A Down-Home Country Christmas (10 page)

“We’re going to make sure he is.” Holly pressed hard on the gas as the road straightened out, making gravel ping against the underside of the van. She slammed on the brakes as they got to the side door of the house. She flung the car door open and helped Kayleigh out of the van and up the steps. Opening the side door, she gave her daughter a hug and a gentle nudge into the house. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back to get you.”

She made sure the door was firmly latched before she bolted toward the barn. As she shoved the big door partly open, she nearly halted as she realized she was going to have to handle the donkey all by herself. What if the stubborn creature refused to leave her stall? Or bit Holly? Or kicked her so hard she couldn’t walk?

“I have flown an airplane. I can lead a donkey,” Holly muttered as she hustled toward Noël’s stall. She grabbed the lead line hanging by the door and slipped inside.

Noël was placidly munching on the hay she’d pulled from the net. As Holly closed the door, the donkey swung her head around, a long stem of dried grass dangling from her lips. Holly made a wide circle around Noël’s hindquarters. As she sidled up to her, she decided to let the donkey know what she wanted. “Noël, your master’s in trouble and I really need you to cooperate. Can you do that for me?”

Holly stopped and stretched out to grab at the donkey’s halter just as Noël turned back to the hay net. “Darn it,” Holly said, forced to take a couple of more steps forward in the thick straw bedding to keep her balance. She leaned forward again. Noël pulled a mouthful of hay out of the net and turned her head hard into Holly’s hand, making them both jump. “Ow! Sorry, girl. Didn’t mean to smack you.” After shaking her sore hand, she made herself tiptoe even closer and slipped her fingers under the halter’s cheek strap. “Gotcha!”

Clipping the lead line onto the middle ring under Noël’s chin, Holly copied the way she’d seen Brianna lead her. She stood way too close for comfort to those big, grinding teeth with her right hand gripping the rope under the donkey’s chin and the rest of the line coiled in her left hand. “Okay, let’s go. Giddy-up!”

The donkey looked at her and continued chewing the hay.

“If that’s the way you’re going to be.” Holly clenched her fist around the rope and gave it a sharp tug. To her amazement, Noël took a step toward the door. “Yes!”

She pulled on the line again and started walking. “C’mon, girl.”

The donkey came along beside her. “Oh, thank goodness.”

She led Noël out of the stall and toward the barn door. After a few more uneventful steps, she felt all her fear and tension swirl away like dishwater down the drain. But now her worry about Grady crashed back over her.

She debated trying to get on the donkey’s back and ride her to the field, but decided she was more likely to fall off than speed up the journey. As she and Noël burst out into the brightness of sunlight reflecting off snow, she blinked a few times and then coaxed the donkey into a trot, jogging along beside her as they hit the cleared road.

At least running was warming her up again. Noël’s hooves crunched rhythmically on the snowy gravel and her hay-scented breath made white clouds in the freezing air. As Holly settled into a steady speed, she was surprised at how comforting it was to have the donkey trotting alongside her. They made quick work of getting to the gate, but had to slow down when they hit the snowy field.

“Brianna! Grady! I’m coming!” Holly called out, wading through the snow and letting the donkey follow in the trail that was becoming more and more beaten down.

“Mr. Boone’s sleeping,” Brianna called back.

Holly knew that was a bad sign, so she picked up her pace, yanking at Noël’s lead line. Amazingly, the donkey matched her speed.

When they arrived at the shepherd, Brianna was shaking the farmer whose head was canted back against the wooden figure. “Wake up, Mr. Boone.”

For a terrible moment, Holly was afraid he had died, but his eyelids fluttered open. “B-Besh?”

“Grady! I brought Noël.” Holly kept it simple. “You have to get on her.”

“G-get on Noël?” He looked around in bewilderment.

Holly handed the lead line to Brianna. “Sweetie, you take the lead line and hold Noël still.” She picked up the shovel lying beside Grady, jabbing it down into the snow. “Use this like a cane on this side and I’ll be on your other side to help you get up.”

He still looked confused, so she took his hand and wrapped it around the handle of the shovel. “Pull yourself up on this,” she said, squatting beside him to wrap his other arm over her shoulder. “Bend your right leg in so you can stand up.”

He nodded and shifted to bring his foot inward. As she scooted in closer, she felt him shudder with the cold. “Okay, up!”

She had no idea where the burst of strength came from but as she felt his weight pressing on her shoulders, she exploded upward, dragging him with her.

“Bring Noël up as close as you can,” she told Brianna. Her mother’s heart glowed with pride as her daughter calmly guided the donkey so close that Grady didn’t have to take even a half-step to reach her. “Great job, sweetie! Now hold her still.”

Holly considered the logistics a moment. “Grady, can you lie across her back diagonally and let me swing your right leg over her rear?”

“Th-think sho.” He levered himself forward using her shoulder and the shovel. She shifted his leg to the other side of the donkey and then helped him scoot forward onto the center of Noël’s back. He ground out a low groan as his injured foot banged into the donkey’s leg. But the little creature never flinched. Only her ears moved, flicking back and forth to follow the voices as Brianna stroked her nose and murmured soothing words.

Grady grabbed the edges of the horse blanket and tried to brace himself upright, but he began to slide off to one side. As panic pounded at her, Holly seized his thigh. He kept tipping sideways. She braced her feet and threw her weight backwards so hard she was sure she would land flat on the snow. His slow-motion fall stopped.

“Grady, lie down on Noël’s neck and wrap your arms around her,” she said, leaning farther back to bring him upright. “I’ll hold you.”

Grady lay down and Holly got up against Noël’s side, taking fistfuls of the farmer’s jacket and holding onto him like a limpet. “Brianna, start walking Noël back to the gate.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said, as she set the donkey moving.

Holly staggered as she tried to slog through the deep snow alongside the trail. The gate looked miles away.

Brianna muttered under her breath.

Holly was instantly concerned. She was asking a lot of her eleven-year-old daughter. “You okay, sweetie?”

“I’m singing to Noël. Remember the song we learned in church school?
Little donkey, little donkey, on the dusty road. Got to keep on plodding onward…”

Holly heard Grady make a low moaning sound. Afraid the motion was doing further damage, she shushed Brianna and leaned down so she could hear him better. “Is something hurting you?”

“Shinging. Besh knew it.” The words were distorted but recognizable as he chanted, “
With your preshous load.”

A sense of awe spread through Holly. The elderly man was freezing and in pain but he still wanted to join in the Christmas carol.

Holly nodded to Brianna and added her voice to the song, taking a gasping breath between every other word. “
Been a long time, little donkey, through the winter’s night.
”

“Don’t give up now, little donkey,”
they sang together with Grady’s mumble providing the bass line.

“Thank goodness!” Holly said, catching the sound of a high-pitched siren in the distance. “That’s the ambulance!” She tightened her grip on Grady’s jacket. “You can go a little faster, Brianna.”

“
Bethlehem’s in sight.”
Brianna finished the verse and started the chorus, matching her tempo to the donkey’s quicker gait. “
Ring out those bells tonight! Bethlehem, Bethlehem! Follow that star tonight!”

Holly could see the flashing red lights reflecting on the snow as the ambulance shrieked down the highway. “Grady, we’re almost there. Keep singing, Brianna!”

Brianna started the verse over again and Grady chimed in. Holly saved her breath and strength. Her arms were shaking with fatigue and her thigh muscles were quivering with the effort of breaking through the deep snow on the side of the trail. She willed the ambulance to hurry up the driveway so someone with medical expertise could look at Grady. She hoped she hadn’t done the wrong thing in moving him.

They had about twenty feet to go when the ambulance rolled slowly by the fence with its window open, as an EMT peered out toward the nativity scene.

“Over here,” Holly shouted. “We have him on a donkey.”

The vehicle crunched to a stop and all the doors flew open, disgorging four EMTs, dressed in parkas and boots. “Mrs. Snedegar, we’ll be right there,” one assured her as they pulled out a backboard and raced through the gate.

“Hold on tight to Noël,” Holly said to her daughter, afraid the flurry of movement would spook the donkey. But Noël kept plodding onward through the snow, just like the little creature in the song.

The EMTs jogged up to surround Noël and Grady. “We’ve got him now. You can let go.”

She had to order her fingers to unclench from the fabric of Grady’s jacket. She flexed her hands and rolled her shoulders as she hurried to where Brianna stood at Noël’s head.

Holly felt tears well in her eyes as she looked into the donkey’s deep brown eyes. Without a thought, she put her arms around Noël’s neck and laid her cheek against the donkey’s. “What a wonderful girl you are. You deserve all the apples and carrots you can eat.”

“Mama, I can’t believe you’re hugging her,” Brianna said.

Holly gave a wavering laugh as she released her hold. “I had to say thank you.” She put her arm around Brianna’s shoulders and gave them a squeeze. “You were amazing too.”

One of the EMTs detached himself from the group carrying Grady. “Mrs. Snedegar, I’m Bob Neathawk. Can you come with us in the ambulance and tell us what happened?”

“I wish I could but I have two children and a donkey to take care of.” Holly had one arm around Brianna and the other on Noël’s neck. “I don’t know much, so I’ll tell you everything right now.”

As she started to give Bob a description of how she’d found Grady by the shepherd, the beating sound of helicopter rotors swelled in volume until she couldn’t make herself heard over the noise. She and Bob looked skyward to see a bright red chopper roar low over the field and up to Grady’s barn where it traced a tight circle.

A police car came bouncing up the farm’s road at high speed, bottoming out in one of the ruts with a bang. It screeched to a stop and Pete jumped out, shouting and pointing to where the helicopter was hovering lower and lower. “Take him up to the barn. The road over Bear Paw Mountain’s all blocked up with the snow from last night, so Robbie’s going to fly Grady to the regional hospital. He’s going to land behind the barn where the snow’s not as deep.”

The EMTs were loading Grady into the ambulance as Holly and Brianna led Noël through the gate. “Pete, can you take Noël and Brianna while I ride in the ambulance to fill them in on Grady’s condition?” Holly asked. She didn’t want to leave Brianna and the brave little donkey but she was worried that Kayleigh would be frightened by all the activity and noise. She felt pulled in too many different directions, but she trusted Pete.

“You go,” Pete said, coming over to stand beside Brianna.

Holly nodded and ran to the back of the ambulance, climbing in just as the EMT was about to close the doors.

The vehicle started forward and Holly squeezed into one corner to stay out of the way of the technicians as they began working on Grady. Bob asked her questions about how Grady looked when she found him. “I wasn’t sure if I should move him,” she said, “but he was so cold. I thought he needed warmth.”

“You did the right thing, Mrs. Snedegar,” Bob said.

“What’s he saying?” another EMT asked, his ear next to Grady’s mouth.

Holly scooted in closer and smiled as she caught Grady’s voice. “He’s singing a Christmas carol. The one about the little donkey.”

She found Grady’s cold hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Noël brought you through safely, Grady. She didn’t give up.”

“Good little donkey,” Grady muttered, one side of his mouth twisting upward in a smile before his eyelids fluttered closed.

Holly let go of him and sat back so the EMTs could continue to work on Grady. The ambulance bounced and swayed up the road, coming to a halt beside the barn. Holly jumped out and started toward the house where she could see Kayleigh standing in the doorway, still wearing her parka. As soon as the girl caught sight of her mother, she darted outside and into Holly’s arms. “Mama, is Mr. Boone going to be okay?” Kayleigh yelled over the helicopter’s racket.

“A lot of people are going to try to make him okay.” Holly had learned not to make promises she had no control over keeping.

“Can we go see the helicopter?”

Since Holly wanted desperately to see Robbie, even if just for a moment, she nodded and took Kayleigh’s hand, jogging to catch up with the EMTs carrying Grady. As they rounded the corner of the barn, a wall of sound and swirling snow crashed into them. Holly squinted against the snowflakes caught up in the wash of the rotors, catching sight of Robbie shoving open the big side door of the helicopter he’d carried Santa in not too long ago. Since the rotors were still turning, he ducked low to run out toward the approaching EMTs.