Sexy Rescue Pt. 2 - Sexy Success

So here we are, frozen snow plains, 40 below, no landmarks in sight. I'd call it Hell, but the weather's inconsistent with that metaphor. Cap and Almanzo are only keeping the blood flowing to their extremities by running along side their horses, and digging them out when they fall through unstable snow banks. You have to be in tip-top farm labor shape to run next to your horse for 6 hours with 50lbs of wool socks on.

They're just like, wandering the empty prairie, hoping to find this house that may or may not even exist. If it wasn't a children’s novel I would have started mourning their all to brief lives about now. Then suddenly! Almanzo's pretty blue eyes pick out a mini smudge of smoke on the horizon. Behold the mythical settler and his life giving barn!

And man, this dude's been holed up on his claim by himself for months and he is fucking PSYCHED to have some company.
'Hello! Hello!' He cried. 'Come in! Come in! Where did you come from? Where are you going? Come in! How long can you stay? Come right in!' He was so excited that he did not wait for answers.

Yeah, he's excited to have someone to serve boiled beans and biscuits to, but he is NOT down to sell his wheat. That's his seed wheat for the spring and he doesn't personally know any malnourished townspersons, so if they starve, well, whatevs. Dude's got wheat to plant.

Luckily Almanzo and Cap aren't just hot, muscular, manly, town heroes with frostbitten toes -they're also master negotiators. Like Jimmy Carter at Camp David, but with much higher stakes. Actually in the end it's money that does most of the talking and Manzo and Cap get the wheat at $1.25 per bushel which is a crazy profit for lonely homesteader. Plus he may not realize it now but come spring he'll probably become as famous as Almanzo and Cap for saving the hamlet of De Smet. You can't really put a price on local celebrity.

So, yay the wheat has been hunted down and gathered on to the sleds but uh, that took 9hrs and the boys can't exactly just follow their tracks back home.
Almanzo headed towards the northwest, across the wide prairie white in it's covering of snow. His shadow was his only guide. One prairie swell was like another, one snow-covered slough differed from the next only in size...The horses were growing tired. They were afraid of falling into hidden holes in the snow and this fear added to their tiredness.

Then Almanzo sees a storm cloud brewing to the northwest and it's not and overcast and drizzle cloud, it's a dark cloud of death. For about 3 pages I was thinking Almanzo and Cap were going to have to make a fort out of snow and seed bags and they'd have to spend 3 days snuggled together (for body heat) to stay alive through the blizzard. But alas, I mean thankfully, they make it back to the town with milliseconds to spare.

Almanzo and Cap are heroes! The town's saved! But they won't know it till this last blizzard (blizzard 12: blizzard of our discontent) is over and they can leave their houses to find out.

Up next Sexy Rescue Pt. 3 - Mr. Loftus and Frostbite are Bitches