Santa's Elf Encounters Ground Blizzard in Southern Oregon
About a year ago, Tim ordered a pair of rawhide reins from a cowboy who used to work for us. The kid was meticulous, and talented. There also wasn't nearly enough for him to do around Quinn River in the winter, and in the manner of many cowboys, he went off looking for something more amusing for the dark months. Of course his new place, in some remote corner of southeastern Oregon, had no phone. Occasionally he'd call and leave a message for Tim, something like, "Hey how ya doin'? I'm still workin' on those reins for ya..."
We heard rumors from other buckaroos who'd seen Dusty through the summer that the reins were coming along, that they were a really nice piece of work, that he'd rebuilt them a couple of times because he wasn't satisfied with them one way or another. Finally November drew to a close, and I called a ranch that neighbored his. Did they know whether those reins were done? Yep, they were. Well, I said, I'd sure like to give those reins to Tim for Christmas. And yes it was a three hour drive up there, but I was on my way to Boise after the Christmas program to do a little shopping, and I'd come home that way if there was a way to make the connection.
The cowboy’s voice on the other end of the line was scratchy with some kind of respiratory event, but he said, “Well, sure. I gotta go over and brand there tomorrow. I’ll pick ‘em up then.”
By Sunday morning the weather was deteriorating. It was 5 degrees in Boise in the kind of red dawn that let’s you know there won’t be much sun to see by 8:00. The word from home was that it was snowing already, and I’d better either stay there or get on the road. I was convinced that I could sneak home the back way under the storm front, pick up the reins and still make it home before dark.
By the time I’d left the freeway at Vale, the snow was spitting. Thirty minutes later, winding along the Malheur River on Highway 20, I began to realize why there was so little traffic. The wind howled between the black basalt canyon walls, flinging snow first one way, then the other; the pavement was slick with ice on the turns, and there were plenty of turns. As the snow over the two-lane deepened, I fell in behind a cattle truck We rumbled along over two passes and through some juniper forest, the string of cars behind us lengthening with the hours.
Finally the last hill flattened into the Malheur Basin, and I consulted my directions to the ranch: ten miles east of Buchanan, take a left. Go ten miles to the four-way stop, take a right. Turn left when you see the indoor arena and look for the trees.
Well, there was going to be no looking for the trees; I’d be lucky to find the four-way stop. But I crept along watching the odometer, and crossed my fingers as I turned off the highway onto a county road that was starting to drift in between the sagebrush choked fences. It’s a lot longer trip when you can’t see where you’re going. Snow blew sideways, and I nearly missed the turn at the bridge that wasn’t on the directions. But finally, there it was, big old green house and haystacks crusted with snow.
The reins were hanging in the kitchen, and they were beautiful, although Bill and his wife looked a little surprised to see me. “Mom was coming the same way today, but she turned around and went home,” he grinned. Great. I waded back out through the snow with my treasure, and felt my way back out to the highway that ran south to Denio.
A scientist friend of mine reminds me that all weather is truly local. Though the snow was six inches deep on the unplowed road, by the time I was 30 miles south of Burns, the sun was breaking through the cloud cover. When I made Roaring Springs, the snow was melting: I even passed a car: it was my old Caddy and her new owner headed north to school in Crane. Over the pass into Fields the snow was still falling, and it snowed the rest of the way, but it would all be worth it when Tim opened that last package on Christmas morning and discovered, under the long johns, the present he’d really been waiting for, the one that wasn’t even from me. I got to be the elf that made the delivery, and sometimes that’s all a person needs.