Snow Fall

They both hoped it would never end.

Editor's pick for the December issue of the monthly WDC Author's Newsletter.

"Living alone on top of a mountain is a little different. Don’t you get lonely?” Amanda sipped at her hot coffee and wiggled a little closer into the fur thrown over her shoulders.

“You climbed all the way up here and knocked on my door just to ask me that?” Mark laughed as he stared out the single window in the one room cabin that had been his home going on three years.

“I was curious about you. There are rumors you moved here because of a broken heart.”

“Broken wallet is more like it. This is a hand me down place, the only thing worth anything in my dad’s will. It saved me from living on the streets.”

“The furs you bring down at the supply store are beautifully made. See?” Amanda poked out a fur lined boot.

“Make just enough to keep living here. I’ve grown to love the simple life of being close to nature.” Mark finished his cup of coffee and pointed to the window. “Looks like snow. You won’t be leaving here tonight. Are you okay with that?”

“Thanks. I feel all warm and snuggly. Just the right atmosphere to make a new friend.”

They both watched snowflakes gather together on the window sill. The cold wind whistled a greeting as mountain mist began to swirl, closing them in. “Winter came early,” Mark said, leaning to grab another fire log to stuff into the sparks rising in the fireplace. “Here. I’ve got a roll out cot under my bed. I’ll sleep on that.”

Both slept with their clothes on for an extra layer of warmth. Morning brought them awake at the same moment, eyes staring at sparkles of light revealing frost on the window pane. “It’s beautiful.”

“And deadly if I wasn’t prepared.” Outside, it was still snowing steadily, non stop. It was a good thing the cabin door opened inward or neither one of them could have gotten out. As it was, Mark had to tunnel through to the outhouse.

A frightened crow squawked in alarm then settled on his shoulder. “Blacky comes to visit,” explained Mark. “He’s waiting to be fed. I’ll meet you back home.”

And home it felt like, after the first week of being snowed in. Amanda fit herself into the easy rhythm of helping cure the hides and store the meat Mark brought back from the trap lines. “How high does the winter snow get?” It now covered the window and swept over the roof,

A low rumble began to swell. “It’s about time. This happens every year. Enjoy it. It’s a once in a lifetime experience.” Mark reached to take Amanda’s shoulders and turned her to face the blank white window. “It’s a snow avalanche. It’ll clean away everything in its path except us.”

Amanda thrilled at the roar of approaching thunder shaking her feet, then her whole body. She was blinded by the flash of light exploding through the window where the snow had just lain. “I’m just close enough to where the spine of the mountain curves or we wouldn’t be here. Let’s go outside while we can. It’s as peaceful as the eye of a hurricane. It won’t last long.”

Already the churned up remnants of mist and snow rose up into the clouded sky. Snowflakes lazily drifted together and apart as they met down against the couple’s upturned faces. “Will your family be worried? You haven’t talked about them?” Mark asked. It had been bothering him that Amanda was so silent about her past. Was she hiding something that might come back to haunt him?

Amanda rolled a snowball. She tossed it at the last glimpse of full moon dancing in the sky. “I’m like that snowball. I was going nowhere, until I heard about you living here. I took a chance you might not mind my coming. I didn’t have a dad who left me anything but grief.”

It was like another avalanche had struck the space Mark stood in. He earnestly stared into Amanda’s face. “Truth?” he asked.

She took his hand, brought it up to her heart, and nodded yes. “Still glad we became friends?”

They both became as silent as the snowfall resting down around them. “Feels right, doesn’t it?” Mark said. He shook off the silence, took Amanda’s hand and together they rejoined the light inside the cabin.

Once breached, Amanda’s life story came out without stopping. Her drunken, abusive father, the mother who left the moment she could. The years living on the streets. “I’ve lived everywhere but in a home.”

“Until now,” Mark replied.

“Until now,” Amanda confirmed.

That was the last they talked about it. The months drew on without winter easing its breath. Snow fell, grew, was swept away by yet another avalanche freight train. It left a relative harbor for wild animals to have a place to endure. Mark laid out salt licks, made snow caves for retreats, and kept his trap line.


Amanda stopped moving towards the outhouse as she noticed a lazy black shadow moving through the whiteness.

“It’s a wolf. It’s hunting my trap line. It’ll move on.” Mark said.

This year the snow kept falling.

“It will never stop.” Amanda melted snow into the teapot and watched it dissolve.

“Do you want it too?” Mark laughed. He added wild mint leaves and a piece of honeycomb.

“We’ve become more than friends.” Amanda said, looking into his eyes.

“Adopted sister and brother,” Mark answered the unspoken question. “Unless you need more.”

“I need you.” Amanda reached for the closeness only Mark had ever supplied.

“You are the warmth of summer. I need no other.” Mark settled her against him, brushing his lips across her fair hair.

The soft scent of mint tea grew around them as they watched the snowflakes stitch their pure white blanket together against the window. Later they’d decide if it was time to ski down the mountain and take their furs to the supply shop.