Snow Storm
Time frame: Between Ch 8 and 9 of Jane. The Gages had been having a rough time emotionally since they lost their baby, and it was Captain Stanley who took Johnny aside and suggested that he and his wife Jane should get out of the city for a few days and go somewhere relaxing.
"So where are you and Jane off to, Johnny?" asked Marco as they were getting changed in the locker room. The other men of A shift were also in the room, getting ready to head back to their other lives.
"We're heading north to the mountains – Jane used to ski when she was younger, and she hasn't for a few years, so we're going to the Lake Tahoe area – there's a cabin on one of the smaller lakes her father's friend's lending us."
"Sounds like a good time," commented Mike.
"Yep, should be."
"You ever ski before?"asked Chet.
Johnny shrugged. "I tried it, but I prefer horseback riding when I've got the time."
"Well, I hope you don't fall and break something!" said Marco.
"Yeah, John, maybe you should take out some extra insurance!" goaded Chet.
"Ha, ha. Very funny. I'm not uncoordinated!"
Marco stifled a snort of laughter, and Chet hit him on his back. "Better let that laugh out, Marco, or you'll hurt yourself!"
Johnny banged his locker door closed. "Well, I'll be having the last laugh when I'm schussing down the slopes, thinking of you guys stuck here in the stuffy city."
"Schussing?" asked Roy with a grin.
Johnny looked unsure and bent in towards Roy to ask quietly, "Isn't that the word?"
Roy chuckled at his partner and shrugged his shoulders. "Y'know, it'll be good for you and Jane to get away, no matter where you go. This is your first real time together since…"
Johnny picked up his bag and stopped his partner from finishing his sentence. "Yeah, it'll be great." Roy sighed. Johnny still didn't accept references to the death of his son.
Jane and Johnny drove up the highway in companionable silence. The further away from Los Angeles they got, the taller the trees, the greener the vegetation…Jane turned to Johnny and smiled. This was just what they needed.
The region with the cabin averaged about 5 feet of snow per winter. Johnny looked sceptical as they climbed higher into the mountains and he saw the snow banks on either side of the road, but Jane's smile grew. This is what she remembered from her childhood.
As they unpacked the Land Rover at the cabin, snow started to fall softly, and Jane stood beside the car with her eyes closed and her face upturned. Johnny shook his head at her. "It's just snow, Jane."
She opened her eyes. "No, it is so much more than that. Look around you. Everything is blanketed in white, pristine, pure, soft…"
He started to grin. "Okay, I get it. I get it. You love snow." She picked up a bag and followed him into the cabin, kicking her feet against the door frame before she entered to get the snow off her boots. Johnny looked down at the trail of snow he had inadvertently tracked into the room. "Uh..."
"You'll get used to it." She put down her bag, and pulled off her boots. There was a field stone fireplace in the far wall, with a stack of wood and old newspapers beside it. The fold out couch had an ancient red woollen blanket thrown over it. A painted picture of a trout hung on the wooden wall. Two oil lanterns stood on either end of the fireplace mantel.
Johnny bent down to start the fire going, as the room was very chilly, and Jane put the cooler with food on the counter, and started unloading milk and eggs into the ancient fridge. "It's nice this place has electricity," said Johnny as he turned from his now merrily burning fire, after placing the screen in front of it.
"It also has that wonderful invention, a flush toilet!" replied Jane.
Johnny peeked into the washroom and saw the claw-foot tub, pull-chain toilet, and pedestal sink. "So it does. Look at that."
Jane could tell that he was teasing her, and shook her finger at him. "Most of the cabins around here only have outhouses and you have to tote your water in buckets from the lake, so you'd better be grateful." She nodded out the window to where the lake could be seen peeking through the screen of fir trees. "When Uncle Murray built this place just after the war, he made sure that there was a pump and a cistern, and that they were hooked up to the electric grid."
Johnny came over to her and gave her a hug. "He did great. And this is a great place. I can't wait to enjoy it." He began kissing her neck and she closed her eyes and smiled…
Later on, Jane started fixing an early supper. She looked out the window and called to Johnny. "You'd better come look at this, John! I can't even see the Rover!" Sure enough, although the vehicle had been parked only feet from the cabin, it was difficult to see where it was supposed to be – the whole world was a mass of swirling white.
Johnny pursed his lips, and looked over at the fireplace. "I'd better get some wood in now, before I can't get to the woodpile." Jane nodded, and made him put on a hat, pulling it down over his dark curls. He told her, "I'll make a few trips and leave the logs on the porch. You bring them in, okay?"
He made several trips to the woodpile, and Jane banged the snow off the logs and set them near the fireplace to dry. Soon a steaming pile of wood took up the corner of the room. When Johnny came back in with his last load, Jane helped him stack the logs and then take off his coat, gloves and hat. His hair that hadn't been covered by the hat was white with snow and his nose was pink. Jane brushed the snow out of his hair, and 'Eskimo' kissed his nose. A kettle with hot water stood on the side of the fireplace. Jane poured him a cup of hot cocoa and sat down beside him on the ancient couch.
"You love this, do you?" Johnny grumbled and Jane snuggled into his shoulder.
"I really do."
He looked down at her. "Ya know what's funny? While I was out there just before, in a weird way it reminded me of being in a fire – unable to see, wind howling, trusting on my instinct to get me back." Jane looked up at him questioningly, with an indulgent half-smile. He sipped his cocoa, and added in an offhand manner, "'Course, the cold didn't feel the same. But it prob'ly could kill you just as dead."
Jane frowned. "You're cheerful! Here you are, in front of a warm fireplace, with a hot drink in your hand, and a loving wife by your side, and you're talking about dying!"
Johnny kissed her forehead and apologized. He closed his eyes and leaned back onto the couch. "It'll be a great little vacation."
Jane cleaned up the dishes after their meal, and noticed that the water pressure was getting low, so she filled up all the containers she could find, and ran water into the tub just in case. She also saw that the electricity was starting to flicker. "Do we have any flashlights?" she asked Johnny.
"Yeah, we have a good lantern type over there."
"I'll check for candles and get them out on the table, just in case."
The electricity suddenly fizzled and snapped, and the wires outside the cabin fell against the window as a branch, laden with snow, cracked under the weight and hit the utility pole attached to the cabin roof. The fridge suddenly stopped and the water pump died. Johnny checked inside to make sure there were no sparks that could start a fire and that the electricity was really out. Jane made sure that the flashlights worked, and set up a couple of candles. "Are we having fun yet?" Johnny sighed as he headed out into the storm yet again.
The room grew colder without the electricity from the lights, fridge, and electric heater. Jane got out some aluminum foil and started cutting up vegetables and making meatballs. "Foil dinners in the fireplace – now we're camping!" she said to Johnny as he came to the door. "How is it out there?"
"Besides cold? And windy? Did I mention the cold? I'm a human popsicle!"
"You are not going to freeze. If you want, I'll go and finish the job," she taunted with a smile.
He shook the snow off his hat and onto her face deliberately in retaliation and she laughed as she wiped the snow off. "Nah, I'm the qualified martyr 'round here. 'Sides, I like that you are planning food for the next while, and I know a great cure for hypothermia. Wanna try it?" He leaned towards her with his lips puckered, but Jane just kissed his nose and pushed him back out the door. She could hear him scraping the shovel against the porch as he tried to clear a path for himself, but the snow kept blowing right back into his cleared areas. "ARGH!" she heard him exclaim through the door.
Jane started searching for a battery-operated radio. She found one in a drawer with fishing gear. The batteries worked, although she didn't know for how long, so she found a station that was fairly clear and turned it off. She looked at her watch. When the news came on, she would listen for the weather report.
Johnny kicked the door frame with his boots as he came in, his inspection and securing of the wires completed to his satisfaction. Jane helped him off with his coat and boots, and placed them in front of the fire screen. He settled himself down in the saggy armchair near the fire. "So, here we are, cut off from all civilization, no electricity, no phone, nothing. Trapped in a blinding snowstorm. Who knows if we will ever get out of here?"
"John Gage, you are so hilarious. As if I didn't know that you go fishing for a week at a time in the bush whenever you can! And that you face all kinds of hazards all the time at work without a second thought!"
He grinned. "Well, I don't think we're going to get much skiing done."
She began to rub his shoulders. "Do you seriously mind?"
He closed his eyes. "Nah. Save me a broken leg, with my luck."
Jane took the foil dinners out of the fireplace and stuck them in a tin canister with a tight fitting lid, and jammed them into the snow just outside the door. She didn't want to use the refrigerator to cool the meals, because the heat would take away from the items all ready in there; this way the milk and other items would stay colder longer. When they wanted to eat them, all they would need to do is put the dinners back in the fire for about half an hour to reheat.
Johnny called to Jane, and she found him in the 'bedroom' leafing through a stack of ancient National Geographic magazines. "These are from the 1930's!" he exclaimed. "Can you believe it?"
Jane said, "Sure. Uncle Murray probably collected them, and this is a great place to store them." He nodded distractedly. "Looking for photos of native girls?" she teased. He raised his eyebrows at her, grinned mischievously, then deliberately whistled and turned the page sideways. She grabbed him and started wrestling him for the magazine, and they ended up falling over each other onto the floor, laughing like little kids.
It was getting dark enough that Jane lit a couple of the candles. She put on an extra sweater and a couple of pairs of socks. Johnny grabbed another blanket from the chest of drawers and wrapped it around his wife's shoulders. He put on a thick sweater too and picked up a deck of cards. "Texas hold 'em?" he asked Jane as he began to shuffle them.
She shook her head. "Rummy. Definitely no Poker tonight!"
"Okay…but I'm warning you, I am the Rummy King too."
"Before we start our game, what about sleeping arrangements?"
"What do you mean?" he asked a little worriedly, as if his tease about winning meant they would end up in different rooms!
"What if we took the mattress off the bed and put it in front of the fire?"
"Yeah, we could do that."
"And I was thinking that I might use that small pot as a bed-warmer – you know, fill it with some coals from the fire…but what could we wrap it in so that it wouldn't damage the sheets and blankets?"
"Hmmm. Let me think on that." He looked around the room. "That old wool blanket should be fine," and he went over to grab it off the couch.
Jane took it from him and commented, "It's getting quite drafty over by the door and that window, John."
"Okay, let's take some nails and use up the blankets that we don't think we'll need to cover them."
"Don't we have to worry about not getting enough fresh air if we do that?"
He shook his head. "Nah, this place is pretty well aired. We'll be fine."
As they gathered the blankets, Jane commented, "Once, when we were young, we got stuck in an ice storm where we had no power for a whole week. At first it was fun, and very pretty, but it got very cold really quickly. My dad had us make a tent in the middle of the main room, and we all went inside it to keep warm. It worked pretty well. It was like camping inside."
"Y'think there might be a tent stashed somewheres?"
"Maybe. If there is, what do you think about putting it up right here?" She pointed to a spot right in front of the fireplace.
He nodded. "Good idea. Anything that maxes our heat is good." Sure enough, they found an old two-man tent that was just about the same size as the bed mattress. Soon they had it set up, and the mattress was placed inside with the blankets. "We are going to be real cosy in there. No worries." Jane looked at the flickering light of the fire and the candles on the table with a frown and crease lines between her eyebrows. Johnny put his hand on her arm. "Really, don't worry. I'll stoke up the fire an' it'll burn most of the night, and we'll keep a lantern just outside in case we need it." She nodded. "So why're you looking so miserable, Honey?"
"Because my nose is really cold and I have to visit the toilet."
"Well, be a pioneer!" he said. She stuck her tongue out at him, grabbed the candle from the table and headed into the washroom.
Soon they were snuggled together in their tent bedroom, with the flap open facing the fireplace. "Friction creates heat, y'know," he said conversationally.
"You don't fool me one bit, Johnny. That's your solution to just about everything."
"If it works, why look for somethin' else?" She nuzzled her nose into his neck. "Oo. Chilly," he complained.
"You think that's cold, you should check out my fingers!" and she put her hand under his vest and inside his shirt.
He took in a quick breath from shock at her cold touch, but then said, "It's all in a good cause…"