What looked like an old man stumbled out of the naked forest into a small clearing; the deep snow up to his knees. His concentration was so intense on staying alive and reaching the woman he loved, he hadn't noticed the raven as black as coal flying overhead, which cast a bluish shadow across the snow before it disappeared over the high purple ridge into the crimson sky. His heart was pounding like a blacksmith's sledge-hammer and sounded almost as loud inside his head with every step he took. Each breath he exhaled before it froze on his ice-encrusted mustache and beard looked like steam chugging out of a locomotive engine; even the tips of his dishevelled hair sticking out from under his woolen toque was frozen. His red coat and blue pants were in rags and the parts that weren't covered by a worn-out Hudson Bay wool blanket, which he held tightly clamped with his frost-bitten hands, streamed behind him in the snow-blown wind like tattered pennants. The black leather, knee-high boots he wore were beyond repair; strips of deerhide tightly knotted together, kept them from splitting apart.
The soldier was an honorable, decorated man; he had several shiny gold medals proving his courage and many jagged scars on his body from bloody encounters. But now, now he was a wanted man; a deserter; someone the army would like to stand up against a wall, tie a blindfold over his eyes and fire a musket ball through his heart. He had fled during a battle against the French; not because he was afraid to die but he was tired of the senseless killing and maiming of his fellow human beings. The plundering; the raping; the killing of innocents were not the reasons why he'd enlisted; how many men had died with the words, "God save the King" on their lips - why he'd asked himself one day, is a king more important than his followers? Before he'd enlisted, the propoganda he'd heard seemed a worthwhile cause and of course the stunning uniform and blaring trumpets of would-be conquerors had a desirous dash, which stroked his handsome demeanor and somewhat pompous ego. Yes, he looked a rakish rogure dressed in a neatly-pressed uniform, golden epaulettes gleaming in the sunlight on his shoulders, a silvery sword swinging from his hip, his woman's long, wide, shiny red ribbon tied to his sharp lance as he rode away on his sturdy black steed; a captain in the British Cavalry.
As the soldier slowly made his way across the clearing, he stopped and leaned against a large maple tree; its leaves long spent and buried like legions of frozen soldiers beneath the snow. His blood-shot eyes peered intensely into the shadowy trees swaying in the wind and he saw a flickering light. A thin as a razor smile slashed across his bony face and pleasure erupted into his being like flowing lava when he realized that his months of wandering had now become only steps away from his destination. However, since exhaution hung as heavy on his shoulders as a suit of armor, he decided to rest a short time and gather his remaining strength before continuing his final trek towards the light. Placing his back against the tree, he slid down and sat in the snow; his eyes never straying from the light flickering through the trees.
Darkness was falling quickly, the sky almost indigo; the first star appearing as he sat beneath the towering maple catching his breath. The tired and freezing cold soldier knew with all his heart that leaving the army was right even if they finally hunted him down. How many wounded and dead soldiers, friendly and enemy alike, holding letters and pictures of loved ones had he seen clutched to their chests. Why do so many men show up for hatred and war and not for love and peace he wondered? What every man really desired is what he knew was waiting for him in the light glowing from the log cabin only yards away. A woman to love and to be loved by, plus all its rewards were what really counted, what really mattered in life. He wondered, since he was but the skeleton of the man he used to be, if she would still feel the fervent, intense and emphatic love she once felt for him.
Dreaming she would be waiting, her arms outstretched for him as soon as he entered the tiny one-roomed cabin, he felt like a young, healthy, verile man again. Tightening his hold on the blanket, waves of joy overwhelming him, he began to run through the deep snow towards the light. Dodging branches and leaping over windfalls and boulders covered in deep snow, the cabin began to take shape. There was the veranda, the window and the door he had built. Yelling with sheer happiness, knocking loudly on the door, he yelled her name, "Autumn Joy!"
The honey-brown woman wearing a white feather in her long black hair within the tiny cabin didn't hear the knocking nor her name being called. The only sound she heard was the breeze blowing soft snowflakes against the window. And, she didn't see the man huddled under the big maple tree who had loved her heart and soul; the snow falling gently on his frozen eyelids that would never shut again.
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