In Cold Blood - Truman Capote [100]
Even for western Kansas, renowned for the longevity of its Indian summers, the current sample seemed far-fetched - dry air, bold sun, azure sky. Optimistic ranchers were predicting an "open winter" - a season so bland that cattle could graze during the whole of it. Such winters are rare, but Bobby could remember one - the year he had started to court Nancy. They were both twelve, and after school he used to carry her book satchel the mile separating the Holcomb school-house from her father's farm ranch. Often, if the day was warm and sun-kindled, they stopped along the way and sat by the river, a snaky, slow-moving, brown piece of the Arkansas. Once Nancy had said to him, "One summer, when we were in Colorado, I saw where the Arkansas begins. The exact place. You wouldn't believe it, though. That it was our river. It's not the same color. But pure as drinking water. And fast. And full of rocks. Whirlpools. Daddy caught a trout." It had stayed with Bobby, her memory of the river's source, and since her death. . . Well, he couldn't explain it, but whenever he looked at the Arkansas, it was for an instant transformed, and what he saw was not a muddy stream meandering across the Kansas plains, but what Nancy had described - a Colorado torrent, a chilly, crystal trout river speeding down a mountain valley. That was how Nancy had been: like young water - energetic, joyous. Usually, though, western Kansas winters are imprisoning, and usually frost on the fields and razory winds have altered the climate before Christmas. Some years back snow had fallen on Christmas Eve and continued falling, and when Bobby set out the next morning for the Clutter property, a three-mile walk, he had had to fight through deep drifts. It was worth it, for though he was numbed and scarlet, the welcome he got thawed him thoroughly. Nancy was amazed and proud, and her mother, often so timid and distant, had hugged and kissed him, insisting that he wrap up in a quilt and sit close to the parlor fire. While the women worked in the kitchen, he and Kenyon and Mr. Clutter had sat around the fire cracking walnuts and pecans, and Mr. Clutter said he was reminded of another Christmas, when he was Kenyon's age: "There were seven of us. Mother, my father, the two girls, and us three boys. We lived on a farm a good ways from town. For that reason it was the custom to do our Christmas buying in a bunch - make the trip once and do it all together. The year I'm thinking of, the morning we were supposed to go, the snow was high as today, higher, and still coming down - flakes like saucers. Looked like we were in for a snowbound Christmas with no presents under the tree. Mother and the girls were heart-broken. Then I had an idea." He would saddle their huskiest plow horse, ride into town, and shop for everybody. The family agreed. All of them gave him their Christmas savings and a list of the things they wished him to buy: four yards of calico, a foot-ball, a pincushion, shotgun shells - an assortment of orders that took until nightfall to fill. Heading homeward, the purchases secure inside a tarpaulin sack, he was grateful that his father had forced him to carry a lantern, and glad, too, that the horse's harness was strung with bells, for both their jaunty racket and the careening light of the kerosene lantern were a comfort to him.
"The ride in, that was easy, a piece of cake. But now the road was gone, and every landmark." Earth and air - all was snow. The horse, up to his haunches in it, slipped sidewise. "I dropped our lamp. We were lost in the night. It was just a question of time before we fell asleep and froze. Yes, I was afraid. But I prayed. And I felt God's presence . . ." Dogs howled. He followed the noise until he saw the windows of a neighboring farmhouse. "I ought to have stopped there. But I thought of the family - imagined my mother in tears, Dad and the boys getting up a search party, and I pushed on. So, naturally, I wasn't too happy when finally I reached home and found the house dark. Doors locked. Found everybody had gone to bed and plain forgot