The End of the Rope

“It sure looks cold out there,” my seatmate observed as he watched the frozen scenery roll past our window.

“Yes, it does,” I replied. “That’s Wyoming for you.”

It was two days before Christmas, 1940 and I was going home for the holidays during my senior year at West Point. My cadet uniform, which had been freshly starched and ironed when I left New York, was now crumpled and in dire need of an iron, but that was to be expected after four days on the cross-country train. The boring monotony of the Nebraska plains had ended at the familiar pine-covered bluffs, marking our passage into the Cowboy State. I was nearly home, a place that I had not seen since last December.

I watched as a rain of soot and cinders blemished the newly fallen snow lining the tracks and, overhead, an obsidian plume of volcanic smoke belched forth from the locomotive pulling us uphill toward Wyoming’s capitol city. The jagged, white spires of the Rockies loomed in the distance like sails on the Hudson, resplendent against the marvelous cobalt sky. It was the landscape that I knew like the back of my hand, one that I saw every night in my dreams at the Point.

I was ecstatic as the train topped a ridge, revealing the city of Cheyenne in its snow-covered valley along Crow Creek. I crossed the half-empty coach and observed the familiar landmarks of the city: the golden dome of the state house, the majestic spire of St. Mary’s cathedral, and the clock tower at the station where my father waited for my arrival. A fresh blanket of white covered rooftops and treetops, but a phalanx of early-morning snowplows had etched out an intricate pattern of blacktop through the city, allowing motorists to escape the confines of their homes until the next storm plowed through. A pallid layer of smoke and haze from hundreds of chimneys did little to tarnish my homecoming.

Soon, Union Station towered above the tracks like a sentinel, welcoming me home. I gathered my baggage quickly, as if the train would barely hesitate before it began its long climb uphill to the sheltered pass to Laramie. I was off the train in seconds.

“Carl!” a familiar voice rose above the din of the crowd. My father waved proudly, beckoning me over. He looked much older than last year and I immediately regretted that I had been unable to return home last summer. Much was expected of an upperclassman at the Point, and new responsibilities had prevented me from enjoying the cool Wyoming summer.

“How are you, Dad?” I asked as we embraced in a bear hug. His strength certainly hadn’t diminished. Working on the family ranch had made strapping men out of my brothers and me, each of us molded in the image of our rugged father.

“It’s good to see you, son. It’s too bad about the season, though. Especially the loss against Penn.”

We had suffered a terrible year, winning only one game, a one-point victory over Williams College. It was almost embarrassing to be part of the team, finishing the season a dismal 1-7-1.

“It’s for the best, I suppose. If we’d have gone to a bowl game, I wouldn’t have been able to come home for Christmas. The new sup, General Eichelberger, gave Coach Wood his walking papers.”

“Well, that’s good. With his record, it’s too bad it didn’t happen earlier.”

“Where’s Mom?” I asked as we walked to the street where his pickup was parked. The city was decked in a holiday splendor of red and green as last-minute shoppers plied busy Capitol Avenue.

“She’s doing a bit of shopping. We thought that you might like to do some of your own.”

We agreed to meet at the truck in one hour and I hastily joined the maddening throng of shoppers, trying to find presents for the last of my five brothers. Being the youngest of six boys made for a rough upbringing, but at least it had made a better football player out of me. I quickly found a present for Ben at the drugstore and decided on a new toolbox for Matt. Coming out of Mr. Dempsey’s hardware store, I passed a familiar face in the crowd.

“Carl?” the elderly man asked. “Carl Roebel? I’ll be! You sure look dashing in your cadet uniform!”

“Why, Father Patrick! How are you?” It was the pastor of St. Mary’s, the grand cathedral where I had served as an altar boy so many years ago. His emaciated frame was crooked and bent over, yet he stubbornly walked without a cane. There was an inner strength that belied his age. Even his handshake grip was surprisingly robust.

“How much longer until you graduate?”

“Next June, father. I plan to go to the air corps.”

“A pilot, eh? That’s good. Do you think we’ll be in a war soon? I think the troubles over in Europe will draw us in. It’s so distressing.”

“I just do what they tell me, father. If Roosevelt says to fight, then I have to fight.”

“Well, I hope that calmer heads prevail,” he continued. “We can’t get involved every time the old world can’t get along. It’s just too bad that we didn’t fix things right the last time.”

I knew that it was more than a matter of countries not getting along. France had fallen, Germany and Britain were bombing each other, Nazi subs preyed on English shipping in the Atlantic while English ships preyed on Italian warships in the Mediterranean, and enormous armored columns clashed in the blazing sands of North Africa and on the frozen steppes of Russia. Hitler was a danger to the world and would inevitably lash out at America. All of my fellow cadets knew that war with Germany was coming, and we naively looked forward to it like we would to an upcoming football game. However, it didn’t seem right to discuss my enthusiasm with the priest who had baptized me 22 years ago. So, I deftly changed the subject.

“Looks like the weather is turning,” I said.

The old priest looked at the incoming overcast, now covering half of the stunning blue sky. “Yes, it is supposed to snow tonight, though I hope not too much. We got over six inches last night. But, you know what they say; if you don’t like the weather in Wyoming, wait five minutes, ‘cause it’ll change,” he chuckled.

“I should finish my shopping, father. I have to meet my folks and get home before it comes down. It was nice seeing you again.”

“I hope to see you and the rest of the family for Christmas mass, my son.”

“We wouldn’t miss it, father,” I smiled. “Merry Christmas.”

After a joyful reunion with my emotional mother, I helped her load her packages into the back of the truck. She clutched my hand as she climbed into the cab; her petite frame was dwarfed by the six-foot plus builds of my father and me on either side. Dirty, blackened drifts of packed ice lined the Lincoln Highway as we headed west on the trip home. It would take over an hour to reach the ranch tucked up against the eastern slopes of the Laramie Mountains.

It was really unbelievable that the whole clan would be home for Christmas. All five of my brothers and four of the wives would be there, not to mention nearly a dozen kids, all under the age of ten. Of course, I would take some well-deserved ribbing from my brothers for the lousy season, especially from Earl, who played linebacker for a very good Colorado team in ’34. I was really looking forward to seeing my newest niece, Emily, who had been born nearly a year ago.

The roads were slick, but passable, but snow soon began falling. It wouldn’t take long before the situation changed for the worse. The sky was now covered by snow-heavy clouds spilling over the mountains like water over a dam. As we climbed higher up into the foothills, the wind picked up, whipping the large, sodden flurries into an agitated frenzy.

We were nearly home when my mother excitedly cried out, pointing to the side of the road. A truck had slid off the road, down an embankment, and onto the snow-covered creek. There was no telling how long it had been there, and my father wasted no time in stopping. We hopped out and I hurriedly scrambled down the slope, and found myself nearly swallowed up in a three-foot drift.

“Hold on, son!” my father yelled above the howling wind. “You don’t want to end up in the creek.” Deep beneath the snow and ice, I could hear a vibrant, pulsating stream refusing to completely surrender to old man winter.

I nodded and slowly waded through the deep snow. There were footprints in the deepening snow, although they were gradually being filled in by the storm. My father made his way down the slope with a coil of rope, the end of which was tied to the bumper of his truck.

As I approached the truck, I heard a frantic knocking on the window. I yanked open the passenger side door and saw Mrs. Willis, one of our neighbors. She was weeping tears of joy and threw her arms around my neck.

“Oh, thank God!” she cried. “I knew Hank would get help!”

“Hello, Mrs. Willis, it’s me, Carl.”

“Oh, I know who it is. You back for the holidays?”

My father came huffing up behind me as the wiry older woman climbed into the waist deep snow. “Hello, Myra,” he smiled. “Had a bit of a tumble?”

“Where’s Hank?” a concerned Mrs. Willis asked. “Hank didn’t fetch you?”

“No, we’ve just come from the city,” my father answered.

“I suppose it’s nothing to worry about,” she consoled herself. “We’re not far from the house and Hank knows these hills like our own backyard.”

As we helped Mrs. Willis up the snowy embankment, I couldn’t help but worry about her husband. Gale force winds were coming down from the high country, driving the snow into a furious arctic dance, stinging our numbed faces. It wasn’t quite a whiteout, but a man could easily lose his way in conditions such as these. I mentioned my concerns to my father.

“Your mom will take Mrs. Willis home. We’ll stay here and look for him along the creek. We have plenty of rope to keep from getting lost.”

We tied one end of the rope onto the Willis truck as mom drove off. It was frightfully cold, as cold as I’d ever remembered, but we were sheltered from most of the polar wind in the creek. The sun wouldn’t set for several hours, but there was an eerie duskiness that settled onto the landscape like a blanket. If Mr. Willis couldn’t find his way home before nightfall, he wouldn’t make it home at all.

We followed his slowly vanishing trail and it was soon apparent that he traveled away from the road, which took a more circuitous route to reach the Willis place. As the crow flies, it was much shorter to walk cross-country, over a line of low hills. That was normally true, if there wasn’t over two feet of snow of the ground. We followed his path into a ravine until we reached the end of our rope. I looked at his tracks climbing up the ravine as my father reached my side.

“We’ve got to go back to the road, son,” he said. “Your mother will send your brothers out to get us.”

“We can’t leave him out here. Once the sun goes down, it’ll be a death sentence.”

“If we let go of the rope, it’ll be a death sentence for us too!”

“Dad, I’ve got to try to find him. I know this area. All of us boys used to play in these ravines when we were kids. I’ll be okay without the rope. Why don’t you head back to the road to wait for help? I’ll keep looking for Mr. Willis.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be alright. If I don’t find him before nightfall, I’ll dig a snow cave and settle in until morning.”

“When your brothers come, we’ll get more rope. Make sure you mark your trail and we’ll find you. Good luck, Carl.”

“I’ll see you soon, Dad.”

With one last look, I let go of the rope and stumbled along the barely visible footprints of Mr. Willis. Moments later, I was alone, swallowed up by the blizzard. I knew there wasn’t much time before the sun set behind the mountains, so I turned up my coat collar and pushed on into the storm. I followed the ravine until Mr. Willis’s feeble tracks climbed an embankment and onto the frozen plains. The wind howled frightfully and I knew there would be little chance I could find him in the open. Why hadn’t he stayed in the ravine?

We had to be near the Willis place. He probably thought he could cut across his back pasture to the house, but the blizzard would prevent either of us from making it safely across open ground. I probably should have waited for my father and brothers to arrive with more rope, but time was running out. Once darkness settled in, Mr. Willis would be dead. So I followed him out into the open.

It didn’t take long before the howling wind completely erased any sign of his passage. I had seemingly run into a dead end. Shielding my eyes from the stinging snow and ice, I glanced across the barren expanse of white; I could just make out a gnarled cottonwood tree at the edge of a frozen stock pond. I made a beeline for it.

Huddled at its base on the leeward side sat a shivering Mr. Willis. Elatedly, I let out a welcoming shout; we’d be able to head back to meet my family before night fell. My hopes were quickly dashed as I noticed he was gently cradling his right ankle; a wayward step in a snow-covered prairie dog hole had ended his attempt to reach home.

“Don’t be a fool, Carl,” Mr. Willis stammered. “We both know we won’t stand a chance out here. Why on earth did you come out here looking for me?”

“In the army, you never leave a man behind.”

“Well, it looks like we’re at the end of our rope, boy. You and me will go out together.”

“President Roosevelt once said that when you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“We’re going to tie a knot and hang on like the dickens. Here, let me help you up. We’ve got to get back to the ravine so we’ll be out of the wind.”

It was slow going and we stumbled more than once, but we eventually made it to the ravine as the sun settled behind the mountains. There was no time to lose, so we slid down the embankment and started digging into the snow. As the last of the day faded into night, we climbed into our cramped snow cave and waited for the cavalry to come to the rescue. Outside, the wind continued to howl, but we would be protected from the storm for the night.

“You’ll make a fine officer, Carl,” Mr. Willis said in the chilly darkness. “I would have been proud to follow you into battle. I never talk about it much, but I was in the service during the Great War.”

“Really? Where did you serve?”

“I was on the line under Blackjack Pershing. Went over the top at St. Mihiel. God, it was a nightmare! I lost so many buddies that day. My L T refused to fight; he just lay in a shell crater sobbing like a child. Hell, we were all sobbing, but we had a job to do. We had to keep moving forward or we would have all died. We could have used an officer like you that day, Carl.”

“Every man has their own limit, Mr. Willis. Men don’t really know how they’ll react under fire until it happens.”

“You showed your mettle today, son. If we get drawn into the war with Germany again, you’ll rise to the occasion. You’ll be a fine officer, that is, if we make it through the night.”

I dozed off at some point, but when I awoke, the wind had quieted down. Mr. Willis was asleep, so I dug my way outside to check on the storm. A fresh layer of snow covered everything but the trees, but overhead, the sky was perfectly clear. Thousands of stars sparkled across the wide expanse of sky, announcing the passage of the storm. Our gamble had paid off; we now had to hold on to the knot until my father and brothers pulled the rope in.

It was numbingly cold; my frozen breath rose like smoke into the chilly night. A glow on the horizon indicated the moon would soon make its appearance, hopefully providing enough light for us to navigate back to the road. It would normally be best to wait until daylight, but I knew my family would be out in force looking for us after the storm had passed. I crawled back into the snow cave to wake Mr. Willis.

We started out along the ravine under the luminous glow of the risen moon, but the heavy snow accumulation made it extremely time-consuming, given Mr. Willis’s ankle injury. We were both soon huffing and puffing as we lurched through the frigid night. We forced each other to talk so we’d remain alert, but it was soon apparent that we should have waited until dawn. Exhaustion had set in and we’d soon become susceptible to hypothermia. We simply could go no farther.

“You go on without me, Carl,” Mr. Willis huffed. “I’m just holding you back.”

“No, we’ll walk out together or not at all. Let’s rest for a little while and then we’ll continue.”

Soon a dim gray light was visible to the east; the coming dawn would soon be upon us. I got to my feet and climbed a nearby boulder; the lights of Cheyenne were glowing below me, miles to the east. In the pre-dawn darkness between my rocky perch and the city lights, an assembly of flashlight beams darted across the snowy landscape, slowly heading up the ravine towards us. My family had not given up the search.

“Looks like it will be a Merry Christmas after all, Mr. Willis,” I excitedly shouted. “Here come our reinforcements!”

I watched with elation as the dim figures of my father and five brothers eventually emerged from the darkness. After a warm reunion with my family and sharing a thermos of hot coffee spiked with whisky with Mr. Willis, we hiked down to the road. I would have to endure my brothers’ jokes and wisecracks about my adventure over the remainder of my winter vacation, but despite my ordeal, I would always cherish that last Christmas with all of my brothers. When we got together for our next Wyoming Christmas, after the war, two of us would not return.

America was naïvely living on borrowed time while the global maelstrom raged uncontrollably around us like a fire in the high country. Peace and goodwill still held sway in America that Christmas, yet we were approaching the end of our rope. And while it may have been tempting to tie a knot and hang on, it would have been impossible to fight a two-front war with one hand hanging onto a rope. America would have to enter the blizzard of war with both hands swinging.