Snow Bound Read online

  She reached out and turned the key in the ignition. Unexpectedly the car jerked forward, and there was a terrible scraping of metal. “Oh!” she cried.

  “Damnit! You stupid jerk, what are you doing to my car?” Tony jumped forward. “It’s in gear. Don’t you know anything? Keep your hands off my car.”

  Cindy bit her lip and moved away. She had to do something beside sitting here and fighting with this boy. He didn’t have a thought in his head but for his car and himself. She’d seen him admiring himself in the rearview mirror. He said they were going to be rescued, but she didn’t trust him. He didn’t know anything. Sit here and freeze to death? It was abysmally stupid. She had to get away, move, save herself.

  She pulled her scarf around her head, got all her things together—books, the tin of cookies, and her denim bag. She started to get out of the car and then realized it was foolish to take the books. She dropped them on the seat. “I’m leaving my books here, if you don’t mind.”

  “What are you talking about? Where are you going?”

  “I’m getting out. I won’t sit here and freeze to death. I have to do something.” She tried the door. It was stuck.

  “It’s frozen shut,” he said smugly. “You can’t get out.”

  “I can!” She threw herself against the door, forcing it open against the snow. Outside it was gray and cold, and snow was still falling. The drifts around the car lay nearly level with the hood. It was a desolate scene—nothing but the snow and wind that whipped through the trees lining the hills. She would have slunk back into the shelter of the car, but she couldn’t face Tony’s unbearable smugness. She began struggling up the slope.

  In places the snow rose to Cindy’s hips. She could barely move, but nevertheless pushed on across the field and up between the two hills, going back the way they’d come. Tony had called the hills Bear Hill and Slant Rock. The liar. He thought she would be taken in by his simple-minded lies. She knew they were lost. If she could get to a road, any road, she’d find her way to people and bring back help to him!

  The going was terribly hard. Cindy floundered on, several times pitching forward to her knees and then struggling up again. She was covered with snow. It was in her eyes and in her mouth, and her boots were filled with it. She kept falling and picking herself up. The inside of her nostrils froze and her cheeks turned to glass. She thought of the satisfaction she’d feel leading people back to the car. Tony would still be inside admiring his conceited face in the mirror.

  When Cindy finally gained the top of the rise and stood on level ground, she was panting for breath and sweating profusely. Wherever she looked, the snow, deep and glittery, spread in dazzling, windblown patterns. There was no road, no house, no chimney with its promise of smoky warmth. Only brush hills and the cold land rising and falling like waves in an ocean of snow. Looking back through the milky stillness, she saw the frosted outline of the car.

  Her heart pumped furiously, the taste of salt was in her mouth. She felt sick and dizzy. In this huge, silent country she was only a tiny speck of life. She could feel herself dissolving like sugar in water. Disappearing … disappearing … Desperately, she ran forward, straight toward the horizon. Her scarf unraveled and flew off. Then she dropped her gloves, the denim bag, the tin of cookies. She lost everything as she struggled wildly through the snow. There had to be a road! “The road,” she cried. “Where’s the road? Oh, where’s the road!”

  Branches whipped against her face. She struggled through thick, bushy growths. Tree trunks loomed up in front of her. And then, tripped by some hidden obstacle, she fell face forward in the snow. She lay there, arms spread, her face buried. Slowly an uncertain calm returned to her. She remembered stories she’d read of people panicking in emergencies, losing everything as they ran mindlessly in circles, until they lost their strength and were truly lost.

  She got up and retraced her zigzagging, crazy footsteps. As she came upon her things she picked them up. Her scarf, her gloves, the tin of cookies, and her denim bag. Each item she had dropped seemed to appear miraculously out of the whiteness like a sign post.

  She smelled the car before she saw it, smelled oil and gasoline and metal, felt its presence the way an animal knows the presence of its mother. She stumbled forward gratefully.

  7

  SNOW BOUND

  Tony had been watching out the window for Cindy, but when she came bursting back into the car, he was lying down with his feet over the front seat, a picture of relaxed indifference. Everything had gone exactly as he had expected.

  “There’s nothing up there,” she said through chattering teeth. “Not a road, not a house, nothing.”

  “I told you not to go out, didn’t I?” he said complacently.

  “All right!” she said. “I don’t want to hear about it now. My feet are wet and they hurt.” Clumsily she pulled off her boots. “My socks are stuck to my skin,” she said. “I think they’re frozen. Oh!” She sounded ready to cry.

  Tony leaned forward as she slowly peeled off her socks. Her feet were covered with purple splotches, but her toes were waxy. “Holy Mother,” he said, “now you’ve done it. You’ve frostbitten your feet. You’ve got to rub them with snow quick or they’ll rot off.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” she replied testily. “That’s the worst thing to do.” She’d taken a first aid course at the Y the previous summer. “This is nothing to fool around with.” She warmed her toes with her hands. “Keep them dry and warm. Never massage the frostbitten area. Just around it. If you want to do something helpful, build a fire.”

  He stared at her. “A fire. Where?”

  “Here,” she said. “Where else?”

  “Here! You mean inside? You’re crazy,” he said. “It’d ruin the car for good.”

  She wrapped her feet in her wool scarf and put her wet socks on the back of the seat to dry.

  “How do they feel?” he said.

  “How do you think they feel? Just leave me alone.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Suit yourself.” He lay with his legs tucked up under his chin and his hands between his thighs. That was the first and last time he was going to be nice to her. She just didn’t appreciate anything.

  It was cold. Gusts of wind rocked the car periodically, sending icy streams of snow filtering through the space between the windows and doors. Tony thought about stuffing paper into the cracks, but he didn’t move, reluctant to leave his cocoon of body heat. He wished he could go to sleep and wake up at home in his own bed. He could almost smell the ironed sheets his mother put on the bed every Friday. And food—he swallowed. He was hungry! Monday night they’d had pork chops and macaroni with butter and garlic, and the fresh crusty bread his mother picked up at Deloria’s bakery on the way home. He and his sisters grabbed it so fast, the loaf was gone the minute his mother put it on the table.

  Last night they must have been mad at him, thinking he was hiding someplace. But Tony was sure they’d be looking for him this morning. He twisted around to make himself more comfortable.

  “I ought to have something warm to drink,” Cindy said.

  “Coming right up,” he said. “Anything else?”

  She didn’t reply. That was fine with him. He could see her breath rising over the back of the seat. He heard her teeth chattering. A fire in the car! She was crazy. It wasn’t her car. He was the one who would get it. Tony closed his eyes. Half dreaming, he saw the living room at home glowing with warm orange light, the color TV turned on to his favorite show, his little sister Evie lying on the rug, fanny in the air, reading the funnies. Maybe Flo was making a big bowl of buttered popcorn while Donna gabbed on the phone, shrieking and driving everyone nuts.

  He had a lump in his throat. It was hard for him not to feel sorry for himself. He knew they were worried sick about him by now. He felt so sorry. He wished there was a phone he could walk to so he could call his parents and tell them he was all right.

  He had been dozing, but he was wide-
awake the moment his eyes opened. He felt uncomfortable, cramped, and icy cold. He rubbed his arms and legs hard. There was a leaden light coming in through the windows. At first he thought the snow had stopped, but it was only that a weak sun had pierced the dense clouds, shedding a pale, baleful light on the world. The snow continued to fall monotonously. They’d be buried before it stopped.

  In the front seat Cindy was asleep, half sitting, half lying, with her feet wrapped in her scarf. Tony tried to roll down the window on his side. It was frozen tight. The same on the other side. He’d float away if he didn’t get out and urinate, but he didn’t relish facing the weather. Although the inside of the car was bitterly cold, at least they were protected from the wind.

  Cindy woke. “Whaaa? Who is it?” she said in a startled tone. Her face was creased. She looked confused. She didn’t wake up quickly the way he did, fast and ready to go.

  “Your mouth was open,” he said.

  She turned away and wiped her mouth. Then she put her hand to her hair. She didn’t speak. Instead she scraped a little ice from the window with her nail and peered out.

  “How’re your feet?” he said.

  “All right,” she said in a thick voice, and then in a monotonous undertone she said, “It might never stop. It could snow all day and all night, and tomorrow. We might never …” She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead she twisted around to look at Tony. “I got a little crazy this morning,” she said, “when I ran out into the snow. But that won’t happen again. It’s important for us both to keep our heads and think. We have to cooperate.… We got into this mess and there’s no use blaming anyone. Now we have to help each other. With some thought we ought to be able to get … to help ourselves. What do you think, Tony?”

  “I think there’s nothing to think about!” he said. “As soon as it lets up they’re going to come through.”

  “Are you sure? What makes you so sure?”

  “My father is looking for me right now!”

  She shook her head. “What if he isn’t? It doesn’t have to be. Nothing has to be. We’ve got to help ourselves, that’s the only thing we can be sure of.”

  Without answering he forced open the door. The way she was talking made him furious.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  “To piss,” he said. Let her think about that!

  He went behind a tree to relieve himself. Then he stood absolutely still, listening. He stood for a long time, straining to hear distant sounds. There was nothing to hear, except the wind rattling through the trees. There was nothing to see. Nothing but snow and hills and snow-spattered dark evergreens. He couldn’t see anything that looked like a road, but it had to be there. There was a road up there, he repeated doggedly. The snowplow was coming through. Help had to be coming.

  Back in the car, he turned on the radio and they listened to the weather report from Watertown. A storm with blizzard-force winds had blasted the entire northern part of the state. Temperatures were in the teens. Five feet of snow had already fallen in Rochester, Buffalo, and Watertown. Drifts up to ten feet were reported in outlying areas. Schools were closed in every centralized school district. City schools were closed. Factories and stores were closed. Nothing was moving. Extra snowplows were being brought into the area to help clear the highways. Routes 20, 5, and 81 were closed. Dozens of travelers were stranded.

  “People are advised to stay home,” the announcer said. “Please, please, good people, don’t travel unless absolutely necessary. All roads are in poor condition. Slippery, with blowing snow. Visibility near zero. Emergency situations should be called in to the police and sheriff’s office. Fire and Civil Defense forces are standing by, and the road crews have been out all night plowing. The storm is expected to abate sometime this morning.

  “So have fun, kiddies. No school today. Make some popcorn and stay warm and cozy around the fireplace if you have one, or the heater if you don’t.”

  Tony clicked off the radio. There had been no mention of them, not a word. There was nobody looking for them. Nobody knew where they were. For the first time he truly felt despair. Their rescuers might never come.

  8

  FIRE!

  “A fire,” Cindy repeated. “We need a fire.” Her feet were aching terribly. “We can’t build a fire outside. The wind is too strong. Here at least, we have some protection.”

  He didn’t reply. Biting and gnawing his nails like a dog, acting as if he hadn’t heard a word she said, not responding. Waiting for his daddy to come and save him! It made her want to scream. How long could they sit here waiting for someone to find them? They’d freeze to death first. Oh, no, not her. She wasn’t going to just sit there and turn into an ice cube.

  Her feet were aching so badly that she could hardly think. “Fire!” she said again, rooting around in her carry-all. No telling what she had in there, it was so full of junk. She started throwing things on the seat. Wadded tissues, a nail file, an oval tortoiseshell lip gloss case, a half package of Life Savers. She’d forgotten them. Tony snatched them up. “You want any?” he said greedily.

  “Take them.” She held up a book of matches. “This is what I’ve been looking for! What fantastic luck.” On the cover there was an advertisement for Rinaldi’s Restaurant. “Dad and I ate supper there a couple weeks ago,” she said. “We had chicken in a basket with French fries and carrot sticks.” She was so excited she started to laugh. “Why did I take these matches? I don’t smoke. I didn’t even know I had them. Oh, how everything has meaning! What fantastic luck.” She flipped open the cover. “Seven matches. That must mean something. But it doesn’t matter, one match will start our fire.”

  “No fires,” Tony said. “I told you, not in my car. Burn the inside of this car and my father will skin me alive.”

  “What’s the matter with you!” she exclaimed. “Your father wouldn’t want you to freeze to death.” She opened the glove compartment and rummaged through the things inside. A flashlight, tissues, road maps, two pencil stubs, a half-filled book of green stamps, a rusty beer can opener, a penny and a nickel, and a black wool mitten with the thumb missing.

  Tony grabbed the stick of chewing gum. All he had on his mind was food. “That’s my private property,” he said, and swallowed the gum before he’d half finished the Life Savers.

  “Your sense of values is distorted,” Cindy said. “Private property means nothing now. I want to be warm. If we had one hundred dollar bills, I’d burn them.” She threw the coins and the pencil stub back into the compartment and held up the road maps and the green stamp book. “We’ll burn these. Now we need something to start a fire in. If I could only feel a little genuine heat again!” These last hours had been the worst of her life. She’d never been so cold and miserable.

  “A fire will smoke up the car,” Tony said.

  Was he dense! Was he ever dense! “Will you stop worrying about your precious car and start worrying about us,” she yelled. She was astonished to hear herself. “Our first duty is to survive, not to preserve the upholstery of this car!”

  “Okay, okay,” he yelled back. He climbed into the back seat.

  “We need something to build a fire in,” she said. Where was he going now? “Don’t waste your energy on frivolities. You’ve got to think fire.”

  He was kneeling, facing the rear of the car, yanking at the back seat, trying to pry up first one side and then the other. Cindy finally saw what he was doing—getting into the trunk from the inside of the car. “You want me to give you a hand?”

  “No,” he said, although the cold had obviously made him clumsy. He had to do things his own way. Her own hands felt like blocks of wood. Finally he freed the back cushions from the hangers and squeezed through to the trunk compartment. “The flashlight,” he ordered. A moment later he threw out a green Army duffel bag with the name STAGNITTA stenciled on the outside in white. A brown wool Army blanket followed.

  “Why didn’t we think of this last night?” she said. “A real blan
ket!” She wrapped it around her legs and feet.

  There was a gold mine of junk in the trunk. A pile of old newspapers, a length of clothes line, rags, a broken roller skate, a coke bottle, and an empty oil can. “Am I glad you people are squirrels,” she said. “Tell me everything that’s in there. I’ll make a list. We should think about using everything.” She watched as he stuffed newspapers and rags wherever he saw cracks of daylight. Then he backed into the car, passing her the empty oil can and a lug wrench. He stuffed more rags and papers around the doors and windows. “Did you find something for a fire?” she said.

  He pointed to the oil can. “What do you think that’s for?”

  “It’s so small …”

  “You can’t have a bonfire in here.” After climbing back into the front seat, he put the can down between them on the floor and hammered on the top with the L-shaped lug wrench. He caught his fingers a couple of times, swearing and blowing on them before Cindy remembered the rusty beer can opener and handed it to him.

  “What’s this for?” he said.

  She told him to use it to pry the rim loose before knocking it off with the wrench.

  “Maybe,” he said. But after he worked on the top, a single blow from the wrench tore it free. There was still some oil in the bottom of the can. Cindy ripped up one of the old road maps and twisted the pieces into tight spirals.

  “Goodbye, Northeastern States, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and little Rhode Island. You’re cold places, but you’re going to warm us now.”

  Tony put the paper twists in place and struck a match. The match was soft and didn’t catch. He struck it again and again. The whole book had gotten damp when she had gone rushing off into the snow and dropped everything.