The World as We Know It (28 page)

Two days later, we were famished again, and somehow the deadly cold blizzard raged on. Starvation was an adversary I had come to know well. I had become quite good at simply putting it out of my mind, but that only works for so long. We kept moving, me limping along even more slowly beside my horse, and I began to wonder if the snow would ever cease. I had taken the coat of the wolf, which Nomad and I wore in turns, but even that barely retained the warmth of life.

The place reminded me of an article I had once read about a Russian family that had fled to a remote woodland part of Siberia some time before World War II. After losing his wife, this man and his two daughters and son lived out there without any other human contact, surviving by scavenging for food. They hunted without weapons, tracking their prey until the prey gave up and lay down, and they nearly starved over the length of many lonely winters. Forty years they sustained together in the tiny cabin they had built before a team of geologists from an oil company happened to pass over in a helicopter while scouting the land. During all that time, the family knew nothing of world events and international affairs. Within a few months of being introduced to modern “civilization,” the father, the son, and one of the daughters had died, and rather than integrate into society, the surviving daughter chose to return to the Siberian wilderness. That was the last anyone saw of her.

I feared then that the frozen wilderness might hold my fate as well. My toes were numb inside my shoes, and I
suspected that they were frostbitten. Perhaps I might lose them. I kept the wolf’s fur tight around me, and I wondered if there was another soul up there with us somewhere, suffering the same as we were. Perhaps I was not the only man so foolish. Even my horse knew better, but he had trusted that I knew the way.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” I said to him, “but it’s too late to turn back now.” He knew it, and we pushed on.

How deep was the snow beneath my feet?

How low were the clouds above my head?

How far was Heaven from the top of the mountain? Had I reached the summit of Olympus? Was I among the gods?

It was Nomad who collapsed first, his massive body crashing into the snow beside me, leaving a white puff as though the precipitation fell upward for the moment. In my next step, I did the same. We lay there face to face, hearing only sounds of heavy breath and wind, freezing and starving to death, and as I stared into his black eyes, my thoughts drew me to that sunny weekend at the farm just before it had all begun. Before the markets had melted down and the world as we knew it had been lost forever. Those last few days when I had thought life was perfect, and I’d found everything I would ever need. I saw Maria lying out there by the stream behind the cabin, the yellow sunlight beaming from her fair skin. The beautiful, contented smile on her face. I saw her head turn when she noticed I was watching her, and she sat, propped on her elbow, and lifted her sunglasses to look back at me.
We gazed at each other across a short distance awhile, saying everything that needed to be said without words at all. Then, as if to provoke some climax, her lips spoke in silence, “I love you.”

This was it. The end of it all. My death would not be entirely in vain. I had accomplished what I had set out for. The system was working, and perhaps the recipient of the final piece of mail I still carried had already received the same word from the writer back east. I regretted the risks I had taken. I had been too impatient to wait for winter to pass before taking on the Rockies, and that impatience had brought me to my ultimate demise. I was broken. Such a short time ago, I had been certain that I would see my wife and family again so soon, but how wrong I had been. I’d been doomed from the start. The day I had left so many months ago would be the last I ever saw of my wife.

You had better come back to me
.

Though I may have succeeded in my service to the New World Mail Network, I had failed my wife in the most profound way. How long, I wondered, before she replaced me? Would she ever? More likely she would wait years, alone as her hair turned gray; alone as her skin wrinkled; alone as her bones became brittle and the frame of her body shrunk. She would wait, every day watching and wishing for my return. Then, eventually, she would die even more alone than I was at that moment, still with the question of my fate unanswered, and it was all my fault.

I love you more than you’ll ever know. I’ll always wait for you
.

Her voice spoke the words she had written, echoing in my head as I lay dying in the snow. I looked at my horse, the moisture freezing in his nostrils. Tears turned to ice on my cheeks.

“I love her so much,” I said to him. I coughed blood, and I could see the snow darkening around my head as it ran from my mouth. “I’m sorry I took you here, but you couldn’t understand. You trusted me, and I failed you too.”

I turned my eyes to the sky and spoke, choking on the fluid in my throat.

“They say you work in mysterious ways,” I said, “but I’ve never felt so betrayed. If you’re out there, how could you have let this happen? What good is everything I’ve learned now? How could you have me come so far only to die alone in the woods so distant from my home? Why have you abandoned me?”

Perhaps I was waiting for an answer, but I didn’t say anything else. We lay there in silence for a time that felt endless. My breathing slowed. Nomad closed his eyes. The world around us was quiet as the gray clouds passed overhead, and my body was slowly absorbed by the snow.

“Look, he’s opening his eyes.”

“All right, children, why don’t you go outside and play? Build us a snowman. Make some angels. Someone add a log to the fire on the way out.”

“I’ll do it. And I’ll get him something to eat.”

“Yes, I’m sure he’s starving.”

“The venison? Some bread and cheese? And sweet potatoes?”

“Yes, and some water. Not too cold.”

“OK, don’t let him move too much. He’ll tear the stitches. Does he need another pillow?”

“I’ll ask him.”

“OK, I’ll be back with the food. Let’s go, children.”

I heard small feet tapping on the floor and soft innocent voices as they left the room. It hurt to open my eyes. The snow had stopped, and a bright white light beamed in through the windows of the cabin. A woman was sitting next to the bed with a joyful smile on her face, watching over me.

“Is this Heaven?” I asked.

“Unfortunately not. Do you need another pillow?”

“No, thank you,” I struggled to say.

“Comfortable?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Just rest. We’ll take care of you.”

I lifted my arm to look at the date on my watch, but it was no longer on my wrist, and I realized I had lost it during my fight with the wolves.

“Stay still,” she said. “You don’t want to open your wounds again. It was tough enough to stop the bleeding the first time.”

“What day is it?”

“Christmas Eve. Our hunters found you buried in the forest on their way to their ‘lodge.’” She laughed. “It’s
really just a cave where they sleep when they’re out on long trips. You were on their path. They only saw you because of the red snow everywhere. What were you doing out there all alone?”

“Trying to get home.”

“Well, you’ll want to stay here until the weather warms up. I’m Elizabeth.”

“I’m Joe.”

One of the other voices I had heard came back into the room with a plate of food and a pitcher of water. She was a bit older than the other.

“You’re awake,” she said. “I was beginning to wonder if we might have to take you back and bury you again. I’m Ruth.”

“Don’t say things like that to strangers, Mom,” said Elizabeth. “People will think you’re crazy.”

“Nonsense,” Ruth replied. “My humor is rare and precious.”

Elizabeth shook her head and turned back to me as I finished off the water that her mother had brought and shoveled food into my mouth. “Slow down,” she said. “I know you’re starving, but your stomach can’t handle that much at once.”

I took a breath then and looked at her before asking the question, the answer to which I was afraid to hear.

“Was my horse OK?”

But her reply was not what I expected. She looked at me inquisitively, and she asked, “What horse?”

“The one that was lying next to me.”

“You were alone when they found you.”

“I was alone?”

“Yes.”

“There was no impression? No tracks?”

“No, nothing like that.”

I leaned back again and closed my eyes, and I fell back asleep.

I awoke a second time hours later to the sweet sound of song. I was alone then, the sun was setting, and the voices of carolers just outside graced the room with soft angelic echoes. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”—“Little Drummer Boy”—“Silent Night.” The first thing I thought of was the letter from the east, and I looked around the room for my satchel. In a corner by the fireplace it lay upon a chair, its leather glowing orange on one side and purple on the other.

Without a doubt, I knew I was in good company there. They had saved my life, a life so desperately in need of saving. At that time two years earlier, I had been nine hundred miles away, hunkered with my family by a fire and burning everything we owned just to stay warm. I had been without hope and devoid of purpose. Confused and terrified. Weak. Helpless. So many words could describe the feelings that overcame me then, none of them good. And two years later, though many of them still applied to my current state, hopeless, somehow, was not one. No, it was hope that had kept me alive, even in those moments when all had seemed lost.

My mind fumbled with the possibilities that could explain the mysterious disappearance of my horse. My fears of losing him had been realized, and fault fell upon me alone. As if it were a punishment for those choices that had led to that dreadful loss, I was fated to finish my journey on foot and alone. No friends. No family. Still, though all logic directed me to presume him dead, it was inexplicable that his body had not been found next to mine—that there had not even been a sign. Somehow, I felt I had not seen the last of my friend, the nomad.

Elizabeth came into the room again and asked how I was feeling.

“I’m OK,” I said. “A little better.”

“Good.”

“Any sign of my horse?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

I sighed. “I’d like to go outside.”

“Why? It’s so cold.”

“I’d like to hear the carolers better.”

“All right,” she smiled.

She wrapped my body tightly in a leather cummerbund to keep my stitches in place. Then I took her hand and stumbled out of the bed before putting on some warm clothes that had been brought in for me.

We stepped out the door into the snow, and when I looked up from the stoop, the sight of the snow-blanketed mountain village was breathtaking. Hundreds of log cabins spread throughout a meadow, a black, white, and green forest of aspens and firs surrounding it. Windows glowed
orange with firelight, and red ribbons hung on every door. Handmade ornaments adorned the trees. People walked the snow-covered paths holding candles, wearing smiles, and singing, all bundled warmly in scarves and hats. They would step aside for horse-drawn sleighs that left tracks and hoof prints winding between cabins. Children built snowmen and ran laughing, rolling in the frozen white powder. It was a winter wonderland as I’d always imagined but had never seen.

The sky was deep indigo and so clear that I thought I could see every star out there. What was left of the sunlight sprayed purple stripes across the snow as it fell behind the trees to the west. We followed a pillar of smoke in the distance and walked to a place that seemed to be the center of the village where a large bonfire burned, surrounded by villagers swaying arm in arm and singing Christmas carols. It all brought a smile to my face. For a brief time, I forgot the loss of my horse, the trials of my journey, and even the desperate longing for my home and family. Dare I say, I was happy?

It was there, standing among those joyful people, that I began to realize the importance of faith.

Why is it that, whether suffering the burden of something terrible or reveling in wonderful news, even a person without faith is compelled to ask, “Why has this happened?” Is it because, in our hearts, we know there is a reason? In everything I had been through, perhaps God had not abandoned me after all. I watched their fire burn like a passionate heart—resilient, persistent, consuming
the fuel of life and bringing warmth to all who open themselves up to it. I wished for my own heart to emulate that fire. I looked back at the person I had once been, and I felt ashamed. That passion for life had been lacking in my own, and I somehow felt more whole having lost all of the items I had collected and used to define a life past. Perhaps the true meaning of life, I thought, contrary to everything I had once known, resides all around and within us. We just have to search for it.

“Seek and you will find,” said Elizabeth as we stood watching the fire.

“I’ve been seeking a long time.”

“And what have you found?”

“Something. I’m not sure yet.”

She smiled and said, “Then keep looking.”