Lost in the Blinded Blizzard by John R. Erickson Read Free Book Online Page A

might as well go ahead and do what’s good and right.
    Yes, they had definitely chosen the right dog for this job. Or, to put it another way, they were very lucky that I had volunteered for this mission.
    I glanced up into Slim’s face one last time, just in case he might have thought it over and changed his . . . drawing back the stick? That was uncalled for, I mean, it’s not necessary to bully and browbeat the Head of Ranch . . .
    â€œGo home, Hank, go home!”
    All at once I felt a powerful urge to go home. Yes, and to deliver the precious healing medicine that would cure Baby Molly of the cough that had tormented her sleep.
    The words of my Cowdog Oath returned to me: “. . . to protect and defend all innocent children against all manner of monsters and evil things, regardless of the consequences.”
    And with those words fresh in my mind, I turned my back on the comfort of the house and the warmth of the stove (Drover would pay for this) and went plunging into the Great White Unknown.
    The tracks we had left in the snow half an hour before had already vanished, but I had no trouble finding my way back to the cattle guard. That was the easy part—traveling with the wind at my back and following my own scent in the snow.
    I reached the cattle guard in good shape and in record time. But once I had conquered the easy part, the part that remained to be conquered promised to be less than easy.
    Hard.
    Very difficult.
    Somewhere between impossible and ridiculous.
    At the cattle guard, I negotiated a 90 degree turn into a crosswind that was running about 40 degrees below zero, and began stumbling through snow that had drifted much deeper than I might have wished.
    This was tough going, fellers. I mean, every step in that deep snow required a terrible effort, and after fifteen or twenty of those lunging steps, I was already shot.
    But I couldn’t stop. The words of my Cowdog Oath kept me going. Also the knowledge that if I stopped, I would become a doggie Popsicle. I mushed on.
    After what seemed hours, I reached the flat­bed pickup, which we had left abandoned in the ditch. The hood had already disappeared beneath a drift.
    I paused for a moment to catch my breath, then plunged onward into the storm. I reached the top of that hill just south of the alfalfa field. So far, so good. But the last mile to the house would be the most treacherous, for there were no trees or haystacks or fences or other landmarks to mark the land.
    Up ahead, I saw nothing but a huge white blank. Up until recently, it had been my policy to avoid huge white blanks, but there appeared to be no way of avoiding this one.
    Gulp.
    I decided that my best hope in this hopeless situation would be to leave the road—or what used to be the road—and follow the creek in a westerly direction. That would give me some protection from the wind and a trace to follow.

    There was only one small risk in this approach. On our way down to Slim’s place, we had seen several coyotes dash across the road. Where do you suppose a coyote would go if he got caught out in a blizzard?
    To the low ground, to the creek bottom, to the shelter of trees and bluffs.
    Fellers, the thought of bumping into a band of hungry cannibals didn’t exactly warm my heart, but neither did the thought of getting lost in the blizzard.
    So I stopped thinking about it and staggered down the hill toward the creek bottom. It was much better down there. The snow wasn’t nearly as deep and I made good time, traveling right on the edge of the water where the snow had melted away.
    Yes, this was fine. I increased my pace from a slow walk to a rapid walk, and then to a trot. I began calculating my Estimated Time of Arrival and figgered that if all went well, I would reach the house in about . . .
    HUH?
    Rip and Snort? Blocking my path? Surely this was a tropical illusion, sometimes when you’ve been traveling for a long time through snow, you become