Smoke.
“Smoke sent me out to tell you, and to ride into camp with you.”
“Thanks,” Sally said. “I appreciate the company.”
After supper that night, they buried Dooley on top of a small hill that overlooked the Eagle River. Andy asked if he could say a few words.
“Of course you can,” Smoke replied.
Andy stood over the mound of fresh dirt, holding his hat in his hands as he spoke.
“Me’n Dooley was friends,” Andy said. “Now, ever’body has friends, but if you ain’t never been in the army, then you don’t know how important army friends is.
“You see, most of us in the army is a long ways from home, so Dooley was more’n a friend; he was my brother. Like the song says, we rode forty miles a day on beans and hay. Mosquitoes was worse than Indians, boredom was worse than fear, loneliness was worse than brutal sergeants. But we managed to come through it all, because we was friends.”
Andy paused for a moment and looked at the bowed heads around him. “You was all good friends to the two of us, and I reckon I’ll get through this all right because of friends like you. I thank you for letting me speak these words.”
One by one the others came by to shake Andy’s hand, and say a word or two of comfort to him. Sally embraced him, then all went to spread their bedrolls. Smoke let everyone sleep through the night, secure in the knowledge that the herd was not likely to wander away from water.
Over the next two days it turned cold, and by nightfall of the thirteenth day out, it was so cold that a constant fog of vapor hung over the herd and issued from the noses and mouths of horses and men alike. The campfire that night was as welcome for its heat as it was for the fact that it cooked their supper meal and furnished the light.
Smoke and Sally slept in the chuck wagon. The others spread out a canvas from the side of the wagon and, building the fire up for maximum warmth, spread their rolls out under the canvas.
During the night, unnoticed by Smoke, Sally, or the sleeping cowboys, huge, white flakes began drifting down from the sky. The snowfall was heavy, continuous, and silent.
Smoke and his cowboys slept peacefully, warm in their bedrolls, completely unaware of the silent snowfall. While they were sleeping, the world around them was changing. There was no grass, no dirt, no rocks. Even the trees and shrubbery had become unidentifiable lumps. The entire world had become one all-encompassing pall of white.
Because she had to prepare breakfast, Sally was always the first to awaken. When she opened the back flap of the wagon and looked outside, she was greeted by such a white, featureless landscape that, for a moment, she thought she might still be asleep. Then, with a gasp, she realized what she was seeing.
“No!” she said aloud.
“What is it, Sal?” Smoke’s question was mumbled from the warmth of his blankets.
“Smoke, look at this.”
There was a such a sense of dread and foreboding in Sally’s voice that Smoke roused himself from the blankets, then crawled to the back of the wagon to look outside.
“Oh, damn,” Smoke said.
“What will we do, Smoke?”
“We keep going,” Smoke said.
“How? We have three thousand head of cattle, and snow that is at least two feet deep. How are we going to move?” Sally asked.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” Smoke said. “But we are going to move. We’ve got no choice. It’s either move, or stay here and lose the entire herd.”
After Smoke was dressed, he jumped down from the chuck wagon, then crawled up under the canvas to talk to the others. They were all awake and squatting on their heels, looking out at the snow.
“Mornin’, boys,” Smoke said.
“Damn, Smoke, I thought the whole reason for takin’ the herd up to Wyoming was so we wouldn’t have to go through this,” Pearlie said.
“Yeah, it was. But you know what they say. Man proposes, God disposes,” Smoke replied. “I reckon this is just His way of testing us.”
“Some test,” Pearlie said.
“What are we goin’ to do?” Andy asked.
“We’re goin’ on,” Smoke said.
“What do you mean we’re goin’ on?” LeRoy asked. He pointed to the snow-covered terrain. “In case you ain’t noticed, there’s more’n two feet of snow out there.”
Smoke stared at him. “I’m goin’ on,” Smoke said. “You can go on with me, or you can turn around and go back.”
“Then I’m goin’ back,” LeRoy said.
“Go back to what?” Hank asked. “We don’t have anything to go back to.”
“I don’t care whether we have anything to go back to or not,” LeRoy said. “Anything is better’n this.”
Hank shook his head. “You can go back if you want to, LeRoy, but I’m stayin’.”
