Outside, the wind continued to moan as if the earth itself had lost all hope of surviving the storm. Flakes of snow drifted around the interior despite the fire. He pulled the pile of blankets closer with a weakening hand.
His mind wandered as if to escape from the hideous cold that cloaked the valley. As if thoughts of happier days would be enough to warm his blood and soul, he looked back upon the time before they had made the journey.
As a young man he had been wild and without responsibility. Some in the community were of the opinion that he would continue down that path. Without respect. Without direction. But then he had met the girl whose dark eyes pierced his heart. Bit by bit, without seeming to try, she turned his aimless energy into strength of spirit. His thoughts, which had only been of freedom and adventure, gradually became focused on those around him. Their marriage was one that both surprised and delighted some people, and simply confounded others.
Within a year there was a son and the next a daughter. As the boy grew he was taught to ride and hunt and spent many summer days with his friends listening to the stories his father told. Some were true. Some were legends. Some were both. His wife smiled at how skilled the wild man she married had become at weaving tales and laughing with the children. But life in the West can be hard and unforgiving. The beautiful little daughter was claimed by a cruel fever. She died on a Spring day that was warm and sunny. A day that shouldn’t have been associated with pain and loss. But it was. One cannot fathom the reasons for events that seem to bring only suffering. The night after they laid their daughter to rest he saw a star shoot across the sky when everyone else was asleep. He liked to think it was his baby daughter’s sparkling spirit.
As the fire dimmed and the wood supply became exhausted, ice crystals formed on the warm buffalo robe they used to keep warm during the coldest nights. But the icy fingers of the storm penetrated even that, so upon it he placed an old Cavalry overcoat. He remembered their journey to this valley. A place of beauty and bounty and a fresh beginning for the young family and their group of friends. Perhaps they had moved too far north, some said. But the weather was mild through the seasons and they began to think it would always be so. But this winter had turned fierce and cruel without warning. They were quickly cut off from other communities. Food dwindled and the game disappeared. At last the only thing to do was wait and pray.
The young man placed his protective arms around his still wife and son as if to shelter them from the evil of the storm through his valiant strength alone.
But it was no use. As the fire at last died his thoughts returned to happier days one last time.
When the storm had killed all it could and crawled away to the east like a great carnivore exhausted from the kill, the people emerged from their homes. Many of them would no longer sing and dance with the others. The young man who told such wonderful stories and his family were no more. They would be missed greatly.
The tribe mourned their dead and sang songs of gratitude for being spared. Then, as the earth warmed, they gathered their horses, struck their tipis and began a long trek away from the place they came to call The Valley of Many Sorrows.
