The Blizzard Read Online Free PDF Page B

and that the blizzard wasn’t bothering them.
    “How d’ye like that, it don’t even pull to one side,” Crouper thought, moving the steering rod with his right hand and holding the reins with his left. “Means the doctor bound the runner right. He’s got the knack and knows his business. Serious he is, that one. What a big nose. Just drive him to Dolgoye, ain’t nothin’ else will do. Doctors, they’s seen terrible sights, and knows a lot. Back last year that feller went under the thresher at Komagon’s, and in the city they sewed his leg on, and it grew back, runs faster’n it used to … And me, when my teeth acted up, that doctor in Novoselets, he give me a shot and opened up my jawbone … It didn’t hurt one bit, he took out three teeth, and half a cup of blood…”
    The road sloped down, the forest grew even sparser, and ahead of them in the snowy mantle of the blizzard the vague contours of a large ravine arose.
    “Right about here’s where we gotta hurry, yur ’onor,” said Crouper, “else mine won’t make it to the top in this kinda snow. After all, they ain’t three-story cart horses…”
    “Let’s hurry, then!” the doctor answered cheerfully, turning around.
    They jumped off the sled and immediately sank knee-deep in snow. The road was entirely blanketed. Crouper wedged the steering rod in a straight position, grabbed the back of the sled where traces of old flaking painted decorations could be seen, and began to run, pushing from behind. But the sled had barely passed the bottom of the ravine and started up the other side when it began to lose speed and then stopped completely. Crouper threw back the tarp and asked the horses: “What’s the matter?”
    He flapped his mitten over their backs:
    “C’mon, then, the lot of ye! C’mon, give it a tug!”
    He let loose a loud whistle.
    The horses leaned into the drive belt and Crouper pushed from the back. The doctor helped as well.
    “Fas-ter! Fas-ter!” Crouper screeched.
    The sled moved, crawling upward with great difficulty. But it soon stopped again. Crouper braced it from behind so it wouldn’t slide down into the ravine. The horses snorted. The doctor was about to fling himself at it again, but Crouper stopped him. Breathing heavily, he spat into the snow:
    “Wait a bit, yur ’onor, we’ll get our strength back…”
    The doctor was also out of breath.
    “Not long now.” Crouper smiled, tilting his hat back. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it up in a bit.”
    They stood, catching their breath.
    Large, soft snowflakes fell thickly, but the wind seemed to have died down and was no longer throwing snow in their faces.
    “I didn’t think it was so steep here…,” said the doctor, leaning against the sled and looking around while he turned his broad, snow-covered hat.
    “Right here’s a stream,” said Crouper, breathing heavily. “In the summer ye gotta ford it. The water’s good. When I comes this way I always get down fer a drink.”
    “I hope we don’t slide backward.”
    “Naw, we won’t.”
    After a bit, Crouper whistled and cried out to the horses:
    “C’mon now or I’ll let you have it! Give it a tug! Tuug! Tug!”
    The horses scraped at the drive belt. The passenger and the driver pushed the sled. It crawled slowly up the hill.
    “C’mon! C’mon!” Crouper shouted and whistled.
    But twenty paces on they came to a halt once again.
    “You … damn…” The doctor slumped limply against the back of the sled.
    “Just a minute, yur ’onor, just a minute…,” Crouper muttered in a stifled voice, as though defending himself. “You’ll see, after this we’ll go sliding down real easy-like, all the way to the ponds…”
    “Why on earth did they put the road here … where it’s so steep … Idiots…,” the doctor puffed indignantly, shaking his hat.
    “Where’s else to put it, yur ’onor?”
    “Go around it.”
    “But how could ye go around it here?”
    The tired doctor waved his hand,