May B. by Caroline Rose Page B

western sky,
          and watch the sun sink
          lower,
          lower.
          It is gone.
          I must move while there’s still light.
          I stamp my feet to rouse them.
          Pain shoots through my toes,
          a promise I’m still living.

138

          I trudge toward the purple darkness
          and turn sometimes to see if the sunlight
          has taken pity on me,
          if it might wait to see me home.
          But it is well beyond that imaginary place
          where the sky meets land—
          the only light just a memory of this day.

139

          Do I see or hear it first,
          the shadow where the sun
          once was,
          distant bells,
          the unsure step of a horse’s hooves
          battling the snow?

140

          Someone is there!
          I’m certain now.
          I try to run,
          trip on Mrs. Oblinger’s quilt,
          crash to the ground,
          but I am up again.
          “Hello! Hello!”
          My voice is firm, like I’ve used it every day.
          I flap my arms,
          and the quilt unfurls.

141

          Now the sleigh bells ring clearly.
          “Over here!” I say.
          A sleigh is steering toward me.
          The horse slows,
          then stops.
          “May Betterly?”

142

          “I’m May,” I say,
          and reach forward.
          A firm hand grasps my wrist.
          “Miss Betterly,” the stranger says,
          “are you all right?”
          I’ve seen nothing move
          for so long,
          save grass pushing at my feet,
          clouds,
          rabbits,
          this endless blowing snow.
          And this is a person!
          He settles me in his sleigh,
          pulls a buffalo robe around me.

143

          In the moonlight,
          I make out the man’s blue muffler,
          a hat pushed low on his brow.
          His eyes;
          I have seen them before.
          “I’m John Chapman,” he says.
          “I helped Mr. Oblinger with his floor.”
          The neighbor who brought the wood.
          If Ma could see me,
          she’d tell me to remember my manners.
          “How do you do, Mr. Chapman?”
          He nods to me.
          “How do you do?”

144

          I’m riding in a sleigh
          away from the Oblingers’ soddy!
          We pass a clump of darkness,
          some trees I counted last July?
          “The storm came the first of December,” he says.
          “I dug out last week,
          drove into town.
          That’s when I heard …”
          His eyes dart to me.
          “… heard the Oblingers were gone.
          Seemed funny Oblinger would leave
          without telling me.
          I’d helped him some at his place.
          He’d done some work on mine.
          I asked if anyone knew where he was headed.
          Heard all sorts of stories,
          none of them the same:
          his wife had run,
          he’d given up and sold his land,
          he would come back with family next spring.”
          Desperate to find the missus,
          how easy it would be
          to forget me.
          Mr. Chapman turns.
          “No one mentioned a girl.
          I got to thinking,
          if he’d run off like some folks said,
          and with those wolves about,
          what had become of you?”
          Someone has thought of me.
          These last few days,
          someone
knew
.

145

          “I came earlier this week to look for you,”
          Mr. Chapman says.
          “A couple of miles from my