I’ll Always Be Grateful

It had been a long six months, with relatively few, if any, days off for our entire crew. Yet, we tried to stay warm and keep our minds on the pipeline; which was supposed to be the answer to everyone’s concerns over the soaring cost of fuel, while our need to be home with our families was overpowering. Especially for me, as I had left my wife and children in the lower forty-eight to take this job; hoping the big payout it had promised would once again renew mine and my family’s spirit toward life and allow me to better provide for them.

While almost everyone on my crew was from a local indigenous tribe of people, I had only moved up one week before starting this job; from a little town in Missouri by the name of Doniphan. A town that had a population of about one thousand seven hundred and twelve souls. And it seemed as though each one of them knew of my failures; and how, as a family, we were hurting, but there just wasn’t enough money to go around at the end of the month to make a difference.

Lately, the cold temperatures and shorter daylight hours appeared to be wearing me down more than usual; and with Christmas nearing, my longing to be back home with those I loved made each day that much more wearisome.

But this day had a feeling of excitement about it, as earlier in the day, I and others, those on our crew, and some locals had been invited to a gathering at the home of one of the fellow crewmen for a home-cooked meal and a sampling of a new mead that he had been aging, and I was looking forward to it.

As the workday drew to a close, I was eager to get back to my room, which I had rented from the pipeline company. It wasn’t much, but it had a bed and a small radio, which came in handy for those long nights; when, because of missing my family, sleep would not come, and the silence was deafening. The other crew members living there and I shared a couple of bathrooms with showers, and I was ready for my turn at one of them.

After getting my shower and some clean, warm, dry duds on, I felt as though I could once again conquer the world or at least manage this evening. Pushing back against the loneliness of winter, which had settled in with its long, silent, dark days and nights.

On arrival at my coworker’s home, I was thrown off by the size of the gathering and how well his home accommodated all of us. There were those dressed as I was and others dressed in clothing of another time. A time long ago, but kept alive by folks such as these, who refused to forget their old ways and the stories that were handed down, and that is where this story begins…

As we mingled one with the other while slowly sipping on mead and telling stories, the night slowly perused by us. Many strange tales were told about the job site, including catastrophes, unexplained events, and healings.

According to an old chieftain, his people had passed his story of the Snow Queen down from generation to generation; although it was seldom told in the presence of a white man. Still, as he began to tell his tale, I found myself mesmerized, being drawn in as tight as a bowstring by his every word; while those very words were twisting my logic and understanding into a knot.

And although I knew I hadn’t hit my friend’s mead that hard, his story still took me back to a time shortly after arriving here. While missing my family, I found myself unable to sleep one night, so I got out of bed and, even though very late and in unfamiliar surroundings, I went walking.

After a long while walking and thinking of my family back home in Missouri, I lost track of time. And whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, only God knows — I felt as though I was being watched by what I did not know, but it put me on edge, causing the hair both on my neck and arms to stand up as if, by some strange force or power, it had been energized. I walked a bit further before entertaining the thought of turning around, as I thought that I had seen something that I knew, or had at least thought, to be impossible; before it, they vanished.

On my way back, I tried my hardest to reason out what my mind had presumed my eyes to see, but I could not. And I knew I could never speak of it to anyone, lest they think I had lost my mind out in the dark cold of an Arctic night.

But now, listening to the story of this old chieftain, I was beyond perplexed. Had my mind interpreted what my eyes saw correctly? As the thought lingered in my mind, I felt the coldest of chills run down my spine. Was it the Snow Queen riding on her bigger than life lynx that I had seen, after all? Had she appeared as the old man’s story touted to protect me from an unseen or unrecognized danger?

I’ll always wonder and be forever grateful to her.