His heaviest coat--heavy denim lined with something intended to look like sheepskin--hung on a peg between the window and the front door.  He put it on over the sweatshirt and sweater he already wore and began to pace the room.

          The fireplace yawned empty and dark.

          He lit a cigarette with the shivery flame of a candle he had set on the mantel and wondered if she would smell the smoke.

          Now and then he clapped his hands together or stomped his feet on the board floor.  In the quiet spaces between he could hear the furious hush of snow at the widows and on the roof.

          In the darkest part of the night he gathered all her decorative and aromatic candles from the mantel, the china cabinet, the bookshelves, the knickknack rack.  He covered the kitchen table with them and lit every one.  Then he took the afghan from the back of the couch, wrapped his legs in it, and read stories from Dubliners until the bluing at the windows and the whistle of wind brought him back to the storm.

          A drift collapsed into the room when he opened the door.

          Outside the snow lay fifteen inches deep and the darkness of the woods was lost in the swirl of the blizzard.  Wind roared in the tops of the trees.  The sky hung low and blank and unreadable.

          He jabbed the yardstick to the ground in a level place a short distance from the cabin but close enough to read the numbers from the front window.

          The wind swept low and the snow stung his eyes and face.

          He stumbled into his tool shed and found his woodworking goggles. 

          He made his way up behind the cabin and inside the tree line.  He adjusted the goggles and looked up the hill and started high-stepping through the snow along the path.

          Gusts in the tops of the trees showered him with sheets of powder.  He stopped at the sudden noisy crack and crackle of a tree blowing down somewhere along the windward ridge.  Others around him creaked in the quiet that followed.  He started again and quickened his pace.

          The first thing he noticed when he could see the old woman's house through the naked trees was that no smoke rose from the chimney.  He waded through the drift of yard and glanced into the darkness of her woodshed and saw about a quarter cord of wood stacked there.

          Mrs. Jenkins's silver-haired head looked too small for the body wrapped in layers of clothing beneath it.  Her eyes shone clear behind small round glasses and her smile was toothless.  The toes of thick leather boots stuck out from under hems of three different colored skirts of different lengths.

          "Come in, boy," she said.  "Worse than '27 out there this morning."

          "Thought I'd come see if you needed anything," he said.

          "Lord, no.  I'm fine.  A little chilly."

          A candle burned on the table beside her chair.

          "I think you could do with a bigger fire in there," he said.

          She followed his gaze and a start of surprise twitched in her neck at the sight of the empty fireplace.  A trembling hand went to her lips and when she turned back toward him a timid smile worked at the corners of her mouth and tears stretched in her eyes.  "You'd think a body my age would've took notice," she said.

          "Let me get some wood and build one up for you."

          "I'm afraid of sparks catching on the roof."

          He smiled at her.  "The snow up there's way too deep for that to be a danger today."

          When the fire caught he moved her chair close to the hearth, lifted the candle and pulled the table up alongside and set the candle back down.  A small tin box lay open on the floor where the table had been.  It was full of folded pieces of yellowed paper.  He picked it up and laid it on the table beside the candle.

          He brought another load of wood in and piled it into the box beside the door.  "I'll come back up this afternoon, okay?" he said.

          "How's my girl?" Mrs. Jenkins said.

          He reached for the doorknob.  "Fine, I reckon.  Haven't seen her out from under the covers since last night."

          "Tell her to come see me quick as she can."

          "I'll tell her.  You take care."

          "So, how did you fall in with this guy?" he had asked.

          She stood by the telephone, rubbing both temples with the tips of her long white fingers.  She held her eyes shut.  "He built us some cabinets in the kitchen at work," she said after a moment of silence.

          "Has he been here?"

          "No, never here," she said.  "I gave him directions but he's snowed in up the river at Stegner's Diner."  She turned toward the bedroom.  "I thought you'd be late at that faculty thing."

          The yardstick measured the snow at nineteen inches deep.

          He shoveled around his front door and down to the edge of Genesis Road.

          The road scraper had passed while he was up on the hill but the blacktop still lay under an inch or two of packed snow.

          Back in the house and quiet after stomping powder off his feet and legs and squirming out of his heavy coat, he heard her on the telephone in the bedroom, the melody and cadence of her murmur the echo of a memory.

          He waited for her to finish and then went into the bedroom.

          The kerosene heater had died so he refilled it from the red can and fired it up again.  He grabbed the telephone and sat down at the foot of the bed next to the heater and called the power company.

          The woman said she guessed it might be Monday or Tuesday before electricity could be restored to much of the area.  Twisted and broken trees were still piling up on the roads and the already-downed lines.

          He returned the telephone to the bedside table and changed his jeans and started back to the front room.

          A muffled word came from the bed.

          He stopped.

          "John?" she said.  But that was all.

          He stood at his front window and lit a cigarette.

          The road scraper passed again an hour later.  It sent a high spray of snow into the air and left a low jumbled bank of it like a roadblock at the end of his driveway.

          Midday passed with no shift in the light, no ebb of the wind, no end to the snow.

          "Mrs. Jenkins?" he called and knocked again.  He stepped backward into the yard and looked up but could not detect a trace of smoke.

          The doorknob squeaked and the door opened enough to see half of her face.  The skin of her cheek looked pale and rubbery.  Dark brown tobacco stains pulled the corners of her toothless mouth into a frown.  Her nose was red and swollen and her eyes squinted against the wind and the whiteness.

          "Eldred?" she said.  "Is that you?"

          He hesitated.  "It's John, Mrs. Jenkins.  You've let your fire go out."

          She turned away into the darkness of her house.  She had changed her outer skirt or maybe added another, white and antique.  The tight bun at the back of her head was loosening and escaped strands of silver-gray hair floated around her ears and the back of her neck.  She sat down in her chair and laid her right hand on the pile of folded yellow papers on the small table next to her.

          "Why didn't you throw a stick or two on the fire before it died?" he said as he stepped in and closed the door.  "It's too cold in here."

          "Bet you're colder in Montana," she said.  "I reckon so."

          He shook his head and from the box by the door loaded a sizeable log and some sticks of firewood in the crook of one arm and picked up a few chips of kindling in his other hand.  He walked past her chair and sat down on the edge of the hearth.

          She leaned toward him but kept her gaze on the floor.  The corners of her mouth twitched at intervals--now a strange smile, now a tragic frown.  "Would you like to take my place?" she said.  "I'm about wore out."

          He arranged the last bit of kindling under the firewood and turned to look at her.  "Mrs. Jenkins," he said.  "You're going to be fine.  You'll make it through this."  He reached up onto the mantel and felt around for a match.  "The cabin is plenty big enough for me."

          She smiled.  "It's cool for this time of year, don't you think, sir?  But I declare I'm burning up all of a sudden."

          "As soon as this fire gets going good you'll be able to shed a layer or two of clothes.  You're probably just feeling a bit smothered."

          "I do believe I'm all out of breath," she said.

          "Just relax.  It's starting to warm up already."

          The flames swelled and the wood began to pop and hiss.

          He didn't want to get too warm without the promise of staying warm so he stood up and moved away from the hearth.

          She turned her face from him.  "Mr. Jenkins never cared at all for the look of a woman's bare arm, much less for me in my ragged hand-me-down of Eve's first dress."

          He looked down at her.

          Her left hand pushed at the wiry gray strands of hair around her face and then moved to the back of her head where the fingers danced around the unraveling bun.  Her right hand still lay on the folded yellow papers and she rubbed a corner of one between her thumb and forefinger like a young girl with a red satin ribbon.

          "I'm going to get some more wood and put it right in front of you on the hearth," he said and stepped outside.

          The snow blinded him but he felt better in the light.  He piled wood into his arms and decided he was confusing her or had somehow hurt her feelings with his talk about the fire.

          "Now," he said when he had stacked the wood on the hearth.

"Whenever you feel like it all you have to do is lean over and grab a stick and toss it onto the fire.  Just about any old way it lands will be fine."  He put a hand on her shoulder.  "But why don't you plan to come stay with us in the cabin tonight?"

          "It's going to be long winter ahead," she said.

          "Why, Mrs. Jenkins, I'll bet you by this time next week it'll be warm as the first of May."

          "Leave me here.  But come back like you promised," she said.

          The road scraper again moved down Genesis Road toward Highway 251, the jangle of its chains and the rumble of its engine muted by the snow and wind.  Behind the spray and wake of its passing the roadbed still lay white and forbidding.

          The snow now wrapped itself around the yardstick's twenty-two inch mark.

          She had been out of bed while he checked on Mrs. Jenkins.  An open box of Corn Flakes sat on the table among the remains of her candles.  A bowl of pale milk sat in the sink beside the emptied ashtray.

          He used the telephone on the wall to call the sheriff's office.

          "Deputy Boyce, here."  The voice was a deep purr.

          "Deputy, this is John Riddle from up on Genesis Road."

          "Yes, Mr. Riddle.  You folks holding out okay there?"

          "Well sir, I'm calling about Mrs. Jenkins from up the hill behind us.  I'm worried that she's not doing too well through all this."  He paused.

          "Go ahead on, Mr. Riddle," the deputy said.

          "She's cold.  She won't keep her fire going.  I've been up there twice today and got it burning for her.  But I'm afraid she's just going to let it die away again."

          "Has she got wood enough to last?"

          "She has plenty of wood but won't use it.  I bring it in for her and it just stays where I leave it."

          "Well, let me see."  There was the scrape of whiskers on the other end of the line, a sharp deep breath and a slow release.  "Mr. Riddle," the deputy said, "I've got a couple of men around that the sheriff deputized for this emergency.  I'll send one out on the next road scraper and you go with him up there.  See if she won't come out of there with you."

          "I've already asked her and she wouldn't do it."

          "Well, maybe by the time our man gets there she'll think better of the idea.  We'll put a badge on him and make him look official."

          "Do you know Mrs. Jenkins, Deputy?"

          "Yessir.  Had her for a teacher in third grade.  Acquainted most with the flat of her hand back then.  She whipped my ass every day for three months or so."

          "I'm sure you deserved it."  He paused again.  Then, "Maybe she'd feel better if you come out yourself.  She seemed a little disoriented just now when I was up there."

          "Tell you what, Mr. Riddle, if she don't come out with you and our man, I'll see what I can do."  A buzz sounded in the background.  "I've got another call coming in, Mr. Riddle.  Anything else real quick?"

          "How are the main roads?"

          "Not much better off than yours.  The county crew's behind but catching up a little here and there.  The Tennessee side's still pretty bad yet from what I hear.  Asheville's all but shut down.  Supposed to come a change in a couple of hours."

          He went into the bedroom and refueled the heater.  He took some dry clothes from the closet and stripped.  For a few moments he stood naked and let the heat draw some of the cold damp numbness from his legs.

          "Hannah?" he said.  "I'm a little worried about how Mrs. Jenkins.  Maybe you could get up and go see her for a little while."

          One edge of the mass on the bed lifted slightly.  "What did the deputy say about the roads?"

          He pulled on the dry clothes and left the room.

          Through the rest of the afternoon the wind subsided to short fitful gusts and then died away.  For a while the snow fell thick and straight in large flakes then thinned and grew fine and stopped at twenty-five inches.  The clouds lifted from the western mountains and the clearing seemed on its way.

          He sat by the window in the increasing light and read a short Yasunari Kawabata novel he had picked up at a used book store.

          The road scraper made two more passes but didn't stop to let off the expected deputy.

          When the blue rim of sky on the horizon began to take on a hint of gold, he called the sheriff's office again.

          A woman answered and said she was the sheriff's wife.  She told him everybody was busy with a small fire down at the Pizzeria and took his name and number.

          He bundled up and shoveled a deep path from the front door down to the road.  Then he took an old sled and some rope from the shed and started up the hill again.

          As the sun settled into the space between the low clouds and the mountains, the white woods reflected its gold in dazzling sparkles.

          He stood for several minutes and watched this display and breathed the cold air deep into his lungs.  A tingle began to awaken parts of him numbed by the storm.  He felt light-headed and imagined that beneath this golden cocoon of snow his world lay chrysalid and ready to be made new.

          Hints of crimson softened the gold and warned him back to his mission.

          Only a slight wisp of smoke rose from Mrs. Jenkins's chimney.

          "Hello?" he called and knocked.

          This time she was quick to answer.  "Who are you?  What are you about?" she yelled in a voice cracked and dry.

          "It's John, Mrs. Jenkins.  John Riddle.  I've come to take you to the cabin for the night."

          "Go away," she said.  Her voice sounded close on the other side of the wooden door.  "You've got no claim on me now.  Get from here."

          "Mrs. Jenkins, the storm's stopped but it's going to get mighty cold tonight if the sky clears."

          "Get away, I say.  You left me here too long and I ain't taking up with you again."

          He moved away from the door to a window where he could see her.

          She stood slightly crouched the length of her shotgun's double barrels from the door.  Her head nodded and shook with small quick motions.  Her gray hair had finally freed itself from the bun and flowed wildly down the full curve of her back.  She was naked except for a pair of red wool socks.

          "My God."  He ran back to the door and stood to one side of it and knocked lightly and pulled his hand away.  "Mrs. Jenkins, you've got to let me in.  Put the gun down, okay?"

          The shotgun blast ripped through the door and the sound of it died in the snow-muffled woods.

          He dropped down and bellied back to the window and peeped in again.

          She picked herself up from the floor and used the gun as a walking stick until she was steady.  By the light of the tiny remains of her fire and the candle on the table beside her chair, her white skin looked translucent.  She put a quivering hand to right side of her head and stooped as if to peer through the ragged hole in her door.

          He watched for her face to relax and then rapped sharply on the window.

          She turned to the fireplace first and then toward him.  Her eyes were wide and shiny and her chin was lined with tobacco juice. Gray hair hid all but the movements of her breasts.  The bulge of her belly sloped down into a wedge as dark as youth.

          "Mrs. Jenkins, it's me, John," he said and waved.

          She hoisted the shotgun into the pit of her arm.

          He fell backwards just as the second blast shattered three of the window panes and sprayed him with bits of glass.  He rolled onto his stomach and then stood up quickly with his back to the house.  He looked at the depressions he made in the deep snow and saw no blood.  He heard the chink as she broke the gun down to reload.

          "Eldred?" she called.

          "Mrs. Jenkins, it's John Riddle from the cabin."

          "Eldred?  You hit?"  Her voice was closer to the window.

          "I've got Hannah with me, Mrs. Jenkins.  She's come to see you like you wanted.  We brought a sled for you to ride down the hill to visit with us."

          "I ain't going nowhere with you.  I don't want to see you and I sure as hell don't want to see no woman you brung here."

          "If you won't let me in at least take the wood I carried for you and build up your fire.  It's still there on the hearth."

          "Get from here!"

          He swung away from the house at an angle between the door and the window and dove into the blue woods.

          When he came out of the trees and into his own yard, Deputy Boyce's squad car was just pushing through another wall of snow the road scraper had deposited in front of the driveway.

          The deputy listened to the breathless report of the old naked woman and her shotgun and said, "No use us going back up there to give her more target practice.  Let me see if I can get hold of one or another of her kin.  Your phone still working?"  He made two or three calls and accepted two or three more.

          John sat down on the hearth and lit a cigarette and stared at the empty space by the door.

          The bags were gone.

          "I guess the river road must be passable by now," he said.

          "Yes," the deputy said.  "But only for emergency pretty much.  They'll probably close it down after it's full dark."

          The telephone rang again and the deputy answered.  When he hung up he said, "There's a niece near about Trust township.  She's coming but it'll be nigh on an hour before she can get here.  In the meantime I suggest you get some dry clothes on and warm up."  He walked over and picked at the rainbow melting of the candles hardened on the table.  "Mrs. Riddle asleep?"

          "I don't know," John said and went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

          He found no hint of goodbye other than the fact she had turned off the heater.  He poured the last of the kerosene in and carried it to the front room and started it up again.  Through the window he saw Deputy Boyce bending down and shining his flashlight on the yardstick stuck in the snow.

          He went back to his bedroom and felt in the closet for more clothes.  The numbness ached in his shins and thighs and crotch and arms.  He stood naked at the foot of the tousled bed and tried to imagine how cold Mrs. Jenkins must be.

          The niece arrived sooner than expected and the little rescue party made its way up the woods path by the glow of Deputy Boyce's flashlight.  They reached the edge of the yard and the house stood dark in front of them.

          "Give her a yoo-hoo," Deputy Boyce said to the niece.

          "Aunt Jenny," the niece called through cupped hands.  "This is Delsie.  Your niece, Delsie."

          The snow soaked up her voice.

          There was no answer from the silent house.

          "You folks keep behind me," the deputy said and started across the yard.  He went to the window first and held the flashlight at arm's length and looked in.  "She's in the chair in front of the fireplace.  I don't see no shotgun."

          The front door was unlocked and they went in.

          Mrs. Jenkins sat with her back straight and her head leaned over on her left shoulder.  Her hands lay folded in her naked lap.

          Deputy Boyce put two fingers to the old woman's neck.  He shifted his touch for a moment and then shook his head.

          "Oh, Aunt Jenny," the niece said and started to cry.

          "There's nothing we can do here," the deputy said and began guiding the woman toward the door.  "I can't get anybody up here till the morning.  We'll just have to leave her."

          "You go on," John said.  "If you don't mind my handling her, I'll lay her out straight before she stiffens up like this."

          "I'm sure Mr. Ramsey at the funeral home will be obliged," Deputy Boyce said.

          The niece's sobs and the low purr of the deputy's voice faded into the woods.

          He took the logs he had stacked earlier that afternoon and quickly got a fire going in the hope that it would keep the old woman's body warm long enough for him to get her straightened out.

          He lit a candle and found the bedroom and made the bed ready for her.

          He returned with a double wedding ring quilt and spread it flat on the floor and lifted the old woman's body and laid it out in the center.  He folded the cold hands upon the sternum and heard a crinkling sound.

          A corner of yellowed paper was now visible beneath the fall of gray hair that covered her left breast.

          He pulled the paper free and saw that it was a letter and laid it on the hearth.  He tossed both sides of the quilt across the body and lifted it and carried it into the bedroom.

          The fire blazed in the fireplace and its heat was drawn out into the room by the draft between the shotgun holes in the door and the window.

          He sat down on the floor and scooted as near to the flames as he could tolerate.  He stretched his legs and felt the tingling sensation again as the numbness began to melt from him.

          The heated air fluttered the brittle letter on the hearth.

          He picked it up and looked at it in the light of the fire.

                                                                             13 April 1927

My dearest Jenny,

          Sad news!  I have just this morning seen your Senator disembark from the Asheville train, a full two days early in his return from the session in Raleigh!

          If I knew you were ready, I should fetch you posthaste, and we would away to Montana this instant.

          But, with him in the area, at our departure, there is no way we could flee beyond his jealous grasp, especially with no place yet to run.  So, forgive me, pretty one, but I must leave thee.

          I shall make Montana as quickly as possible, and, once there, procure us such a piece of land as might be large as all Madison County.  There, the building of some small shelter, in which to overwinter, and the surveying of our heaven, shall occupy the remainder of the coming summer.  And the next, that of '28, shall see the founding of our empire, and our future.  When I have spent yet one more winter there, to be sure your palace is strong against the cold, I shall return.

          Meet me, then, only a little more than two years hence, around that Maypole, where I received your first gentle smile, and felt the first touch of your silken hand when you gave me your ribbon.

          Now, destroy this letter, and keep yourself safe, until we meet again.

                                                                             Faithfully,

                                                                                      E--

          He folded the letter and started to put it back with the pile on the table but stood up and tossed it into the fire instead.

          He found the sled he had left behind when the late afternoon shooting started and piled it high with Mrs. Jenkins's wood.  He filled his arms with kindling and started down the path.

          He stumbled to a stop halfway down the hill and waited.

          The first chill came like the sudden smell of something burning and then the cold surrounded him like smoke.  The numbness and the ache followed like soot and ash.

          He drew a sharp breath and hugged the splintery kindling closer to his chest and walked on beneath the naked trees that webbed a winter sky still aching with snow.

Michael Cody / PO Box 70279 / Johnson City, TN 37614 / michael.cody@comcast.net / codym@etsu.edu