 
DAVID SHATH SQUARE Chapter Twenty-seven
We got up late next morning. The temperature had risen during the night and the sky had clouded over.
Shadow was pacing the floor, sniffing the wind which blew hard from the southwest.
"I don't like that wind," I said. "A southwesterly brings a Colorado low. It'll dump three feet of snow before day's end."
Thoreena already had one leg in her jeans.
"We've got work to do, Hardy. Let's get the deer meat into the root cellar and the hides into the cabin before everything is buried in snow."
We didn't have a lot of clothing so it wasn't long before we emerged in ragged t-shirts, tattered jeans, and torn tennis shoes.
The southwesterly felt warm on our bare arms. Like Indians, we had become accustomed to working in the moderate cold with little more than our own hides to keep us warm.
Thoreena walked toward the glade to collect the hides while I began to carry armloads of deer meat into the cabin down the ladder to the root cellar. As we worked snowflakes began to fall; at first they melted as they hit the ground but soon they began to freeze. When I looked into the sky, I was blinded by the huge flakes and the wind was stronger from the southwest; snow began to pile in drifts. In a few minutes, it would be impossible to discern earth from sky.
I had carried most of the deer meat to the root cellar and Thoreena had dragged one hide up from the glade. She was puffing from the effort. Most unlike her.
"I'll get the other one," I said.
"I can manage it."
"No, I'll get it."
Thoreena looked at me and shrugged.
"Okay, you get it."
As I trudged through deepening snow toward the glade, I thought about Thoreena and her condition. We had been so busy preparing for winter that little thought had been given to her pregnancy. I wasn't even sure how many months along she was.
For that matter, it wasn't even sure what month this was. Was it November? Or was it already December? I reasoned that the first heavy snowfall of the season usually occurred in early to mid-November, so I figured we still had some time before the baby was born. But when was the baby supposed to be born?
As far as I could remember the day of conception must have been June 15, a bright summer day when Thoreena and I had taken a picnic into the woods and lunched beside a cheerful waterfall that tumbled between granite cliffs into a warm clearing. Come to think of it, it had to be that day because it was the first time we had gone all the way.
After the lovemaking, I was exhilarated and afraid: afraid that I had hurt Thoreena and exhilarated because of the intensity of the lovemaking. But I needn't have worried. When it was over, Thoreena had said she loved me and thanked me for being so gentle and making her a complete woman.
Whatever that meant? Maybe she already knew she had conceived? Women are very intuitive about these things. Whatever she meant, it was all water under the bridge now. I began to calculate the number of months until the baby arrived. Thoreena had told me that it took nine months for a baby to be born. I counted on my fingers from June 15 to July to August to September to October to November to December to January to February to March 15. My god! The Ides of March! Was this good or bad?
I didn't have time to consider because by this time I had reached the smouldering fire overwhich the second hide hung. The snow had accumulated on the hide, forcing the centre near the hot coals which were about to burn a hole in the precious soon-to-be garment. I snatched it from the poles which held it over the fire and threw snow on it. There was a slight hissing as the hide cooled, but otherwise it seemed intact.
I threw the smelly thing over my shoulder and began to wade through deep snow to the cabin. As I hiked, I thought how peaceful and beautiful was the world on such as day as this. Then I heard a shriek which brought me back to reality.
To Chapter Twenty-eight
Copyright © 2000 David Square/Log Cabin Chronicles/01.2000 |
