The breeze—the breath of a God—is still—
And the mist upon the hill,
Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token—
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
November 1st 1878
As All Souls Night came to an end temperatures in the Whispering Hills have continued to drop. Oppressive cloud cover and frequent snow flurries have been consistent for the last two weeks. This early winter weather cut short the harvest and some are predicting the coldest winter in recent history.
November 15th 1878
Towns up and down the Whispering Hills have communicated via telegraph about the near ceaseless winter weather, almost unparalleled in history in extent and violence. One citizen of Mountain Home described “clouds of crispy petals from some mystic garden to these rolling hills ... sometimes coming in soft silence, sometimes coming in gusty breaths."
In Carrion Creek Sheriff Hensley described the wind was "like hungry wolves, now here, now there, howling at opposite doors" as he returned from a visit to some of the outlying homesteads.
November 27th 1878
Charlie Utter arrived in town this evening, his ox teams nearly frozen as they stumbled the last mile into Carrion Creek. Mr. Utter reported that the mountainous roads have reached up to six feet of accumulation at this point and the weather is not showing any signs of breaking.
Sitting by a fire in the Lucky Horseshoe Saloon, Mr. Utter told those gathered around for news “we had reached the top of a pass between Carrion Creek and Mountain Home. The dusk had rapidly deepened; the glades grew dark; the crackling of the fire and trickle of a nearby creek were the only sounds. The wind had dropped with the sun, and in all that vast world of branches nothing stirred. It felt like that at any moment, ancient woodland gods, who are worshiped in cold, white, silence, might stretch their mighty and terrific outlines among the trees.”
Mr. Utter, a famous trapper, hunter, and companion of the late Wild Bill Hickock has lived for decades in the Territory. He predicts this will be the worst winter of the century.
