“If you let go of that ladder, I’m a dead man!”
The rancher’s shout disappeared into the Montana wind almost as soon as it left his mouth.
The storm had swallowed everything else.
The mountains.
The pine-covered ridge.
The trail leading toward Helena.
Even the barn twenty yards from the cabin had become little more than a dark shape behind sheets of blowing snow.
The rancher clung to a frozen wooden ladder with both hands while another blast struck the north wall of his cabin.
The ladder twisted.
His right boot slipped from the rung.
For one terrible instant there was nothing beneath him.
Then the ladder stopped moving.
He looked down.
His wife stood at the bottom.
She had no business being outside.
None.
She weighed close to four hundred kilograms, and even crossing the packed earth between the cabin and woodshed normally required patience, a walking staff, and frequent pauses. Deep snow made every step harder. The storm made it nearly impossible.
Yet there she was.
Her enormous body was planted against the base of the ladder, broad shoulders bent forward while both hands locked around the frozen rails.
Her charcoal wool dress was soaked nearly black.
Snow covered her auburn hair.
She had come outside without her buffalo coat.
“Get back inside!” the rancher screamed.
She looked up at him.
“Climb!”
“I said get inside!”
“And I said climb the damn ladder!”
Another gust struck.
The rancher flattened himself against the rungs.
His wife shifted her immense weight closer to the wall.
The bottom of the ladder stopped sliding.
Three weeks earlier, he would have called her stubborn.
Two weeks earlier, difficult.
A week earlier, perhaps brave.
Tonight he was too frightened to choose a word.
Black smoke had begun pouring backward through the iron stove less than fifteen minutes before.
The fire itself was not the problem.
The chimney was.
Wet snow and ice had sealed the top.
If they kept the stove burning, smoke would fill the cabin.
If they extinguished it, the temperature inside would eventually fall low enough to kill them.
The rancher had dragged the ladder outside before his wife could stop him.
He had ordered her to remain indoors.
She had ignored him.
Now he climbed.
One rung.
Then another.
His fingers had already gone numb.
He reached the edge of the roof and pulled himself upward.
The shingles were hidden beneath nearly a foot of snow.
He lowered himself onto his stomach and crawled toward the chimney.
Behind him, the ladder scraped against the wall.
He twisted around.
His wife still held it.
“Stay there!”
She stared up at him as if considering whether to insult him.
Instead she shouted, “Fix the chimney!”
The rancher crawled.