basics.
Now, she switches off the engine and lets momentum carry the car further down the slope, past two dilapidated tobacco barns, to a stand of cedars amid tall longleaf pines that stretch up toward the low-lying gray clouds. Beyond the barns, hidden by a tangle of wax myrtle, grapevines, and briars, lies the creek. She gets out of the car and lets the silence wash over her. A crow caws in the distance and somewhere a dog barks, but the only other noise is the wind in the pines, a gentle swishing that sounds like waves softly breaking on a sandy shore. She has not realized how tense her muscles were until she feels them begin to relax.
With a saw in one hand and a rope in the other for dragging the tree back to the car, she wanders down among the cedars looking for a perfectly shaped tree, rejecting this one as too short and that one as too scraggly. Eventually, she finds one that will do. It’s full and bushy on the front and the flatter side can go next to the wall in their living room. As she stoops to clear away the weeds from the base so she can saw through the trunk, she hears voices coming from the creek bank.
She moves quietly through the bushes and two little towheaded boys come into view. Both wear overalls and jackets, but no hats or gloves. The creek is frozen over and they are out sliding on the ice. It looks like fun and half thinking she might join them, Sue steps out of the bushes.
“Hey!” she calls.
Like deer startled by a hunter’s gun, they immediately bolt for the opposite bank and, to Sue’s horror, crash through the ice into the cold, muddy water.
Both boys sink below the surface, but just as quickly, they bobble up again, clutching for the edge of the ice nearest her. Each time one of those half-frozen little hands reaches for safety, though, the ice breaks off and leaves them floundering in the water.
Sue drops the saw and steps onto the ice. An ominous crack warns her of the danger and she quickly lies down on her stomach to spread out her weight. Still clutching the rope, she crawls toward the frantic boys, but halfway there, she knows the ice will not support her.
With one end of the rope looped around her wrist she slides the other toward the children. It stops just out of their reach. She pulls it back to her, fashions a hasty coil, and heaves again with all her strength.
This time the older boy is able to grab it. Treading water, he gives the end to the younger one and both hold on tightly.
Gingerly, Sue backs toward the creek bank and when she can stand, she hauls the rope hand over hand till they, too, reach the bank. Both are white with cold and shock.
“Come on!” she says. “I’ll drive you home.”
One boy starts to turn away, but he still clutches the rope blindly and Sue herds them up the slope and through the trees to the car, where she wraps them in one of the blankets she and Zell keep for cold winter drives.
“Where do you live?” she asks as she scrambles in and slams the door.
They stare at her mutely, their teeth chattering as they huddle together, too cold or too scared to answer.
Running on adrenaline herself, Sue turns the key, stomps on the accelerator, and promptly floods the engine. She tries the starter again and again. It’s hopeless. The car is going nowhere for at least twenty minutes and those little boys are chilled to the bone and shivering uncontrollably.
She jumps out of the car and uses her gloved fingers as a rake to pile up some pine straw several yards away. Mac’s Zippo is in her pocket and she soon has a blaze going. Pine cones and dead twigs join the straw, followed by dead limbs.
“Now then,” she tells the boys. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.”
They try to resist, but she will have none of that. “You can keep your underwear on, but you’re going to catch your death if you don’t get next to the fire and dry out so don’t be silly.”
She leads them over to the fire and wraps the second blanket around
Eleanor Coerr, Ronald Himler