The wind gusts slammed his little truck, and he felt it rocking. The outside thermometer slowly plunged downward. The temp was 34° (1° C) when he left Elmer Lunde's filling station, now it was 20° (-6.66° C) and headed south. For what seemed like an hour, his truck shook and leaned as the wind slammed it, then he noticed his compass had moved. Back before the clipper hit, he was headed south. Now the compass said that he was heading west. Another glance at the thermometer showed 11° (-11° C) and it felt that cold inside too.
Leif's chief concern was keeping the engine running. Being hit by someone else would be a mite inconvenient, even unpleasant, but freezing to death was permanent and not something he wished to experience. Did he put the cardboard in? A trick in North Dakota is to put a piece of cardboard in front of your radiator, that will keep the engine nice and warm when temperatures drop. He looked behind him and there it was, the cardboard that should be in front of the radiator, keeping him warm and alive. Another glance at the thermometer. -8° (-22° C). That was quick, but Leif was sure this wasn't over.
When the shrieking and howling of the wind subsided somewhat, the truck was still running, but it sputtered in the cold, unhappy to be running. The thermometer settled on -21° (-29° C) and the compass settled on northwest. The wind turned his little truck like a dart and spun the heavy end into the wind. Leif attempted to open the door, but it was frozen shut. He slammed his shoulder against the door several times, then, with a cracking noise that sounded like stepping on a bundle of dried twigs, he broke the ice seal that kept him in and opened the protesting door. Shoving the door open against the blast of wind, he stepped outside into a changed, alien landscape.
When he left Rugby, the snow they had was mostly blown away and everything was brown. The wheat stubble in the fields had captured some snow, so the fields were gold poking up through some white, the roads were black and the ditches white. Now everything was white, the fields, the road, the fence posts, the barbed wire, the road signs... even his black Ford Ranger was now solid white. The wet snow driven by the Alberta Clipper stuck to everything and froze in place.
Leif fought the wind and opened his engine hood and wrestled the cardboard into place in front of the radiator. The cardboard sat behind the grill and allowed air around to cool the radiator. And it had a small hole in the middle cut out to provide cooling, which at -20° that's all you really need. Now came the hard part. He got his brass edged window scraper and began scraping port holes to peer through in the ice that covered the whole truck. He started with the side windows because he was going to need them for navigation, and by the time he started scraping the windshield, the defroster had loosened up the ice and he was able to clear the entire windshield. Then he scraped the headlights. He doubted that would help him see, but his headlights would be seen by an on-coming vehicle.
The storm was by no means over, but the initial onslaught had been tempered. The cruel, frigid wind ripped at Leif with life-threatening anger. The windchill had to be below -80° (-60° C) and over the howling of the wind, Leif heard the admonishments from the radio in the truck. "... exposed skin... frostbite in minutes... hypothermia... core body temperature... shivering, confusion, exhaustion, and slurred speech..." yadda yadda yadda, he's heard it all a thousand times before.
What he worried about was the road. He could only see fifty yards up the road, but what he saw concerned him. The road was covered with that wet, slushy snow that melted on contact with the road. Now the wind was blowing abrasive snow across that moisture, flash freezing it and polishing it to a slick and shiny luster. The chances of getting blown off that ice rink were increasing as the storm increased its ferocity.
The first blast was just an opening salvo, a warning to everyone to hunker down indoors. The real fun was about to begin. As he got back in the truck, the wind picked up again. At least this time the snow was a proper snow, a tiny painful ice pellet that could cut into your exposed flesh as the wind drove it into you, but it didn't stick to anything. He put the truck in gear and began the long, painful process of driving in a North Dakota blizzard.
To be a blizzard, a snowstorm must have sustained winds or frequent gusts that are greater than or equal to 35 mph (56 km/h) with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to a quarter mile (400 m) or less and must last for a prolonged period of time, typically three hours or more. In the northern prairies, there is a phenomenon called a 'ground blizzard.' This is when the wind blows the loose fallen snow so much that you can't see. However, if you were on the second floor of a building or driving an eighteen wheeler, you would see a sunny day with a cloud of white from the ground to the altitude of eight feet. If you were driving a semi, you would see the occasional roof of a lifted pickup truck sticking up through that cloud of snow.
Leif put his truck in gear and turned his nose to the south. He couldn't see the road for over ten yards ahead of him, but he could see the edge of the ditch on either side of the road through his side windows, so he drove, watching the ditches and glancing forward into the swirling snow occasionally. He turned on his headlights, driving lights, and floodlights fore and aft. The flood lights were invaluable when trying to repair a tractor or combine harvester that broke down during a night harvest. They could illuminate the work area out in an open field like a well-appointed workshop. Hopefully, he will be seen by an on-coming vehicle.
The yards crept by as he ventured south, and "snow snakes" began forming across the highway. Snow snakes are small snow drifts that stretch across the road. They're only a couple of inches wide and an inch or two high. At Leif's current speed of 15 mph, they were no problem. At 65 the thumping as you drove along and killed snow snakes could drive you batty.
Then, as he peered into the whiteness ahead, he swore he saw a dim glow of red that disappeared into the white gloom. There it was again... now there were two. It was a set of emergency flashers on a car. Was it stopped or was it moving slowly, picking its way through the storm like he was? He cursed the stupidity of anyone trying to drive in this weather (not him, of course, he's a professional at this) and he slowed down.
As Leif approached, he could tell it was stopped. It was a sedan, an old Honda or Toyota with a New Jersey license plate, and through the snow he saw the hood was up.
Shit.
A car with the hood up is a cry for help on the roads of North Dakota. It's not illegal to drive past the car, but it's not something a man should do. Bruce Haagen admitted to driving past a car with a hood up. The car contained a young mother and two children and by the time the police got to her, one child had died. No one spoke to Bruce since. He withdrew and began drinking, then one cold winter he disappeared. That spring, his frozen body was found in a field not far from his home. In small town North Dakota, ostracism is nearly a death sentence.
Leif pulled up behind the car and stopped. There was no acknowledgement of his arrival. He beeped the horn and still nothing. Cursing, he pulled on his old knit scarf and wrapped it around his face and tied it in the back so only his eyes were visible. Then steeling himself, he climbed out and stepped into the white hell that his prairie had become.
The wind was whipping out of the west, so he was shielded from the blast by the body of his truck. He walked forward; the snow stinging his eyes. When he stepped into that open area between vehicles, an angry gust of wind blew him out onto the road. His feet were planted, but the wind blew him across the polished ice like one of those green plastic soldiers and he found himself standing in the middle of the highway. Somehow, Leif skated his way into the lee of the stalled Toyota. Never once did Leif question what he was doing. He was doing what a man needs to do.
He got to the driver's side door and cracked it open. In there, a woman sat behind the steering wheel, staring at the unmoving speedometer. A bundled towel lay on her lap and for a moment he was terrified that it was a baby, but a slender hair covered tail poked out from one end. Thank god, it was a small dog and not a child. "Let's go Lady, I'll take you somewhere warm."
She slowly turned toward him and opened her eyes. Those pale green eyes trapped him. He had only seen aquamarine eyes like that once before, and as they did once before, they captured something that he thought had died and was pickled in alcohol and left to rot... his heart. "Take me home," she said in a soft, dry voice.
