FOLLOW THE HAWK
BY
Emily . Ungerecht Horswill
A HISTORICAL NOVEL
1884 1889
Its sequel, MONTANA WINDS. Completes
The story of the last great open.
©2007 Emily Ungerecht Horswill
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any means without the author’s permission.
Library of Congress Control Number 2006906522
Cover Photo: Istockphoto/photographers Alex Vaz & Cliff Wells
Book Design: Thomas Smith
Follow The Hawk is available from Lulu.com
(http://www.lulu.com).
OTHER books by Emily that are publisher--ready
Sometimes Better To Walk Than Fly A collection of weekly columns published in the Daily Olympian as Tread Lightly and in N.W, Travel and Leisure as Outside In. It is the story of an early environmental-journalist who walked it step by step and of her love song to the high meadows
Montana Winds Sequel to FOLLOW THE HAWK
(Completes the story of the Last Great Open)
TO HER READERS
I saw the first article with my byline published 73 years ago. I was13. Subsequently, 2,500 words a week appeared under my byline: eventually, 25 earned awards. In the interim, U.S. Congressman, Mike Lowry, read my work in Congress and I saw my name beside “First Place Award” with Stewart Udall, then Secretary of the Interior, in “Second Place.” When the side by side awards unleashed a wave of jokes and laughter with Stewart in the forefront I joined the fun.
Originally, he wasn’t expected at the banquet, it being a long jump from The Oval Office to Park City, Utah. But, with the smell of steak, the door banged against the wall, and Stewart strode in followed by three photographers. “Where is this woman who writes so much better than I do?” he demanded. “And how come she’s sitting at the wrong table?” Cameras clicking, he plucked me from her chair, and loudly lamenting his frustration with the situation, he studied and rejected table after table as his entourage toured the room. At the last one, he rubbed his hands and smiled. Ignoring the “Reserved for” sign, he introduced me as the laughing editors and publishers moved to make room for two more plates. Minutes later, as he rose to leave, Stewart whispered in my ear, “Hope this does it for you, kid.” He made a round triip across the nation to do this charade!! How I wish he was here today. But this is now. And that was then.
For 10 years editors and friends introduced me as the best writer of secular inspiration west of the Missouri River. Then, the other half of my life, my fine-artrist Ernie, had a deep stroke. For the first time in my life, my fountain of words dried up.
Three years ago, as I walked toward my apartment, I heard the thud of footsteps A voice called, “Wait! I know who you are..” Panting, she explained. “When I was 6 and my brother was 12, we spent Sunday mornings sprawled on his bed reading your column. Now when I can’t stand the world as it is, I read them again. Reaching into her pocket she extracted.one.Throwing both arms around me she whispered,” Thank you.
In my apartment, I opened a cabinet and pulled out drafts.
Now I invite you to enjoy all three. Follow the Hawk, Montana Winds and Sometimes Better to Walk than Fly, the collection of columns a six-year-old kept.
With all my love, . Emily Horswill
http://emhorswill.blogspot.com/
TO
ZOLA ROSS WHO TAUGHT ME HOW TO WRITE A BOOK
AND CRAIG LESLEY
WHO TAUGHT ME HOW TO MAKE TWO OUT OF ONE
FOR
Annette, my wonderful, precious daughter who, in spite of her handicap and her life of pain, has, for 60 years, been my guiding spirit and my inspiration
CHAPTER 1
The year is 1884. In the German farming village of Meadowfield, Wisconsin, an old woman sits on a milk stool watching Farmer Albricht's fifteen-year-old son, Jim. He is shoveling dirt. Long of bone and short of flesh, like all his people, Jim scoops troughs in the ground with long rhythmic bites.
"Better rest a minute, Jim," the old woman called. "After all them nights tending the sick, we're both wore out, and you're almost done here."
The shovel slowed in its path. Swiping at his bloodshot eyes with his shirt sleeve Jim asked, "This the last one, Nannie?"
"It's the last," she assured him.
The last grave, Jim thought. Means only Nannie and I are left. His gaze slid up the incline, past the rows of fresh graves to the church. Perched at the top, it sparkled white in the first rays of morning sun. Just painted it, he thought. Following the picket fence back, he thought, Just painted the fence, too.
Standing the shovel upright, Jim booted the blade deep into the soil. As he leaned on the handle for support, a shadow flicked past his head. Looking up, he saw the crippled red-tailed hawk and recognized his friend by the dangling leg. "He's hungry," Jim said as the hawk hovered over empty fields. "Figures we ought to be out there plowing up worms, moles, and those juicy baby mice he likes for his breakfast." Wiping his forehead on his sleeve, Jim asked. "How's he going to manage now, Nannie?"
"On his own, make it or not, like the rest of us," she answered.
Shading his eyes, Jim watched the bird circle higher and higher. When it leveled off and with slow, sweeping, wing strokes headed west, he nodded. Out in the new lands to the west hunting might be good, even for a crippled hawk. But, as a hunter, I wouldn't be worth powder and shot, he thought. What can I do? Light altar candles. Pass out hymnbooks. To Indians? Cowboys?
"We were all mighty proud of how you passed them university tests for Concordia Seminary," the old woman said. "But about that pledge to pay your tuition. Money was coming from the harvest. Don't suppose the Reverend had enough put by to send you down to St. Louie? No. Didn't figure so."
"Doesn't matter, Nannie. Not now." His gaze lingering on each row of fresh graves, he searched out the family plots. There were all his folks.
Up there next to the church--those six new mounds: the one on the corner with that tall tombstone: that was Uncle Abner's, to his congregation, The Reverend Abner Dodd; to Jim, the uncle who had been preparing him to shepherd the Meadowfield Congregation ever since he could remember. Next to Uncle Abner's, came Ma's with four years of sod, then Pa's, then Myra's, then Peter's and John's. The one with that tiny white cross, that's where they'd laid little Beth. His baby sister! A sob tore from his throat as he remembered cuddling her hot little body to his chest, her vomit cascading down the front of his shirt. They were all dead. Everyone was dead, but he and Nannie.
Still, at least, each of his folks had their own plot and a marker. The thought gave him some comfort. When had they gone to burying the dead in mass graves? He couldn't remember. He glanced down at the bodies they'd swathed in sheets and laid shoulder to shoulder--and saw a strand of hair spilling from a gap in one sheet. He stared at it. Hair the color of corn floss that felt like silk.
"Mary!" he gasped. "It's Mary's!" He’d know it anywhere. He ought to. It had brushed his robe in the choir loft ever since they were little kids. The horizon reeled. Clutching at the shovel for support, he hung over it retching.
"Stop that." His cheek stung from Nannie's slap. The nurse's brisk voice chided, "You're just exhausted. You had that light case early on. Remember? You can't give up now."
He shrugged erect. A cow lowed to be milked as he scooped up a shovelful of lime and sprinkled it on the grave. "I'm leaving, Nannie," he announced. "West--I guess. They're all dead. And you'll be going back to your folks." He glanced at her. "You can get yourself packed and off, Nanny?"
She waved a worn hand at the rows of new graves. "All them folks. I birthed them. And I laid them out. When my time comes, I'm laying beside them."
Birthed me, too, he remembered. Gave me my first bath. He focused on the hand she waved and saw the webbing of blue veins thickened with hard work, the skin spattered with the brown spots of old age. "But Nannie, how'll you manage?" he asked. "What'll you do here all by yourself?"
"First off, I'm going to milk that there cow. Then I'm going to sleep."
Sleep. All those days and nights with the sick. When had he last stretched out on a bed? His lips twitched in an effort to smile at her. "Sleep," he repeated. "What's that?"
Nannie scrambled to her feet. "West," she agreed. Go." She pulled a crumpled handbill from her apron pocket. Here's them instructions the railroad crew left--and take that collection money in the poor box." She waved back his protest. "Take it. You buried the poor. Be off with you," Nannie flipped her apron at him. "And Jim you’d do well to favor The Reverend in more than looks."
"I know," Jim muttered. Nannie's right. I do favor Uncle Dodd, Jim acknowledged. Running his fingers through his mop of brown hair, he picked up the shovel. "I'll finish up here," he said.
CHAPTER 2
In the chapel, Jim fingered the poor box. “Buried them. All of them.” He choked. He slumped into a pew. His shoulders shook with dry, rasping sobs.
The clock bonged. He dragged to his feet. He had a train to catch. Carrying the box of coins and the handbill to the rectory kitchen, he concentrated on following directions.
He poured water into the tub, stripped off his clothes, stuffed his underwear into the stove and struck a match. Clutching his suit, now soiled from his work in the graveyard, he hesitated: A good suit promised a brother. No brother--and pestilence. He threw the suit into the flames, too. It smoldered and the oily smell of good wool rebuked him. He banged the lid over the flames. From the cedar chest, he selected underwear, a pair of worn bib overalls, a chambray shirt, and a bandana handkerchief. Now that bottle of disinfectant Nannie had given him to scrub with. He groped in the chest for it. Ah, there it was, carbolic acid--just what the brochure asked for. He pulled the cork with his teeth, poured half into the tub, scrubbed and dressed, washed the coins in the solution, laid them on the handkerchief and tied the corners.
Shoving the handbill and the rest of the carbolic acid into his pocket, he hurried to his desk in his uncle's study, grabbed his Bible, then saw his other books. "Abelard's Essays." He smoothed the embossed leather cover. "Luther's Sermons." The book fell open and Jim stared at his notes. They trailed off in the middle of the page: Unfinished. He thought of St. Louis. "Unfinished," he repeated, and thought, Wrong word. Ought to be "finished"--"ended." Dropping the book, he ran.
Outside, his footsteps echoing, he ran past the neat, silent cottages, past greening fields, past his sister Myra's wilting flower beds bordering the big, square farm house where he'd been born. In the pasture he caught Old Gray. Leaving the old workhorse at the pump in the yard, Jim hurried into the house. Stairs creaked under his weight. In the attic room he found the battered work shoes he'd worn, "for the last time" when he'd helped his brothers with the spring plowing. Could that have been only three weeks ago?
Tucking the shoes under his arm, he hurried to the pantry picked up a milk pail and trotted back out to the pump. As he pushed the pump handle up and down, the dry gasket stuck to the sides of the pipe making a jerky, shuddering motion and a rasping sound. He primed it, dipping water from the horse trough and pouring it down the pipe onto the gasket. The motion became smooth. As the gasket swelled and softened to fit, the displaced air formed a vacuum making a sucking sound. Water rose in the pipe. The pump hiccoughed and belched forth a snout full of water followed by a steady, even flow.
Emptying the rest of the carbolic acid into the pail of water Jim gave the shoes the carbolic treatment, then treated Old Gray. As he scrubbed the saddle, he saw puffs of smoke funneling into the sky and heard the rumble of the train. It snaked into sight flipping its long back around curves on the downgrade. No time to say goodbye to Nannie, but it had already been said. Fumbling with the knots, Jim rolled his Bible and a change of clothing in blankets still smelling of Nannie's carbolic solution, tied the roll behind the saddle and hurried Old Gray across the fields toward the railway platform waving both arms at the engineer. The whistle shrieked. With each pull of the pistons sooty clouds spewed from the smoke stack spreading a grey ceiling. Rails bent under the pressure. The ground shook. Tortured couplings creaked and snapped. The train clattered to a stop. The conductor climbed onto the platform, and Jim concentrated on getting aboard. What was it he was supposed to say to this man? Something about washing? Only the cry of the Biblical leper, "Unclean, unclean," emerged from the jumble in his mind. Holding up the handbill, Jim focused on the conductor's cap.
"Come on, Son," the man called. "Never mind them instructions. I can smell you from here. What'd you do, pickle yourself in the stuff? Use any water?" As Jim dismounted, then reeled to the platform the conductor's smile faded. "Hell, kid, you're plumb worn out. Where you bound?"
Jim held out the handkerchief. "How far west will this take me?"
"West, eh? Good choice." The man tapped a time schedule. But west's a big place. You got folks?"
Folks. What was that word again? Jim concentrated. The one that sounded like church bells ringing for Vespers. He tried it in syllables. "Influenza."
The timetable in the man's hand shook. The whistle blew. Two short, impatient blasts. "Keep the change, Kid." The conductor pushed the handkerchief away. "We got cars running empty. Now all that carbolic, that won't take care of the quarantine, but...” His finger traveled down a column, stopped. This would keep the kid locked up for those ten days. "How's Montana Territory sound, Son?" the conductor asked. "Cattlemen there are yowling for help, too. We'll get you and your horse in a stock car all to yourselves."
In the boxcar, clutching his Bible, Jim slumped against Old Grey.
CHAPTER 3
Wheels squealed on rails. Wrapping himself in his blanket, Jim rolled close to the old horse hunkering down on the straw covering the floor of the boxcar.
He listened to the click of the wheels thinking of all the weeks and months he'd dreamed of getting on this train, of the maps and travel books he'd studied.
He thought of the new suit still in its box in the parish rectory, its black broadcloth meant to dignify him at Concordia College. His lips twisted in a wry grin when he remembered his dilemma six weeks ago: That, while he ought to pack it in the black valise with his books, clean linens, and night shirts, he longed to impress his fellow travelers in it. How many times had he imagined the admiring glances, as he selected a seat by a window and divided his time between observing other passengers and watching the sights?
Jim fingered a handful of straw. He was on the train sure enough. Locked in a boxcar! Might as well be in a coffin for all he'd see! And he ought to be traveling south: instead he was headed west! What a bizarre twist. Was the Devil laughing? What will I do out West? Jim asked himself. He'd read stories--about cowboys, and wild horses galloping across the plains. "Wild horses!" Jim exclaimed, rubbing Old Grey's torn ear. "How are you going to fit into that? For that matter, how am I? Between the two of us, we can spread a load of manure, plow a garden, rough out a sermon, sing for funerals and weddings, pinch hit for the organist or choirmaster, even parse a bit of Virgil! But Pa retired you two years ago." Jim slapped the aged plow horse on the hip. "What possible future is there for us on a cattle ranch? But don't worry about keeping your belly full, old fellow. We're in this together." Old Gray offered the other ear. Massaging both, Jim explained, "You and I, the two of us, we're all that's left."
He shivered. He knew it was a pleasant spring evening, but he felt cold. With stiff fingers he pulled the blankets tighter: exhaustion--and shock, he told himself. That's what Nannie would call it.
Nannie! Suddenly Jim realized there were three survivors: himself, Old Grey and Nannie. And he'd left her in Meadowfield. Abandoned her old, alone, and surely exhausted! How could he have? What would Uncle say? And Pa? "How can I ever forgive myself?" His hoarse voice echoed in the boxcar. Could God? How could it have happened?
He reviewed that last day with Nannie in the graveyard and remembered her crisp voice. "West. Go. Be off with you."
"She snapped it like a platoon sergeant," he argued. He stroked Old Gray. "And you know as well as I do that when Nannie snapped even three-year-olds jumped.
"But YOU are not three years old." Jim winced as he recalled his uncle's favorite rebuke.
"Nannie was so sure," Jim protested. "And the Deacon Hauser, too--the day he died."
That day, Nannie herself had left the sick to fetch Jim from the chapel: marched him off in the middle of the prayer he was leading at Vespers. At the door to the Grange Hall they'd turned into a hospital, the stench of vomit and chamber pots met them. Jim gagged.
"Down there. Fourth row," Nannie said, pointing at one of the straw pallets lining the floor. "You'd best hurry."
In the comparative gloom, Jim threaded his way past a gaunt form begging for water, someone praying, parents sobbing desperately over the tiny, still form of a child. I'll get used to the smell when I work with Nannie tonight, he reminded himself--but not of the wailing, miserable children: that never. At the last pallet, he knelt and murmured, "I'll pray with you, Deacon."
"Praying's done," the man gasped. He panted. Then, his voice had risen clear and strong, "But the Lord saved you for something, Son. Good luck."
Both of them, so positive, Jim thought. Slowly the realization sifted into his exhausted mind that they knew, knew that they would stay, but he must go.
I'll write Deacon Kruger in Brainard, Jim resolved. He'll get word to Nannie's brother there. Fellow worked at the railroad terminal--had a free pass: he could be in Meadowfield with Nannie in two days.
Warmth replaced numbness: Whispering a prayer of thanks to God for leading him to this haven, Jim slept.
A loud banging on the door half woke him. "Go way," he mumbled, burrowing deeper into the straw.
"Box lunch for you, Kid," a gruff voice, bellowed.
Hardware clattered. Rain spattered his face. The sliding door inched open and a shovel appeared. Tipping, it dropped a box on the floor. Jim caught a glimpse of a hand in a workman's glove withdrawing the shovel. The boxcar shook as the door slammed. Still dense with sleep, Jim sat up, sniffed, and opened the box. Bacon and egg sandwiches--still warm! He washed his first hot meal in weeks down with milk congratulating himself on how much better off he was than yesterday: and with every click of the wheels he got farther from the influenza epidemic and the Meadowfield Cemetery.
He wondered about the man who had brought the hot food. With that quarantine sign tacked on the boxcar as a warning that I could catch this plague, knowing what I know about it, would I open that door? He crawled to his blanket.
Old Gray stomped and nickered for attention. Jim fought back out of his haze.
He struggled to his knees, then to his feet, groaning. Every muscle and joint ached. His horse snuffled at a barrel. Removing the cover, Jim saw the dipper and a pail. Even the dipper felt heavy as he ladled water from the barrel into the pail repeatedly and waited for Old Gray to drink.
The train jerked into motion. Staggering back to his bed, Jim nestled into the straw and gave in to exhaustion.
Jim had no sense of passing time: only that he slept, woke, and slept, and that his wakeful periods passed as a sleepwalker's do.
When he woke fully, he laid for a moment before remembering where he was.
Bright sunlight poured through a hole in the roof, the usual hole for a stovepipe, and he knew that it had sometimes been open, sometimes closed. It had to have been closed some of the time. He felt of the floor. Dry. And it had rained prodigiously. The sunspot felt warm on his bed. He yawned.
Glancing around, he saw the cache of tinned foods: biscuit, beans, and Blue Hen Tomatoes, and a couple of empty and presumed he had eaten. The hinged panel in Old Gray's corner provided for shoveling out manure was familiar, too. So was the straddle hole. He'd balanced over it watching the rails slide by as he relieved himself. He recognized the pile of hay, and wondered who his benefactor was. Railroads didn't finance boxcar valet service. That he knew.
A shadow blocked the sunshine. Suddenly, he knew someone was watching him.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Montana Winds
This is Part 1 of Montana Winds.
Emily
MONTANA WINDS
Sequel to Follow the Hawk
353 Pages
By
Emily Horswilll
TO HER READERS
Emily saw her first article published 71 years ago. She was13. Subsequently, twenty-five earned awards. Years later, U.S. Congressman, Mike Lowry, read her work in Congress. With their mutual environmental theme, she and Stewart Udall, then Secretary of the Interior became competitors for related literary awards. The fact that, for a period of time, he ran second to her first became a source of amusement among friends.
He wasn’t expected at The 1987 Rocky Mountain Outdoor Writers’ awards banquet, it being a long jump from The Oval Office to Park City, Utah. But, with the smell of steak, the door banged against the wall, and Stewart strode in followed by three photographers. “Where is this woman who writes so much better than I do?” he demanded. “And how come she’s sitting at the wrong table?” Cameras clicking, he plucked petite Emily from her chair. Loudly lamenting his frustration at receiving second place to her first, he studied and rejected table after table as his entourage toured the room. At the last table, he rubbed his hands and smiled. Ignoring the “Reserved for” sign, he introduced Emily as the laughing editors and publishers moved to make room for two more plates. Minutes later, as Stewart rose to leave, he whispered in her ear “Hope this does it for you, kid.”
A few weeks ago, Emily heard the thud of footsteps. “Wait! I know who you are,” a voice called. Panting, she explained. “When I was 6 and my brother was 12, we spent Sunday morning sprawled on his bed reading your column. Now when I can’t stand the world as it is, I read them over again. Hugging Emily she whispered,” Thank you.”
For 10 years Emily was known among her peers as the best writer of secular inspiration west of the Missouri River. Now, at last,
Emily invites you to enjoy all three of her books, Follow the Hawk, Montana Winds and Sometimes Better to Walk than Fly, the collection of columns a six-year-old kept.
With all my love, Emily Horswill, Dr, VUSPA
http://emhorswill.blogspot.com/
CONTENTS
390 PAGES
1889-1901:
:
PART ONE: 1889-1890 Page 1
PART TWO: 1890-1892 Page 144
PART THREE 1892-1896 Page 254
PART: FOUR: 1901 Page 377
CHAPTER 1
Beginning as snowmelt in Wyoming's high mountains, the Yellowstone River plunges downward onto Eastern Montana's dry plains. Where descending River meets horizontal land, it sprawls, then gathering strength, this great muttering waterway, for millennia, has started its 650-mile journey East pushing before it thousands of tons of Wyoming's yellow clay thickened with red powder ground from the rock Montanans call ‘scoria'.
Halfway between Miles City and Terry, Montana, on the river, Jim Albright relaxed on his horse, Jingler, beside his corral. Pearly gray light flooded the horizon setting it aglow. The cattle in the corral mooed. Jim swung the gate open thinking, next week, due to Gimpy’s will; they'll graze on my land. Also, March 10, I’ll be 2l and entitled to a full section under current Homestead law. That leaves me nine months to file before the new law reduces claims to a half section in 1889. But what section should I claim. How sure are my squatter’s rights to this valuable land on the River?
He watched the cow with the torn ear break away from the packed herd and take the lead. As the others strung out behind her, his attention strayed to the brand on the nearest cow--two circles connected with a hump. His Spectacle brand: neat. He surveyed it with satisfaction as he closed the gate without getting off Jingler.
A trace of frost glazed the prairie where there ought to patches of melting snow: Bad news to have a dry winter follow a drought, but the new grass ought to be fair on that high bench. Wouldn't hurt to take a look, especially since he was a bit early to go to the Double T.
Jingler fell in behind the trailing cow readily matching the herd's swinging gait, and Jim told her. "Lookee here. When Trouble Rollins comes to meet us at the Double T, you just keep all four feet on the ground. No need to pick one up and threaten to kick him out of The Territory. "'Trouble'. What a strange nickname," Jim remembered saying to Nellie five years ago when he'd been the new chore boy and Trouble the handsome cowboy foreman dressed in silk shirts and fancy hand tooled boots who snapped orders on Bill and Nellie Williams sprawling Swinging B Ranch.
She had answered, "Yup. Boys usually pick something about a feller you'd see right off, then turn it upside down: like our old black man. Most of his 85 years that little feller stood straight as a poker, so they called him 'Gimpy' as if he limped. Raised my share of boys around here all a handful, but this kid was double-trouble. Best cow foreman in the country now."
"Good veterinary and a first-class horseman, too," Jim said to Jingler. So, what's this quarrel between you and Trouble?" Not that I always liked Trouble. Maybe partly envy, Jim admitted, recalling the bunkhouse jokes about Trouble's girl-dodging exploits: and I was 'That skinny, long-legged kid that couldn't do nothing but read'! Of course, Trouble never looks at a book."
The laggard cow stopped. Teeth snapping in impatience, Jingler nipped her. "Shame on you," Jim scolded. "She's heavy with calf, and not as young as you are."
Slapping her on her arched neck, he marveled at her sleek lines. Surely it was one of God's miracles that the wild foal he'd dug from a snowdrift when he first came to Montana could have grown into this dazzling cream-colored creature.
That day he'd found her, he'd still been grieving over the fresh graves he'd left behind in Wisconsin; still dazed over the ferocity of the plague called "influenza,” his image of himself as a young man bound for an elite college and his vision of his future as a minister, shattered--and he'd wrapped his arms and heart around the orphaned foal, and they'd adjusted to their new realities together.
"When you kicked Grubstake out of the way then stepped under the saddle I was trying to throw on him, I was afraid you were too young to carry me. But we're both big and tough," he told her. He stretched his 180 pounds and flexed his muscles. "With a little luck in a few years we'll lift this squatter operation up by the heels and have a ranch we can both be proud of."
He was due at the Double T for a joint work session with Trouble, the work pattern that had evolved since the Swinging B, as all the other big spreads, had gone broke in The Bad Winter of Eighty-seven leaving them both without jobs--and Trouble minus a hand. As for me? Jim winced. Well, I was along on that ride.
He’d heard of friendships built on trial by fire: substitute "snow and bitter cold" and you'd be closer in this case. Then, in their need to work together, he and Trouble learned to respect, and eventually, to like each other. I'm sure glad Trouble's finally shouldering some of the blame for losing his hand, instead of laying it all on me, Jim thought. Gimpy said that if Trouble quit grousing and tried, he'd get real handy with his left hand, and the old black vaquero was right. Right about a lot of other things, too.
After the Bad Winter, Gimpy and Jim lived and worked together, the old man providing the knowledge and Jim the brawn for their fledgling ranch operation. But Gimpy had died two years ago, leaving Jim the sole owner. How Jim missed Gimpy--both his wisdom and his presence in their cabin.
Gimpy's cracked voice rang in Jim's memory. "Now, Son, you hear folks a'telling how the buffalo ate grass, but that ain't so. Them buffalo ate grass seed. Just nipped it off the top. Left them tough stems standing to funnel the snowmelt down into the sod. Sod two, three foot thick and just like a big sponge, Jim. Take care of the land, Son, and it'll take care of you."
"But, Gimpy," Jim argued out loud. "To take care of it, I have to own it— four-and-a-half sections of it, you said, if it's going to take care of me."
His lead cow bellowed. A second joined in. One by one the others followed. Legs braced, necks outstretched, thirty red-brown cattle, bawled at the sky. Jim glanced at it: looked benign—like polished silver. Nothing unusual about that. The air smelled crisp and clean, no trace of smoke suggesting a prairie fire—just thirsty desert air slurping up frost. Jim shrugged. No telling just what triggered a herd of cattle to set up a clamor. The corners of his lips twisted in a wry grin. Trouble called this racket “a singing herd!"
Grass, bearded with frost formed a glistening carpet stretching in all directions. Jingler yanked at the bridle reins. "Don't think we'll see the mountain," Jim told her. " But you're pining for action, and Trouble's still chomping bacon." He eased his grip on the reins. Snorting, she tackled the steep grade.
As she scrambled, a mountaintop, sparkling as if crowned with diamonds, floated into view. Jim gaped at it. He'd watched day break from this viewpoint many times, but not in haze with the mountain iced in hoarfrost frost.
The cattle were silent. But a coyote yipped. Surely a day for singing, animal or human. His gaze focused on the view, Jim's rich, choir-trained baritone floated across the plateau. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. . . .
A silver disc of sun swam through the haze.
"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. . ."
Light slid down the mountainside and canyons fanned up and away, but the twisted canyon land at the toes of the mountains Montanans called, The Badlands, lay hidden. As his last "amen" faded, Jim felt cleansed, revitalized-ready to face the future.
His cows were grazing. Their white faces blending with the frosty grass reminded him of Gimpy's name for them, "The Headless Herds." Jim hadn't recognized the double edge to that till now.
”Them critters you young-uns calls cows don't have enough sense to stand under a cutback in a storm," the old man had said. "Not like our Longhorns. Seems humans got no use for a critter wild and free and able to take care of itself."
"Unfortunately, Gimpy, while your Longhorns are long on independence, my Herefords grow tender beef," Jim answered, as if Gimpy were still alive--"but we better gallop over and get those bent horseshoes cooking so Trouble can hammer them back into shape." Jim reined Jingler toward the Double T.
As she pivoted, he saw clouds: Licorice and gold colored! Rain clouds! A harbinger of a wet spring! Spirits climbing, he watched the clouds spread from the horizon boiling and working like yeasty dough squeezed in the fists of a giant. Thunder rolled. His lead cow snorted. Tails up the whole herd plunged into motion, and the sea of heaving backs surrounded Jingler, sweeping them along as they stampeded back to the corral.
Silly critters, Jim thought, half annoyed. Any native animal would have taken a quick look at these clouds and continued chewing grass. On the other hand, maybe not so silly. To these beasts that corral meant hay, easy grub, easy for them, not so easy for me. He shook with laughter as Jingler bit the nearest cow in a display of temper. "You and Gimpy's Longhorns," Jim commented. "You Montana aborigines hate being pushed around. Besides you'd welcome a bath, infrequent enough here if you have a preference for rainwater.
Damn cold bath, though," he noted, as a torrent of icy slush splatted on the frozen manure and straw padding the corral. Jingler forced a pathway through the packed, steaming bodies and Jim floated above them through the blanket of warm air, fragrant with the musty-sweet smell of regurgitated grass. Slush pelted his shoulders soaking through to the skin as he slid from the saddle. He unlatched both halves of the "Dutch" door and let Jingler in.
Closing the lower one, Jim leaned on it and glanced toward the house he and Gimpy had built: It did look strange, dug back into the hill that way with those wide eaves, more like a mushroom popping up, than like a "root cellar"— Trouble's comment. Jim remembered Gimpy's coaching, "Push 'er an inch to the left, Boy—now just a nudge back," as he laid each rock--and he remembered the aftermath, sore muscles, and grimaced. Still, that rockwork looked darn good— almost elegant.
Something moved on the roof. That would be Tabbit stalking a meal. Jim's grin broadened as he thought of the night he and Gimpy had moved under their new roof and Trouble Rollins had appeared with a "housewarming gift"--a six-foot bull snake. However, due to his territorial distaste for rattlesnakes and his taste for rats and mice, Tabbit had proved a valuable addition to the household. A flurry of activity erupted on the roof as the snake struck.
Jingler nuzzled Jim's pocket, and he dug out a piece of dried apple. She mouthed it with soft lips, then tucked it into her cheek. "Like a darn gopher," Jim commented. She waggled her ears in contentment. "That day I found you all you wanted was your mother's milk. You hadn't acquired a fancy taste for apples yet," Jim told her. He looked out again: Still pouring slop. He couldn't get any wetter. Might as well get into dry clothes. Leaving the door open so Jingler could choose barn or corral, Jim sprinted to the house.
Inside, he lit a fire and changed clothes. He took a long, wishful look at his books—but they'd have to wait for winter. A rancher had no time to read in the spring. Instead, he sat down at his desk and bent over his accounts. Not that it would take a lot of pencil lead to tally his assets. In addition to the 30 cows, he owned the hut, his own bull, Jingler, and a pair of Morgan’s he could ride or harness. He also owed The Swinging B for the bull, for seed that had never peered through last summer's dry ground and for fencing wire. Jim laid his pencil down with a sigh. Trouble says I'm lucky, Jim thought. Nellie, too. Keep rubbing it in that bad times and hungry cattle mean cheap meat for my sausage grinder. Sure I can sell the sausage, and I am better off then some, he acknowledged. I'm still here--but seems to me that since Gimpy left me this place, I'm near two years older and four years deeper in debt." He glanced out of the window.
Too damn bad about all this water rolling off ground frozen rock hard, instead of soaking in. Still, the creeks would be running full again and that meant hay on the banks of the Yellowstone: a cash crop right outside his hut. But the Morgans couldn't handle that haying job alone. If only he had a heavy draft team. He sat frowning at the window and an idea began to churn. He examined it in detail. Leaping to his feet he paced back and forth running it through his mind piece by piece. The more he thought of it, the more plausible it seemed. With Trouble's expertise as a vet and his connections with The Dakota Horse Ranch, Jim thought, how can we lose?
CHAPTER 2
Trouble glared at Jingler, his angry flush matching the color of his hair
Ears flat on her head in a temper, Jingler stepped sideways increasing the eight feet between Trouble and herself to ten.
Sliding from his saddle Jim grabbed her bridle and shook it. "Stop that," he snapped.
"You ever hear of a human type animal harboring a lifetime grudge over a dose worm medicine?"
Jim studied Trouble's face. Did he really think Jingler remembered his medical checkup when she was two hours old? Still Trouble was the expert. Controlling his inclination to laugh, Jim glanced at the Double T motif burned into the wood on the corral. Bill and Nell must get a big kick out of Trouble's calling his place the Double-Trouble. Out loud, Jim said, "She sure enough put up a fight."
"Damn legs turned into a whirligig. Couldn't even walk on them yet, and she slit my thumb open. Like to bled to death," Trouble fumed. "And look at her."
Head held high, she tossed it. Not exactly holding out the olive branch Jim thought, suppressing a chuckle.
"Shit." Trouble growled. "I'd shoot her. Too much royal blood for me."
"She'll raise me some dandy colts," Jim argued. Truth was that he liked hearing her whinny her at the door in the morning, liked her intelligence and spunk. "How about firing up that forge?" Jim asked.
"It's fired," Trouble growled as they walked toward the shop. "Done it while you was sleeping in."
The air in the shop was already hot. "How a pony throws a shoe ain't no mystery," Trouble said, pulling on his blacksmith apron. "But never could figure how a cayuse that ain't growed for 20 years, like Old Nell, pulled one off that was too small."
"I'd guess it edged to the smallish side when you put it on."
Trouble's white teeth flashed."You eat jack knives for breakfast?" This was a new Westernism to Jim: eating jack knives to sharpen his wits!! He chuckled. Picking up a pair of tongs with his left hand and the hook strapped to his right sleeve, Trouble retrieved a horseshoe from the fire, glanced at the dull red glow, laid it on the anvil, struck it two quick blows with a hammer, then dropped it into a bucket of cold water.
"You're getting mighty sure of yourself with that iron paw."
"Hell, Jim, I always was better with either one than most folks are with both. How about grabbing that bellows and pumping air on the fire." Trouble stepped back from the steam. "Say, Pard, that team of draft horses you been talking about--you got anything in particular in mind?"
Jim stared at the fire. "Pa always worked Belgians."
"Pure breds!" Trouble whistled. "If you know how to grow that many bucks, save me some of the seed. But just for talk-talk them new Western Belgians the "Dakota" is showing; now they're pretty.
"Any chance I could borrow the money from Miles Bank, if I talked to Burnett. He's always treated me decent."
"Pard, Burnett couldn't loan you the money if he wanted--not that kind a cash. Bank has rules. Thing for you to do is to waltz into the Government Homestead Office first thing Monday morning and get your name on that other section of land. But, for now, keep pumping air on our fire."
"Another section? That's what Bill says. Problem is I want sure title to the one on the river."
"Sure the one on the River, assuming God gave you any brains. So?"
"So how sure is Gimpy's first settler's claim?"
"Hell, Jim. A man has to prove he's first and that he has lived on the land for five years. According to Bill, no one has set on that piece a-tall, except you and Gimpy, not since they come, and you know how long that's been. Just stick tight for another three years."
You hear about those crooks that been claim jumping."
"With bogus papers claiming they lived on the land away back? Jim, nothing's sure but death and taxes. You got to take some chance."
"What section would you file on?"
"Was I you, I'd take up that piece on Coot Creek. Creek's spring-fed. Has the old line shack, that shelter, and a good corral."
"Good corral. You bet. I built it. On Bill's payroll."
"Bill doesn't want it. Hasn't used it since The Bad Winter. Get your name on it before some honyoker finds it." Trouble picked a horseshoe out of the fire, examined it, then buried it in hot coals. "You can ease up on that bellows, but fire won't burn without coal, Pardner."
"Open another sack?"
"Nags got to be shod. Have to cook the shoes to fit. Whoa. Pour half of them lumps back. Say, Feller, what's dimming your mind."
"About that team: Suppose I was to get bred mares."
"Bred mares." Trouble sucked in his cheeks considering. "Figuring the colts would pay the loan. Not bad, Pard. Had I $2,000, I'd gamble on the pair of us. But the bank?" He shook his head. "Still, I don't fault you none for wanting a pretty team. Tell you what, if you're set on this, 'The Dakota' owes me a favor-tell Burnett I'd get them Belgians serviced for free. Tell him you'll gamble four pure-bred Belgians for the price of two."
"You know that smoked meat I delivered to the bartender at the Antler? Haven't collected a dime. Why don't you ride along? We'll get some of it in beer."
"For an invite like that I'll pick up what's left of you outside the bank. Don't figure my thirst will grow whiskers waiting.
"You haven't the collateral to get a bank loan, Albricht, but why don't you run through that proposition again," Burnett motioned Jim to a chair, leaned back in his and studied Jim's face. "Rollins donating his sales commission, too?" he asked.
Donating? More like Trouble's skill for my hands, Jim thought. Added up to owing Trouble more work. Shifting his weight under the banker's scrutiny, Jim said, "Hadn't thought of the commission."
This young fellow gambles, but he hedges his bets, Burnett thought. Wonder if he knows how easy it is to lose purebred colts? Certainly Rollins does. The banker, shrugged. But that's their problem. He cleared his throat. "Suppose I lend you the two thousand out of my own cash? At, say, two per cent above bank interest?" Jim nodded in the affirmative. Burnett wrote the note. "Sign here," he said, pointing.
Ignoring Burnett's offered pen, Jim glanced at the note. "Interest up two per cent this week?" he asked.
Burnett's eyebrows rose. This Albricht kid read The Star. "Supposed to go up today, but I'll give you yesterday's rate," Burnett said making the adjustment. Rubbing his chin, he watched Jim walk away. Wouldn't hurt to keep track of this Albricht. Bright young chap. Burnett glanced down at Jim's signature...and educated. Ambitious, too. But what would Rollins gain out of this deal, the banker wondered
Standing in the shade cast by the bank building, Trouble listened poker-faced to Jim's report. Legs spraddled he examined the hard blue sky. "Nary a cloud," he announced. "Not even one of them little skinny buggers. But no need to worry. If you can squeeze a bundle of greenbacks like that out of Burnett now, you can pray up rain.
"But, Pard, you better let me break this to Bill and Nell, and you'll have to lift a quick brew, then skedaddle if you're going to eat Nellie's birthday dinner.
CHAPTER 3
The dog's wild yelps followed by pounding hooves startled Nellie. Dropping her watering can, she glanced over her potted plants just in time to see Jim jump from Jingler onto the veranda. "I got it," he shouted waving a packet in one hand and warding the dog off with the other.
As the dog gamboled into Nellie's kitchen, she took refuge behind the table. "Since Bill brought that half-growed hound home, it ain't safe to air the house. He's bound to knock me down and romp all over me, and you don't help," she scolded. Her sharp eyes surveyed Jim. "I declare, you and that dog is a pair, all bones and knobs. Better get over here more often so I can feed you." She took the packet he waved. "I see you got it, Boy. Don't reckon this'n looks any different than any other Homestead Rights." Eyes narrowed she stared through the plants and beyond. "Why, I remember when we first built that shelter on Coot Creek. Kids and cows scattering across the prairie like weeds." She sighed. "A'course someone's bound to file on that piece, and you know better than to plow that high prairie."
A long shadow fell across the kitchen table. Bill leaned against the doorjamb. "This is a special occasion, Nellie. "Ain't every day a man comes of age and takes up his own property." Bill stroked his mustache, and Jim realized with a sudden shock that the black was streaked with silver.
When had that happened? "About your buildings on The Creek..." The warm glow spreading from Jim's chest clogged his throat.
"I aim to collect." Bill's mustache twitched. "Like I said, I got plenty of buildings, fencing, too, all needing a strong back."
Jim took a quick step. Putting an arm around Nellie's ample waist, he held out his hand to Bill. "How can I thank you two for taking me in when I was just a dumb kid? How can I ever repay you for letting Gimpy teach me how to run a ranch?"
"Told him training you for his job was plumb crazy. Turned out, he could of done worse."
"That old black man was luck from start to finish." Nellie wiped her eyes on the corner of her apron, and Jim's promissory note slipped from the packet in her hand. He grabbed at it, but it fluttered lazily to the table, then to the floor. Lodged at the toe of Bill's boot it pronounced in the banker's large block print, "I, Jim Albricht promise..."
"That an I.O.U.?" Nellie demanded. "Not mortgage papers! You needed a little help, why didn't you ask?"
Stooping Bill picked the I.O.U. up, glanced at it, then stared. "$2,000!" His baritone rose to tenor. "For a fancy team of horses?"
"$2,000!" Nellie gasped. "You didn't. You couldn't of. Bill, you knew about this? And you didn't put a stop to it?"
"Thought it was just talk, Nellie. Figured he'd come to his senses."
"And you with such a good start," Nellie scolded.
"Wanted a work team..." Jim blundered.
"For $2,000 they better work!" Bill snapped.
Nellie sighed, "When a young feller gets a yen for pretty horses there ain't no use talking."
Pretty horses. Trouble--and now Nellie. "Better get the saddle off Jingler," he muttered, sidling toward the door.
"I put Ron to it. Ain't often I catch him when there's a chore around. But we had something else to tell you today. That property your hut sets on is proved up ground, Jim."
Proved up ground! Jim stared at them. He'd checked Trouble's statement at the land office. First settlers' claims were good. Could some trapper have lived on that section before Gimpy did? Strange that he'd come along with his claim after all these years. Some dirty son-of-a-bitch wants my water and my improvements. Jim slumped into the nearest chair. He rested his elbows on the table and covered his face with both hands.
He heard Nellie say, "Bill, he never heard one word." How could she sound so calm? He felt Bill's hand shaking his shoulder.
"Been trying to tell you, Boy, before Gimpy died he give us this to keep safe for you till you come of age." The rancher bent over Jim holding out a thin envelope. With trembling hands Jim broke the wax seal and pulled out a notarized deed. "Maybe this'll help with your foolishness over that high-stepping Belgian team," Bill grunted.
The envelope blurred as Jim remembered the day Gimpy had listed the duties of a ranch foreman. And as I recall I told him, I'd have the whole bit in my pocket in ten years! Jim thought. What an ass I was. The envelope took shape and Jim mumbled, "Wish I could thank Gimpy." But suddenly he knew that Gimpy would want him to have the Belgians he'd ordered f.o.b. Miles City by rail.
Two weeks crawled past. Jim stood on the railroad siding in Miles City watching stock cars slide by. One would have his horses. There it was. Number
24. Couplings clattered and banged. The train jerked to a stop. As he waited for the workman hurrying up with the bill of lading Jim tried to look nonchalant, but the palms of his hands were wet as he gripped the pencil and scribbled his name. The freight door opened with a clang. Jim held his breath when he heard the stomp of hooves. His heart thumped. A current of warm air carried the rich odor of horse as he walked up the ramp. His hands shook and the hardware on the halters he carried jangled as he peered into the dark car. At first he saw nothing. Then his eyes caught a gleam reflecting from a dark form. Gradually, two matched bays took shape in the shadows. He stared at the size of his horses. They made the cow pony sharing the boxcar look like a shaggy burro.
The bays smelled him. Jim licked dry lips as he watched them pick up hooves as big around as his head. As 3,600 pounds of horseflesh descended upon him, his boots seemed nailed to the ramp. Fumbling frantically in his pockets, he extracted two sugar lumps. Arched necks bent. They nibbled, drooling. Inhaling great drafts of air, they blew Jim's hair into a pompadour. Nickers rumbled. As if upon signal, they both rubbed their noses against his shirt with such force that he staggered backward. Pinned against the wall, he gasped, "Just one minute, you two. You think you're lap-size?" His laugh quivered. "Lucky for me you want to be friends."
They submitted impatiently to haltering, then dragging Jim by the rope on the halter they hurried out into the sunshine. Free of the confining quarters, they pawed joyously. Great clods of packed earth flew. Ducking, Jim whooped. "You two don't need a plow. I'll turn you loose in a field and let you paw it."
A cowboy lounging on the board walk whistled and drifted toward Jim calling, ""Royalty! How about an introduction?"
"Can't pronounce the names they're registered under," Jim called back.
The saloon door burst open and ranchers strode out, spurs jingling. By the time Jim stopped in front of the store a crowd had gathered. Some one called, "Two lady horses! You going to work them, Albricht, or they going to work you?" Another rancher removed his hat to scratch his balding head and quipped, "This young feller ain't a family man, or he'd know that, come spring's work, them females will be indisposed."
The crowd parted for the banker, then closed around him. The I.O.U. Jim had signed materialized in his mind, and the man's smile looked like a leer. Two thousand dollars, Jim thought. Would two thousand silver dollars dumped over my head pile up to my belt? My chin?
"Some horseflesh, Albricht," the banker said. "Wouldn't mind owning these myself next spring." The words pelted Jim like bits of sleet. Facts swirled in his head. He, Jim Albricht, was in debt up to his ears. Even the shirt on my back belongs to this bloke. Why did Burnett loan me, a kid achieving a sudden twenty-one, all that money?. Because he can't lose. But if anything happens to the Belgians I lose everything I've got. Jim's stomach churned. He gaped at the hand the banker offered. It felt like a block of wood, and the man's smile looked even more menacing. Muttering, "I better get these two home," Jim left. As he rode down the street leading the Belgians between rows of admiring residents his head cleared. Panic eased. With this team, he had a chance. With any kind of luck, in ten years he'd climb out from under the debt and win clear title to a ranch he could be proud of.
He squinted at the sun. Plenty of time to make it to the corral on Coot Creek. He rode slowly taking time to get acquainted with his new team. "Damned spoiled, that's what you are," he scolded when Jingler objected to his fondling of the Belgians.
He dismounted to check a strap. Dividing his attention between Jingler and the new team, he kicked away a bit of turf. From this clay, grew the gramma and bluejoint, that, in good years, cured by the sun, did a better job of feeding and fattening stock, either cut and stacked or left standing, than corn would. He gouged out a handful of soil with his heel and sifted it through his fingers. The natives called it "gumbo." Exposed by constant traffic, it packed as hard as cement. Where well drained, rain had little affect, except to make the surface greasy, but where water stood, it became a gluey mass. Wheels collected balls of mud that dried like concrete and cattle walked on stilts. Jim grinned at the image of an l,200-pound cow, hooves encased in dried clay, tilting and tottering in her high mud boots. "Like my sisters tripping around in Ma's shoes," he chuckled. The sun had tipped toward the West when he saw Black Butte outlined against the horizon. Pale stars softened the sky as he circled to the lea side and rode onto his new homestead.
He penned the Belgians in the corral, slipped the saddle off Jingler, then felt for his pocketknife and squatted at his saddlebags. He took out a canteen of water, a can of beans and one of stringy, corned beef called, "Canned Willie." As he washed down chunks of bread, beans and the salty meat with water, he remembered building this corral for Bill.
"Sharpen your ax," Bill had counseled. "Them badland cedar is like petrified. Now, fifty year ago, Captain Bonneville allowed in his report that them cedars grow, but a feller like me'd never guess it."
Jim wiped his knife on the grass, put it and the remaining bread in his saddlebags and fed the horses a luxury portion of grain. "You two might get nervous in a strange place," he told them. I'll keep you company." Walking through the deep mulch of manure and straw in the corral he opened the gate, closed it behind him, and spread his bedroll on a patch of grass. It would make a softer mattress than the dirt floor in the cabin would anyway. He stretched out thinking of Gimpy.
It was to Gimpy he owed this chance. That old man left me a river of gold. Panning it won't be easy, but I can do it. Jim flexed his muscles. He was young and strong. With the Belgians, he knew he had a good chance to build his spread.
Thunder woke him. He picked up his bed and dashed into the shelter. The Belgians pawed and snorted. Jim talked to soothe them. "You two weren't broke, you were gentled and that's how I aim to keep you. "How would you like me to call you Bonnet and Dolly?"
The downpour stopped. Stars sparkled like polished diamonds against the fresh-washed, blue-black sky. I'll still get a few hours of shut-eye, Jim thought, carrying his bed into the cabin.
The patch of light slipped through the cabin door. It paused, then flitting to Jim's booted figure stretched on the floor, it plopped onto one of his eyes. He opened it. That damn reflection. It always woke him here. But just in time to watch the sun come up, he remembered. As he scrambled to his feet he glanced at the splintered remnants of the wall bunk he'd chopped up for firewood when caught in a storm. Suppose I ought to build another if I ever catch up on more vital chores, he thought.
A nicker attracted his attention. Jingler stood, her neck stretched through the open door. Her creamy coat glowed in the light of the coming day. Jim slapped her on the shoulder. "Get out of the way or we'll miss the morning show." As he pushed past her, he remembered that morning five years ago, when, with the smell of the Wisconsin graveyard still clogging his nostrils, he'd gaped at his first prairie sunrise. The air smelled sweet after the downpour. Filling his lungs with it, Jim focused on the spot where the butte carved a black line against a pale gray sky rapidly turning molten silver. Crimson splashed across it. The sun sampled the edge of Black Butte, then popped up on top, adding its fiery ball of orange to the array. No wonder Gimpy'd chosen The Butte as his favorite place to wake up.
Stretched in the cool shade of the butte, Jim thought, Not the, my. My butte, my cabin, my corral.
The sun rose rapidly deluging the surrounding land with that peculiarly intense light. Toward the River, the prairie sloped down in waving grass as far Jim could see. To the north and west stretched the high plateaus, summer pasture, to the east the coulees and canyons, winter protection for a herd. A short distance from the cabin, Coot Creek whispered a monologue at the diamond willows, Juneberry bushes and cottonwoods that marked its path. Even in the dry years the spring that fed it gurgled.
Jingler nuzzled Jim's hand. "Let's wake our new team up, before we tie on the feedbag," he suggested.
A meadowlark trilled and Jim whistled back. As he strode toward the corral, Jingler kept pace with him, her head over his shoulder. The Belgians weren't in the corral. Must be in the shelter. Open on the east side abutting the corral, its thick sod walls on the north, south and west, plus its pole roof covered with three feet of straw, provided stock excellent protection from the fierce winter storms. Odd that, on a day like this, the Belgians would cram themselves into that low, airless space. Used to a barn no doubt. Jim whistled as he vaulted the rails. The Belgians didn't answer. They'd learn. Squinting into the shadows, Jim stooped to survey the shed's interior. It was empty.
Empty! Oh, my God! His belly cramped and panic threatened. Rustlers! He glanced at the network of canyons leading into the crumpled mountains. And they'd have left miles behind before holing up for the day. "Oh, my God!." Jim slumped against the top rail. The banker's face floated in a red haze, took on features. They gloated. A rolled manuscript took shape in the man's hand. It unfurled slowly to flip like a poster in the breeze. Jumbled letters slid into place:
"I, JIM ALBRIGHT, PROMISE TO PAY TO THE ORDER OF Clem Burnett, $2,000."
Groaning, Jim beat his forehead with the palm of a hand. His mind slid in a circle.
Could he rent his place? Get a job? Renew the note? Pay only the interest? Riding at $30 a month! The banker stretched a finger through Jim's haze and tapped the $2,000 figure. Maybe sell his stock? God I'm crazy. With this Panic heating up, I'd be lucky to break even.
"Oh, my God, I'm ruined," Jim shouted, lashing the air with a fist.
Emily
MONTANA WINDS
Sequel to Follow the Hawk
353 Pages
By
Emily Horswilll
TO HER READERS
Emily saw her first article published 71 years ago. She was13. Subsequently, twenty-five earned awards. Years later, U.S. Congressman, Mike Lowry, read her work in Congress. With their mutual environmental theme, she and Stewart Udall, then Secretary of the Interior became competitors for related literary awards. The fact that, for a period of time, he ran second to her first became a source of amusement among friends.
He wasn’t expected at The 1987 Rocky Mountain Outdoor Writers’ awards banquet, it being a long jump from The Oval Office to Park City, Utah. But, with the smell of steak, the door banged against the wall, and Stewart strode in followed by three photographers. “Where is this woman who writes so much better than I do?” he demanded. “And how come she’s sitting at the wrong table?” Cameras clicking, he plucked petite Emily from her chair. Loudly lamenting his frustration at receiving second place to her first, he studied and rejected table after table as his entourage toured the room. At the last table, he rubbed his hands and smiled. Ignoring the “Reserved for” sign, he introduced Emily as the laughing editors and publishers moved to make room for two more plates. Minutes later, as Stewart rose to leave, he whispered in her ear “Hope this does it for you, kid.”
A few weeks ago, Emily heard the thud of footsteps. “Wait! I know who you are,” a voice called. Panting, she explained. “When I was 6 and my brother was 12, we spent Sunday morning sprawled on his bed reading your column. Now when I can’t stand the world as it is, I read them over again. Hugging Emily she whispered,” Thank you.”
For 10 years Emily was known among her peers as the best writer of secular inspiration west of the Missouri River. Now, at last,
Emily invites you to enjoy all three of her books, Follow the Hawk, Montana Winds and Sometimes Better to Walk than Fly, the collection of columns a six-year-old kept.
With all my love, Emily Horswill, Dr, VUSPA
http://emhorswill.blogspot.com/
CONTENTS
390 PAGES
1889-1901:
:
PART ONE: 1889-1890 Page 1
PART TWO: 1890-1892 Page 144
PART THREE 1892-1896 Page 254
PART: FOUR: 1901 Page 377
CHAPTER 1
Beginning as snowmelt in Wyoming's high mountains, the Yellowstone River plunges downward onto Eastern Montana's dry plains. Where descending River meets horizontal land, it sprawls, then gathering strength, this great muttering waterway, for millennia, has started its 650-mile journey East pushing before it thousands of tons of Wyoming's yellow clay thickened with red powder ground from the rock Montanans call ‘scoria'.
Halfway between Miles City and Terry, Montana, on the river, Jim Albright relaxed on his horse, Jingler, beside his corral. Pearly gray light flooded the horizon setting it aglow. The cattle in the corral mooed. Jim swung the gate open thinking, next week, due to Gimpy’s will; they'll graze on my land. Also, March 10, I’ll be 2l and entitled to a full section under current Homestead law. That leaves me nine months to file before the new law reduces claims to a half section in 1889. But what section should I claim. How sure are my squatter’s rights to this valuable land on the River?
He watched the cow with the torn ear break away from the packed herd and take the lead. As the others strung out behind her, his attention strayed to the brand on the nearest cow--two circles connected with a hump. His Spectacle brand: neat. He surveyed it with satisfaction as he closed the gate without getting off Jingler.
A trace of frost glazed the prairie where there ought to patches of melting snow: Bad news to have a dry winter follow a drought, but the new grass ought to be fair on that high bench. Wouldn't hurt to take a look, especially since he was a bit early to go to the Double T.
Jingler fell in behind the trailing cow readily matching the herd's swinging gait, and Jim told her. "Lookee here. When Trouble Rollins comes to meet us at the Double T, you just keep all four feet on the ground. No need to pick one up and threaten to kick him out of The Territory. "'Trouble'. What a strange nickname," Jim remembered saying to Nellie five years ago when he'd been the new chore boy and Trouble the handsome cowboy foreman dressed in silk shirts and fancy hand tooled boots who snapped orders on Bill and Nellie Williams sprawling Swinging B Ranch.
She had answered, "Yup. Boys usually pick something about a feller you'd see right off, then turn it upside down: like our old black man. Most of his 85 years that little feller stood straight as a poker, so they called him 'Gimpy' as if he limped. Raised my share of boys around here all a handful, but this kid was double-trouble. Best cow foreman in the country now."
"Good veterinary and a first-class horseman, too," Jim said to Jingler. So, what's this quarrel between you and Trouble?" Not that I always liked Trouble. Maybe partly envy, Jim admitted, recalling the bunkhouse jokes about Trouble's girl-dodging exploits: and I was 'That skinny, long-legged kid that couldn't do nothing but read'! Of course, Trouble never looks at a book."
The laggard cow stopped. Teeth snapping in impatience, Jingler nipped her. "Shame on you," Jim scolded. "She's heavy with calf, and not as young as you are."
Slapping her on her arched neck, he marveled at her sleek lines. Surely it was one of God's miracles that the wild foal he'd dug from a snowdrift when he first came to Montana could have grown into this dazzling cream-colored creature.
That day he'd found her, he'd still been grieving over the fresh graves he'd left behind in Wisconsin; still dazed over the ferocity of the plague called "influenza,” his image of himself as a young man bound for an elite college and his vision of his future as a minister, shattered--and he'd wrapped his arms and heart around the orphaned foal, and they'd adjusted to their new realities together.
"When you kicked Grubstake out of the way then stepped under the saddle I was trying to throw on him, I was afraid you were too young to carry me. But we're both big and tough," he told her. He stretched his 180 pounds and flexed his muscles. "With a little luck in a few years we'll lift this squatter operation up by the heels and have a ranch we can both be proud of."
He was due at the Double T for a joint work session with Trouble, the work pattern that had evolved since the Swinging B, as all the other big spreads, had gone broke in The Bad Winter of Eighty-seven leaving them both without jobs--and Trouble minus a hand. As for me? Jim winced. Well, I was along on that ride.
He’d heard of friendships built on trial by fire: substitute "snow and bitter cold" and you'd be closer in this case. Then, in their need to work together, he and Trouble learned to respect, and eventually, to like each other. I'm sure glad Trouble's finally shouldering some of the blame for losing his hand, instead of laying it all on me, Jim thought. Gimpy said that if Trouble quit grousing and tried, he'd get real handy with his left hand, and the old black vaquero was right. Right about a lot of other things, too.
After the Bad Winter, Gimpy and Jim lived and worked together, the old man providing the knowledge and Jim the brawn for their fledgling ranch operation. But Gimpy had died two years ago, leaving Jim the sole owner. How Jim missed Gimpy--both his wisdom and his presence in their cabin.
Gimpy's cracked voice rang in Jim's memory. "Now, Son, you hear folks a'telling how the buffalo ate grass, but that ain't so. Them buffalo ate grass seed. Just nipped it off the top. Left them tough stems standing to funnel the snowmelt down into the sod. Sod two, three foot thick and just like a big sponge, Jim. Take care of the land, Son, and it'll take care of you."
"But, Gimpy," Jim argued out loud. "To take care of it, I have to own it— four-and-a-half sections of it, you said, if it's going to take care of me."
His lead cow bellowed. A second joined in. One by one the others followed. Legs braced, necks outstretched, thirty red-brown cattle, bawled at the sky. Jim glanced at it: looked benign—like polished silver. Nothing unusual about that. The air smelled crisp and clean, no trace of smoke suggesting a prairie fire—just thirsty desert air slurping up frost. Jim shrugged. No telling just what triggered a herd of cattle to set up a clamor. The corners of his lips twisted in a wry grin. Trouble called this racket “a singing herd!"
Grass, bearded with frost formed a glistening carpet stretching in all directions. Jingler yanked at the bridle reins. "Don't think we'll see the mountain," Jim told her. " But you're pining for action, and Trouble's still chomping bacon." He eased his grip on the reins. Snorting, she tackled the steep grade.
As she scrambled, a mountaintop, sparkling as if crowned with diamonds, floated into view. Jim gaped at it. He'd watched day break from this viewpoint many times, but not in haze with the mountain iced in hoarfrost frost.
The cattle were silent. But a coyote yipped. Surely a day for singing, animal or human. His gaze focused on the view, Jim's rich, choir-trained baritone floated across the plateau. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. . . .
A silver disc of sun swam through the haze.
"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. . ."
Light slid down the mountainside and canyons fanned up and away, but the twisted canyon land at the toes of the mountains Montanans called, The Badlands, lay hidden. As his last "amen" faded, Jim felt cleansed, revitalized-ready to face the future.
His cows were grazing. Their white faces blending with the frosty grass reminded him of Gimpy's name for them, "The Headless Herds." Jim hadn't recognized the double edge to that till now.
”Them critters you young-uns calls cows don't have enough sense to stand under a cutback in a storm," the old man had said. "Not like our Longhorns. Seems humans got no use for a critter wild and free and able to take care of itself."
"Unfortunately, Gimpy, while your Longhorns are long on independence, my Herefords grow tender beef," Jim answered, as if Gimpy were still alive--"but we better gallop over and get those bent horseshoes cooking so Trouble can hammer them back into shape." Jim reined Jingler toward the Double T.
As she pivoted, he saw clouds: Licorice and gold colored! Rain clouds! A harbinger of a wet spring! Spirits climbing, he watched the clouds spread from the horizon boiling and working like yeasty dough squeezed in the fists of a giant. Thunder rolled. His lead cow snorted. Tails up the whole herd plunged into motion, and the sea of heaving backs surrounded Jingler, sweeping them along as they stampeded back to the corral.
Silly critters, Jim thought, half annoyed. Any native animal would have taken a quick look at these clouds and continued chewing grass. On the other hand, maybe not so silly. To these beasts that corral meant hay, easy grub, easy for them, not so easy for me. He shook with laughter as Jingler bit the nearest cow in a display of temper. "You and Gimpy's Longhorns," Jim commented. "You Montana aborigines hate being pushed around. Besides you'd welcome a bath, infrequent enough here if you have a preference for rainwater.
Damn cold bath, though," he noted, as a torrent of icy slush splatted on the frozen manure and straw padding the corral. Jingler forced a pathway through the packed, steaming bodies and Jim floated above them through the blanket of warm air, fragrant with the musty-sweet smell of regurgitated grass. Slush pelted his shoulders soaking through to the skin as he slid from the saddle. He unlatched both halves of the "Dutch" door and let Jingler in.
Closing the lower one, Jim leaned on it and glanced toward the house he and Gimpy had built: It did look strange, dug back into the hill that way with those wide eaves, more like a mushroom popping up, than like a "root cellar"— Trouble's comment. Jim remembered Gimpy's coaching, "Push 'er an inch to the left, Boy—now just a nudge back," as he laid each rock--and he remembered the aftermath, sore muscles, and grimaced. Still, that rockwork looked darn good— almost elegant.
Something moved on the roof. That would be Tabbit stalking a meal. Jim's grin broadened as he thought of the night he and Gimpy had moved under their new roof and Trouble Rollins had appeared with a "housewarming gift"--a six-foot bull snake. However, due to his territorial distaste for rattlesnakes and his taste for rats and mice, Tabbit had proved a valuable addition to the household. A flurry of activity erupted on the roof as the snake struck.
Jingler nuzzled Jim's pocket, and he dug out a piece of dried apple. She mouthed it with soft lips, then tucked it into her cheek. "Like a darn gopher," Jim commented. She waggled her ears in contentment. "That day I found you all you wanted was your mother's milk. You hadn't acquired a fancy taste for apples yet," Jim told her. He looked out again: Still pouring slop. He couldn't get any wetter. Might as well get into dry clothes. Leaving the door open so Jingler could choose barn or corral, Jim sprinted to the house.
Inside, he lit a fire and changed clothes. He took a long, wishful look at his books—but they'd have to wait for winter. A rancher had no time to read in the spring. Instead, he sat down at his desk and bent over his accounts. Not that it would take a lot of pencil lead to tally his assets. In addition to the 30 cows, he owned the hut, his own bull, Jingler, and a pair of Morgan’s he could ride or harness. He also owed The Swinging B for the bull, for seed that had never peered through last summer's dry ground and for fencing wire. Jim laid his pencil down with a sigh. Trouble says I'm lucky, Jim thought. Nellie, too. Keep rubbing it in that bad times and hungry cattle mean cheap meat for my sausage grinder. Sure I can sell the sausage, and I am better off then some, he acknowledged. I'm still here--but seems to me that since Gimpy left me this place, I'm near two years older and four years deeper in debt." He glanced out of the window.
Too damn bad about all this water rolling off ground frozen rock hard, instead of soaking in. Still, the creeks would be running full again and that meant hay on the banks of the Yellowstone: a cash crop right outside his hut. But the Morgans couldn't handle that haying job alone. If only he had a heavy draft team. He sat frowning at the window and an idea began to churn. He examined it in detail. Leaping to his feet he paced back and forth running it through his mind piece by piece. The more he thought of it, the more plausible it seemed. With Trouble's expertise as a vet and his connections with The Dakota Horse Ranch, Jim thought, how can we lose?
CHAPTER 2
Trouble glared at Jingler, his angry flush matching the color of his hair
Ears flat on her head in a temper, Jingler stepped sideways increasing the eight feet between Trouble and herself to ten.
Sliding from his saddle Jim grabbed her bridle and shook it. "Stop that," he snapped.
"You ever hear of a human type animal harboring a lifetime grudge over a dose worm medicine?"
Jim studied Trouble's face. Did he really think Jingler remembered his medical checkup when she was two hours old? Still Trouble was the expert. Controlling his inclination to laugh, Jim glanced at the Double T motif burned into the wood on the corral. Bill and Nell must get a big kick out of Trouble's calling his place the Double-Trouble. Out loud, Jim said, "She sure enough put up a fight."
"Damn legs turned into a whirligig. Couldn't even walk on them yet, and she slit my thumb open. Like to bled to death," Trouble fumed. "And look at her."
Head held high, she tossed it. Not exactly holding out the olive branch Jim thought, suppressing a chuckle.
"Shit." Trouble growled. "I'd shoot her. Too much royal blood for me."
"She'll raise me some dandy colts," Jim argued. Truth was that he liked hearing her whinny her at the door in the morning, liked her intelligence and spunk. "How about firing up that forge?" Jim asked.
"It's fired," Trouble growled as they walked toward the shop. "Done it while you was sleeping in."
The air in the shop was already hot. "How a pony throws a shoe ain't no mystery," Trouble said, pulling on his blacksmith apron. "But never could figure how a cayuse that ain't growed for 20 years, like Old Nell, pulled one off that was too small."
"I'd guess it edged to the smallish side when you put it on."
Trouble's white teeth flashed."You eat jack knives for breakfast?" This was a new Westernism to Jim: eating jack knives to sharpen his wits!! He chuckled. Picking up a pair of tongs with his left hand and the hook strapped to his right sleeve, Trouble retrieved a horseshoe from the fire, glanced at the dull red glow, laid it on the anvil, struck it two quick blows with a hammer, then dropped it into a bucket of cold water.
"You're getting mighty sure of yourself with that iron paw."
"Hell, Jim, I always was better with either one than most folks are with both. How about grabbing that bellows and pumping air on the fire." Trouble stepped back from the steam. "Say, Pard, that team of draft horses you been talking about--you got anything in particular in mind?"
Jim stared at the fire. "Pa always worked Belgians."
"Pure breds!" Trouble whistled. "If you know how to grow that many bucks, save me some of the seed. But just for talk-talk them new Western Belgians the "Dakota" is showing; now they're pretty.
"Any chance I could borrow the money from Miles Bank, if I talked to Burnett. He's always treated me decent."
"Pard, Burnett couldn't loan you the money if he wanted--not that kind a cash. Bank has rules. Thing for you to do is to waltz into the Government Homestead Office first thing Monday morning and get your name on that other section of land. But, for now, keep pumping air on our fire."
"Another section? That's what Bill says. Problem is I want sure title to the one on the river."
"Sure the one on the River, assuming God gave you any brains. So?"
"So how sure is Gimpy's first settler's claim?"
"Hell, Jim. A man has to prove he's first and that he has lived on the land for five years. According to Bill, no one has set on that piece a-tall, except you and Gimpy, not since they come, and you know how long that's been. Just stick tight for another three years."
You hear about those crooks that been claim jumping."
"With bogus papers claiming they lived on the land away back? Jim, nothing's sure but death and taxes. You got to take some chance."
"What section would you file on?"
"Was I you, I'd take up that piece on Coot Creek. Creek's spring-fed. Has the old line shack, that shelter, and a good corral."
"Good corral. You bet. I built it. On Bill's payroll."
"Bill doesn't want it. Hasn't used it since The Bad Winter. Get your name on it before some honyoker finds it." Trouble picked a horseshoe out of the fire, examined it, then buried it in hot coals. "You can ease up on that bellows, but fire won't burn without coal, Pardner."
"Open another sack?"
"Nags got to be shod. Have to cook the shoes to fit. Whoa. Pour half of them lumps back. Say, Feller, what's dimming your mind."
"About that team: Suppose I was to get bred mares."
"Bred mares." Trouble sucked in his cheeks considering. "Figuring the colts would pay the loan. Not bad, Pard. Had I $2,000, I'd gamble on the pair of us. But the bank?" He shook his head. "Still, I don't fault you none for wanting a pretty team. Tell you what, if you're set on this, 'The Dakota' owes me a favor-tell Burnett I'd get them Belgians serviced for free. Tell him you'll gamble four pure-bred Belgians for the price of two."
"You know that smoked meat I delivered to the bartender at the Antler? Haven't collected a dime. Why don't you ride along? We'll get some of it in beer."
"For an invite like that I'll pick up what's left of you outside the bank. Don't figure my thirst will grow whiskers waiting.
"You haven't the collateral to get a bank loan, Albricht, but why don't you run through that proposition again," Burnett motioned Jim to a chair, leaned back in his and studied Jim's face. "Rollins donating his sales commission, too?" he asked.
Donating? More like Trouble's skill for my hands, Jim thought. Added up to owing Trouble more work. Shifting his weight under the banker's scrutiny, Jim said, "Hadn't thought of the commission."
This young fellow gambles, but he hedges his bets, Burnett thought. Wonder if he knows how easy it is to lose purebred colts? Certainly Rollins does. The banker, shrugged. But that's their problem. He cleared his throat. "Suppose I lend you the two thousand out of my own cash? At, say, two per cent above bank interest?" Jim nodded in the affirmative. Burnett wrote the note. "Sign here," he said, pointing.
Ignoring Burnett's offered pen, Jim glanced at the note. "Interest up two per cent this week?" he asked.
Burnett's eyebrows rose. This Albricht kid read The Star. "Supposed to go up today, but I'll give you yesterday's rate," Burnett said making the adjustment. Rubbing his chin, he watched Jim walk away. Wouldn't hurt to keep track of this Albricht. Bright young chap. Burnett glanced down at Jim's signature...and educated. Ambitious, too. But what would Rollins gain out of this deal, the banker wondered
Standing in the shade cast by the bank building, Trouble listened poker-faced to Jim's report. Legs spraddled he examined the hard blue sky. "Nary a cloud," he announced. "Not even one of them little skinny buggers. But no need to worry. If you can squeeze a bundle of greenbacks like that out of Burnett now, you can pray up rain.
"But, Pard, you better let me break this to Bill and Nell, and you'll have to lift a quick brew, then skedaddle if you're going to eat Nellie's birthday dinner.
CHAPTER 3
The dog's wild yelps followed by pounding hooves startled Nellie. Dropping her watering can, she glanced over her potted plants just in time to see Jim jump from Jingler onto the veranda. "I got it," he shouted waving a packet in one hand and warding the dog off with the other.
As the dog gamboled into Nellie's kitchen, she took refuge behind the table. "Since Bill brought that half-growed hound home, it ain't safe to air the house. He's bound to knock me down and romp all over me, and you don't help," she scolded. Her sharp eyes surveyed Jim. "I declare, you and that dog is a pair, all bones and knobs. Better get over here more often so I can feed you." She took the packet he waved. "I see you got it, Boy. Don't reckon this'n looks any different than any other Homestead Rights." Eyes narrowed she stared through the plants and beyond. "Why, I remember when we first built that shelter on Coot Creek. Kids and cows scattering across the prairie like weeds." She sighed. "A'course someone's bound to file on that piece, and you know better than to plow that high prairie."
A long shadow fell across the kitchen table. Bill leaned against the doorjamb. "This is a special occasion, Nellie. "Ain't every day a man comes of age and takes up his own property." Bill stroked his mustache, and Jim realized with a sudden shock that the black was streaked with silver.
When had that happened? "About your buildings on The Creek..." The warm glow spreading from Jim's chest clogged his throat.
"I aim to collect." Bill's mustache twitched. "Like I said, I got plenty of buildings, fencing, too, all needing a strong back."
Jim took a quick step. Putting an arm around Nellie's ample waist, he held out his hand to Bill. "How can I thank you two for taking me in when I was just a dumb kid? How can I ever repay you for letting Gimpy teach me how to run a ranch?"
"Told him training you for his job was plumb crazy. Turned out, he could of done worse."
"That old black man was luck from start to finish." Nellie wiped her eyes on the corner of her apron, and Jim's promissory note slipped from the packet in her hand. He grabbed at it, but it fluttered lazily to the table, then to the floor. Lodged at the toe of Bill's boot it pronounced in the banker's large block print, "I, Jim Albricht promise..."
"That an I.O.U.?" Nellie demanded. "Not mortgage papers! You needed a little help, why didn't you ask?"
Stooping Bill picked the I.O.U. up, glanced at it, then stared. "$2,000!" His baritone rose to tenor. "For a fancy team of horses?"
"$2,000!" Nellie gasped. "You didn't. You couldn't of. Bill, you knew about this? And you didn't put a stop to it?"
"Thought it was just talk, Nellie. Figured he'd come to his senses."
"And you with such a good start," Nellie scolded.
"Wanted a work team..." Jim blundered.
"For $2,000 they better work!" Bill snapped.
Nellie sighed, "When a young feller gets a yen for pretty horses there ain't no use talking."
Pretty horses. Trouble--and now Nellie. "Better get the saddle off Jingler," he muttered, sidling toward the door.
"I put Ron to it. Ain't often I catch him when there's a chore around. But we had something else to tell you today. That property your hut sets on is proved up ground, Jim."
Proved up ground! Jim stared at them. He'd checked Trouble's statement at the land office. First settlers' claims were good. Could some trapper have lived on that section before Gimpy did? Strange that he'd come along with his claim after all these years. Some dirty son-of-a-bitch wants my water and my improvements. Jim slumped into the nearest chair. He rested his elbows on the table and covered his face with both hands.
He heard Nellie say, "Bill, he never heard one word." How could she sound so calm? He felt Bill's hand shaking his shoulder.
"Been trying to tell you, Boy, before Gimpy died he give us this to keep safe for you till you come of age." The rancher bent over Jim holding out a thin envelope. With trembling hands Jim broke the wax seal and pulled out a notarized deed. "Maybe this'll help with your foolishness over that high-stepping Belgian team," Bill grunted.
The envelope blurred as Jim remembered the day Gimpy had listed the duties of a ranch foreman. And as I recall I told him, I'd have the whole bit in my pocket in ten years! Jim thought. What an ass I was. The envelope took shape and Jim mumbled, "Wish I could thank Gimpy." But suddenly he knew that Gimpy would want him to have the Belgians he'd ordered f.o.b. Miles City by rail.
Two weeks crawled past. Jim stood on the railroad siding in Miles City watching stock cars slide by. One would have his horses. There it was. Number
24. Couplings clattered and banged. The train jerked to a stop. As he waited for the workman hurrying up with the bill of lading Jim tried to look nonchalant, but the palms of his hands were wet as he gripped the pencil and scribbled his name. The freight door opened with a clang. Jim held his breath when he heard the stomp of hooves. His heart thumped. A current of warm air carried the rich odor of horse as he walked up the ramp. His hands shook and the hardware on the halters he carried jangled as he peered into the dark car. At first he saw nothing. Then his eyes caught a gleam reflecting from a dark form. Gradually, two matched bays took shape in the shadows. He stared at the size of his horses. They made the cow pony sharing the boxcar look like a shaggy burro.
The bays smelled him. Jim licked dry lips as he watched them pick up hooves as big around as his head. As 3,600 pounds of horseflesh descended upon him, his boots seemed nailed to the ramp. Fumbling frantically in his pockets, he extracted two sugar lumps. Arched necks bent. They nibbled, drooling. Inhaling great drafts of air, they blew Jim's hair into a pompadour. Nickers rumbled. As if upon signal, they both rubbed their noses against his shirt with such force that he staggered backward. Pinned against the wall, he gasped, "Just one minute, you two. You think you're lap-size?" His laugh quivered. "Lucky for me you want to be friends."
They submitted impatiently to haltering, then dragging Jim by the rope on the halter they hurried out into the sunshine. Free of the confining quarters, they pawed joyously. Great clods of packed earth flew. Ducking, Jim whooped. "You two don't need a plow. I'll turn you loose in a field and let you paw it."
A cowboy lounging on the board walk whistled and drifted toward Jim calling, ""Royalty! How about an introduction?"
"Can't pronounce the names they're registered under," Jim called back.
The saloon door burst open and ranchers strode out, spurs jingling. By the time Jim stopped in front of the store a crowd had gathered. Some one called, "Two lady horses! You going to work them, Albricht, or they going to work you?" Another rancher removed his hat to scratch his balding head and quipped, "This young feller ain't a family man, or he'd know that, come spring's work, them females will be indisposed."
The crowd parted for the banker, then closed around him. The I.O.U. Jim had signed materialized in his mind, and the man's smile looked like a leer. Two thousand dollars, Jim thought. Would two thousand silver dollars dumped over my head pile up to my belt? My chin?
"Some horseflesh, Albricht," the banker said. "Wouldn't mind owning these myself next spring." The words pelted Jim like bits of sleet. Facts swirled in his head. He, Jim Albricht, was in debt up to his ears. Even the shirt on my back belongs to this bloke. Why did Burnett loan me, a kid achieving a sudden twenty-one, all that money?. Because he can't lose. But if anything happens to the Belgians I lose everything I've got. Jim's stomach churned. He gaped at the hand the banker offered. It felt like a block of wood, and the man's smile looked even more menacing. Muttering, "I better get these two home," Jim left. As he rode down the street leading the Belgians between rows of admiring residents his head cleared. Panic eased. With this team, he had a chance. With any kind of luck, in ten years he'd climb out from under the debt and win clear title to a ranch he could be proud of.
He squinted at the sun. Plenty of time to make it to the corral on Coot Creek. He rode slowly taking time to get acquainted with his new team. "Damned spoiled, that's what you are," he scolded when Jingler objected to his fondling of the Belgians.
He dismounted to check a strap. Dividing his attention between Jingler and the new team, he kicked away a bit of turf. From this clay, grew the gramma and bluejoint, that, in good years, cured by the sun, did a better job of feeding and fattening stock, either cut and stacked or left standing, than corn would. He gouged out a handful of soil with his heel and sifted it through his fingers. The natives called it "gumbo." Exposed by constant traffic, it packed as hard as cement. Where well drained, rain had little affect, except to make the surface greasy, but where water stood, it became a gluey mass. Wheels collected balls of mud that dried like concrete and cattle walked on stilts. Jim grinned at the image of an l,200-pound cow, hooves encased in dried clay, tilting and tottering in her high mud boots. "Like my sisters tripping around in Ma's shoes," he chuckled. The sun had tipped toward the West when he saw Black Butte outlined against the horizon. Pale stars softened the sky as he circled to the lea side and rode onto his new homestead.
He penned the Belgians in the corral, slipped the saddle off Jingler, then felt for his pocketknife and squatted at his saddlebags. He took out a canteen of water, a can of beans and one of stringy, corned beef called, "Canned Willie." As he washed down chunks of bread, beans and the salty meat with water, he remembered building this corral for Bill.
"Sharpen your ax," Bill had counseled. "Them badland cedar is like petrified. Now, fifty year ago, Captain Bonneville allowed in his report that them cedars grow, but a feller like me'd never guess it."
Jim wiped his knife on the grass, put it and the remaining bread in his saddlebags and fed the horses a luxury portion of grain. "You two might get nervous in a strange place," he told them. I'll keep you company." Walking through the deep mulch of manure and straw in the corral he opened the gate, closed it behind him, and spread his bedroll on a patch of grass. It would make a softer mattress than the dirt floor in the cabin would anyway. He stretched out thinking of Gimpy.
It was to Gimpy he owed this chance. That old man left me a river of gold. Panning it won't be easy, but I can do it. Jim flexed his muscles. He was young and strong. With the Belgians, he knew he had a good chance to build his spread.
Thunder woke him. He picked up his bed and dashed into the shelter. The Belgians pawed and snorted. Jim talked to soothe them. "You two weren't broke, you were gentled and that's how I aim to keep you. "How would you like me to call you Bonnet and Dolly?"
The downpour stopped. Stars sparkled like polished diamonds against the fresh-washed, blue-black sky. I'll still get a few hours of shut-eye, Jim thought, carrying his bed into the cabin.
The patch of light slipped through the cabin door. It paused, then flitting to Jim's booted figure stretched on the floor, it plopped onto one of his eyes. He opened it. That damn reflection. It always woke him here. But just in time to watch the sun come up, he remembered. As he scrambled to his feet he glanced at the splintered remnants of the wall bunk he'd chopped up for firewood when caught in a storm. Suppose I ought to build another if I ever catch up on more vital chores, he thought.
A nicker attracted his attention. Jingler stood, her neck stretched through the open door. Her creamy coat glowed in the light of the coming day. Jim slapped her on the shoulder. "Get out of the way or we'll miss the morning show." As he pushed past her, he remembered that morning five years ago, when, with the smell of the Wisconsin graveyard still clogging his nostrils, he'd gaped at his first prairie sunrise. The air smelled sweet after the downpour. Filling his lungs with it, Jim focused on the spot where the butte carved a black line against a pale gray sky rapidly turning molten silver. Crimson splashed across it. The sun sampled the edge of Black Butte, then popped up on top, adding its fiery ball of orange to the array. No wonder Gimpy'd chosen The Butte as his favorite place to wake up.
Stretched in the cool shade of the butte, Jim thought, Not the, my. My butte, my cabin, my corral.
The sun rose rapidly deluging the surrounding land with that peculiarly intense light. Toward the River, the prairie sloped down in waving grass as far Jim could see. To the north and west stretched the high plateaus, summer pasture, to the east the coulees and canyons, winter protection for a herd. A short distance from the cabin, Coot Creek whispered a monologue at the diamond willows, Juneberry bushes and cottonwoods that marked its path. Even in the dry years the spring that fed it gurgled.
Jingler nuzzled Jim's hand. "Let's wake our new team up, before we tie on the feedbag," he suggested.
A meadowlark trilled and Jim whistled back. As he strode toward the corral, Jingler kept pace with him, her head over his shoulder. The Belgians weren't in the corral. Must be in the shelter. Open on the east side abutting the corral, its thick sod walls on the north, south and west, plus its pole roof covered with three feet of straw, provided stock excellent protection from the fierce winter storms. Odd that, on a day like this, the Belgians would cram themselves into that low, airless space. Used to a barn no doubt. Jim whistled as he vaulted the rails. The Belgians didn't answer. They'd learn. Squinting into the shadows, Jim stooped to survey the shed's interior. It was empty.
Empty! Oh, my God! His belly cramped and panic threatened. Rustlers! He glanced at the network of canyons leading into the crumpled mountains. And they'd have left miles behind before holing up for the day. "Oh, my God!." Jim slumped against the top rail. The banker's face floated in a red haze, took on features. They gloated. A rolled manuscript took shape in the man's hand. It unfurled slowly to flip like a poster in the breeze. Jumbled letters slid into place:
"I, JIM ALBRIGHT, PROMISE TO PAY TO THE ORDER OF Clem Burnett, $2,000."
Groaning, Jim beat his forehead with the palm of a hand. His mind slid in a circle.
Could he rent his place? Get a job? Renew the note? Pay only the interest? Riding at $30 a month! The banker stretched a finger through Jim's haze and tapped the $2,000 figure. Maybe sell his stock? God I'm crazy. With this Panic heating up, I'd be lucky to break even.
"Oh, my God, I'm ruined," Jim shouted, lashing the air with a fist.
Sometimes Better to Walk than Fly
This is an extract of my book
Emily
SOMETIMES BETTER TO WALK THAN FLY
Selections from my weekly column
by
Emily Ungerecht Horswill
©2007 Emily Ungerecht Horswill
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any means without the author’s permission.
Book Design: Thomas Smith
Cover photo: Hikers Trek through the Greenway. (Credit Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust)
Other books by Emily Ungerecht Horswill
FOLLOW THE HAWK : the first of historical sequels
In the Spring of 1884, due to an influenza epidemic, Jim buries his family and neighbors, the community who had tithed future funds to support his dream to attend Concordia Seminary to complete the education begun in his Uncle’s rectory. He the choir soloist, plays organ, fills-in for choir master, manages pretty well with Latin, outlines Uncle Dodd’s sermons, even parses a bit of Virgil. Now he goes West. On The Swing B Ranch, he is ”That kid who can’t do nothin’ but read.”
MONTANA WINDS:Sequel to Follow the Hawk
An adventure story in which Jim leads his community to financial success rooted in sustainability.
TO
ZOLA ROSS WHO TAUGHT ME HOW TO WRITE A BOOK
AND FOR
Annette, my wonderful, precious daughter who, in spite of her handicap and her life of pain, has, for 60 years, been my guiding spirit and my inspiration
TO HER READERS:
I wrote my first story with charcoal on the sides of a wagon. I was 5 years old. I saw the first one in print 73 years ago.
In 1972 I was one of many who joined Congressman Mike Lowry in an effort to save some of the Nation’s still unspoiled natural areas, In the effort, Mike, Congressman from Washington State, read a letter I wrote to members of Congress. As a result, he led a group of U. S Congressmen to the top of Bear Top Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park and the entire Cedar River Watershed, in which Bear Top is merely a grain of sand, was designated as wilderness.
During this activity, I meet Stewart Udall, then Secretary of the Interior, one of the few of leaders who, had his boots pointed firmly on the only path from which we could hope to leave a livable planet in our wake. Next, to the amusement of other literary folk involved, a team of judges for The Rocky Mountain Outdoor Writers Conference Contest gave my submission first place and his second.
We didn’t expect Stewart at the awards banquet. it being a long jump from The Oval Office to Park City, Utah. But, with the smell of steak, the door banged against the wall, and Stewart, strode in followed by three photographers. “Where is this woman who writes so much better than I do?” he demanded. Looking down at me from his 6 foot plus viewpoint in a voice that matched, he announced “Peanut size, too. Human man can’t stand it: but she’s sitting at the wrong table.” Cameras clicking, he plucked me from my chair; and, loudly lamenting his frustration with the situation, he studied and rejected table after table as we toured the room. At the last table, he rubbed his hands and smiled. Ignoring the “Reserved for” sign, he gestured for those diners to move over, which they did among waves of laughter. As the maitre de brought chairs, he introduced me to the editors and publishers at his chosen table. Minutes later, as he pushed his chair back, he whispered in my ear, “Due back in DC in the morning. Hope this does it for you, kid.” He crossed a continent twice to do that charade for me!!
The result was a weekly column published as TREAD LIGHTLY which in turn begat this book. It happened thus:
Three years ago, I heard the thud of footsteps. A voice called, “Wait. I know who you are!” Panting, she caught up and explained, “When I was 6 years old and my brother was 12, we spent Sunday morning sprawled on his bed reading your column. Pulling one from her pocket, she said, “Now when I can’t stand the world as it is, I read them again.” Hugging me, she whispered, “Thank you.”
In my apartment I booted my computer and wrote the prologue for SOMETIMES BETTER TO WALK THAN FLY, the collection of the
of the columns a six-year-old kept.
With all my love,
emilyhorswill.blogspot.com
PAGE #
CONTENTS
PART 1: SETTING THE PACE
Prologue 9
My Patato Patch 14
PART II: EARTH ETHICS RISES FROM THE DUST
A Homesteader Returns 18
Back to the Dustbowl
The Last Great Op
Ever See Sheep that Couldn’t Go Out In The Rain 26
The Traveling Fields
Grass is the Forgiveness of Nature 28
A Homesteader Returns shared second place for a Western
Writers’ of America Spur Award. It was first published in The
New Land which is produced by The American Land Resource Assoc.
PART III: WEST BY EAST: THEN ONWARD AND UPWARD BY BOOT
A Message For Mosquitoes 34
IV: TREAD LIGHTLY
Sometimes Better to Walk than Fly 38
Don't Be Yellow in the Garden 41
If Only a Child Could Save It 42
All WashedUp 44
Thereau Had Answers to the Energy Problem 46
Garbage Man Hitches Up Real Horse Power 47
PART V: INTO THE WOODS
Maybe It's Time to Return to the Sod House 51
Alder is NOT a Junk Tree 54
Forests in Perpetuity? 56
The Woodcutter. 58
Wilderness Home for the Woodcutter’s Indian Boy 60
Chester, the Woodcutter’ Dog 62
Sharing the Wilderness with the Kennedy’s 64
PART VI: AND WALKING WITH FEATHERED & FOUR-LEGGED FRIENDS
Soft shoe with a Flutter 69 A New Resident on Jay Deck 72 A Chipmunk Sermon 74
"Male & Female, Pair by Pair” 75
Zoos, The Good News 77
PART VII: POLITICAL PUNDITS
The New Drug War—Let’s Take the Natural Cure 80 A Retrospective Look at the Presidency before “Read My Lips” 83
Uneasy Rider 84
The Forest Service on "Wilderness" Before" Wilderness" Became
"Old Growth” 86
U. S. Cures Unemployment Problem—For Japan 89
Educate the People & Inform Them “Thomas Jefferson 91
Immoral Minority 94
Chicken? Veggies? 96
PART VIII: MORE RAMBLING--SOMETIMES SIDEWAYS,
SOMETIMES IN SOMERSAULTS
A Winter Wonderland 99
Light at the End of the Tunnel 101
Out of the Frying Pan 103
PART 1X: AND SOMETIMES RAMBLING BACKWARD
Levi's Date Back To Chris Columbus 105
Secret Ingredient was Indigo 107
Clean Living Indian Style 111
First Colonists Were B.C's Haidas 113
PART X: EARTH'S ETHICS AGAIN
The Miracle Paper Plant 120
The Ditch 122
The Good News is the Crusade 126
Lucky Break for Sunnybank 129
Oregon’s First Farm 134
Dayville Cares 138
Dayville Keeps Trying 142
PART XI: THE CONTEMPLATIONS Of A HIKER WHO SITS
A LOT--AND SOMETIMES SNOOZES.
Child Birth, Nature's Way, From Experience 142
Granny and the Skeptical Salesman 145
Wilderness Remembered 148
PART XII: FROM AN OUTDOOR WRITER'S JOURNAL
Maybe a Trip into the "Outback" Would Finish
Chapter 150
This Friend Takes a Beating and Keeps Right on Chugging151
PART I: Setting the Pace
Prologue
My Potato Patch
PROLOGUE
Seventy-two years ago, I saw the first article published under my byline. I was 13. Subsequently, 2,500 words a week, including a column called TREAD LIGHTLY, appeared in print. Twenty-five earned awards. Two hundred became this little book.
Readers have asked, “How did you come to write with such passion about conservation years before the existence of the term” Global Warming?”
My answer is that that’s the wrong question. The right one is, “Why didn’t you”? My people’s propensity for greed and destruction of our natural areas was obvious long before I arrived. But perhaps a reminder is in order.
For eons, the World rested under a melting blanket of ice. As the blanket melted, the First People shared the land. Honoring their role as caretakers of this gift from their Maker, they left little trace of their footsteps. Then my forefathers, and likely yours, came from the sea and with shame I admit that mine had no thought of either caring or sharing. They wanted ownership any way they could get it.
They survived their first winter on the Native’s largess. So did their friends, who followed them by millions. With guns against bows and arrows, they murdered the residents: the remnants they drove onto The Great Plains, better known then as The Great American Desert, a vast grassland, of scorching sun, whipping winds and frozen winters —and little rain. The Newcomers came in such numbers that within hundred years they, again, ran out of land.
In the 1870s the new leaders, beseeched by masses of landless immigrants, sent J. Wesley Powell, scientist, botanist, and geologist into the Great American Desert to determine if it was worth taking from The Natives. Shortly, Powell verified that great herds of buffalo fattened on the grass seed, that rivers teemed with fish and waterfowl and that great migrations of birds hid the sun for weeks on end. But his report warned, “Plow this land and in 60 years it will be a wasteland, a desert of blowing dust.
However, under pressure from railroads and land agents who planned to benefit, the government hid the Powell Report. In 1889, the Homestead Act offered ownership to anyone who plowed ALL of it in 5 years!
Fifty-eight years later, on a fall day in 1934, we filled up on the last of the oatmeal and joined the barefoot, ragged hordes leaving the Dustbowl. With our few possessions tied to the running board or fastened on top of the battered Ford, we left with the first hint of sun seeping through the sky thick with floating dirt.
With a few drops of rain the air we breathed would be mud. At the wheel, my Father peered into the murk guided by fence posts all but the tops buried under the blowing drifts of sand. My two little brothers, too young to understand, too young to connect this with the grocery store carrot their eyes longed for, bounced with anticipation as the car lurched into motion. I, having dealt with the carrot scene and the little hands reaching, listened to them, dry-eyed, my supply of tears exhausted.
Bodies of animals spattered across the prairie testified that this land could no longer support life. Occasional stands of thistles grew from cracked land. The cracks resembled a giant copy of the tic, tac toes game children play with. I could remember when wild flowers had stretched from horizon to horizon perfuming the air. Now four-year- old Earl and seven-year-old, Cal used thumb and finger to their noses to close out the stench of rotting flesh.
As the sun hung overhead, mom divided the last can of beans among the 3 of us. It took the edge off our hunger, but Mom reminded us that tonight we would fill up on venison stew with friends who had preceded us to the Northern Minnesota swamps. There, on land largely devoid of the once great forests, lakes and bogs still teemed with fish and strawberries and deer for those tough enough to brave the droves of mosquitoes and the long 50 below winters and the short steaming hot summers.
My father’s foot on the brake signaled a stop. I put the rag in his hand and watched him scrape the dust and bugs from the windshield and reactivate the quivering wipers. I put the rag under the rug where Dad could reach it and dozed.
My mother’s voice woke me. “If you are going to open the door, shut it behind you fast, unless you want carry several pounds North Dakota dust in your quilt as a memento,” she said. I opened both eyes. We were parked beside a statue. Full-sized and very much alone, he stood dressed, traditionally, in fringed buckskin, one long finger pointing down at the plowed ground. The caption beneath stated, “Wrong side up” —which it certainly was.
The statue was new to the little kids, but I had seen it before. As it had then, it left me in what Dad called my deep funk mode, which, he said, was bound to lead to my “doing something about it mode,” at which point, to keep me out of trouble, I must be locked in the barn until I recovered. That usually got a laugh, but this time I just sat back on all our quilts deep in dreaming up something to do about it. But what? I sat trying to dredge a miracle out of nothing. I must have sat and dreamed for hours.
When I returned, mother was saying, “Wouldn’t you know? That’s the only gas pump in Jamestown and it’s on top of a hill. We sat at the bottom of it, in the ancient overloaded car incapable of reaching the gas. The obvious answer was to lighten the load. The cook stove would probably do it, but we didn’t have the muscle. Then my miracle, roared up in a truck. (Never discount a miracle, even if it is one you didn’t ask for). The truck’s door opened and a man’s bass boomed. “Need a push, folks. Come on Jack, let’s do our Boy Scout.” Two husky young men leaped to the ground. The car rolled up the hill as if it were a toy. Pointing at a pump halfway up, my mother said, “Wouldn’t you know? It’s 11 cents a gallon where we can’t stop and they want 12 at the top. “
“Never mind Min.” I got enough to get to the Demises. Pulling out a wallet, Dad counted pennies then turned his pockets inside out.
As we drove on signs directed us to the North Dakota—Minnesota border and the Red River and the bridge spanning it. We came to it from a curve, suddenly. Far out at the half-way point, a car looked toy-size. We inched onto it. Looking down at water below made me dizzy. My father’s hand helped me out. Clinging to the rail, I looked down and down. Then I saw that it flowed thick like chocolate pudding. My father’s voice explained, “That’s Canada’s wheat fields heading for the ocean to be salted down for ever.” No plant I knew grew in salt, certainly not wheat. To overcome the nausea, I picked my brain for the image of a forest.
I could barely remember the pre-Dustbowl’s cottonwoods that had once lined the prairie creeks. I had seen only pictures of a perpetually green tree with needles. I tucked the image into my mind, tasting it.
But when happened I was unprepared. When the branches formed a canopy overhead I stared, bewitched. My father opened the door and invited a walk. I moved into the trees as if sleep-walking. Tottering on spindly legs, a spotted fawn sniffed my hand. Head back I looked up and up and up into the tree’s crowns. I threw my arms around a regal patriarch and fell on my knees. As we tunneled through the canopy tears rolled down my cheeks, but The International Paper Company had preceded us and shortly we exited into a fresh clear-cut and the stench, this time, of oil and gas dumped and the devastation hit me in the face. With clenched teeth I promised payback.
My opportunity came too soon. We settled in village of 300 logging families called Northome. That winter, taking advantage of the local poverty, International Paper Company paid the County pennies for the remainder of the forests, using the argument that we have all heard a thousand times: trees for jobs.
The Company argued that the biter cold winter made delivering a payroll impossible. Then during one fine spring night, owing local logging families three months salary, The “Company” sneaked south where they would destroy the hardwoods.
That winter I saw children running barefoot leaving blood in the snow with every step. I wrote it on a scrap of brown paper sack and the local gab sheet published it. The lumberjacks muttered that due to my acidic prose, they would have no jobs next winter. I pointed out that when they helped destroy the forests they destroyed their jobs. I was on my way and I never turned back.
On the whole Sometimes Better to Walk Than Fly is the story of the development of an environmentalist and one person’s effort
to elicit tender loving care for the lovely places that we were given.
It starts in a potato patch 83 years ago.
Part I: MY POTATO PATCH
When I was a child on Cherry Creek, I had a shelf in my closet that was my very own. For a year or two an assortment of toads, frogs, grasshoppers and battered birds lived there, and for a while a seven-foot bull snake. But he came after my potato patch.
He was destined to be my guest the day Mother insisted on rechanneling my interests. Mother announced her intent at breakfast. "I declare," she said to my Father. "It's time our daughter got rid of those hopping, crawling creatures in her room. I've about had it. Those things belong outside."
"Maybe she would like to have her own garden," Dad answered, smiling at me. "There are a lot of bugs and birds in a garden patch."
When Dad finished his coffee, he found a seed catalog to illustrate the little piles of seeds Mother bought. Father seemed fascinated. Dutifully, I looked as he turned the pages and I listened with one ear. Then a picture of a yellowish-brown bug captured my attention. Its beetle-shaped shell had black stripes running from top to bottom. Under the picture were the words, "Potato Bug," and a paragraph that read, "Before the white settlers plowed all the ground, this bug was a 'good citizen.' He fed on sand burrs, a wild cousin to the potato."
I looked back at the picture. The stripes were thin, shiny threads, like spider webbing except they were black. I counted them. There were l0. He was beautiful. I had never had any potato bugs, probably because there weren't many sand burrs left that weren't plowed under.
"Daddy, can I have a potato patch?" I asked.
The planting was disappointing. Much of the preparation was geared to methods of discouraging potato bugs. It appeared unlikely that anything of interest would come of this garden, so I turned my back on potatoes and potato bugs and started kicking a rock. It rolled around the corner of the milk shed, and there I saw this big bull snake moving slowly toward me. The way he propelled himself enchanted me. Things were looking up. The snake seemed to waggle, but I decided he moved in a straight line. We stopped to examine each other. Our interest was mutual. His tongue came out and darted to and fro, then he waggled left in a friendly gesture to give me the right-of-way. He was traveling toward the chicken coop, and I followed.
We both lived outside most of that summer, but I fed him. He liked eggs best. I swiped big ones from the geese. Watching him prepare a goose egg for his stomach was a treat. He would slither right up to my hand and swallow my offering whole with a swoosh: it made a bump a few inches back of his head.
Next, he wiggled to the nearest tree and wrapped all seven feet around the trunk, pulling his coils tighter and tighter until the egg squashed. I could almost see it splash. It made a noise like a burp. My snake liked mice, too, so I called him Tabby.
When the first snow fell, we moved inside. I cut one end out of a cardboard box to give my guest privacy, and he was little trouble. In cold weather he didn't move much. When he did, he used the leg that held up one end of the shelf, which was only couple of feet from the floor, for a staircase to his bedroom.
Tabby didn't make any noise, and I was so good about cleaning my room that year that Mother didn't notice my roommate for some time. When she did she marched, straight-backed, out to the barn to find Dad. I explained to Dad that Tabby didn't hop and he wasn't crawling much. Then, too, he ate mice and bugs, and I was saving him for the garden in the spring. For a minute, I thought Dad was mad. He got all red and choked, but they let me keep Tabby.
I can't remember how my potato patch did.
PART IV: Sometimes Better to Walk Than Fly
The crumbling logging roads scarring the steep sides of the mountain wilderness were abandoned. Today so was the trail. Farther up, it disappeared into dense, second growth fir forest. Ahead, it twisted through tall bunch grass and flaming fireweed.
I glanced at the new emblem on the jacket I carried and read, "OUTDOOR WRITERS' OF AMERICA" with satisfaction. I picked up my daypack and turned my back on the disappearing auto, gloating at the success of my conspiracy to be alone with the mountain.
Shortly, I stopped to watch a humming bird dive-bombing a bee's bottom up-ended in a flower.
Then, I saw the six black ants, marching in solid no-nonsense formation under their heavy load of twig.
In the midst of all this activity, I began to feel sleepy.
For me, a meadow had always acted as an opiate. It had been a mistake to stop, but I'd stretch out for just a moment.
The bee buzzed--louder and louder--became a roar. My eyes popped open to look up into the underside of a mammoth helicopter. It was settling down right on top of me. I jumped up shouting, but the roar obliterated all else. The air pressure from the props threatened to push me back into the ground. My hat took to the air, circling upward. A notebook followed, its pages riffling like a deck of cards in the hands of a gambler.
I waved my arms. The machine hovered, then continued its descent. Leaves, dirt, pebbles, dried grass followed the hat as if sucked by a vacuum cleaner. Now, with my face level with the tips of the revolving propeller, I struggled to keep my feet against the blast. The machine touched earth, and I dived toward the cab for protection.
A door opened and a man in a khaki flight suit jumped out and ran toward a clump of bush. Then I saw the refueling tank. As he hooked up a hose, I was reminded of Farmer Brown's cornfield friend, the scarecrow.
Clothing billowed and flapped around his spare frame. In a moment, he bent all seven, reedy feet to put a mouth near my ear. One corner of the mouth twisted upward in a wry grin, as he shouted, "Name's Pat O'Reilly." His gaze slid to the patch on my jacket. "A writer? Walking around looking for a story?" I nodded. "Why walk when you can ride?" he offered. "I'll drop you in to interview my logging partner."
His eyes laughed, daring me, as he jerked a thumb at the wilderness of trees and opened the cab door. The roar deafened. The forest bent under the onslaught as we hung above it. O'Reilly shouted. "Nice boy, Jim, but he's lower than a snake's under drawers today. Needs company."
He leaned over a radio. I heard, "...bringing you...remember, I promised. Boss? Hell, he's out on the Peninsula." The radio crackled back, but I missed the return message. The lanky pilot's shoulders shook with mirth. "Sure, blonde. YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!"
I glanced at my reflection in the panel—at auburn braids with threads of grey. What fun! Then, I looked down at twenty square miles of trees and panicked. Was I going down into that on that logging hook? How would I find anyone in that jungle if I did? But the machine was slipping through an opening. Too late to change my mind.
We slipped closer and closer to a steep shelf of rock— hovered at three feet. O'Reilly pointed over the edge. "Watch where I pick up the logs." He opened the door. I jumped. With a roar and a shower of debris, he was gone.
As he disappeared, the marrow in my leg bones melted. Still, my new patch suggested I was a journalist stalking a story. I wavered between pride and weak knees, then sat down to reconnoiter. A ride in a helicopter was one thing, but to be picked off this precarious ledge...
Then I saw the grasshopper the Sioux Indians had called "friend." An Indian scout consulted with this little, green, wingless one, and the grasshopper pointed to buffalo. I consulted. The grasshopper zipped from the top of his grass tree to the ground.
But I had just come down!
On the other hand, perhaps I was still too high. I glanced again at the patch and made my decision. A short distance down the mountainside the helicopter was lifting a log, and there a young logger had a walkie-talkie.
As I slid off the ledge and scrambled through the brush, I composed my message.
"Thanks for the lift, O'Reilly. However, you won't get into trouble if I walk back, and I'll enjoy the ramble."
I would.
Emily
SOMETIMES BETTER TO WALK THAN FLY
Selections from my weekly column
by
Emily Ungerecht Horswill
©2007 Emily Ungerecht Horswill
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any means without the author’s permission.
Book Design: Thomas Smith
Cover photo: Hikers Trek through the Greenway. (Credit Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust)
Other books by Emily Ungerecht Horswill
FOLLOW THE HAWK : the first of historical sequels
In the Spring of 1884, due to an influenza epidemic, Jim buries his family and neighbors, the community who had tithed future funds to support his dream to attend Concordia Seminary to complete the education begun in his Uncle’s rectory. He the choir soloist, plays organ, fills-in for choir master, manages pretty well with Latin, outlines Uncle Dodd’s sermons, even parses a bit of Virgil. Now he goes West. On The Swing B Ranch, he is ”That kid who can’t do nothin’ but read.”
MONTANA WINDS:Sequel to Follow the Hawk
An adventure story in which Jim leads his community to financial success rooted in sustainability.
TO
ZOLA ROSS WHO TAUGHT ME HOW TO WRITE A BOOK
AND FOR
Annette, my wonderful, precious daughter who, in spite of her handicap and her life of pain, has, for 60 years, been my guiding spirit and my inspiration
TO HER READERS:
I wrote my first story with charcoal on the sides of a wagon. I was 5 years old. I saw the first one in print 73 years ago.
In 1972 I was one of many who joined Congressman Mike Lowry in an effort to save some of the Nation’s still unspoiled natural areas, In the effort, Mike, Congressman from Washington State, read a letter I wrote to members of Congress. As a result, he led a group of U. S Congressmen to the top of Bear Top Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park and the entire Cedar River Watershed, in which Bear Top is merely a grain of sand, was designated as wilderness.
During this activity, I meet Stewart Udall, then Secretary of the Interior, one of the few of leaders who, had his boots pointed firmly on the only path from which we could hope to leave a livable planet in our wake. Next, to the amusement of other literary folk involved, a team of judges for The Rocky Mountain Outdoor Writers Conference Contest gave my submission first place and his second.
We didn’t expect Stewart at the awards banquet. it being a long jump from The Oval Office to Park City, Utah. But, with the smell of steak, the door banged against the wall, and Stewart, strode in followed by three photographers. “Where is this woman who writes so much better than I do?” he demanded. Looking down at me from his 6 foot plus viewpoint in a voice that matched, he announced “Peanut size, too. Human man can’t stand it: but she’s sitting at the wrong table.” Cameras clicking, he plucked me from my chair; and, loudly lamenting his frustration with the situation, he studied and rejected table after table as we toured the room. At the last table, he rubbed his hands and smiled. Ignoring the “Reserved for” sign, he gestured for those diners to move over, which they did among waves of laughter. As the maitre de brought chairs, he introduced me to the editors and publishers at his chosen table. Minutes later, as he pushed his chair back, he whispered in my ear, “Due back in DC in the morning. Hope this does it for you, kid.” He crossed a continent twice to do that charade for me!!
The result was a weekly column published as TREAD LIGHTLY which in turn begat this book. It happened thus:
Three years ago, I heard the thud of footsteps. A voice called, “Wait. I know who you are!” Panting, she caught up and explained, “When I was 6 years old and my brother was 12, we spent Sunday morning sprawled on his bed reading your column. Pulling one from her pocket, she said, “Now when I can’t stand the world as it is, I read them again.” Hugging me, she whispered, “Thank you.”
In my apartment I booted my computer and wrote the prologue for SOMETIMES BETTER TO WALK THAN FLY, the collection of the
of the columns a six-year-old kept.
With all my love,
emilyhorswill.blogspot.com
PAGE #
CONTENTS
PART 1: SETTING THE PACE
Prologue 9
My Patato Patch 14
PART II: EARTH ETHICS RISES FROM THE DUST
A Homesteader Returns 18
Back to the Dustbowl
The Last Great Op
Ever See Sheep that Couldn’t Go Out In The Rain 26
The Traveling Fields
Grass is the Forgiveness of Nature 28
A Homesteader Returns shared second place for a Western
Writers’ of America Spur Award. It was first published in The
New Land which is produced by The American Land Resource Assoc.
PART III: WEST BY EAST: THEN ONWARD AND UPWARD BY BOOT
A Message For Mosquitoes 34
IV: TREAD LIGHTLY
Sometimes Better to Walk than Fly 38
Don't Be Yellow in the Garden 41
If Only a Child Could Save It 42
All WashedUp 44
Thereau Had Answers to the Energy Problem 46
Garbage Man Hitches Up Real Horse Power 47
PART V: INTO THE WOODS
Maybe It's Time to Return to the Sod House 51
Alder is NOT a Junk Tree 54
Forests in Perpetuity? 56
The Woodcutter. 58
Wilderness Home for the Woodcutter’s Indian Boy 60
Chester, the Woodcutter’ Dog 62
Sharing the Wilderness with the Kennedy’s 64
PART VI: AND WALKING WITH FEATHERED & FOUR-LEGGED FRIENDS
Soft shoe with a Flutter 69 A New Resident on Jay Deck 72 A Chipmunk Sermon 74
"Male & Female, Pair by Pair” 75
Zoos, The Good News 77
PART VII: POLITICAL PUNDITS
The New Drug War—Let’s Take the Natural Cure 80 A Retrospective Look at the Presidency before “Read My Lips” 83
Uneasy Rider 84
The Forest Service on "Wilderness" Before" Wilderness" Became
"Old Growth” 86
U. S. Cures Unemployment Problem—For Japan 89
Educate the People & Inform Them “Thomas Jefferson 91
Immoral Minority 94
Chicken? Veggies? 96
PART VIII: MORE RAMBLING--SOMETIMES SIDEWAYS,
SOMETIMES IN SOMERSAULTS
A Winter Wonderland 99
Light at the End of the Tunnel 101
Out of the Frying Pan 103
PART 1X: AND SOMETIMES RAMBLING BACKWARD
Levi's Date Back To Chris Columbus 105
Secret Ingredient was Indigo 107
Clean Living Indian Style 111
First Colonists Were B.C's Haidas 113
PART X: EARTH'S ETHICS AGAIN
The Miracle Paper Plant 120
The Ditch 122
The Good News is the Crusade 126
Lucky Break for Sunnybank 129
Oregon’s First Farm 134
Dayville Cares 138
Dayville Keeps Trying 142
PART XI: THE CONTEMPLATIONS Of A HIKER WHO SITS
A LOT--AND SOMETIMES SNOOZES.
Child Birth, Nature's Way, From Experience 142
Granny and the Skeptical Salesman 145
Wilderness Remembered 148
PART XII: FROM AN OUTDOOR WRITER'S JOURNAL
Maybe a Trip into the "Outback" Would Finish
Chapter 150
This Friend Takes a Beating and Keeps Right on Chugging151
PART I: Setting the Pace
Prologue
My Potato Patch
PROLOGUE
Seventy-two years ago, I saw the first article published under my byline. I was 13. Subsequently, 2,500 words a week, including a column called TREAD LIGHTLY, appeared in print. Twenty-five earned awards. Two hundred became this little book.
Readers have asked, “How did you come to write with such passion about conservation years before the existence of the term” Global Warming?”
My answer is that that’s the wrong question. The right one is, “Why didn’t you”? My people’s propensity for greed and destruction of our natural areas was obvious long before I arrived. But perhaps a reminder is in order.
For eons, the World rested under a melting blanket of ice. As the blanket melted, the First People shared the land. Honoring their role as caretakers of this gift from their Maker, they left little trace of their footsteps. Then my forefathers, and likely yours, came from the sea and with shame I admit that mine had no thought of either caring or sharing. They wanted ownership any way they could get it.
They survived their first winter on the Native’s largess. So did their friends, who followed them by millions. With guns against bows and arrows, they murdered the residents: the remnants they drove onto The Great Plains, better known then as The Great American Desert, a vast grassland, of scorching sun, whipping winds and frozen winters —and little rain. The Newcomers came in such numbers that within hundred years they, again, ran out of land.
In the 1870s the new leaders, beseeched by masses of landless immigrants, sent J. Wesley Powell, scientist, botanist, and geologist into the Great American Desert to determine if it was worth taking from The Natives. Shortly, Powell verified that great herds of buffalo fattened on the grass seed, that rivers teemed with fish and waterfowl and that great migrations of birds hid the sun for weeks on end. But his report warned, “Plow this land and in 60 years it will be a wasteland, a desert of blowing dust.
However, under pressure from railroads and land agents who planned to benefit, the government hid the Powell Report. In 1889, the Homestead Act offered ownership to anyone who plowed ALL of it in 5 years!
Fifty-eight years later, on a fall day in 1934, we filled up on the last of the oatmeal and joined the barefoot, ragged hordes leaving the Dustbowl. With our few possessions tied to the running board or fastened on top of the battered Ford, we left with the first hint of sun seeping through the sky thick with floating dirt.
With a few drops of rain the air we breathed would be mud. At the wheel, my Father peered into the murk guided by fence posts all but the tops buried under the blowing drifts of sand. My two little brothers, too young to understand, too young to connect this with the grocery store carrot their eyes longed for, bounced with anticipation as the car lurched into motion. I, having dealt with the carrot scene and the little hands reaching, listened to them, dry-eyed, my supply of tears exhausted.
Bodies of animals spattered across the prairie testified that this land could no longer support life. Occasional stands of thistles grew from cracked land. The cracks resembled a giant copy of the tic, tac toes game children play with. I could remember when wild flowers had stretched from horizon to horizon perfuming the air. Now four-year- old Earl and seven-year-old, Cal used thumb and finger to their noses to close out the stench of rotting flesh.
As the sun hung overhead, mom divided the last can of beans among the 3 of us. It took the edge off our hunger, but Mom reminded us that tonight we would fill up on venison stew with friends who had preceded us to the Northern Minnesota swamps. There, on land largely devoid of the once great forests, lakes and bogs still teemed with fish and strawberries and deer for those tough enough to brave the droves of mosquitoes and the long 50 below winters and the short steaming hot summers.
My father’s foot on the brake signaled a stop. I put the rag in his hand and watched him scrape the dust and bugs from the windshield and reactivate the quivering wipers. I put the rag under the rug where Dad could reach it and dozed.
My mother’s voice woke me. “If you are going to open the door, shut it behind you fast, unless you want carry several pounds North Dakota dust in your quilt as a memento,” she said. I opened both eyes. We were parked beside a statue. Full-sized and very much alone, he stood dressed, traditionally, in fringed buckskin, one long finger pointing down at the plowed ground. The caption beneath stated, “Wrong side up” —which it certainly was.
The statue was new to the little kids, but I had seen it before. As it had then, it left me in what Dad called my deep funk mode, which, he said, was bound to lead to my “doing something about it mode,” at which point, to keep me out of trouble, I must be locked in the barn until I recovered. That usually got a laugh, but this time I just sat back on all our quilts deep in dreaming up something to do about it. But what? I sat trying to dredge a miracle out of nothing. I must have sat and dreamed for hours.
When I returned, mother was saying, “Wouldn’t you know? That’s the only gas pump in Jamestown and it’s on top of a hill. We sat at the bottom of it, in the ancient overloaded car incapable of reaching the gas. The obvious answer was to lighten the load. The cook stove would probably do it, but we didn’t have the muscle. Then my miracle, roared up in a truck. (Never discount a miracle, even if it is one you didn’t ask for). The truck’s door opened and a man’s bass boomed. “Need a push, folks. Come on Jack, let’s do our Boy Scout.” Two husky young men leaped to the ground. The car rolled up the hill as if it were a toy. Pointing at a pump halfway up, my mother said, “Wouldn’t you know? It’s 11 cents a gallon where we can’t stop and they want 12 at the top. “
“Never mind Min.” I got enough to get to the Demises. Pulling out a wallet, Dad counted pennies then turned his pockets inside out.
As we drove on signs directed us to the North Dakota—Minnesota border and the Red River and the bridge spanning it. We came to it from a curve, suddenly. Far out at the half-way point, a car looked toy-size. We inched onto it. Looking down at water below made me dizzy. My father’s hand helped me out. Clinging to the rail, I looked down and down. Then I saw that it flowed thick like chocolate pudding. My father’s voice explained, “That’s Canada’s wheat fields heading for the ocean to be salted down for ever.” No plant I knew grew in salt, certainly not wheat. To overcome the nausea, I picked my brain for the image of a forest.
I could barely remember the pre-Dustbowl’s cottonwoods that had once lined the prairie creeks. I had seen only pictures of a perpetually green tree with needles. I tucked the image into my mind, tasting it.
But when happened I was unprepared. When the branches formed a canopy overhead I stared, bewitched. My father opened the door and invited a walk. I moved into the trees as if sleep-walking. Tottering on spindly legs, a spotted fawn sniffed my hand. Head back I looked up and up and up into the tree’s crowns. I threw my arms around a regal patriarch and fell on my knees. As we tunneled through the canopy tears rolled down my cheeks, but The International Paper Company had preceded us and shortly we exited into a fresh clear-cut and the stench, this time, of oil and gas dumped and the devastation hit me in the face. With clenched teeth I promised payback.
My opportunity came too soon. We settled in village of 300 logging families called Northome. That winter, taking advantage of the local poverty, International Paper Company paid the County pennies for the remainder of the forests, using the argument that we have all heard a thousand times: trees for jobs.
The Company argued that the biter cold winter made delivering a payroll impossible. Then during one fine spring night, owing local logging families three months salary, The “Company” sneaked south where they would destroy the hardwoods.
That winter I saw children running barefoot leaving blood in the snow with every step. I wrote it on a scrap of brown paper sack and the local gab sheet published it. The lumberjacks muttered that due to my acidic prose, they would have no jobs next winter. I pointed out that when they helped destroy the forests they destroyed their jobs. I was on my way and I never turned back.
On the whole Sometimes Better to Walk Than Fly is the story of the development of an environmentalist and one person’s effort
to elicit tender loving care for the lovely places that we were given.
It starts in a potato patch 83 years ago.
Part I: MY POTATO PATCH
When I was a child on Cherry Creek, I had a shelf in my closet that was my very own. For a year or two an assortment of toads, frogs, grasshoppers and battered birds lived there, and for a while a seven-foot bull snake. But he came after my potato patch.
He was destined to be my guest the day Mother insisted on rechanneling my interests. Mother announced her intent at breakfast. "I declare," she said to my Father. "It's time our daughter got rid of those hopping, crawling creatures in her room. I've about had it. Those things belong outside."
"Maybe she would like to have her own garden," Dad answered, smiling at me. "There are a lot of bugs and birds in a garden patch."
When Dad finished his coffee, he found a seed catalog to illustrate the little piles of seeds Mother bought. Father seemed fascinated. Dutifully, I looked as he turned the pages and I listened with one ear. Then a picture of a yellowish-brown bug captured my attention. Its beetle-shaped shell had black stripes running from top to bottom. Under the picture were the words, "Potato Bug," and a paragraph that read, "Before the white settlers plowed all the ground, this bug was a 'good citizen.' He fed on sand burrs, a wild cousin to the potato."
I looked back at the picture. The stripes were thin, shiny threads, like spider webbing except they were black. I counted them. There were l0. He was beautiful. I had never had any potato bugs, probably because there weren't many sand burrs left that weren't plowed under.
"Daddy, can I have a potato patch?" I asked.
The planting was disappointing. Much of the preparation was geared to methods of discouraging potato bugs. It appeared unlikely that anything of interest would come of this garden, so I turned my back on potatoes and potato bugs and started kicking a rock. It rolled around the corner of the milk shed, and there I saw this big bull snake moving slowly toward me. The way he propelled himself enchanted me. Things were looking up. The snake seemed to waggle, but I decided he moved in a straight line. We stopped to examine each other. Our interest was mutual. His tongue came out and darted to and fro, then he waggled left in a friendly gesture to give me the right-of-way. He was traveling toward the chicken coop, and I followed.
We both lived outside most of that summer, but I fed him. He liked eggs best. I swiped big ones from the geese. Watching him prepare a goose egg for his stomach was a treat. He would slither right up to my hand and swallow my offering whole with a swoosh: it made a bump a few inches back of his head.
Next, he wiggled to the nearest tree and wrapped all seven feet around the trunk, pulling his coils tighter and tighter until the egg squashed. I could almost see it splash. It made a noise like a burp. My snake liked mice, too, so I called him Tabby.
When the first snow fell, we moved inside. I cut one end out of a cardboard box to give my guest privacy, and he was little trouble. In cold weather he didn't move much. When he did, he used the leg that held up one end of the shelf, which was only couple of feet from the floor, for a staircase to his bedroom.
Tabby didn't make any noise, and I was so good about cleaning my room that year that Mother didn't notice my roommate for some time. When she did she marched, straight-backed, out to the barn to find Dad. I explained to Dad that Tabby didn't hop and he wasn't crawling much. Then, too, he ate mice and bugs, and I was saving him for the garden in the spring. For a minute, I thought Dad was mad. He got all red and choked, but they let me keep Tabby.
I can't remember how my potato patch did.
PART IV: Sometimes Better to Walk Than Fly
The crumbling logging roads scarring the steep sides of the mountain wilderness were abandoned. Today so was the trail. Farther up, it disappeared into dense, second growth fir forest. Ahead, it twisted through tall bunch grass and flaming fireweed.
I glanced at the new emblem on the jacket I carried and read, "OUTDOOR WRITERS' OF AMERICA" with satisfaction. I picked up my daypack and turned my back on the disappearing auto, gloating at the success of my conspiracy to be alone with the mountain.
Shortly, I stopped to watch a humming bird dive-bombing a bee's bottom up-ended in a flower.
Then, I saw the six black ants, marching in solid no-nonsense formation under their heavy load of twig.
In the midst of all this activity, I began to feel sleepy.
For me, a meadow had always acted as an opiate. It had been a mistake to stop, but I'd stretch out for just a moment.
The bee buzzed--louder and louder--became a roar. My eyes popped open to look up into the underside of a mammoth helicopter. It was settling down right on top of me. I jumped up shouting, but the roar obliterated all else. The air pressure from the props threatened to push me back into the ground. My hat took to the air, circling upward. A notebook followed, its pages riffling like a deck of cards in the hands of a gambler.
I waved my arms. The machine hovered, then continued its descent. Leaves, dirt, pebbles, dried grass followed the hat as if sucked by a vacuum cleaner. Now, with my face level with the tips of the revolving propeller, I struggled to keep my feet against the blast. The machine touched earth, and I dived toward the cab for protection.
A door opened and a man in a khaki flight suit jumped out and ran toward a clump of bush. Then I saw the refueling tank. As he hooked up a hose, I was reminded of Farmer Brown's cornfield friend, the scarecrow.
Clothing billowed and flapped around his spare frame. In a moment, he bent all seven, reedy feet to put a mouth near my ear. One corner of the mouth twisted upward in a wry grin, as he shouted, "Name's Pat O'Reilly." His gaze slid to the patch on my jacket. "A writer? Walking around looking for a story?" I nodded. "Why walk when you can ride?" he offered. "I'll drop you in to interview my logging partner."
His eyes laughed, daring me, as he jerked a thumb at the wilderness of trees and opened the cab door. The roar deafened. The forest bent under the onslaught as we hung above it. O'Reilly shouted. "Nice boy, Jim, but he's lower than a snake's under drawers today. Needs company."
He leaned over a radio. I heard, "...bringing you...remember, I promised. Boss? Hell, he's out on the Peninsula." The radio crackled back, but I missed the return message. The lanky pilot's shoulders shook with mirth. "Sure, blonde. YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!"
I glanced at my reflection in the panel—at auburn braids with threads of grey. What fun! Then, I looked down at twenty square miles of trees and panicked. Was I going down into that on that logging hook? How would I find anyone in that jungle if I did? But the machine was slipping through an opening. Too late to change my mind.
We slipped closer and closer to a steep shelf of rock— hovered at three feet. O'Reilly pointed over the edge. "Watch where I pick up the logs." He opened the door. I jumped. With a roar and a shower of debris, he was gone.
As he disappeared, the marrow in my leg bones melted. Still, my new patch suggested I was a journalist stalking a story. I wavered between pride and weak knees, then sat down to reconnoiter. A ride in a helicopter was one thing, but to be picked off this precarious ledge...
Then I saw the grasshopper the Sioux Indians had called "friend." An Indian scout consulted with this little, green, wingless one, and the grasshopper pointed to buffalo. I consulted. The grasshopper zipped from the top of his grass tree to the ground.
But I had just come down!
On the other hand, perhaps I was still too high. I glanced again at the patch and made my decision. A short distance down the mountainside the helicopter was lifting a log, and there a young logger had a walkie-talkie.
As I slid off the ledge and scrambled through the brush, I composed my message.
"Thanks for the lift, O'Reilly. However, you won't get into trouble if I walk back, and I'll enjoy the ramble."
I would.
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