Snow Angel

“As the first snowflake settled, it whispered secrets of a winter tale waiting to unfold.”

Grainger chuckled acerbically, through his clenched teeth.

Those were likely words from a page in one of the romance novels that his niece had been reading and left on the end table under the lamp in his den, his brown study as he liked to call it because... it was pretty much all brown, the den was, and often time his mood or state of mind when he was in there was also sort of brown. He pictured it in his mind. He’d likely found one of her paperbacks she’d left there and picked it up and maybe he’d seen the sentence on one the pages of the book... awhile back.

For the most part, he preferred that everybody including his sister’s kid stay out of his den... like he preferred that everybody stay out of his head. He thought about life a fair amount and the past occasionally and the ranch a lot but he didn’t share it much, his thinking. It’s not that he was moody as much as it was he usually enjoyed solitude and being able to be absorbed deeply in his own thinking. So he surely had that golden opportunity now.

“Shit!” he thought.

Was he doing his inventory? They say that your life flashes before your eyes...in the end... maybe because you do an “accounting” he thought. Enough of that!

Ashley was cool, his sister’s only kid. She was respectful. She enjoyed sitting at the far end of the big leather couch near the fireplace, under that lamp, and reading. She was something of a bookworm and did well in school or she had anyway... before. Romance novels weren’t all that she read of course. She was well versed and for someone as literate as she was the romance genre was a guilty pleasure.

She once was... he thought.

Grainger rustled up a memory of her sitting there with a book in hand, smiling over the top of it, at him. There were times when he thought that maybe his niece was secretly terrified of him but then quickly set that form of self-deprecating ideation and aggrandizing aside.... because it was both. Animals are that way for sure, wolves and dogs especially... they experience both fear of the Alpha as well as what could be called love... a need to please at least.

Maybe that’s why the line popped into his head. The novel she’d been reading “SNOW ANGEL” had a picture of the heroin on the front cover, laying on top of a fresh layer of snow inside the snow angel she’d just created and the tagline in italics... As the first snowflake settled, it whispered secrets of a winter tale waiting to unfold.

Grainger had not read the romance novel himself of course, and his niece Ashley had not provided him any insights into the plot of the story or the heroine’s character or the twists and turns, etc. before the main character finally wins the affection of the man her heart desired or whatever... who knew anymore he thought. He was certain of that. Those books always ended that way, didn’t they? The main character always wins the desire of their heart.

That was contempt prior to investigation though, he supposed. He had a habit of doing that he thought... judging things before he really understood them

“She’s always respectful and considerate...it seems so anyway...”

“She stays out of my way when she visits, or she did, not begrudgingly but respectfully because she liked me and the ranch, unlike her mother... my only sibling,” he thought. “One would think that we might be closer to one another... like we were when we re kids... not that Beth doesn’t like the ranch or me,” he thought. “I know she loves me at least and I love her.”

It was weird that he was thinking such thoughts: at least that’s what he thought to himself. “Are these the things that are hanging off my conscience... like icicles off the eaves of the ranch house?”

He chuckled an even more self-deprecating chuckle this time, at waxing poetic in his mind.

But then again perhaps that’s all he had to keep himself company, at the moment, was what was going on in the space between his ears. He’d heard a saying once: “You’re in a bad neighborhood when you’re in your head.”

He chuckled again even though there wasn’t really anything to chuckle about.

He’d left his cell phone in the charger he’d installed in his tractor. He’d thought about buying one of those wireless charger kits at the time and sort of now wished he had, although he wasn’t sure it would make any difference. He heard the thing ring a few times and then stop.

He wouldn’t have his phone to watch videos while he waited for someone to miss him and come looking or to catch up on the latest political intrigues or woke beer commercials.

Oh yeah, he was cracking himself up.

Calling for help was the only thing that made sense.

He continued colliding and rolling things around in his brain: events, miscellanea, tasks and such that would not be brought to completion should he not get another chance.

As the first snowflake settled, it whispered secrets of a winter tale waiting to unfold...

He mused. He certainly and rightfully had onerous concern that the winter’s tale he’d just found himself in had potent consequences... as evidenced not only by his cerebration on the genuine starkness of his actual predicament... but the reality.

“Who’da thunk it...” he’d driven out to collect a piece of farming equipment.

Nevertheless, he could not help wonder: If he was just filling his head with thoughts of his niece and his sister to take his mind off the situation he found himself in...? And false hope?”

Or was it really because it was fresh still, what his sister had just been through? Dammit it all! And now, what he was about to put her through... maybe.

The snow had begun to fall a bit more heavily and stick to his coat, or at least anyway, not freeze immediately when it landed on the shoulders and chest. It was one of those Sheepskin Shearling Rancher coats... brown... pretty common style amongst ranchers and he typically looked the part of one... or a cowboy: skin always tanned from being in the sun and the grey that he’d accumulated in his temples.

The coat had cost him a pretty penny and was lined with wool on the inside which was a good thing because he knew that in the situation he was in he was likely to get colder before he got warmer. But some of the snowflakes would melt regardless of whether they were supposed to or not, according to his overwrought calculations, after they landed on the surface of his coat and hat and gloves- especially the chest of his coat. And then when there was enough moisture eventually, it would freeze into a thin sheet of ice which actually might help in keeping the warmth inside the coat longer for a while anyway but probably not long enough.

But he wasn’t actually and in reality “overwrought” yet... just concerned.

The temperature was supposed to drop into the low teens overnight or below. He knew that a person could lose consciousness if their body cooled to 82 degrees and if it dropped below 70 they could die. They could literally freeze to death at any temperature under 32 degrees.

He‘d heard that it was relatively painless, freezing to death, that one simply goes to sleep.

“Surely someone will come looking,” he thought... but knew it wasn’t so. There was no one at the ranch house. No one knew where he was or what he was up to anyway.

He heard the cell phone ring.

“Hello...” he said. “Hello...” and of course, the phone rang again to remind him of exactly how close he was to salvation... and yet... so far. The phone was not voice-activated.

It was instinctive for Grainger to swipe the snowflakes off his coat, using his left hand of course because it was free. But it was wasted effort and counterproductive because if the snow continued to fall he would likely be covered in it anyway when they found him, unless a miracle occurred or he freed himself which would be a miracle in itself. And since the snow was likely to continue its fall for some time and he didn’t much believe in miracles, it didn’t require much imagination to envision how he would be discovered.

The snow, in fact, would likely fall for so long that the lower half of his body would be completely covered, and his upper body too for that matter but in a different way. He’d become a snowman in a cowboy hat and boots. That might be comical... if they found him with his boots sticking up out of the snow. But that was morbid he knew... really no laughing matter. And he did possess a weird sense of humor after all which perhaps could be considered... morbid perhaps. But regardless of whether he was being morbid or not, he certainly wasn’t going to be able to cry himself out of the situation he had gotten himself into.

He suddenly realized that he felt warmer than he likely should have.

Was that hypothermia setting in already?

Noooo! No... he reasoned. It was too early.