The Blizzard Read Free Page A

stood. Crouper gazed at the herd; his face brightened and he looked younger. His horses always made him happy, even when he was tired, drunk, or feeling downtrodden. He slid back the partition, letting the horses into the harness of the sledmobile. The herd moved briskly despite the cold billowing from the sled’s frozen interior.
    “There ye go, there ye go,” Crouper encouraged the horses. “Ain’t so bad, you c’n stand the cold…”
    He waited for the last horse to enter, then slid the partition shut, quickly went outside, locked the stable, and hid the key under his coat. Hurrying around the stable with a bowlegged gait, he raised the hood of the sled. The well-trained horses had moved into place and were waiting to be harnessed. There were five rows of ten horses under the hood. Crouper quickly pushed the horses’ heads through the collars and strapped them in. They went peacefully; only the two bays in the third row began to bicker and disturb the peace, as usual.
    “Ye just wait, I’ll give ye a taste of the whip!” Crouper threatened them.
    Harnessed up, the first row of ten well-fed shaft horses, all bays, pawed the frozen ribs of the drive belt. The chestnuts in the third row lowered their long-maned heads for their master, so he could place them in their collars, while the bays held themselves with the dignity of the highest order of the equine race, their ears perked forward. The grays kept on munching indifferently, the sorrels snorted and tossed their heads, and the dappled grays pranced impatiently. The energetic red roan neighed, baring his young teeth.
    “There ye goes.” Crouper slid the wooden bolt of the hood across, locking all the horses in place; he took the tar pot, smeared the bearings of the drive belt, put on his mittens, grabbed a small whip, and went to fetch the doctor.
    The doctor was standing on the stoop, smoking the last of his second papirosa .
    “We c’n go, yur ’onor, sir,” Crouper informed him.
    “Thank God…,” said the doctor, flicking his cigarette butt with an annoyed gesture. “Let’s be off, then.”
    Crouper took one of the doctor’s travel bags and they walked back through the mudroom and into the courtyard, to the sled. Crouper unfolded the bearskin rug, the doctor seated himself, and while Crouper strapped his bags to the coach box in back, the doctor examined the horses. He seldom had occasion to see little horses and even less to travel by them, and though tired from the wait, he regarded them with interest as they stood in five rows under the hood, their little hooves striking the ribbed strip of the frozen drive belt.
    “Small creatures, and yet they come to our aid in difficult, insurmountable circumstances…,” he thought. “How would I have continued on without these tiny beasts? It’s strange … all hope now lies with them. No one else will take me to this Dolgoye…”
    He recalled the two ordinary horses that had brought him to this accursed Dolbeshino three and a half hours ago; they were utterly exhausted by the blizzard and were now lodged in the station stables, probably munching on something.
    “The larger the animal, the more vulnerable it is to our vast expanses. And humans are the most vulnerable of all…”
    The doctor stretched out his gloved hand, splayed his fingers, and touched the rumps of the two dark bays in the last row. The little horses glanced at him indifferently.
    Crouper approached, sat down next to the doctor, fastened the rug, took up the reins, and flicked his whip:
    “And off we go! Heigh-yup!”
    He made a clicking sound with his tongue. The horses strained, and their hooves scraped against the drive belt; it responded with a screech and began to move under them.
    “Heigh-yup! Ha!” cried Crouper as he whirled the whip over their heads.
    The muscles of their small hindquarters rippled, the horses’ yokes creaked, the hooves scraped against the drive belt, which began to turn, turn, turn. The sled set