THE DEADLY WINTER

Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland sat in the little sod shanty looking at Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson smiled back brightly, almost childishly, unwrapping an extremely long striped muffler from his neck, shaking it out and hanging it up on a peg.

"Don't need that in here," he said, his accent reminding them of Gerald Fuller's. He was much taller, though, too tall to stand up straight in the low-ceilinged shanty. "The walls are so thick it's plenty warm inside. Now! Where did you lads come from? Would you like a jelly baby? Cup of tea? Some dinner, perhaps? It's just bean porridge in the pot, not quite nine days old ... more like three ..."

Almanzo and Cap accepted the tea; they were cold. They were also hungry, but they had a long trek back to DeSmet, and couldn't waste any time.

"We were told you had wheat," Almanzo said while the man poured the tea, "and we were wondering if we could buy some of it for the people in DeSmet. We're running short and the trains aren't coming until spring."

"By all means!" Mr. Anderson exclaimed. "Take as much as you need! I can always sow oats in the spring ... assuming it ever comes. That Indian said seven months of winter, if you remember ..."

"We're willing to pay you seventy-five cents a bushel," Cap said.

"Seventy-five cents a bushel?" Mr. Anderson echoed in outrage.

"All right, a dollar," Almanzo said quickly.

Mr. Anderson seemed aghast. "My dear chaps, I can't take money when people are starving! It's not --"

"We're not looking for charity," Almanzo said quickly but politely. "We can pay a fair price. And you'll need to buy oats in the spring if you want to hold on to your claim."

"Right, right, right," Mr. Anderson said, distracted. "Very well. I'll take ... what did you say, a thaler a bushel?"

Almanzo and Cap exchanged a glance. "Thaler?" Was Mr. Anderson drinking? It wouldn't surprise them. Winter isolated on a claim could be extremely lonely.

"A dollar a bushel, yes," Almanzo said.

"Very well," Mr. Anderson said, reaching for the muffler, winding it around his neck and adding a strange black hat. "Come on out to the barn and we'll sack the wheat."

"We brought our own sacks," said Cap.

"You came prepared!" Mr. Anderson said admiringly.

Mr. Anderson's barn was a unremarkable enough. A team of horses and a milch cow stood in the stalls, chewing contentedly on hay. Mr. Anderson greeted each one by name and scratched them behind the ears, then led them to where the grain was stored.

After they sacked and loaded the wheat and paid Mr. Anderson, they stood outside for a moment and surveyed the northwestern sky. There wasn't a cloud to be seen, but Mr. Anderson licked his finger, held it up in the still air, frowned and said, "You sure you don't want to stay the night? You'll barely get back to DeSmet as it is before nightfall, and if a storm comes up ..."

"I've got stock to take care of," Almanzo said.

"All right," Mr. Anderson said doubtfully. "Well, keep the wind on your left cheek, good luck to you, and come on out again if you need more. I'd rather lose the claim than see anyone starve." He raised his hat jauntily, then disappeared into his little sod shanty.

As they drove on, Almanzo ruminated over Mr. Anderson. What a strange man! And while he was tall and strong enough and healthy enough, he didn't seem like the kind who would be able to make a go of it alone on the prairie. Far too soft -- inside. Far too unweathered for a farmer. Probably a younger son in a family of impoverished gentry, come to the United States to try for some free land. He wasn't going to make it, Almanzo thought.

Neither he nor Cap said very much as they plodded on. The cold had intensified, and they kept their mufflers over their faces. The moisture in their breath froze on the wool, and every so often they had to rewind the mufflers so the ice wouldn't rub their skin raw. After several hours, it was hard to find a frost-free spot. Maybe that was the reason Mr. Anderson's muffler was so long, Almanzo thought – but who would go out routinely in this kind of cold for so long that a muffler that long even occurred to anyone?

The sun went down and the stars came out. Prince fell through a crust in the snow, and before he could stop, Cap's buckskin went through also with a horrible scream. They did their best to calm the horses, but as they unhitched Prince to drag the sled out, the buckskin collapsed and would not or could not rise.

Almanzo swore. Then he looked to the northwest and swore again. He could see the storm coming, and when it was over, there would be no hope of finding the bobsled and the grain until spring ... Even as he thought that, the storm came closer and closer, blotting out more and more of the stars.

There was no way they were going to make it back in time.

"Better dig in and cover ourselves good," Cap said. "All this wheat plus the sleds and the horses should keep us warm until the storm's over."

Almanzo had no better ideas – but as he turned, he heard the wind rise, and on it a new sound: a strange, grinding noise, like ... like nothing he'd ever heard. Maybe a locomotive engine with something stuck between the gears.

The storm struck, and as it did he saw something impossible: some small square building had appeared next to them, the mechanical grinding noise reaching a crescendo, then stopping. Only the normal howling of the wind remained, but the building stayed – and a door opened.

"Over here!" called a voice over the rising storm. "Quickly! Bring your horses and sleds! No time to lose!"

Later, Almanzo wondered why he simply hitched Prince back to the sled and led him inside. It made no sense.

And neither did what he saw inside. It was simply impossible – the room was much larger than the outside dimensions suggested. Prince and the snow-covered sled shouldn't have fit in here at all, yet they were in a tiny corner of this room, and there were corridors suggesting there was even more to this building. Maybe he'd seen it from a strange angle ... more likely he were hallucinating, given the contents of the brightly-lit room: A strange six-sided pedestal in some silvery metal, with a strange glowing thing rising and falling from the center.

The door shut, and Cap came in, leading the buckskin, hitched once again to the loaded bobsleigh, followed by Mr. Anderson, recognizable by his long, colourful muffler. Almanzo could hear himself think again.

"Well, lads, seems you should have stayed the night after all," Mr. Anderson said, unwrapping his muffler. "I could have told you precisely what time the storm would strike, and, plotting out your likely trajectory and factoring in all the places your horses would probably fall through the snow, I knew you weren't going to make it. Excuse me a moment" – and he disappeared down the corridor.

"This isn't happening," Cap said. He turned to Almanzo. "I could have sworn my horse was dead, but Anderson there put his hands on his head, and the horse got right up like nothing had happened, let me hitch him up and followed me in here like a lamb." He shook his blond head. "I must be delirious. Lying in the snow somewhere dreaming all this before I freeze to death."

"What do you see?" Almanzo asked.

"A big metal thing shaped sort of like a mushroom over there," Cap said, pointing at the pedestal just as the thing in the middle rose slowly again.

"I see it too," Almanzo said.

"And anyway, it can't be this big in here."

"It's dimensionally transcendent," Mr. Anderson said, entering the room. He had removed his greatcoat and was wearing a red velvet frock coat, a patterned waistcoat, a red ascot tie and gray flannel trousers. His hair was damp and curling around his face. "The inside's far larger than the outside. Quite handy for parking."

"What are you?" Almanzo blurted. Not who – what.

"That would take far too long to explain in any meaningful detail," Mr. Anderson said. "I'm generally called The Doctor."

"All right, Dr. Anderson –"

"No, no, no, just 'Doctor,' please," he said. "I'm afraid the real Mr. Anderson froze to death in a storm before I could arrive."

Claim jumper, Almanzo thought – but that didn't explain this ... building.

"I'm not of this world," the Doctor said very seriously. "I am a Time Lord, a being from a distant planet called Gallifrey in the Kasterborous constellation. This is my ship, and she went off course while I was trying to reach London in the year 1978. I found Mr. Anderson dead not three feet from his front door; I suppose he got caught in his barn as a storm came up. All too common a scenario in this place and time. Anyway, I was just staying there until I could get my bearings when you lads showed up."

Cap's face said he didn't believe it any more than Almanzo did.

"Well, it doesn't matter if you buy the story or not. You're here, and I can get you back to DeSmet with no one the wiser. I just ask that you remain silent about me, especially if any Englishmen come asking about me, all right?"

"Yeah, sure," Almanzo said doubtfully.

"Jolly good!" The man went to the pedestal and began pushing buttons and working controls. "This should be an easy trip, just a couple of kilometres to the north-northwest, same time ... all the coordinates check out, so I release the handbrake –"

The grinding noise started up again; lights flashed on the pedestal; and Almanzo had a strange sensation of upward movement. Prince whinnied nervously, and Almanzo patted his nose and spoke to him soothingly. The buckskin stood there as if this happened all the time. Before long, the grinding stopped, he felt a sort of bump, and the Doctor looked up from the pedestal with a somewhat worried expression on his face.

"Oh dear, we seem to have gone off course again," he said. "We're on Earth, in South Dakota ... and the year is 1881 ... B.C."

***

Almanzo stumbled into the feed store, having put Prince in his stall, rubbed him down and fed him. Royal looked up at him with surprise.

"Find any wheat?" Royal asked.

"Hundred bushels."

"How much?"

"Dollar a bushel."

"Couldn't get a better price?"

Almanzo hesitated. He knew the arrangement – the Doctor was going to leave the money at Mr. Anderson's, and when the spring thaw came, it would presumably be there with the body. The Doctor would have given them all the wheat for nothing, but Almanzo couldn't accept that.

"No," he said shortly, going back outside with a bucket. He came in with the bucket full of snow and peeled off his boots.

"What's the snow for?" Royal asked.

"What do you think?" Almanzo snorted. "To thaw my feet!"

They rubbed handfuls of snow over his swollen, dead white feet, which began to tingle, then burn painfully. The Doctor had insisted on leaving him in this state – another little bit of evidence concealing what had really happened from any – what did he call them? Nosy Parkers.

When the snow was gone, Royal stepped over to the stove and greased the griddle with some pork rind. He was going to make pancakes. Almanzo didn't argue, although he knew they would turn out better if he made them. He felt sick to his stomach and feverish, and he lay down on the bed, wishing the Doctor hadn't thought of this.

"I didn't think you were going to make it back here before the storm struck," Royal said, pouring some batter on the griddle.

Almanzo thought about the decade's worth of strange adventures he and Cap had in the few minutes between the time they left the road with the Doctor and the time they arrived just outside Loftus' store.

"I didn't either," he said dryly.