In the fading light a crow appeared, black and feathered, its ragged wings blotting the evening sky. “He’s beautiful,” Cindy said.
“They’ll be coming now,” Tony said. “Now that the snow has stopped, someone will come looking for us. By morning, sure.” His breath came in little white spurts.
“Smoke signals,” Cindy said, making her breath puff the same way. “Frozen words. Maybe somebody will see them, like secret messengers. Did you ever wonder, Tony, what happens to the words you speak? Where do they go after you say them? If you could know how they travel, you could direct them to anyone in the world. Hello out there, world! We’re here! Come and get us!”
Her voice echoed off the dark hills. Both of them listened intently for an answering sound. “Yell again,” Tony said excitedly. “I think I hear something.”
They called together. “Hell-ooooo out there! Hello-oooo!” Each time, Cindy told herself that this time somebody would hear them. They called until it grew dark and their voices were hoarse. They kept the window open longer than they should have.
“This is futile,” Cindy said, shivering. Tony rolled up the window, leaving it open a crack on top. It seemed incredible that nobody answered. Where were the people? Even though they had such high hopes for the next day, the prospect of another night in the car was depressing. They talked about the problems of keeping the fire alive through the night. If they both fell asleep, it would certainly go out. And how long would their paper fuel last? Already they were using the last of the newspaper for their miniature logs, which burned up shockingly fast. Cindy said if it came to that, she’d gladly burn her books. “My geometry book first.”
“I’m going out and see if I can find some wood,” Tony said.
“In the dark?”
“You ought to get out of this car, too,” he said. “You’ve got to move, keep your circulation going.”
“How can I, with my feet this way?” She could barely put her weight on them.
“Don’t you even have to answer nature’s call?” he said.
“I have the constitution of a camel.”
Tony rolled down the back window on his side and rolled out of the car, head first. She watched as he made a path through the snow, until he disappeared against the darkness of the woods. Despite the cold, she kept the window wide open, listening for the sound of snapping wood. Not seeing Tony, she felt uneasy. “Tony? You okay?” she called.
He returned carrying an armful of dead branches that he pushed through the back window. “I’m going for evergreens now,” he said. “For bedding.”
This time when he returned with his arms loaded, he pushed the fragrant green boughs into the front on her side. Then he climbed back into the car himself. “I’m frozen.” He peeled off his gloves to warm his hands around the fire can. “The fire’s out!” he said indignantly. “You were supposed to keep it going.”
She’d completely forgotten the fire. “Tony, your hands … I’m sorry!” It was a terrible thing to do. Hurriedly she pushed in the cigarette lighter. Tony held his hands around the can, then stuck his fingers into the ashes.
“Cold,” he said, and threw the ashes into the snow.
Cindy tore a piece of paper out of her geometry book and twisted it tightly. “The sum of the square of the hypotenuse …” Tony stared at her balefully. “Only being cheerful,” she said. “Adding a little gaiety to the proceedings.” His disgusted look made her feel like an idiot. She concentrated on the cigarette lighter. The paper smoldered against the orange coils. It was damp, but it finally flared up.
“That battery isn’t going to last forever,” Tony said.
Cindy fed in twigs, and the fire smoldered. The wood was wet and greasy. “This wood’s not very good.” She bent over the can, blowing gently on the fire. Her hands were cupped around the edge, feeding pages torn from her book. “We need a knife to cut shavings. Shavings would take.”
Tony tried shredding a branch with the beer can opener. The nail file Cindy offered him worked a little better. “We’ll get it going now,” she said. She laid twigs across the top of the can to dry out, and worked on peeling another branch with her fingers. She held up her stumpy nails. “Now I wish I had sharp fingernails.”
After a while they had a small pile of wood chips and slivers of bark, but when she put them on the burning paper the fire still sputtered weakly. “Don’t go out, don’t go out,” she whispered. “You can have my English book, whatever you want, beautiful fire. Stay with us, please little fire.” At Tony’s astonished look, she said, “I’m praying to the spirit of the fire.”
“You take the prize. You better watch out, or the little men from the funny farm will come to take you away.”
“Don’t you have any reverence? Any religious feeling?” She blew on the fire. It was taking now.
“For a fire!”
“Yes, for a fire. Why not for a fire? It means life, doesn’t it? The sun is fire. Without it, where would we be? I mean human beings, and all life on earth.”
“You’re way too deep for me,” he said sarcastically.
When the fire was burning, they arranged themselves in the front seat for sleeping. First they spread the evergreens like a carpet on the floor. The greens smelled wonderful and kept out some of the cold. Then they put their feet into the Army bag again. Cindy’s were still terribly tender and achy, and she warned Tony not to jar them.
“You told me a million times already,” he said.
Sitting side by side, they pulled the blanket around behind them and brought it around to meet in front, where, with a safety pin Cindy had found in her jacket, she pinned it together like a shawl.
It was dark inside the car. The long night stretched before them. Only the tiny fire under their feet gave off a shadowy yellow light. Neither of them slept. They were too uncomfortable. “We ought to talk about things,” she said. “Get our minds off ourselves. Do you have a girl friend?” Tony shook his head. “I bet girls like you. You know, you’re very handsome. No, you really are. I go to school with a boy who looks something like you. He’s Italian, too—do you mind my mentioning your ethnic origins?”
“Why don’t you stop trying to impress me?” he said. “All those five-dollar words. What’s wrong with saying things plain?”
She didn’t think she was being artificial or offensive. “That’s just the way I talk,” she said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.” Stiff, she thought to herself. She sounded stiff as ice. Why couldn’t she say things easily and naturally, the way she felt.
“Tony,” she whispered a little later. “Are you sleeping?”
He grunted and bent forward to feed the fire. Every time he moved she had to move, too. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “Do you want me to read your palm?”
“I don’t believe in that junk.”
“It’s just something to do to pass the time.” She took his hand and held it close to the light of the fire. “Look at the lines. What do you see?”
“I see the number forty-one backward on my right hand, and forward on my left. What does that mean?”
“That’s not the way you do it.” She showed him the mounts under each finger: Jupiter for ambition under his index finger, Saturn for seriousness under his middle finger, then Apollo for brilliance, and Mercury for practicality.
“Where’d you learn that?” he said.
“I was reading a book.” She showed him the Mount of Venus at the base of his thumb. “That’s your love mount.”
“Stupid,” he said, but he was interested as she showed him his head line, his heart line, and his lifeline running from the base of his wrist to just under his first finger. “What does this stuff mean? What does it show?”
“You’re going to have a long life,” she told him, “and several unhappy love affairs.”
He pulled his hand away. “Gripes, what baloney.” But a moment later she saw him studying his palm. “Too bad you can’t tell when we’re getting out of this mess,” he said. “Then your fortune telling would be worth something.”