Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [13]
“Freeze? Hell, I’m half frozed as it is.”
Beatrice gave Corn Poe back his knife and helped him and Lionel up onto the horse. “Besides, I’d bet you’d be lost before we cleared the next hill,” Beatrice teased as she swung up behind them.
“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?” Corn Poe shot back.
Beatrice ignored him, and the three rode out of the gully, resuming their course toward the river.
Chapter Eight
THE COLD • ANTLERS • A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
THEY RODE the rest of the afternoon, Corn Poe rambling on about everything under the sun and then some. Lionel had never heard anyone who could talk so much, and he soon found himself drifting in and out of sleep as he rocked across the open prairie, riding on the great horse between Corn Poe and Beatrice.
It was the warmest Lionel had been since he had woken the other morning listening to the drip of the melting icicle. Ice didn’t seem to be melting now; if anything, Lionel thought that the air had grown colder. Corn Poe must have agreed because he now rode along in silence, slumped forward and buried in Ulysses’s mane. Corn Poe could have been dead for all Lionel knew.
Lionel looked down at the snow that passed beneath them and at Corn Poe’s leg dangling from the frayed cuff of the small boy’s patched work pants. Lionel thought his exposed skin looked almost blue. Blue, like the Frozen Man.
Thinking about the Frozen Man sent a shudder down Lionel’s spine. He ran his fingers across the bear claws in his pocket and thought that if he and Beatrice and Corn Poe didn’t get wherever they were going soon, they would all be dead, dead like the Frozen Man.
“You cold?” Beatrice asked over the steady cadence of Ulysses’s heavy breathing.
“No, I’m okay,” Lionel lied.
“How much farther?” Corn Poe moaned.
Good, Lionel thought. Corn Poe isn’t dead. Lionel didn’t want to see any more dead people.
Lionel scanned the horizon and the rolling hills that rose and fell in the distance with greater frequency. He remembered the pictures of the ships that the captain back at the school had shown him, and thought that the hills looked like the barreling waves of water that the tall ships sailed across. The three of them and Ulysses were like a ship rolling along on a sea of endless snow. Up and down, down and up…
“I don’t mean to complain, but I don’t feel my legs no more,” Corn Poe announced.
They had reached the Milk River hours ago. Then, they had continued toward the setting sun. Excluding the occasional clump of cottonwood, they hadn’t seen anything but snow in a long time. Lionel thought that it was as if the entire world had stopped, and it was just Lionel, his sister, and the horse…and now, Corn Poe.
“Maybe we should walk awhile. Give Ulysses a rest.” Beatrice pulled the horse to a stop and slid gracefully from his back. Corn Poe did the same, but his legs gave out and he fell with a plop into a deep snowdrift.
“Boy howdy, this is some of the coldest snow I ever laid eyes on!” Corn Poe proclaimed as he struggled to his feet. He stood there a minute shivering, trying to get the feeling back in his legs.
Lionel slid down and once again scanned the horizon. The past two days raced through his mind, and as he looked around at the snow-covered desolation, he felt again as if he wanted to cry.
“We best keep movin’,” Beatrice said.
“How are you plannin’ on leadin’ that horse without no rope?” Corn Poe asked as he made his way out of the snowdrift.
“He’ll follow.” And with that, Beatrice continued. As she walked, Ulysses followed. Horses loved Beatrice and Beatrice loved horses, that much Lionel knew—and now so did Corn Poe.
They walked on, but this proved to be harder than they thought. Ulysses’s long legs stepped in and out of the snow with ease compared to the children’s shorter legs. They were soon warmer from the movement, but exhausted.
“Damn, I’m hungry,” Corn Poe exclaimed between gasps. He began to look worried and, like Lionel, could have very