Winning Story for “Snowed In”

Thank you to everyone who submitted and our wonderful panel of judges! We are pleased to announce that the winner of this week’s contest is Kelli Smarsh!

The Warm Winter

What happens when you are about to spend your entire winter in an old little cabin in the Colorado Rockies? Oh and you haven’t been there – or in any mountains for that matter – since you were a rather young child? Well, it’s normal to get overly excited. It’s also normal to then wonder if your overly adventurous spirit has once again led you to do something irrational. Then you pray. A lot. And try to settle the suddenly awakened butterflies of excitement and nervousness. That’s normal too. At least, I’m deciding it is because that is exactly what I did.

A couple months ago my older brother told me he was staying a friend’s cabin all winter and asked if I wanted to come along. I had never been there before. It was new and uncharted territory in my mind. No wifi. No electricity. No cell phones or computers. Basically, we’d have a mattress to sleep on, water, and as long as we don’t get snowed in terribly long, food. If we want heat we have to chop wood. If we want food we have to make it – with a stove, no microwave either. We can get to town if we absolutely need to. However, there is also the reality that we’ll probably get so much snow we’ll barely be able to get out the door. It sounded like the exact opposite of everything we’re used to. So naturally I agreed to go. I grinned with excitement and anticipation of this new adventure. Things had been pretty rough for both us for awhile now and this seemed like just what we needed.

“I bet we’re pretty close by now.” I stated. It was more of a question though. I was just trying to find creative ways to ask when we’ll get there. I had asked so many times already my patient brother was actually starting to lose patience.

“Rosalie, you are worse than a child sometimes,” Charlie sighed dramatically and shook his head. “But you’re right. We’re only half an hour away now.” He grinned.

“Good. I usually enjoy long road trips, but three days is a bit long. Of course, we could have made some more stops to make it more bearable.”

“Yes, but then it would have taken four days. It’s all right. You don’t have to thank me.” He replied in matter of fact voice.

I smirked and turned the radio up a little louder.

…

At last, we arrived. We moved our things into the cabin and I decided to go explore a bit. I walked a little ways from the cabin and saw a huge tree. The branches were twisted in a way that made it just right for climbing. So of course, that’s what I did. Two branches up and I realized this probably wasn’t the best idea. Most of the branches were encased in ice and I didn’t exactly have on the proper attire. But, for some reason I kept going. I reached for the next branch and my hand slipped. I found myself unable to make contact with anything for a few seconds before hitting the ground. Thankfully, there was enough snow I would just have some bruises instead of broken bones.

I was sprawled on the ground trying to catch my breath when I heard something in the trees. My head – dizzy and unfocused – turned slightly and saw the outline of a bear standing up against the sun. My stomach flipped. My head must have cleared some at that point because I remembered its winter and bears hibernate. That didn’t completely ease my fears though. Bear’s may hibernate, but big burly men that carry around guns like they’re an extension of their body and chop down trees with as much ease as if they were simply slicing through a piece of cake, don’t. I knew it was ridiculous to jump to such conclusions but that’s exactly where my mind went. The man emerged from the trees then and I saw what a fool I was being.

“Are you okay,” he asked looking and sounding sincerely concerned.

I calmed some and mentally reprimanded myself.

“Oh! I’m fine.” I sat up.

“Do you uh, climb a lot?” he asked. “It looks like you’re a little out of practice.”

Normally, saying something like this to a stranger would seem rude, but somehow the way he said didn’t seem rude at all.

“Actually, I do it pretty often.” I replied with my usual spunk. To my mother’s dismay it was true too

He looked amused. The corners of his mouth were turned up slightly and I could tell he was trying hard not to laugh.

“Well, if that’s the case then I hope you usually do it better.”

“I assure you, I do.”

I liked him instantly. He seemed like the kind of guy that was just good and kind for the sake of it. He was laid back and treated you almost like an adopted sister even if you only knew him a short time. That’s the kind of person I like best.

“It’s cold out here and you should probably get inside. Where did you come from?”

“I’m staying in a cabin here. It’s a short walk.”

“Which direction?” he asked.

“Over there. The hill keeps it hidden from this viewpoint, but it’s really not far.” I replied and pointed in the direction of the cabin.

“I know the cabin. You must be Charlie’s sister then,” he smiled.

I nodded yes.

“It’s good to meet you. I’m Jonathan.” he continued. “I didn’t know you guys were here yet. If you don’t mind I’ll walk back with you.”

I assumed this was the friend Charlie had talked about and we headed back to cabin together.

…

It turns out Jonathan had a sister, Maggie. She came over the next day to invite Charlie and me to dinner. We accepted and headed over. I had not been informed, however, that Jonathan and Maggie had two more brothers. This shouldn’t be a big deal. Yet, when we got there I nearly panicked. At this point I was comfortable with Jonathan. He felt like family somehow. But his brothers… That was a different story. Especially the one with unfairly blue eyes. I realize this probably doesn’t make sense so I’ll explain.

I had gone through quite a few phases of airheadedness in high school. Most of them were due to some handsome young man. Those phases made me physically cringe now. At some point toward the end of those years I finally let God get through to me. I think He’d been trying to communicate to me for a long time that a relationship with a man wasn’t going to work out unless I had a solid relationship with him first. Plus, high school is a little young for such things.

Now, at nineteen, I was embracing the quiet, but persistent love God showed me. I had decided to not even think about any man for awhile. It was part of the reason I wanted to come here so badly. So when I saw that God had placed me in far too close of a proximity to three rather attractive men I was not exactly overjoyed. In fact my first thought was you’ve got to be kidding me. But apparently God doesn’t play jokes like that.

Charlie introduced everyone. The one with the blue eyes was Luke and the other was James.

Well, we’ll see how this goes. I thought and forced myself to utter a polite hello.

…

A few weeks later I sat on the cabin floor writing and sipping my hot tea. I was trying to keep myself distracted so my fear wouldn’t get out of control. Failing at this, I got up and paced before the window. Again. Charlie said he would be gone an hour at most. That was three hours ago. I was trying to convince myself there was a good reason Charlie wasn’t back yet and he was perfectly fine. I wasn’t buying it though. Unable to take it any longer, I bundled up and went to see if Jonathan or any of the others had seen Charlie.

It was starting to snow heavily again which only added to my concerns. I knocked on the door and was glad to see Maggie answer.

“Hi!” She smiled warmly and gave me a hug. “Please come in.”

I stepped inside. I don’t think I was hiding my feelings well because Maggie’s smile faded.

“What’s up? Is something wrong?”

“Well, I’m not sure.” I responded as we walked into the sitting area. All of her brothers were there. All of them.

“Have any of you seen Charlie? He was supposed to back a couple of hours ago.”

None of them had. Somehow I had already known that would be the case.

“Where did he go?” Jonathan asked.

“He just went for a walk. He said he would be gone for about half an hour, an hour at most.”

“It’s easy to lose track of time walking through these woods. I know I’ve done it myself a number of times.” James spoke up.

Yeah, well Charlie isn’t you. I thought, but kept that to myself. Instead I replied a little unsurely, “Yeah, maybe.”

Luke got up and looked out the window.

“I’ll go look for him.”

“I’ll go with you.” Jonathan replied

“James, can you stay here with the girls,” Luke continued. Then he lowered his voice – probably so I wouldn’t hear, but I still did – and said to James, “If I’m not back in an hour,” he didn’t finish. James just nodded. I could tell they were all worried now. Probably because of how quickly the snow was coming down.

Now Luke turned to Maggie and me. “I want you both to stay here,” he said in a voice similar to the one my father reserved for times when he wanted us to know he meant business. “Neither of you leave this cabin under any circumstances.”

We both nodded. Then they were gone and I was left to worry about not one, but now three people. I started praying and I knew Maggie was doing the same.

…

An hour and a foot and a half more of snow later Jonathan, Luke, and Charlie burst through the door. I didn’t know it was possible to feel that relieved. I ran and hugged Charlie. He let out a loud “Oh!” I backed up and realized that in my excitement I hadn’t realized he was leaning heavily on Luke and Jonathan and seemed to be hurt badly. My relief fled instantly. Charlie was bleeding and pale.

“What happened?” I demanded.

They half carried, half dragged Charlie to the couch.

“We found him about a mile from here,” Luke explained. “He fell,” he paused here and seemed to be considering his next words. “far.” And that was all he said about it.

I watched as he ripped Charlie’s shirt to reveal a large and deep wound in his side. Suddenly, it felt like oxygen no longer existed. I’m no doctor, but that was not good and I knew he should be in a hospital right now. My chest tightened even more as I realized it wouldn’t be possible to get to one right now.

Luke continued to work on Charlie’s wound as Jonathan brought him different things. Charlie had passed out by this point. Whether it was from loss of blood or pain I wasn’t sure. The amount of blood he was losing made me feel sick. It was too much. I have no idea how, but Luke seemed to know exactly what he was doing. The bleeding was finally starting to slow down. I started to let out a sigh of relief, but quickly caught it again as I saw Luke had a needle in his hand. It looked as if he was about to sew my brother up right there in the middle of the sitting room. On a couch of all places.

“Um, have you done that before?” I asked, unable to keep the nervousness out of my voice.

“Yes.” he replied and continued like this was a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence.
I wouldn’t consider myself squeamish, but I finally reached my limit. I turned around and took some deep breaths. All those thoughts I had about going to med school? Gone. After a few minutes Luke announced he was finished. At this point I realized the snow was more than halfway up the window.
“I did everything I could for the wound. We’ll have to watch him carefully and make sure it doesn’t get infected. His ankle is sprained pretty badly. I don’t think it’s broken, but we’d need an x-ray to be sure. Other than that it’s just bumps and bruises. I’m gonna wash up and then we’ll move him into the bedroom.” he paused for a moment and then looked me in the eye. “No one is going to be able to go anywhere for awhile. I’m not exactly sure how long till we can get him to a hospital.” With that, he walked away.

…

The next morning I found myself having a “conversation” with God. Well, actually it was more just me telling Him exactly what I thought of all that was happening. It wasn’t in a calm way either. My list of everything going wrong ended abruptly when I heard myself actually say, “Seriously, what are you thinking?” I really needed to back things up. It would be bad enough to say that to someone who had done something wrong, but the fact that I said it to God told me I wasn’t thinking clearly.

I thought over everything that had happened. I was upset about what happened to Charlie and I was upset about Luke. I came here to get a break from all the craziness and hurt of losing people I loved and giving my heart away to people I shouldn’t have. I was afraid. As I thought about it more I realized God put exactly what I was afraid of, and had tried to escape, right in front of me again.

I was terrified Charlie wouldn’t make it. I was terrified I’d open my heart again to someone who didn’t actually want it. I was reminded right then that I wasn’t the same person I had been when I experienced all that hurt. I had learned a lot. I don’t know what will happen to Charlie, but I know God will take care of him. He’ll take care of me to. As for Luke, I don’t know about that either. But, I do know that I can love anyone and anything without reserve. The more I allow my heart to fill with love for God the more it pours out into other people. Sometimes they will return it and sometimes they won’t. Yet, that doesn’t matter anymore. If it doesn’t work out with Luke, it’s not the end. He’s only a man and can’t fulfill the need I have for God.

With clarity again I pulled my shoulders back, lifted my chin and said okay. Okay to anything that happens. I don’t know what the rest of the winter in that cabin will bring, but it doesn’t matter to me anymore.