Thanksgiving Day

The snow was a blanket of white linen across the mountains and hills outside his window, starched white and crisp by the continual fall of soft white flakes. The house was warm from the fire in the wood stove. He had tinkered with it for an hour, adjusting the flu and the air until the iron glowed a gentle red around the chimney pipe, and the heat radiated off it in hard waves. The road looked impassable to the house, of that he was sure. Even if he chained up all four tires on his old tired dodge pickup, he didn't think he would make it down to the road, and then it was 20 miles out of the mountains to the foothills, and the radio said the snow was white out conditions there.

The wind gusted against the small house and he could feel the trickle of air through the panes of glass as the hungry cold leached the warmth from his home. She would not make it. He accepted this, and the line of his shoulders arched down and inward as his soul suffered and cringed within him. They had planned it for months. Countless phone calls and meetings in a ghost land of bits and bites. She had made it to the airport in Denver, but no further, and now even the phone was dead. He wondered what she would think of this weather compared to the luxurious warmth of her native state of Texas. The feel of her in his mind was so real it filled him with an ache, and he pressed a hand against the biter cold of the window. The heat from his fingers and palm fogged the window as the cold burned his bare skin. When his hand fell to his side it remained on the glass as an etching of despair. Each finger outlined in the delicate crystal patterns the ice that had formed.

He turned away from the window and the gray light of the storm, his body moving with slow deliberateness. His frame was tall and lean from many years of hard work, but the lines from sun and wind in his face were kind. Though there was a weight on him now, invisible yet bowing him down toward the earth. He moved to the small kitchen and the warmth of the oven. The smell of the roasting bird made his mouth water and his stomach growl. It was not a big bird, but too much for one person he thought. He reached for the hot mitts on the stone tiled counter he had tiled with rocks he had found on his land. The tray and bird slid from its warm womb to the waiting counter top, golden and hot. Defiantly too big a bird he thought again shaking his head.

A high shrill sound cut faintly to his ears, he knew it like he knew the creak of the house and the rattle of the mudroom door. It was Gingers neigh. She would sound it when she was coming home up the long road to her friends in the barn and pens, and all the horses would salute her back. She was his favorite, and she knew it. She was the queen, the matriarch of the corral. He walked back to the window where earlier he had kept his silent vigil, and looked out into the dim afternoon light and swirling snow.

Several of the horses had come from the shelter of the barn and stood in the small paddock beside it, their heads and ears lifted looking down the road. Ginger stood at the farthest end, neck craned over the poles as she let out a whinny again. He turned his eyes to the road that wound across the long meadow and disappeared into the trees before dropping down into the valley below. The snow caused the trees to drift in and out of focus like a white curtain pulled temporarily over a stage. The trees were almost black against the dim light, and he stared for several minutes before he could make out the shape of a rider on horseback coming down the road. Only the fact that both horse and rider were covered in snow afforded enough contrast to see them against the black forest beyond. 'Who the hell could that be?' He thought as he watched the slow progression to the house. 'Hope it is not the McIntyre's boy coming to get help, maybe something's happened to the old man.'

He walked to the mudroom dressing in his coverall and boots his mind racing. The McIntyre's were his closest neighbors and had to ask him for help before, since they were old and raising their grandson alone. He pulled the blaze orange hunting cap over his ears and grabbed the light gloves he wore even in the winter, pulling them on in stiff jerks. The weariness fell from his frame and his body became tense, coiled for action. It was a posture so natural to him that his form relayed purpose in it's every move. His actions were precise and powerful.

The cold hit him like an icy blast furnace and the snow blinded his eyes as he pulled the door open. The wind fought him for the door and the warmth inside as he pulled it too. He walked toward the barn glancing down at the figure slowly drawing nearer. He would need to throw down some more straw in the open box. Ginger and the other mares came in through the half open door into the pen on one side of the barn that gave the horses some shelter, but yet gave them the freedom to come and go as the pleased. He rarely penned his animals unless necessary, and this was perhaps a reflection of his own need for freedom. The straw was a bit musty as he threw it down, but it would do. He pulled down the heavy horse blanket and set a large pot of water on the gas burner to warm for the horse to drink. Both horse and rider would be damn near frozen riding in this storm, have to be a damn fool or desperate to go out in this storm he thought.

He walked back out through the side door the wind and snow freezing his eyelashes together. The rider was close now, the snow up to the horses knees, the ice coated around it's muzzle. It wasn't the boy he realized with a shock, it was an adult, and the horse was not Rose. The rider dismounted slow and stiffly as he grabbed the bridle. The hackamore was covered with a ball of ice over the gray geldings nose, and his legs were shaking from the cold. The rider was much shorter then he and so completely bundled he could not see his face. He pointed to the rider and gestured to him to go in the house knowing any words would be lost in the roar of the wind. The rider hesitated a minute and nodded stumbling toward the house and the warm stove within.

The man led the gray into the barn and tied him to the hitching post. The girth strap and synch were frozen over so badly he had to cut the straps to get the saddle off. Attached to it were two pack bags, like saddlebags but larger for carrying camping equipment. The gray began to shake the minute the saddle was off, and the man mixed some oats into the hot water and made gruel the animal happily drank as he cleaned the ice from him and laced the heavy blanket onto him. He looked like the gray from the Peterson's place down by the road, but that was almost 10 miles. The geldings shaking had stopped by the time he was licking the gruel bucket clean, and his hooves had been cleaned of ice and rocks. He turned him into the open box and put some hay in the hay net before heading for the house.

The light had begun to fail as he walked into the wind and ice. The gray light had sunk to that peculiar twilight that only happens in a storm, when the snow takes the light at four in the afternoon. He trudged through the two feet of snow as the wind pulled and ripped at his clothing. He was anxious to know who had ridden up to his out of the way neck of the woods in the worst blizzard in 25 years.

The house was like an oven to him as he entered the mudroom, and still dark except for the small light in the mudroom. He dropped the saddlebags he had brought in with him and pealed off his cloths looking at the heap of clothing on the floor from his visitor. A small line of light shone from under the bathroom door across the room, and he figured he might have run a hot bath to warm up. He stepped out of his boots and walked toward the fire and the light switches by the kitchen. The air vents on the stove drew little red lines of fire light on the ceiling and the wind howled outside as he stopped dead in his tracks. The hair on the back of his neck rose up and he turned around rapidly facing the darkness.

His eyes blinked hard as the warm air burned his cheeks. She stood there in his heavy robe, a slight smile on her face. Quickly she reached up to place a finger against his lips before he could speak, a smile on her wind burned cheeks. Somehow, someway she had found her way here.

Without thought he took her hand in his and pressed it to his lips, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. Her fingers were icy. He reached toward her and laid his warm hand upon her cheek, tracing the line of her chin as she leaned her head into him. The came together then in a fierce embrace, each of them moved to action by the closeness of the others presence. There lips met and they were still cold, but there tongues reached out and they were hot. His hands found there way into her robe as she pulled at his belt and shirt. Her large breasts and round hips fell against him with both longing and comfort. Her skin was white and cold, and he felt hot against her as he slipped from his clothing and they sank to the floor in front of the hot iron stove. They were like fire and ice. His hot mouth on her cold nipples sucking and pulling with his tongue. Her cold lips and hot mouth biting his small nipples, and kissing down his belly to his erect shaft. She rolled him onto his back as she took him into her mouth. Gently she sucked him in and out, the heat of her mouth, the cold of her face and lips. She straddled him and placed her sex in his face as she continued to suck him in. She smells of horse and sweat, and the ripeness of woman. He inhaled her deeply as his tongue flicked out to explore her, to taste her, to please her. He took her lips and clit into his mouth and ran his tongue around her swelling flower. The wind moaned outside against the windows, and the mudroom door rattled in its frame.

He could feel her passion rising even as did his own. Then as they had come together in their embrace, moved by some force of need, they both stopped and he rolled her onto her back pushing her legs open with his own, his heavy cock resting on her soft belly. Their eyes locked and he slowly kissed her. Her breasts were cold and soft, the heat of the fire almost seemed to burn them. He lowered his head and kissed each nipple in turn, and gently rolled the other in his fingers. Her breath was rapid and his need was driving him. He lowered his hips and felt the warmth of her sex. Now she was fire and he ice. He pushed into her slowly as he lifted his gaze to hers. The moment held more then union, it held promise, and it held hope. She welcomed him in and they moved together in slow passionate undulations of pleasure. Her pussy swelling as his balls tightened against his body. The tension was a line of fire between them, the pleasure a conduit to freedom. He felt her cum even as he filled her with great force. His essence filling her, her sex swallowing him and his need. The held tight to each other as though in their passion they may slip away, that this moment may be lost. Long minutes they lay not moving, only breathing the scent of the other, their body temperatures matching each other's.

He rolled from her grabbing the blanket and pillow from the couch to wrap them in. They gazed at each other and their tears were like the rain of the blessed.

She opened her mouth hesitantly, as though afraid to break the silence of their peace.

"Are you thankful?" she said, her eyes locked on his.

He smiled, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkling, "I am thankful."

The wind moaned outside the frosted windows and the mudroom door rattled, and a frozen handprint on the windowpane reflected the fire light in rainbows of red and blue.