The Trefoil Muse

The horse and rider paused at the crest of the hill.

“Should we take the wagon trail home or cut through the coulee, Mari-bell?” Sarah asked unsure of her own mind.  If they took the wagon trail, it would take her another 5 miles to reach the ranch, an easy ride in good weather like it had been that morning but potentially deadly in the inclement weather which had suddenly appeared.  She wasn’t prepared for this.

It had been unusually mild weather for January, like a spring day – they called these warm winds Chinooks she’d been told. They were “snow eaters,” that lasted from hours to days.  Water had been dripping from the barn roof forming streamlets and pockets of water on her path to the barn.  She side-stepped numerous puddles on the way to retrieve her little golden mare with creamy mane and tail.  Mari-bell had nickered her usual soft greeting when Sarah opened the barn door.

She had loved Mari-bell from the first moment she’d laid eyes on her.   Her father had threatened to sell her at first.  “Too small for any of the ranch hands,” he’d said but Sarah rallied for the little palomino.  “The horse has a huge heart,” he’d admitted after seeing the girl and horse work cattle.  “She won’t quit until the job’s done and did everything and more that you asked of her Sarah!”  The girl and horse had an unnatural bond he figured after seeing how the two responded to one another. In the end, he relented and gave the mare to his daughter. It was a rarity not to see the horse and girl together now-a-days.

Mari-bell perked her ears forward and arched her neck over the edge of the stall as Sarah approached.  “Too warm for this thick woolen sweater Mother knit for me at Christmas that’s for sure Mari-bell,” Sarah crooned to the horse as she shed her jacket then removed the heavy sweater and hung it on the peg by the stall.  “A long sleeved shirt and jacket are all I’ll need today.”  She grinned as she pat the horse on the side of the neck, led her to the door of the barn, mounted and trotted away from the ranch toward the school.

How she wished she still had that sweater now!

One could never count on prairie weather, she realized.  It had changed in a heartbeat since school let out less than half an hour ago.  The change began with biting winds that pushed angry, grey rolling clouds across the sky blocking out the sun. As they rode, her mustang could sense the ensuing change and had started to pull at the bridle’s reins wanting to run for home but they’d only managed to get a mile closer to home before the storm cut loose its fury and pelted wet driving snow at their faces so thick it was hard to breath little own see. The temperature had dropped from a balmy 14 above to -10 Fahrenheit in the blink of an eye and was steadily getting colder as the sun set.

Sarah’s fingers stung from the bite of the cold.  Her mittens were frozen to her hands.  She tried to straighten and bend them to encourage blood flow but the pain of moving them caused tears to run from her eyes which froze upon her cheeks.  Her face was so cold it had stopped burning and now simply felt numb. Her mind was hazy.  She slumped forward in the saddle attempting to shield herself from the driving snow at the crest of this hill.

Which direction?  It was only a fluke that she knew where she was. It was so easy to loose your way in storms like this one. The wind had taken a deep breath – it stopped blowing for 30 seconds; just long enough for her to see a swath of bare land for thirty feet or so before the storm bore down on them again. That coulee over the crest of this hill where they now  paused, cut down on her ride to the ranch by 3 ½ miles or; she could take the longer route on the wagon trail and pray that someone was coming to meet her on the way home from school.  Which was the best route?

Mari-bell tugged at the reins.

Sarah gave the horse her head.  She trusted the little horse.  Mari-bell would get her home.  She was too cold to move and just hoped she could stay in the saddle until the little mare got her there.

Mari-bell hunched her back curling inward to fight the cold with her tail tucked between her hind legs, she lowered her head to the wind then she stepped over the crest of the hill and made her descent.  The rider sat motionless on her back as the little palomino mare nosed her way down the gulch to the bottom of the hill then plunged belly deep into the snow filled coulee floor.  The rider on her back slouched nearly unconscious with cold.  Her hair once tied back in a pony tail now whipped relentlessly at her face like frozen tendrils.

The lurching motion of the little palomino made Sarah moan.

“We’ll make it Mari-bell, God willing, we’ll make it.”

It took all of the strength Sarah had left just to whisper the silent words in her mind.

“Just one more hill.  One more hill, we’ll be warm again, Mari-bell.  Grain for you in the barn,” she wheezed semi-consciously through her blue cracked lips.

Sarah cold feel Mari-bell shaking with cold and exhaustion too, such heart the mare had, such spirit.  She shouldn’t have taken her from the stables today.

Mari-bell groaned and heaved herself forward like she was battling endless hurdles. Finally, she broke free of the coulee floor.  The small mare stood at the base of the hill shaking, her sides heaving with effort.  Icicles’ formed below her nostrils and hung from her mane and tail but Mari-bell was soaked to the bone from the combination of perspiration and wet snow.  Balls of icy snow had formed under each hoof.   They’d been battling the blizzard for an hour.  Still, the little mustang knew it was sure death if she didn’t keep moving.  She just needed to climb up this side of the coulee then it was downhill to the ranch after this; it was; the one last hill of the home stretch.  She lowered her head and exhaled causing the fog from her breath to curl around then stick to her wet golden hair.

Mari-bell felt winded as she stood shakily breathing in frigid air and attempting to regain precious energy for the climb but she needed to move.  The rider on her back was motionless. She could sense that the life of her rider was slowly ebbing away.  Mari-bell inhaled then she started forward, slowly picking her way upward into the cold and driving snow.

Carefully, she cut a path sideways up the slope of the hill through patches of ground nearly devoid of snow.  Prairie blizzards are strange.  The wind will blow snow for miles across the land until it finds something to gather around then form drifts up to 30 feet high while leaving swaths of bare land for paths or trap gross amounts of snow into low lying areas making them impassable.  Mari-bell kept her nose to the ground as she picked her way up the hill along the nearly bare land. Her instincts told her that shelter and warmth was near and in her exhausted state, she whinnied into the wind perking her ears forward anticipating an answer from the stabled horses at the ranch.

The rider moaned.

Mari-bell quickened her pace but the footing underneath was icy and she slipped.  She tried hard to keep her four legs under her and had them under control once, only to slip again as her front right leg sunk into a snow covered hole unseen by her eyes as the blizzard assaulted her head on. She heard the leg snap as she fell forward but in a matter of seconds, she was back on her feet.  Miraculously, the rider was still on her back.

Mari-bell took a step and groaned in pain.  Her left foreleg veered off at a precarious angle.  She lowered her head to her leg.

The semi-conscious rider babbled something in audible. It gave the little horse courage to hobble a little further but a barrier of wolf willow had become drifted over by snow and blocked further ascension up the side of the hill.  In a panic, Mari-bell raised her head and let loose a shrill nicker in the direction of the ranch, as she did, the rider fell.

Sarah heard herself gasp as she hit the ground.  Her eyes flittered open but she didn’t have enough strength to stop herself from a roll downward and felt something strong, like arms, stop her and hold her close.

“Father,” she mumbled.

Mari-bell turned then cocked her head to look toward the willow bush that cradled Sarah in its tines then hobbled a few feet back down the hill. She nickered softly and nuzzled the young rider with her nose gently trying to rouse her from her frozen slumber.  Unsuccessful, she turned her back into the wind and sheltered the girl with her body.  She screamed her shrill, whistling neighs into the raging winds trying to draw attention from the ranches stable as she beckoned for help; injured or not, Mari-bell was devoted to her rider and would not leave Sarah.  When she could stand the pain of her leg no longer, she moaned and lay beside the young girl, as arctic snows swirled around them.

It was the end of May before they found the horse and rider pair – and quite by accident.

A ranch hand had gone after a rogue cow.  The cow had ducked around the bush and the cowboy’s horse shied.  That is how he found them. The cowhand said it was an amazing thing; sad though it was; how the horse’s neck was out-stretched across the girl’s body, probably to keep her warm.  The horse’s leg was broke; poor thing or they would have made it.  The ranch was just over the hill.

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Although this story is fiction, many early pioneers and immigrants to Canada and the United States have lost their lives due to unforeseen blizzards on the prairies during the winter months. 

This date in history is the anniversary of, ‘The Schoolhouse/Children’s Blizzard,” of January 12, 1888.  For information see the link below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolhouse_Blizzard