Chapter Thirteen

A CROOKED LODGE • LIONEL TAKES CARE OF BEATRICE • “WE MADE IT”

LIONEL FOUND himself staring into the tangled mess of Ulysses’s tousled mane. He looked around, trying to fully wake up and get his bearings. He discovered he was in a small, dilapidated, open-sided barn. Ulysses was tearing at an empty burlap grain sack, attempting to get the last of its remnants into his big mouth. Beatrice was still asleep.

Lionel rubbed his eyes and wondered for a moment if it hadn’t all been some kind of dream, and he was actually back at the school about to be in trouble for sitting on Ulysses’s back. His body ached, and he was cold.

He crawled from beneath the buffalo robe, carefully, so as not to wake his sister, then dropped to the frozen dirt of the stable and collapsed. Lionel’s legs and feet still hadn’t woken up. He sat for a minute and saw that Ulysses’s deep tracks followed the stream across a small, open, tree-lined meadow. Mountains loomed above them on all sides.

Lionel looked up at his sister. She slumped forward with her arms sprawled across the horse’s neck. Lionel had never seen her sleep this much and decided to leave her while he investigated their latest stop.

He left the shelter of the stable and stepped out into the deep snow of the meadow. It came up to his waist, and after only a few steps he had to stop to catch his breath. He had never seen this much snow in his life. Though the surroundings seemed peaceful, he could not shake the feeling that they were not alone. Something was watching them.

Lionel scanned the tree line to find that a large raven, so black it looked almost blue, was sitting opposite him on a spindly winter branch, calmly observing the small valley’s newest inhabitants. “Hello,” Lionel called, but the bird just spread its large wings and took to the air.

Lionel watched the raven fly its way to the tops of the nearby trees, but as he did, he caught something else out of the corner of his eye. There, at the far corner of the meadow, nestled back and surrounded by a small stand of pine, birch, and aspen, sat a long, lonely log cabin. Despite its size, Lionel almost missed it, as the building seemed either to have sprung from the earth or to be in the process of being taken back into it.

The chimney stood like a stone giant that had lost its balance, fallen, and then leaned on the lodge, pushing the entire structure to one side and collapsing the roof on the farthest end. The remaining roof was covered by four feet of snow. Lionel thought that it looked like frosting on top of a cake or, more accurately, the frosting on a cake that someone had dropped.

Lionel returned to the stable. Beatrice was still sleeping, so he took Ulysses by his rawhide harness and led them toward the slumping building. Even the doorframe leaned to one side.

He left Beatrice with the horse and pushed open the heavy, crooked door. The door creaked on its leather hinges, revealing, once he was inside, that over half of the building still seemed to be perfectly intact. The other side fell off in a maze of cracked timber and broken glass, but the rubble passed for a fourth wall.

Light from outside shone through the dingy windows, and Lionel already felt a little warmer stepping inside and out of the wind that came down off the mountains and across the small meadow. He made his way around various bits of debris and toward the center of the enormous fireplace. You could have put four of Grandpa’s fireplaces into this one, Lionel thought. A box of kindling stood next to the giant stones, and in no time Lionel had a small fire going that was dwarfed by its immense surroundings. Lionel decided that if he could do it, he should bring both Ulysses and Beatrice into the house. How else would he be able to carry his sleeping sister?

It took some coaxing, but he convinced Ulysses to lower his head, and led them both into the cavernous warmth that his little fire and the fallen lodge provided. Lionel did his best to wrap Beatrice in the buffalo robe and lower her gently in front of the fire, but despite his best effort she still tumbled off the horse’s back.

Beatrice sat up and looked around. “We made it,” she said, and drifted back to sleep. Though it was frigid out, Lionel thought that Beatrice’s face felt hot. But she was shivering, so he got her some water, wrapped the buffalo robe tight, and turned back to stoke the fire.

Lionel led Ulysses to the far side of the lodge, figuring that the horse could sleep there for the night. Ulysses snorted and poked at the cabin’s crumbled remains as Lionel did his best to unload their supplies. He located their tight bundles of food, then sat down by the fire next to Beatrice and ate some of the dried meat. He was tired and cold, but as Beatrice said, they had made it.