Half a mile downgrade a solitary figure flailed like a drowning creature. He tread a step and then fell into a cleft. His head rose, topped with a furry cap. The fuzzy ball of the cap tossed side to side as he labored; he looked like a small mouse, alone in the great plain of snow, turning left, turning right, seeking the last comfort of earth. Just then the last of the moon disappeared behind the mountains. A shiver ran through me, like bone striking bone. What made me shudder more violently, though, was the sudden blackness of the sky. Its emptiness. Not only the blackness, but the size. The entire universe was poised above us, cold, dark and infinite. And it seemed that it could crush us with nothing else but its own magnitude. Or, if it were merciful, simply congeal us where we stood.

I leaped off the platform and tramped through the depths. I encountered a blue flag on a pole and pulled it up; it became my walking stick, yet I ran. By the time I reached the figure I was out of breath. I found him bent under the weight of a huge canvas knapsack on his back. He was dragging two trunks, large as steamers, by their long leather straps. And under one arm he cradled a snow goose, gloriously white and sedate. "Let them go!" I yelled, my voice carried off by the raging wind. "What's that?" he cried. "I'll bring you in. Take my hand!" I shouted. Then I heard the grating of steel wheels and several quick releases of steam from the train. Its whistle blew. "Hurry!" I barked.

"Just a moment," he shouted, and bent over to refasten one of the decorative buckles on his shoe. Was he buckling his shoe? I got alongside and propped him up. The wind eased. He offered his hand and said, "Everet Haskell, at your service. Some call me Zeke. What can I do for you?" just as he fell over. "Do for me?" I helped him up once more. "On a night like this," I shouted, "everything that is out and about--" He roared with a jolly laugh that cut through the air, "What's your distress?" The man's delirious from cold. "Save your energy," I hollered. "Nonsense, I have energy enough. But I won't, no I won't part with these trunks." Taking the two straps from his hand, I led him toward the restless train. I prodded, he plowed, we strove.

Once aboard, I commanded him to stand still, "What were you doing out there?" He took me by the shoulders and said, "Well ... Captain, what fortune brings us together!" He was by no means ignorant of rank, but I corrected, "Private." He gave a conquered chuckle. "Very well, let's have a look at you, Luke." And as he did, I got a look at him: I don't know what was more astonishing, the three pocket watches that fumbled out of his two inner coats or the long clay pipe that was stuck through a buttonhole, wobbling as he walked. Peaking out under his wool pant cuffs were the bunched legs of long underwear. His outer robe was long, heavy and collared with white fur. It was cinched together by a rope belt, and all throughout great patches of repair work were held in place by thick stitches of twine. His face was broad, his complexion a deep cocoa-brown, richly burnished and beautifully clear. Under his cap an orchard of silver hair coiled every which way. He had an eternally long beard, silvery white, and he wore a silver scabbard with no sword. I looked round: the sightless man was nowhere to be found.

Soon the whole train was alert to the rotund figure of Mr. Everet Haskell, bumping passengers indiscriminately as he passed through each of the cars, giving out hearty belly laughs every fifth step. I followed, dragging the two monstrous trunks. But rather than rile the sleeping mob, his great crimson robe shook them from their dreamy stupor. The glint in his eye induced a sort of mesmerism: he drew people out of their seats like children to a fire engine, so that the whole of the train was now in our coach. He would not answer a single direct question! Now they were asking questions of me, as if he were in my charge. Even the conductor whispered to me, "He'll need a ticket." I went for my socks.

Wiping his brow, Everet began: "Does the o'clock matter? So many rosy cheeks!" And he gave some groggy children there a handful of candy canes, which were mostly cracked and gummy inside the cellophane, as if they'd been half licked already. A child asked point blank: "Who are you?" He roared, "Better to ask where I am going." A man whispered into my ear, "It's the oldest trick in the book. I suppose you 'rescued' him, out in the snowshed." Stunned, I said, "No, he was down the mountain." The man raised an ominous hand to me, two fingers of it black as if from old frostbite. Then he disappeared.

Everet bellowed, "My friends, Cheyenne is my destination. Not for revelry, but business. Ah, but this business is pleasure all the same. I am a merchant. And I advance to possibly the world's largest convention, ever, of Christmas trimmings -- oh, not just any sundry merchandise, but goods of old -- the way they were once made, by hand, with care, with imagination!" And he opened wide one of his trunks. It was a stand-up wardrobe trunk with fine cedar drawers on either side. A pair of red pajamas squeezed out one of them; Everet quickly stuffed them back.

"Humility forbids me from further exposition, but," and he opened one of the drawers. It was filled with a number of small compartments, each filled with straw. And from one he removed an ornament that caused the whole throng to hold its breath as one. "I have wares that, well ..." And he brought out another, an old Victorian jewel made of blown glass and ribbing of real silver. Set into the indent, against a pink and aqua background, a pair of angels danced under lametta haloes. The whole sparkled in a surround of green rhinestones, sugar diamonds. A woman began to cry, "My mother had one exactly-- " And she trembled terribly. "Saved six years to buy it. And now so long gone."

Everet bowed with a soft and penetrating look, and handed the ornament to the one distressed, "Your mother was a very fine woman." She continued to shake, and said, "I can't hold this; it'll break in my hands!" Everet whispered, "When you are able, come to me, and it is yours." Then he stood and brought back the carnival air. "Doubters still? Oh, I have inventory! What do you want to see? Kugels, Dresdens? Tree-toppers? Not an ornament I don't have. French, Polish, Czech. Teapots, lemons, lanterns. Drums, trumpets, ships, hot air balloons."

"We liked Shiny Brites!"

"Oh, don't think I don't have stock! This is not a trunk only for the well-heeled. Anything that Frank Woolworth had, I have," and he slapped his massive chest. He pulled out a papier-mache Belsnickle, and then the whole crowd began to swap stories of ornaments of old. And it was an unrelieved symposium of nostalgia right there, not a person without a story of home and family and tradition. And wrapped up somewhere within every tale was a charmed piece of Christmas, described with warm and loving detail by even the most tongue-tied. Everyone had a different protocol for what went on the tree, how it went on the tree, when it went on the tree!

They spoke of glass violins, spun cotton, mercury glass, carved softwood, die cut decorations, sachets filled with spices, hand-painted egg shells, tinsel, chenille, objects made of wax, mica and brass. Even crocheted snowflakes, which to some was an unthinkable frill. And when they differed on taste or preference it was all just an excuse to openly exchange affection. They listened one to the other, intently, without wearying, as if to speak was to resurrect days of old. And everyone waited their turn. Children climbed over the shoulders of jovial strangers. Men sat on other men's laps. They inventoried every conceivable item known to the season. And even those who didn't celebrate Christmas joined in, trading stories of their own traditions, artifacts of the home, placeholders of memory.

And although there was great love expressed, it was not the love of objects. Which are nothing more than the hand-held symbols of time, of place, of blood. The repository of kinship preserved. These glittering stories did as much to reveal the eccentricities of family as anything. Eccentricities which distinguished the individual, yes, but also marked and connected the family from which they came. And regardless of practice, faith or tradition, the anecdotes that passed in that coach formed a treatise that hovered above them all, like a wreath of pipe-smoke, revealing this central truth: that they were all just variations sprung from the same source. Proving, too, that family was at the heart of all celebration, and meaning.

For every item described Everet went to another compartment and bestowed on a giddy traveler what was either a true relic or the world's best reproduction.

It was an unrivaled celebration.

And it ended when Everet had emptied the entire trunk. Seeing the trunk now empty, the multitude became silent. Not because there was nothing more to receive. But because they realized that they'd taken everything from him, not out of intemperance, but enthusiasm, however unbridled. Nevertheless, no one stirred. We had all seen it -- the tenderness and power in his face and frame. No one spoke for a long time and some hung their heads. But then he roared, jolting everyone from their places, "Don't be so mum. I'm not going to give away everything here!"

"Your kindness, sir. How do you profit?"

"Hah!" and he almost fell over with laughter, "Such a question!"

"You've given--"

And again he roared, "Why do you think I carry two trunks? Besides," and he reached deep into a low drawer, "this wardrobe is not entirely empty!" He withdrew a little home-made figure, a Kris Kringle wearing a cloth coat with a rabbit's fur beard, and riding a giant snowball. "This, though," he smiled, "is mine!"

Like after all surfeits of joy, we knew when to retire; one by one passengers made their way past Everet, giving him any number of salutations. Soon, save for those who belonged in this car, the whole compartment was empty, leaving the coach silent and melancholy.

Only two empty seats remained, and they were both opposite Wilfred and me. I gestured to Everet and he plopped into the window seat. He wiped his moist brow. And no sooner was he in the seat than he was fast asleep. I attempted to assemble his various coats as they competed for their own rest.

In the aisle there remained a chaos of stuffing and straw. I got up to clean it, thankful for the distraction --the peculiarity-- of it all; it'd made me forget, at least for a while, who I was, where I'd been, and that I had no place to go.

Everet's great chest rose and fell in a sublime sleep. I stowed his trunks. I returned to my seat. Wilfred was sleeping, too.

I pushed myself into my seat, enjoying the blissful clickety-click-click of the rails. I looked up. And through the oval window from the end of the coach, I saw the face of the ominous man, his two blackened fingers raised in a perverse disfigurement of the peace sign.




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