walk into the kitchen looking like you are ready to go out and get some fresh air, then I’ll make you a potted meat sandwich with pickles. So, get up, and get your bed made. Get dressed.” Nan was in no mood to let me be a lout.
She never asked me why my two best buddies didn’t come around anymore. She was just happy I was staying out of trouble. I was pleased with that too.
It wasn’t until well after one o’clock that I finally left the house. I had two pair of socks inside my knee-high moccasins, and long underwear beneath my wool pants, flannel shirt and heavy sweater. My trusty bone-handled hunting knife was strapped to my belt. I had put on my old parka with the fur-lined hood, and pulled down the heaviest toque I had over my ears. It fit snugly on my head under the hood. My hands were kept warm by cotton liners inside my deerskin mitts. A wool scarf was tied around my neck, outside the parka, ready to be pulled up over my mouth and nose if it was colder outside than it looked through the frost on the living room window.
It was colder outside than I expected, maybe 15°F or 20°F below, but it was like many other middle-of-the-winter days on the Prairies, and I felt ready for the foul weather. I suspected that nastier bum-freezing cold was being held off by the low cloud cover.
Instead of grabbing my toboggan, I decided to do something quieter, something that would let me wander—without having to think about anything. I had thought a lot about Gramp since winter had set in. About Riel and Mokey and how I missed them. Once in a while, I thought about girls. Then I remembered my famous kiss that had gotten me into so much trouble with Riel.
I stood by the swings gazing over the valley before I walked beyond the school and tromped down over the hills toward the river. Maybe I’d get to see if the coyote that Riel and I had rescued was still around. I wanted to practice Nature-watching the way Joe Starblanket, Gramp, and my once-best friend had taught me.
It took less than a half-an-hour to reach the tree where Gramp had taught me to shoot my .410 shotgun. The snow on the flats was up to my crotch, and huffing through it caused me to work up a sweat. Sweating beneath your clothes in cold weather was never a good thing, Gramp had told me, especially if you were wandering around in wild country when freezing cold attacks you.
I rubbed my mitts over the scabs left by my shotgun pellets on the big poplar, and started to feel worried I might never get to hunt again. Of course, that led me to thinking about if I would ever get to own Gramp’s Browning. All that thinking gave me a headache that started working its way from my forehead to the back of my skull. That darned bonk on the head I had got playing hockey kept bugging me, not as much as it used to but enough to make it annoying. I wondered if I would ever be rid of the dizzying aches.
Leaving the tree behind, I trudged through the thickets and between the trees toward the river where there wouldn’t be as much snow to plough through. Mostly I wanted to do anything that would stop me from thinking so hard. I also wanted to stop my headache from getting worse.
Walking out onto the bare river, it was like a grader had cleared a winding highway. Glassy and snow-free, I could stride like I was skating, gliding my way along the ribbon of ice. That was one of the reasons I loved my moccasins so much. I felt the river was my own endless ice rink, and my moccasins took the place of skates. That idea was interesting to think about, and as I thought about it, I realized my headache had gone away. I was sure happy it did.
Once in a while I would hear the ice pop and heave, but since it had been so cold for so long, there was no reason to think I would fall through it. Even the trees were cold. I could hear them cracking as the sap inside them froze. It had been a harsh winter, with snow falling most every day. I couldn’t remember the last time the thermometer had climbed above -10°F. The river ice—and the ice out at the lake, for that matter—was probably as thick as it had ever been. I kept on fake-skating in my moccasins.
The river valley felt spooky. The snowfall lately was pretty light, and while I still saw lots and lots of tracks, I saw no animals. “Our” coyote wasn’t around. There were no deer, no lynx, no bobcat, and no beavers swimming under the ice. There weren’t any birds either. It seemed like every living creature had escaped, maybe to a warmer place. The air was very, very still.
Sometime during my trek, a wind rose up into my face from the west, along the river valley. It brought no smells with it, except that of biting cold. I was surprised by its direction. Usually the wind came from the north. Snow had begun to fall and was growing heavier. The sky, the air around me, even the bushes and trees, took on the look of lead, the colour of pellets in a shotgun shell.
I had traveled quite a way up the river and was miles from home. I supposed it was time to head back, so I turned and started gliding in the opposite direction.
Less than ten minutes later, I could feel a much stronger, even colder, wind pushing me from behind. If I were to stop on the river where there was only ice, my moccasins would start to skid, as the wind turned my body into a sail. That may have sounded like fun, but the wall of snow driving around and past me sure wasn’t. Besides, it was getting darker and colder. If this change in the weather was not already a blizzard, I figured it could soon become one. I put my head down and picked up my pace.
I had probably traveled a half-mile when I looked up and realized I couldn’t see anything in front of me. I was in the middle of what I had heard called a “white-out.” I pulled my scarf up over my lower face. Through my parka hood and my toque, I could hear the moaning of the wind.
It was darn lucky I had dressed warmly. I could feel cold fingers sneaking up the back of my butt, underneath my parka. My legs were no longer toasty. The sweat I had worked up earlier was making it easier for the cold to get to me. I plugged my mitts into my armpits, put my head back down, and plodded towards where I thought I should head up the hills toward home.
It wasn’t something that smacked me on the back of the head. It was sneakier than that. My sense of knowing where I was had faded away. I couldn’t see either bank of the river anymore. Bushes and trees had vanished under the heavy curtains of driving snow that began blowing sideways. The wind stopped moaning and began wailing.
I wondered what Gramp or Joe would do if they were caught in this situation. There were no tracks to follow—not even my own. They had all been blown over by fresh snow. There were no lights to guide me. Other than the river I couldn’t find even the slightest hint as to which way I should go. To make matters worse, it was getting much darker.
My mind raced. If I humped through the drifts along what I figured was the riverbank, I could climb above the bank, work my way through the ground cover of trees and bushes, and maybe make my way across the flats and up the hills to the town.
In just the few hours that I had been hiking, the snow had become incredibly deep. It took a lot of effort to drag my legs through the forest. I thought if I walked away from the trees, put them behind me, I might arrive at the base of the hills. From there, I could continue up until the buildings of Buffalo Crossing showed themselves.
It was really tough slugging through the field of snow. Lucky for me, there were no thickets or clumps of cattails to make it even harder. The land was as flat as a pancake. That made me start to wonder: Where were the cattails that surrounded the pond? Where was the pond? How far off course was I?
Lifting one leg up, pushing it forward through the drifting snow, plopping it down, and lifting the other leg, one step after the other, I tromped closer and closer—I hoped—toward the base of the hills.
My hope was crushed when I found myself at the edge of the forest again. I made my way through the trees and bushes until I came to a place I thought I remembered—but then hoped I didn’t. Once more I found myself standing on the bank of the river. I went onto the ice and thumped my feet on it to make sure it really was the river. There was no doubt. All my effort had been wasted. I had been walking in a circle.
I was lost.
My brain bounced all over the place. My headache was back with a vengeance. I was scared, though I didn’t feel like crying. If anything, I was mad. Angry at myself for being out in the wild, on my own—in a blizzard. I should have asked Riel to join me. Maybe if I had called Mokey, he would have been able to talk our other musketeer into getting over being upset with me. I knew I hadn’t stolen Riel’s girlfriend, but he didn’t see it that way. I had apologized, but none of that mattered to him. It didn’t matter to me now either. I was lost in a blizzard, and I needed to find a way to make it home before I froze to death.
It was as cold as I could ever remember, and the whiteout had caused everything within a few feet of my nose to disappear. I had worked up a real sweat under my heavy winter clothing and could feel the cold seeping in to make me shiver. For some reason, I thought that I was lucky I had brushed my teeth that morning because I could smell my breath when I exhaled through my scarf, and it only smelled of wet wool.
I was tuckered out, too tired to try heading for the hills again—especially if I was only going to walk in a circle once more.
Riel had told me about what to do if you were caught in a blizzard. Not that he had ever been caught in one, but he was good at paying attention to stories about such things.
Gramp had told me some “survival” stuff, too, the first thing being that you should never wander in wild country on your own. I guessed that advice had gone over my head because I didn’t think of the river valley as wild country. It had always been more like my backyard. I tried to remember other “words of wisdom” from Gramp. I thumped my head with my mitt and shouted, “Tell me again, Gramp! Tell me what I should do. This time I’ll listen.”
His voice didn’t answer me, so I crawled back up the riverbank and humped my way again through the undergrowth to what I thought was the forest’s edge. Leaning against the side of a big poplar, I hid for a minute from the driving snow. It gave me a chance to catch my breath and to think again about what Gramp had taught me.
I now really realized why no one should head into the wild alone when a blizzard was on its way, but I was a long way past that obvious rule to help myself.
Trapped in a ferocious storm with darkness falling, I reasoned that the most important thing to do was to find shelter where a fire could be built. A good plan—except I didn’t have any matches. I should have brought some. Even Randy and Lyle carried matches—because they smoked. There would be no fire-building.
As for finding a shelter, I figured I could crawl under the biggest evergreen I could find and hunker down against the trunk, to let the blizzard build a natural igloo around me. But without a fire, the cold would eventually get to me.
In sub-zero weather especially, if you are wet underneath your clothes from sweating, the way I was, the cold would sooner or later lock onto your bones and freeze your flesh. Apparently before a person froze to death, they got really sleepy. And as sleep became inviting, the body faked warming up. That led to curling up and dying, and I wasn’t ready to let that happen. But I struggled to imagine what I could do to help myself get out of this deadly mess I had gotten into.
I did have my knife, which might help, but I didn’t know what good it would do. I sure wasn’t going to commit hara-kiri, the way the Japanese soldiers did to keep from getting captured in the Second World War. There was no way I was going to stick my knife into my lower belly, then rip it upwards, letting my guts spill onto the snow. I wasn’t going to slice my wrists either. If it came down to that, going to sleep and freezing to death would be a much better way to go.
I remembered a movie I’d seen about a buffalo hunter who got caught in a blizzard next to a herd. He shot one of the animals, gutted it with his knife, and crawled inside the carcass to stay warm and wait out the storm. Too bad there weren’t any buffalo left around, and even if there were, I didn’t have a rifle to shoot one.
I tried to think of something a lot more practical. If only the tree I was propped up against had been the one I peppered with a shotgun shell when I was with Gramp. I had already checked more than once, but reached around the front of the poplar a third time to feel for the pellet scars again, when I realized something.
I had been hiding on one side of the tree to get out of the wind. I moved my mitt to the trunk’s front, and the wind blasted into it. I noticed that my side of the tree had a lot less snow plastered against it than the other side where the blizzard was spitting out a wall of white.
I remembered something Gramp had shown me once. After a blizzard, the direction the wind had come from could easily be figured out by which side of the tree the wind had hit and painted.
I was like a snowman, with snow covering every part of me, but the tree I was sheltered behind had a layer of snow on only one side. The blizzard was still coming from the west. Now I had a couple of choices.
I could step away from the forest, turn right and head east. If I did that, stayed close to the trees, and moved downriver, hopefully I would find the market garden where the Chinese family lived. If they weren’t too far away.
But, if my first effort to climb the hills had actually taken me in a circle around the market garden, then maybe it was already behind me to the west. There was no way to know. That being the case, the bridge that crossed the river should be fairly close. But if I was a couple of miles to the east of town, where the bridge was, I’d likely collapse from exhaustion and freeze before I made it back to town and to safety.
Nope, I figured I had to stick to my original plan. There was no way I was going to let anybody searching for me find my frozen lump of a body under some tree. Maybe I would never be found if I burrowed under the boughs of a jack pine. Maybe animals would first get to chomp on my flesh and bones when I was dead. At least the heavy clothing I was wearing would make them work for their meal—except for my eyes and my face. Ugh!
I decided there was no way I was going to stumble around in the blinding snow looking for the market garden or the bridge. I‘d do my best to find the base of the hills again.
The fact that the blizzard was still blowing from the same direction meant that when I walked away from the river, if I kept the driving snow to my left, I should be on a straight line to the base of the hills. I figured it was the best chance I had. As the light faded even more, I waded into the deepening white.
It was hard to keep moving. The day had turned completely black, and night added more fear to my other terrible thoughts. The snow on the flats was now almost waist-deep in spots, and the wind had built a crust all down the left side of my parka.
But it worked!
At first the rise in the ground caused me to trip often, and when I fell forward, I disappeared completely into the snow I was wading through. I soon realized after that, as I climbed uphill, the snow had become less deep. I kept on slogging, puffing through a mask of frozen icicles across my scarf that made it hard to breathe. I didn’t dare uncover my nose, in case it might instantly freeze. The effort was causing me to sweat even more, but now it was making me feel a lot warmer.
I wasn’t sure how much more “gas I had left in the tank,” as Gramp used to say to get me to work harder when I played hockey. “Keep skating until there’s no gas left in the tank, Buddy,” he would holler. I could hear his voice in my head—or maybe it was in the wind—and it kept me going.
When the hill I’d been climbing levelled off and I tripped over the railroad tracks in the dark, I was happier than I had ever been. But, at the same time, I was absolutely crushed when I discovered no lights or buildings anywhere near the tracks.
I asked myself out loud which way I should go now. I turned to the right. Buffalo Crossing had to be that way. I hadn’t come to the bridge east of town, so that meant I was on the west side. If I just followed the tracks, I should eventually walk into the rail yards. I wondered how far “eventually” might be.
I plodded down the rail line, stepping from one rail tie to the next, the wind at my back, pushing me forward. Until my leg slipped between two ties. It was like dropping into a well. I only stopped falling when my crotch crunched on the tie. Luckily, my other leg was still draped behind me, and my arms lay across the tie in front. My sack hurt like I had taken a hit from a ground ball. I thought I might throw up.
I hadn’t realized I was actually walking on the railroad trestle. Many times Riel, Mokey and I had “walked the tracks,” so I knew I was now safe between the two rails of steel, balanced on ties a foot across. The trouble was that the ties on the rail bridge were at least a hundred feet above the ravine. The trestle was only a couple of hundred feet long, but if a train were to come from either direction, I’d be trapped. It would clobber me, blasting me off the trestle. Neither my heavy winter clothing, nor the mountain of snow below would break my fall. If being hit by a steam engine didn’t kill me, the fall sure would.
Exhausted and hurt, as much as I felt I should cross this trestle on my hands and knees, I got up, and with my arms stretched out in front of me, I very, very carefully took one step after another. It was the first time I had thought about what it might be like to be blind. I didn’t like it at all, and realizing it gave me even a greater appreciation for Gramma Davis.
I probably continued walking that way far beyond the end of the trestle. The wind wanted to knock me onto my face from behind, and I still couldn’t see through the darkness in front of me. It was only when I got down on my knees and felt railbed between the ties that I dared to believe I just might make it home. Only one last problem left: finding our house.
As I half-ran, half-stumbled down the tracks, a faint light began to show through the blowing snow. The glow was the lights of Buffalo Crossing, but it seemed more like a light coming from a rescuing angel.
Ten minutes later I finally reached our porch steps. I was smothered in snow and soaking wet under my clothes. I now truly understood what the word exhausted meant. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t dare in case I had to explain to Nan and Mom how stupid I had been. I wouldn’t be telling Riel and Mokey either—if they’d bother to listen to me.
If I could just get up the steps, I knew I’d be safe. Even if I couldn’t open the door, someone inside would hear me. I just had to thump or bang on it. But first, I had to get up the steps.
My snow-crusted mitt was caked in white, but I was able to grab the doorknob, and I felt it turn.
The door gave way and a hot blast of air swept over me, almost causing me to faint. Tugging the scarf from my face, the heat of the house began to melt my coldness. I heard, but didn’t feel my moccasins as they padded onto the kitchen linoleum. The smell of shin-o’-beef soup attacked my nostrils. I was too completely pooped to think of dinner.
“Oh, my God, Buddy!” said Nan. “Where the devil have you been? You’ve had us worried sick.”