Angels in the Snow (5 page)

Snow fell silently and steadily throughout the night. By the time Claire got up the next morning, there appeared to be about eighteen inches of accumulation. She took the broom along with her when she let the dog out, sweeping away the feather light powder that had drifted onto the porch. Taking in a deep breath of cold mountain air, she held it for a long moment, experiencing the chill in her lungs, then slowly exhaled. Lovely. It really was lovely. She hadn’t noticed how clean and fresh it had felt before. The morning sun was peeking beneath a layer of clouds now, shining like a golden beacon through the trees, illuminating everything in its path with a wide stream of heavenly light.

If only she could take a walk today. She glanced over to the dog limping back toward her, his tail wagging. His leg did seem slightly better, but not well enough for a walk.
And how could she leave her poor faithful companion all alone? What if he didn’t understand? Or thought she had abandoned him? No, her daily walks would have to be kept on hold for a while longer.

“I wish you had a name, boy.” She patted him on the head. “Well, I suppose you do have a name. I just don’t know it.” She thought for a minute. “Maybe I should just give you one.” But what if she gave him a name and then his owners suddenly showed up to collect him. Perhaps it was better not to get too attached. Or to wait and see what happened first. She finished up with her outdoor chores, shoveling the paths, stacking more wood, and chopping more kindling.

“Maybe old Lucy was right,” she said to the dog as she stomped the snow off her boots. “I suppose we could get snowed in here.” She squinted up at the morning sun still filtering through the trees. “Although that doesn’t seem very likely right now.”

Back in the cabin, she wondered what she could do to pass the time. She stood and studied her snowy painting from the previous two days and finally just shook her head. “An exercise in futility,” she muttered. Then she removed the canvas, leaned it against the wall, and replaced it with a blank one. Once again she stood for a long while, just staring out the window, gazing on the patterns of light and shadows that played through the trees. Could she possibly capture it? And what would it hurt to try?

She worked so long and hard that she completely forgot about lunch, and only when the outside shadows grew long and somber did she pause to turn away from her work and finally look up at the clock. “Good grief!”
She noticed the dog now standing at her feet, looking up expectantly, as if he needed to go out again. “Whatever happened to the day?”

She set aside her brush and let him out, taking a moment to stretch her stiff arms and shoulders and shaking the cobwebs out of her head as she breathed in the fresh icy air. “Hey, it looks like you’re walking better now, boy.” She bent down and gave him a good scratch behind the ears. “Tell me, do you have a master somewhere? Someone who’s looking for you and missing you just desperately?” She shook her head. “Well, if you were my dog, I’d have been combing the neighborhood for you. And the first place I’d have checked was Lucy’s store.” She stood up. “And if no one calls for you by tomorrow, well, we’re giving you a name—and that’s that.”

After stoking up the faltering fire, she fixed dinner for them both, then busied herself with cleaning and straightening—afraid to allow herself to go back and review her day’s work. She knew she would only be disappointed with a painting that held nothing more than snow and trees and, oh yes, light. And although the snow scene was better than a blank canvas, it certainly wasn’t a landscape that Jeannie could interest Henri, or anyone else for that matter, in showing. But at least she was painting. That was something. For three days now she had actually worked—a real breakthrough. And it seemed no coincidence that this change had come only after she’d really broken down and prayed to God to help her. She hung a polished copper pot back on the rack and thought. Hadn’t that been about the same time that the dog had come into her life too?

So that night when Claire went to bed, she remembered to thank God for sending help. Maybe it did come in the form of a dog, but it was help just the same, and she knew it. Now if only she could keep this dog.

The next morning she awoke to the sound of her cell phone ringing. Certain it must be Jeannie checking up on her, she eagerly jumped out of bed, ready to tell her (and honestly this time) that she’d actually made a little progress—that she’d been painting! But it was a man’s voice on the phone, and one she didn’t recognize.

“This is Rick Marks,” said a gruff voice. “I hear you’ve got my dog.”

She felt her heart plunge like a rock as she looked at the dog now wagging his tail at her feet. She could tell he was ready to be let out. “Did you lose a pet?” she asked weakly as she walked across the room to open the door for the dog.

“Yeah, he ran off.”

“Really?” She thought about this. “Are you sure this is your dog? I mean, he doesn’t really seem like the type to run off—”

He laughed, but not in a nice way. “Aw, that mutt’s always running off.”

She didn’t like this man calling the dog a mutt. “Well, maybe you should describe him to me. Maybe we’re not talking about the same dog.”

But when Rick described the shepherd-collie mix right down to the patch of white beneath his chin, she knew they were talking about the same dog. “What’s his name?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Mike.”

“Oh.” She looked out the window to see the dog, rather, Mike, now making his way back onto her porch, his limp barely noticeable. “What happened to his leg?” she asked, not even sure why, perhaps only as a stall tactic.

“His leg?”

“Yes, he had a bad leg when he first showed up.”

“Well, he was perfectly fine last time I saw him.”

She sensed hesitation in his voice and felt a flicker of hope. “Does that mean you might not want him back?”

“Aw, he’s my dog, lady. Of course, I still want him back.”

“Right.” She mechanically gave him directions to her house. “But that snow’s pretty deep,” she added. “And the roads haven’t been plowed over here. Are you sure you can make it here okay?”

“It’d take a heck of lot more snow than this to keep me off the road.”

Claire dressed quickly, then made sure that Mike got a good meal before his master arrived to take him away. After the dog finished licking the bowl clean, Claire knelt down on the floor and wrapped her arms around the soft fur of his neck. “You are such a good dog,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re going to leave me now.” She ran her hands down the silky coat on his back. “Thank you for coming to—to—” Her voice broke, and she buried her face in his neck and sobbed for several minutes. Finally she stopped, feeling his warm wet tongue now licking her face, as if to comfort her.

At the same time she heard the rumble of an engine pulling up her driveway. The dog’s muscles tightened when the sound grew louder, and his ears peaked to attention. Then he gave a low growl and a couple of sharp
barks. It was the first time she’d heard him bark. She peered out the window to see one of those ridiculously tall pickups with the huge oversized tires plowing up her driveway. It was painted a garish metallic blue and was trimmed with a row of lights that made it look like something from another planet. A heavyset man in a plaid flannel shirt climbed out and ambled up to her door, knocking loudly and causing the dog to bark again.

She stood by the door for a moment, unsure whether she actually wanted this man to come inside her house, much less to know that she was living out here all alone. Finally she decided to simply step outside with the dog.

“Hello,” she said stiffly as she closed the door behind her.

He tipped his head slightly then grinned as he carefully took in her appearance. “Howdy, ma’am. I don’t recall catching your name.”

She forced a smile. No sense in being hostile. “My name’s Claire.”

“You’re new ’round here.”

She nodded. “Yes. Just visiting. It’s my friend’s cabin.”

“Well, I still don’t know how Mike found his way clear over here,” said Rick, scratching his head as he looked at the dog. “It’s time to go home, buddy. Go get in the truck now.”

But the dog just sat there, as if rooted to the porch next to Claire’s feet. She restrained herself from reaching down to pat his head and say, “good dog.”

“I
said,
go get in the truck, Mike!” Rick spoke in a sharp tone and pointed to the pickup. The dog began to slowly walk toward the truck, his tail pointed straight down like a rod.

“He’s better, but his leg’s still hurting him some,” said Claire, following the dog with her eyes. “He might need some help getting up there.”

Rick made a snorting laugh. “Well, I guess I could give him a hand, just this once. There’s no sense in pampering your animals too much.” He easily hoisted the dog into the pickup bed that was partially filled with snow, then stepped back. Claire noticed there was no tailgate on the truck.

“Won’t he slip out and hurt himself?”

Rick laughed again. “He’s ridden like this his whole life.” Then he noticed the collar and quickly slipped it off. “And he don’t need no fancy collars neither.” He handed it to her. “Sorry that he troubled you.”

“He was no trouble.” Just then Claire considered offering him money for the dog, wondering if that would be an insult or not. “Uh—you wouldn’t be interested in selling Mike, would you?”

He laughed again. “Nah, my other dogs have been acting up since he’s been gone. He may not be much, but he’s a good ol’ dog.”

She nodded, fighting to hold back tears and telling herself she was a fool for caring so much in the first place. “Yeah, he is.” Then she turned back to the house, unable to look at the dog again, afraid she would completely break down in front of this less than sensitive man.

She listened as the truck’s loud engine started up again and waited until the sound became a dull rumble then faded away to nothing before she collapsed on her bed and sobbed uncontrollably. “Why, God?” she cried. “Why would you send this sweet dog to comfort me and then just snatch him away? Why?”

Claire was unable to paint a single stroke for the remainder of the day. Instead, she paced about the cabin like a caged animal, cleaning and straightening what already looked perfectly neat. Finally at two o’clock sharp she allowed herself to leave the confines of the cabin. The snow was well over a foot deep now—the deepest she’d walked in so far—and it made for hard work, not to mention slower. But she didn’t care. Perhaps the effort would be so taxing that she might forget all about the dog, at least temporarily. She should’ve known better than to let her heart become so attached—and to a silly animal! She trudged steadily along, hardly lifting her eyes from the ground, just following the trail—step after step—until she finally reached the dead tree. There she stopped to catch her breath and look around. But instead of seeing the beauty she’d been so fascinated by before, everything
looked dull and flat and starkly white to her. Uninteresting even. And now a lifeless layer of heavy cloud hung low overhead. It was the color of an old nickel and probably filled with more snow. But she didn’t really care. Let it snow.

She turned to the right, as usual, and began moving toward the old footbridge, when she noticed those same two pairs of footprints as she’d seen before. Due to her recent distractions, first with the dog and then her painting, she’d almost forgotten about those sets of disturbing footprints. But now, here they were once again, and with fresh clarity, as if they’d just been made today. And while they weren’t quite as distinct as before because, like her, the walkers had been forced to trudge along slowly cutting their way through the thick snow, they were clearly the same sets of footprints—one large, one small. She walked along, following them, unwilling to step right in their tracks; yet, it was much easier to walk where they had already stepped. Once again, she wondered, to whom did they belong? Who had been out here walking in all this snow today? Perhaps they’d passed by just moments ago, for the imprints appeared fresh.

Maybe it was because she was tired, or simply just sad, but it didn’t take long before she began to imagine the two of them again. Father and son, strolling along—maybe they were hand in hand this time, the dad helping the boy through the deep snow, but still they’d be walking with that slow, distinctive gait. She tried to go faster now, hoping to spy them as she came around the bend in the trail up ahead, but when she turned the
corner all she saw was snow and trees. And more snow and trees . . . nothing but snow and trees.

By the time she reached the bridge, the clouds had grown thicker and darker, and she knew she should turn back, but somehow she just couldn’t. And as tired as she was, she continued, panting breathlessly as she trudged through the thick layer of snow, following doggedly without looking up. Finally, maybe thirty minutes later, she noticed fat snowflakes were falling quickly now, and, despite her desperation to find the mysterious walkers, she knew she must turn back. For the second time, she had embarked on a fool’s errand, and one that could easily turn lethal if she didn’t return to her senses.