The next day dawned warmer than the day before. Toward noon the temperature rose above freezing, the bright sun shining on a slick of mud atop the frozen ground, and Macurdy and Melody saddled their horses for a ride. The cattle tracks went directly to the pasture above the woods, and when the two riders got there, Macurdy rode around examining what condition it was in, while Melody rode down to see the frozen river, and Blue Wing soared high overhead. The pasture grass was a mixture, and grazed-down enough that Macurdy wasn’t sure what species dominated. Nor how much winter-kill there might be, given such severe cold without snow cover.
He heard Blue Wing shrieking something and looked up, to see the raven spiraling down, almost diving. The short hairs bristled on Macurdy’s neck. Then he discerned the words: “Macurdy! Macurdy! The ice has broken! Melody is in the water!”
Thumping Hog’s flanks with his heels, Macurdy galloped as recklessly as Melody ever had. At the river bank he pulled up. The hole was mostly full of broken ice, and only her horse’s head showed, whinnying wildly. She’s gone under the ice, Macurdy thought, and galloped wildly downstream, where eighty yards away he could see water kept open by rapids. If he could get there before she was carried through and under the next ice . . .
He got there just as she emerged, and Hog didn’t hesitate when Macurdy drove him into water shockingly, deathly cold, reaching her near the foot of the rip. Leaning down, he grabbed her sodden coat with a grip of iron, then Hog fought their way across the current back to shore. Macurdy jumped down and examined her; there was no trace of spirit aura; little even of body aura.
He howled then, howled at the sky like a hound. But only once before turning her over on her stomach and beginning the artificial respiration he’d learned in grade school, at the same time chanting brokenly a formula Arbel had taught him. He pressed and relaxed, pressed and relaxed, until, soaked as he was, he was shivering almost too violently to continue. God! he prayed silently, let her live, and I’ll do anything you ask! He knew that artificial respiration would be useless if long interrupted, yet feared that any life which might remain would freeze out of her, so after half an hour, his hands and mind numbed by cold and shock, he stopped. High clouds had moved in to block the sun, as if God himself had turned against him.
Almost too cold to function, he struggled the dead body across Hog’s shoulders, then managed, barely, to pull himself into the saddle. At the house, he carried what had been Melody into the living room, while his houseman, who’d come into the room to investigate, melted back out in shock. There was no trace of aura now. He stripped her, dried her, wrapped her in blankets, and laid her out in front of the fireplace. Then, long after there was any use in it, he began artificial respiration again. He had only a vague notion of time, but finally was aware that her body was stiffening.
Moving woodenly, he carried her into the bedroom, washed her, painstakingly brushed her hair, and got her into clean clothes—her dress uniform, stored in a cedar chest against moths. When that was done, he called for his houseman, who came in wide-eyed and silent.
“Have Dellerd harness Socks and hitch him to the buggy. I’m taking my wife to Teklapori.”
Not trusting his voice, the houseman nodded silently and disappeared. When he was gone, Macurdy wept violently for about a minute—hard racking sobs that shook his whole body, while the tears sluiced. Then it passed. Stripping himself before the bedroom fire, he rubbed his body with a rough towel till he was red and tingling with renewed circulation. That done, he dressed in dry clothes, put on a heavy coat, and carried the body out to the buggy—a sort of surrey with the back enclosed—where he lay it gently on the back seat. Then, after giving a few instructions to the houseman and farm foreman, he drove off down the road toward the capital, a silent Blue Wing flying low overhead.