From Here to There (40 page)

 "It shore is, but that boy preferred being on a boat in the tropics or layin’ under a tree in the desert to being up in this kind of country anyways," Curly said with a grin as he handed him his gloves. “Use these if you end up having to walk. These Montana blizzards ain't nothing to take for granted. Many's the man that figured he could outsmart 'em and died for it."

 Amos reached up his hand to catch Phillip's. "Curly's right. Don't try to make it up the road if it's drifted closed. Use your head."

 "So, what else could I use?" Phillip asked. With that, he reached down to pat Amos on the shoulder. "You take care," and he'd walked out the door.

 By the time Phillip reached the road leading up to the ranch, he was disoriented and was only certain of where he was by the tall orange posts Amos had planted on both sides of the road. It didn't take long, plowing his way up the road, before he knew chains, high carriage and four-wheel drive were not going to be enough to take him to the house. Before he'd driven a hundred yards up the road, his truck fought through drifts, nearly high-centering. He wasn't going to make it all the way. The only intelligent thing to do was to turn around and go back before he became hopelessly stuck.

 Helene answered the phone that was plugged into the wall and not dependent on electricity to work, half surprised it was still working, even knowing its lines were underground.

 "He get there yet?" asked Curly without any polite greetings.

 "Who?" Helene asked, even though something icy had gripped her heart and she knew the answer.

 "That husband of yours. He took off over an hour ago. We was hoping he'd made it by now."

 "He's not here." Helene looked worriedly out at the blackness of the night and the blowing snow. "Why did you let him come?"

 "I'd like to of seen the man could've stopped him," Curly retorted.

 "Maybe he saw he couldn't make it and turned around."

 "I wouldn't want to bet money on that." The worry was evident in Curly's voice.

 Helene couldn't let herself think about what Curly was telling her. "How's Uncle Amos?"

 "Resting and as comfortable as can be under the situation... except for worryin' about the place. Doc's keepin' an eye on him. He thinks he won't get another heart attack if he takes it easy. Good thing Phil made him take that aspirin."

 "You tell him not to worry about things up here," Helene said, knowing that would be an impossible task. "And surely Phillip will turn around when he sees how bad it is out here." Curly snorted his disbelief. "If he does go back to town or you hear from him that he’s staying over with someone living along the road, please call me," Helene said.

 "Will do." She knew from the tone of his voice he didn't expect to see him back there that night.

 When she hung up, Helene stared out the window. Phillip wouldn't try to come up their long private road. He would see it was impossible to make it through the snowdrifts and turn around. The alternative was unthinkable. If the truck couldn't make it, would he try to come on foot? If he tried, he'd never see the house in the darkness and swirling snow. Kerosene lamps provided enough light for the house, but they wouldn't be much of a beacon for a man to follow home.

 She opened a drawer in the kitchen and took out a handful of candles. She began lighting them but didn't feel greatly encouraged at the visibility that would add even as she turned the kerosene lamps on high, moving them near the windows.

 "He won't try to come through this," she said, looking down nervously at Hobo and trying to reassure herself, she repeated it. "He won't try to come through this."

 She couldn't stand the thought she might lose him and with that awareness came the certainty Phillip was the most important thing in her life. He was the goal for her, the star she would follow. For Aunt Rochelle it had led her to Montana but there she had found it wasn’t a place but a person. For Helene now, it would take her wherever Phillip wanted to go, wherever he wanted to make a home. Whatever part of himself he offered her, she would accept if she just got him back.

#

 Phillip got out of the snowbound truck and strained his eyes to see up the road. He had only to stay on the road and keep climbing. The house couldn't be over three quarters of a mile farther. He felt grateful for the two pairs of insulated socks and the heavy, insulated gloves that Curly had thrust into his hands as he'd left Doc's. He pulled the wool muffler around his face as best he could, pulled his hat down low over his forehead and began walking. The snow was over his boots, and he quickly found it was more a case of plowing his way through than walking. He gritted his teeth against the stinging cold.

 As he struggled on, he thought of Helene. It was all he could think about, his need to get to her. It was worth leaving behind his business, everything he knew and coming out West to make a fool of himself. He finally realized it was worth the pain of loving her and maybe even the pain of losing her if that just wasn’t now. He wondered if he'd ever find the words to tell her what she'd come to mean to him, if he would dare reach out to take what he had come to believe she would give him. He had known when he came back from California that she loved him. He'd known it but had been afraid to face what it meant.

 He tried to keep himself on the road, the fence on one side helped, until it disappeared. Altered by snow, rocks and trees, landmarks disappeared. This was a terrain he'd never seen before. He was in good physical condition, but nothing could have prepared him for the effort of fighting through, first knee deep snow and then in the drifts, snow that came almost to his waist. His legs were tired, his feet and hands had passed from being chilled, to painful and now were nearly numb. He didn't think that was good but there wasn't much he could do about it. Going back wasn’t an option even if he had been so inclined and he wasn’t.

 Fighting his way through a snowdrift, he was shocked on the other side to hit a rock with his boot, throwing him off balance. Lying on the ground, winded by the force of his fall against an area where the snow had been blown almost away, he knew he had to get up. If he lay there, he'd die there.

 On his feet again, he ordered himself to keep walking. Hardly knowing what he was saying, he argued against the body that wanted to give up, to lie down and let the snow claim it. "No," he mumbled, "got to get to the ranch." He wouldn't die in the snow like a rabbit that wouldn't fight for its life. He could keep going. He had to keep going.

 Looking around, he realized he had no idea where he was. Had he stayed on the road or lost his direction? If he went downhill, he'd come back to the main road but going up, he might climb right past the house. His world had become snow and darkness. He'd been a fool to try and make it to the ranch, and he suddenly knew there was every chance he'd die for that foolishness, but he couldn't turn around. He had to keep on. Up there somewhere was Helene, and his world had narrowed down to one thought--he had to get to her.

#

 Helene peered into the darkness. She thought about going outside to yell for Phillip but with the noise of the storm, he would never hear her unless he was right on top of the house. When Curly didn't call back, she was forced to accept the fact that Phillip hadn't turned back. Her only other hope was that he'd gone off the road somewhere down on the highway, and someone would come along to pick him up. That hope was faint. She knew he'd call--if he could.

 Hobo paced beside her. He looked nervously at the door, then moved to stand in front of it. He looked back at her expectantly.

 "I can't believe you want out, boy. It's too cold out there for even you." She hadn't expected the shepherd to need another trip outside before morning. When she heard him whine, she was astonished. Hobo never deigned to whine. Bark occasionally but never whine.

 "All right," she said, reluctantly opening the door, "but don't say I didn't warn you."

 Hobo disappeared almost instantly into the night and Helene began to worry he might go too far and become lost himself.

 Tears filled her eyes as she thought of Phillip. Where was he? God, what she'd give to have the phone ring and hear his voice. She began praying, hardly knowing what she said, only filled with the desperate fear that Phillip was out there somewhere in that nightmare of white.

Unsure of whether he could keep putting one foot in front of the other, if he could fight his way through another snowdrift; Phillip lost all ability to think beyond the necessity to keep moving, to keep climbing. His breath came with more and more difficulty, his body hurt where it wasn't numb from cold. If only the wind would stop, if only he could actually get his bearings to know he hadn't climbed past the house, that he wasn't lost on the mountain. He'd fallen more times than he could or wanted to remember. Each time he picked himself up and somehow made himself keep moving. How much longer could he keep doing that?

 Falling again, he lay in the soft snow, gathering up his strength. In a daze, completely disoriented by the swirling snow, he heard a sound and looked up to see the dog above him. It took a moment for him to realize it was Hobo. The shepherd whined, grabbing at his coat with his teeth.

 "Okay," he managed to mumble, shoving himself to his feet and stumbling ahead. Suddenly the dog was in front of him, blocking his way. It took Phillip's dulled wits a moment to realize he was telling him something. Wrong way, he guessed and shifted his direction to the dog's satisfaction.

 The journey was a nightmare as man and beast kept moving ahead, struggling through the drifts, but now Phillip had some hope that he might actually survive, that Hobo knew where he was going when Phillip no longer had any idea. Whenever Phillip veered from the correct path, the dog blocked his way or whined to indicate his error until he was again pointed the right way. 'If only he could carry me,' Phillip thought with what small part of his mind was still capable of thinking. He was uncertain how much longer he could keep his body moving.

 There was no reality in his world except cold--stinging cold and the agony of muscles pushed past their limit of endurance. If there had ever been another life, he couldn't remember it. All he knew was the misery of constantly putting one foot in front of the other, pushing his way through snow and knowing he couldn't keep doing it forever.

 By the time they got to the first of the ranch buildings, Phillip was so dazed he barely understood that the faint light he saw ahead was home, that it represented safety. Almost before he realized it, he was stumbling against the porch, falling again and unsure if this time, so close to warmth, he could rise. He heard Hobo bark but couldn't even lift his head to respond.

 The door opened; light streamed out. Numbly he knew Helene was at his side, but her words were only sounds, sounds he didn't understand. She wanted something from him, and he had to obey her. He struggled to crawl, to help as she tried to lift and pull him across the porch.

 Only when he was inside, when he felt her hands pulling the muffler away from his face and felt warmth assault his skin, did he faint.

 "Phillip, oh no, please..." Helene felt desperately for a pulse. When she found it, she tried to think of everything she had read about hypothermia, about frostbite, about all the things she had never expected she would have to know.

 She threw several towels, a quilt and one of the sleeping bags over a chair directly in front of the woodstove. She had to restore heat to Phillip's nearly frozen body.

 The first thing was to get him out of frozen and wet clothing. "Please don't die," she begged as she tore open the buttons of his snow-laden coat. He was heavier than she expected, but she managed to lift his shoulders and pull the garment from him. Dragging him closer to the heat from the woodstove, she peeled frozen gloves from his hands. Frostbite? What would his hands look like if they'd been frostbitten? She damned herself for her ignorance and prayed she wasn't making a mistake in what she was doing to tend him.

 Hobo, warming his own body with the wood stove, leaned over Phillip with almost human concern as Helene pulled off boots and wet socks and set about to strip him of the wet clothing that was keeping his skin from receiving heat from the fire.