Lime Creek by Joe Henry Page B

Aggie, his wife, had stayed at their daughter’s near Rawlins for the holidays and Spencer had told him to take an extra day or two. The snow was blowing sideways and the temperature against the outside of the barn read minus twenty-eight and of course it was still dark. We took one team, working just the one sled, for Spencer would feed off the other one after we came back and Whitney and I had to leave. And even though Spencer would be by himself, at least he’d have the dawn by then.
    The horses strain in their traces until the runners under the loaded sled break free with a sharp crack from where they’ve set overnight and frozen to the earthen floor, and then we move out into the blizzard and away from the shelter of the outbuildings. The horses know the way by sight or not, and once they enter the meadow Spencer ties the reins around one of the forward posts on the sled and then kneels down where Whitney and I are huddled amongst the bales. When we start out it’s still night although the relentless flat wall of snow thatraces by us begins to gain some subtle gradation of what could only be perceived as notdarkness. The horses continue to prow ahead with their terrific slow inexorability until the bawling cattle begin to materialize as from behind an almost solid-seeming grey curtain. And so we can hear the animals approaching for a time before we can actually see them.
    Spencer cuts and pulls and then wraps the twine that holds each bale as Whitney and I begin to cast the hay down off the sled, dividing each long rectangular block roughly into thirds that we let drop on the snow as cattle follow closely behind us and then fall back. Whitney soon begins to fling his flakes of hay almost in a rage of cold and I know how he feels because there are times when it all seems like it’s more than a man should be asked to endure. When it’s so cold that it seems like you’re losing more than you could ever hope to gain, and the harder you try the more you just seem to fall behind.
    We continue to crawl along ahead of the interminable crush of cattle, the near faces of hungry animals parting and beginning to eat as other animals move in to take their places, endlessly. Whitney throws his arm again as I bend to another bale and I think I hear him cry out in the shrieking wind but I can’t be sure, even though he’s only just an arm’s length away. And then forsome reason he suddenly kneels down with his gloved hand against his chest and he screams something into the wind again that I still can’t hear as I turn and toss the hay in a continuous repetition that I seemingly cannot stop. And then after another moment Whitney rises back up and begins again.
    The horses draw the sled with that same plodding nonprogress even after the load of hay has all been distributed. Spencer sits with us with our backs against the front cross-member of the frame, facing away from the great round rumps of the two Belgians and huddled into the collars of our coats with our gloved hands thrust into our pockets. Dawn is on the snow at last but with hardly any light at all as if the two drafthorses pull us into a colorless windtunnel where the knifing blizzard continues without alteration except in terms of visibility. Although there is nothing to see except the snow horizonless and with no point of reference to mark where the earth ends or the sky begins.
    And then as we finally approach the entrance to the meadow again, the opening in the fenceline, Spencer gets back up and unties the reins and guides the animals who know exactly where they are going whether he stands with them or not. Far off and higher up the barn’s lights sail behind the streaming storm illuminating nextto nothing and obviously making no impression whatsoever on that iron-grey shroud of opaque darkness that must be the new day. Stillborn.
    Whitney and I sit against each other’s arms as Spencer stands above us with one leg alongside my shoulder. We hump our backs