I saw him coming up beside our crib, the horse going down to its knees in the drift there. I saw him going to the kitchen and coming in unheard because of all the wind. I saw Hans sitting in the kitchen. He was drinking like pa drank — lifting the bottle. Ma was there, her hands like a trap on the table. The Pedersen kid was there too, naked in the flour, towels lapping his middle, whiskey and water steadily dripping. Hans was watching, watching the kid’s dirty toes, watching him like he watched me with his pin-black eyes and his tongue sliding in his mouth. Then he’d see the cap, the mackinaw, the gloves wrapped thick around the gun, and it would be the same as when pa kicked the glass from Big Hans’s hand, only the bottle this time would roll on the floor, squirting. Ma would worry about her kitchen getting tracked and get up and mix biscuits with a shaky spoon and put the coffee on.
They’d disappear like the Pedersens had. He’d put them away somewhere out of sight for at least as long as the winter. But he’d leave the kid, for we’d been exchanged, and we were both in our own new lands. Then why did he stand there so pale I could see through? Shoot. Go on. Hurry up. Shoot.
The horse had circled round in it. He hadn’t known the way. He hadn’t known the horse had circled round. His hands were loose upon the reins and so the horse had circled round. Everything was black and white and everything the same. There wasn’t any road to go. There wasn’t any track. The horse had circled round in it. He hadn’t known the way. There was only snow to the horse’s thighs. There was only cold to the bone and driving snow in his eyes. He hadn’t known. How could he know the horse had circled round in it? How could he really ride and urge the horse with his heels when there wasn’t anyplace to go and everything was black and white and all the same? Of course the horse had circled round, of course he’d come around in it. Horses have a sense. That’s all manure about horses. No it ain’t, pa, no it ain’t. They do. Hans said. They do. Hans knows. He’s right. He was right about the wheat that time. He said the rust was in it and it was. He was right about the rats, they do eat shoes, they eat anything, so the horse has circled round in it. That was a long time ago. Yes, pa, but Hans was right even though that was a long time ago, and how would you know anyway, you was always drinking… not in summer… no, pa… not in spring or fall either… no, pa, but in the winter, and it’s winter now and you’re in bed where you belong — don’t speak to me, be quiet. The bottle made it spring for me just like that fellow’s made it warm for you. Shut up. Shut up. I wanted a cat or a dog awful bad since I was a little kid. You know those pictures of Hans’s, the girls with big brown nipples like bottle ends… Shut up. Shut up. I’m not going to grieve. You’re no man now. Your bottle’s broken in the snow. The sled rode over it, remember? I’m not going to grieve. You were always after killing me, yourself, pa, oh yes you were. I was cold in your house always, pa. Jorge — so was I. No. I was. I was the one wrapped in the snow. Even in the summer I’d shiver sometimes in the shade of a tree. And pa — I didn’t touch you, remember — there’s no point in haunting me. He did. He’s even come round maybe. Oh no jesus please. Round. He wakes. He sees the horse has stopped. He sits and rocks and thinks the horse is going on and then he sees it’s not. He tries his heels but the horse has finally stopped. He gets off and leads him on smack into the barn, and there it is, the barn, the barn he took the horse from. Then in the barn he begins to see better and he makes out something solid in the yard where he knows the house is and there are certain to be little letups in the storm and through one of them he sees a flicker of something almost orange, a flicker of the fire and a sign of me by it all stretched out my head on my arm and near asleep. If they’d given me a dog, I’d have called him Shep.
I jumped up and ran to the kitchen only stopping and going back for the gun and then running to the closet for the pail which I dropped with a terrible clatter. The tap gasped. The dipper in the pail beneath the sink rattled. So I ran to the fire and began to poke at it, the logs tumbling, and then I beat the logs with the poker so that sparks flew in my hair.
I crouched down behind a big chair in a corner away from the fire. Then I remembered I’d left the gun in the kitchen. My feet were sore and bare. The room was full of orange light and blackened shadows, moving. The wind whooped and the house creaked like steps do. I was alone with all that could happen. I began to wonder if the Pedersens had a dog, if the Pedersen kid had a dog or cat maybe and where it was if they did and if I’d known its name and whether it’d come if I called. I tried to think of its name as if it was something I’d forgot. I knew I was all muddled up and scared and crazy and I tried to think god damn over and over or what the hell or jesus christ, instead, but it didn’t work. All that could happen was alone with me and I was alone with it.
The wagon had a great big wheel. Papa had a paper sack. Mama held my hand. High horse waved his tail. Papa had a paper sack. We both ran to hide. Mama held my hand. The wagon had a great big wheel. High horse waved his tail. We both ran to hide.
Papa had a paper sack. The wagon had a great big wheel. Mama held my hand. Papa had a paper sack. High horse waved his tail. The wagon had a great big wheel. We both ran to hide. High horse waved his tail. Mama held my hand. We both ran to hide. The wagon had a great big wheel. Papa had a paper sack. Mama held my hand. High horse waved his tail. Papa had a paper sack. We both ran to hide. Papa had a paper sack. We both ran to hide.
The wind was still. The snow was still. The sun burned on the snow. The fireplace was cold and all the logs were ashy. I law stiffly on the floor, my legs drawn up, my arms around me. The fire had gone steadily into gray while I slept, and the night away, and I saw the dust float and glitter and settle down. The walls, the rug, the furniture, all that I could see from my elbow looked pale and tired and drawn up tight and cramped with cold. I felt I’d never seen these things before. I’d never seen a wasted morning, the sick drawn look of a winter dawn or how things were in a room where things were stored away and no one ever came, and how the dust came gently down.
I put my socks on. I didn’t remember at all coming from behind the chair, but I must have. I got some matches from the kitchen and some paper twists out of a box beside the fireplace and I put them down, raking the ashes aside. Then I put some light kindling on top. Pieces of orange crate I think they were. And then a log. I lit the paper and it flared up and flakes of the kindling curled and got red and black and dropped off and finally the kindling caught when I blew on it. It didn’t warm my hands any, though I kept them close, so I rubbed my arms and legs and jigged, but my feet still hurt. Then the fire growled. Another log. I found I couldn’t whistle. I warmed my back some. Outside snow. Steep. There were long hard shadows in the hollows of the drifts but the eastern crests were bright. After I’d warmed up a little I walked about the house in my stocking feet, and snagged my socks on the stairs. I looked under all the beds and in all the closets and behind most of the furniture. I remembered the pipes were froze. I got the pail from under the sink and opened the door to the back porch against a drift and scooped snow in the pail with a dipper. Snow had risen to the shoulders of the snowman. The pump was banked. There were no tracks anywhere.
I started the stove and put snow in a kettle. It always took so much snow to make a little water. The stove was black as char. I went back to the fireplace and put more logs on. It was beginning to roar and the room was turning cheerful, but it always took so much fire. I wriggled into my boots. Somehow I had a hunch I’d see a horse.