Softly Falling (32 page)

Lily pulled her chair close to the stove. The metal monster that had seemed so large on the first day of school seemed tiny now, a stove for a doll’s house, as it struggled to heat the room. She opened the well-worn paperback, wishing she had thought to bring mittens this morning. She glanced around. Only Luella had mittens. Chantal and Amelie had shoved their hands deep into their coat pockets. “Here we are. “ ‘Dick’s ready identification of the rogue who had cheated the countryman, surprised Frank . . .’ ”

She had read only a few pages, speaking up to be heard above the wind, when Nick joined them, pulling his chair close to Amelie. His sister smiled at him, all turmoil forgotten in the generosity of her nature. She held his hand and pulled it into her more commodious coat pocket. He smiled back, and a look of affection passed between the brother and sister.

We are in this together
, Lily thought, gratitude outweighing her fears.

She read four chapters, leaving Dick to confront Mickey Maguire, another street bully, when Luella raised her hand. “Yes, my dear?”

“Where do you think everyone is?” Luella asked.

“My father is likely on his way to Cheyenne on the train, your parents are probably hunkered down in your house with Fothering, and Madeleine is probably scolding the cowhands for tracking snow into her dining room,” Lily said.

The children chuckled as she hoped they would.
And we are here alone
, Lily thought,
as alone as if we were in the middle of the Arctic
.

“You . . . you don’t think anyone is out of doors in this, do you?” Chantal asked.

“Heavens, no! When the snow and the wind stop, I feel confident that Jack and Pierre will come and get us.” Lily nearly said “rescue,” but changed her mind. No need to alarm them further. “Nick, could you put another log in the stove?”

He looked at the now-empty woodbox and shook his head. “None left.”

Chantal puckered up and started to cry, which meant Luella joined her. Amelie’s face was solemn, her eyes apprehensive.

Lily wished her brain wasn’t starting to feel so sluggish. She stood up and motioned the girls to sit closer together as she walked with Nick to the window, where nothing could be seen. “We have to get more wood from outside,” she said.

He nodded. “Pierre moved the box closer, but it’s still at the end of this side of the school.”

“I know.”

She stared at Pierre’s buffalo robe winter count and slapped her forehead. “I’m a dunce. Nick, help me lift this off the wall.”

Amelie brought her chair and Lily stood on it as all the children held the heavy robe from below, bearing the weight so she could lift the short rope he had used to hang the robe from the nails. She nearly fell from the chair as the robe came loose, but the children were there to catch it. Little Chantal ended up on the floor.

Lily detached the rope, wishing it were longer, and set it aside. “All right! Girls, I want you to wrap this robe around you, hair side in. Just sit close together. Ah, yes. I do believe there will be room for Nick and me too, but we have something else to do.”

The girls did as she said. They dragged the winter count close to the stove that was barely warm. Amelie was the tallest, so she took charge, positioning the robe so everyone had cover.

“Excellent. Now, Amelie, I want you and Chantal to teach Luella all those verses of ‘Sur le Pont.’ She knows some of them already.” She took a deep breath. “Nick is going to be our hero and go for wood.”

She must have said it with confidence she barely felt, because Amelie nodded. In a minute they were singing. She turned to Nick. “Will you get wood for us? It’s dangerous, but I’m going to tie a rope around you, and tie you to me.”

He nodded, no words necessary. Maybe that was how heroes behaved. Lily didn’t know.

“I’m going to tie the rope around your waist.”

She tied it over his coat, dismayed to see that only two feet of rope extended. They looked at each other for a long moment as the wind howled and snarled. She looked back at the wall where the winter count had hung, promising herself that if they got out of this fix alive, she would keep coiled rope and a woodpile
inside
the classroom.

Her gaze fell on the canvas winter counts that her lovely children had created only a week ago, with Pierre’s help. She walked closer, admiring the months her students had already filled in, chronicling their courageous lives in a wonderful way. She turned around, decisive now because she saw a way through this current dilemma. Likely there would be others before the storm ended, so she would take them one at a time and not borrow trouble.

“My dears, we are going to have to cut your winter counts into strips to make a longer rope for Nick. I’m going to tie the other end around my waist and stay inside. If something happens, we can all pull him back inside.”

If she had thought there would be objection, she saw none, beyond the initial disappointment to see their work made into a rope. “I am almost certain we can prevail upon Mr. Sinclair to find us more canvas, so we can reproduce our winter counts.”

Lily removed the canvas winter counts from the wall, made snips with her scissors, and ripped the winter counts into strips. “I’m not good with knots,” she said when there was a pile of canvas on her desk.

Chantal took charge, deftly knotting each strip to the next. “Papa taught me a square knot,” she said. “A bowline and sheepshank too, if we ever need them.”

Amelie nodded, pride on her face. “Papa could do anything.” Her face fell. “Except stay alive.”

“He would be immensely proud of you,” Lily said quietly. “Ah. That is a good spelling word.” With fingers getting cold and stiff, she printed
immensely
on the blackboard.

She tugged on the growing canvas rope as Amelie deftly knotted one end to another until the makeshift lifeline stretched across the classroom. Nick smiled to see the results and tied a square knot, uniting the end of the canvas rope with his hemp rope. He gave Lily a triumphant smile and looped the canvas end around her and tied a slip knot this time.

“That’s Papa’s bowline,” he said. “You can slip it out if you need to.”

The girls all looked at Nick. Luella unwound the long woolen muffler from her head and neck and wrapped it around his head. He knotted it and tucked the ends into the front of his ragged coat, then crammed his knit cap over the muffler, until only his eyes were visible. Luella’s mittens went on his hands next.

Lily stood at the door, her hand on the knob. “Just hug the wall and don’t try to take too much at once.”

He nodded to her and she opened the door, hanging onto it and trying to catch her breath as the wind whistled in with the snow and blinded her. Lily wiped her face and held the door close without chafing the canvas lifeline.
Just hurry,
she thought over and over, until he banged on the door and fell into the room, propelled by the wind. As he lay there gasping, Amelie and Chantal darted forward to grab the logs. Luella wiped the snow from his eyes with her pinafore, and Lily pulled the muffler tighter.

With her help, Nick stood up and went back outside. Six times he made the trip, only two logs each trip, which irritated him. On the seventh trip, the rope separated.

C
HAPTER
30

L
ily fell down when the tension left the rope. She scrambled to her feet and wrenched open the door.

“Miss Carteret, you need a muffler!” Luella called. She sounded so far away, even though Lily only stood outside the open door.

“No time,” she muttered and clutched the wall, head down, as the storm tried to dislodge her. “Luella, hang onto the end of this canvas,” she called. “When I tug on it, you three pull for all you’re worth.”

She slowly moved along the log wall, yelling for Nick and wishing for a handhold, anything to grab. The logs were smooth with ice and she went to her knees.

Struggling to her feet, Lily stepped back involuntarily. One step and two, and then she couldn’t even see the schoolhouse, even though it couldn’t have been more than a yard away. She shoved her panic back into that corner of her brain where it had been pacing around all day and threw herself against what she hoped was the wall. Nothing. She tried again and this time her forehead banged against the logs.

Relief forced the blood back to her face, warming her for a minute. Deep breaths only hurt her lungs, so she took shallow ones, fighting with herself not to breathe too fast and faint. She edged along the wall and then fell over Nick.

He lay facedown in the snow, which had already mounded over his body. Drawing on all her strength, Lily wrenched him from the snow, sobbing with even more relief when he clung to her, alive but so cold.

She tugged on the rope, then tugged again when nothing seemed to happen. “Please, please,” she said under her breath, and sighed when she felt a returning tug from the little girls. Her arm around Nick, she tugged him along, then took heart when he seemed to move forward under his own steam.

It seemed like forever, but the door opened and they fell inside. Without a word, Amelie turned her brother over on his back and jerked the muffler from his face. He muttered his complaint, then opened his eyes.

“You scared us,” Chantal said, her eyes huge in her face.

Lily closed the door and leaned against it, silent with more gratitude than she could ever remember. The room was cold, but all was orderly. The girls had stacked the wood Nick had managed to bring inside into an orderly pyramid by the stove. She watched as his sisters and Luella walked Nick to the winter count buffalo robe and gently bullied him into sitting in the middle of it.

“There now,” Luella said, looking both capable and young, which touched Lily to her heart’s core. “You’re next, Miss Carteret.”

“Not until I find that hatchet,” she said. “We’re going to need it.”

Luella looked around, her eyes puzzled. “The pieces of wood Nick brought in are already small enough. Why do you need a hatchet?”

“We’re going to have to burn the chairs and desks,” Lily said quietly, not wanting to frighten them but needing their full attention. She pulled on her coat and grabbed Luella’s muffler.

Luella gulped, but she did not fail Lily. “Amelie and Chantal, we’re going to stand at the door for Miss Carteret, because she has to find the hatchet outside. Hurry now,” she said, every inch a leader.

When the girls were in place by the door, Lily opened it and threw herself into the storm. The gentle pressure on the remaining canvas rope gave her heart and she bowed her head and moved along the wall. The wood pile seemed miles away and she couldn’t see it. She should have reached it by now, which made her heart pound harder. She forced herself to remain calm, reminding herself that nothing was as it seemed. The world was white and she might have been in a giant cocoon, dunked in the world’s coldest river. She was barely moving against the unbridled energy of wind and snow; no wonder she hadn’t reached the wood yet.

Lily struck the wood with the toe of her shoe. She just grasped the snow-covered logs, relieved at their solidity, then tried to remember where Pierre had left the hatchet. She wanted to give up as wind whipped at her skirts and sent them sailing nearly over her head, despite the lead shot that she had sewed into the hem. She scolded herself for being too shy to ask Madeleine about long underwear, remembering a time that seemed so distant now when she had felt a little vain about her hand-sewn silk drawers.

In her frustration, she pounded on the logs, then moved around to the other side, kneeling down to dig in snow that was already waist deep. With a cry of delight that forced sharp pellets of ice into her mouth, she felt the snowy outline of the hatchet. Her fingers could barely bend, but she tugged it from the snow and started back to the schoolroom door.

She knew her whole body was coated with snow now, and the weight began to drag her down. Panicking, she tugged hard on the rope, then calmed herself when she felt the answering tug on her waist. She closed her eyes and inched along, then opened them and stared south toward the rest of the Bar Dot.

She should never have looked, because there was nothing to see. They were alone.