Buffalo Flats by Martine Leavitt

Author:Martine Leavitt [Leavitt, Martine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2023-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Overnight the blizzard tired itself out, though it raged in her dreams. By morning, everything was still and the world was white and cold.

The men were already eating breakfast when she came out of her room. “You’re going to make sure Coby is okay?”

Father nodded but didn’t stop eating.

“I’m coming,” Rebecca said.

Father looked sharply at her, but Mother said, “You may.”

Rebecca quickly ate, then bundled up a loaf of fresh bread and some leftovers. Coby would be hungry, she said to Mother, and she went with the men to the barn for the horses.

Before they got to Coby’s house, they saw there was no smoke coming from the chimney. Rebecca had never before wished for something so ordinary as to see a slip of smoke coming from a chimney.

“You get a fire going, Rebecca,” Father said. “We’ll go looking.”

Rebecca got the fire going in the cookstove. She could do that. She could do that without thinking.

Once the fire was blazing, she could clean. She could do that. She could do anything but sit there and wait.

She swept and made the bed, Coby’s bed. She made it and smoothed it out. The quilt was ragged and thin, but the bed was made. She washed his one poor cup and one poor plate and one poor fork and knife. She organized the things on the shelves and hung some clothes on pegs and trimmed the lantern wicks. She went to the water hole, cracked the ice, and hauled a bucket of water back. She did all this desperately, as if he would walk in the door any moment.

And then he did.

He stood in the doorway, in only a light jacket, covered in straw, and rocked on his feet.

“Are you real?” he said.

He sagged, and she helped him to his bed, took off his boots, checked his fingers and toes, which were all there and not frostbitten, and covered him with his ragged quilt.

“I shall make you a new quilt if you will live,” she said.

His eyes were closed and he was groggy, but he was speaking to her, telling her in fits and starts what had happened. She warmed water and made him drink.

He had been on foot in his south field when the storm struck. He knew he had a haystack between himself and the house, but, though he knew where the haystack was, he didn’t know where he was.

“I prayed as I’ve never prayed, Rebecca...and I walked right into that haystack...right into it...I burrowed in, and found my two pigs had burrowed in first...Do you know how warm a pig is, Rebecca?”

He was falling asleep even as he spoke.

She tucked the quilt around him.

“Sleep, and when you wake up, you shall have whatever you like,” she said, meaning something to eat. She almost brushed his hair from his eyes, and then drew her hand back.

“I would like your company,” he said, half dreaming.

“You shall have it,” she said, “and with a little salt, too.”

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