unwanted knowledge. “A butte is taller than it is wide, whereas a mesa, like this one, is wider than it is tall.”
“What’s Devil’s Tower?”
I thought about it. “That’d be a butte.”
He looked puzzled. “Then why did they call this Twentymile Butte?”
“With respect to all the knowledge that our frontier forefathers carried, a steadfast understanding of geological terms may not have been a strong suit.”
He nodded, and we listened to the wind. “You ever been up here before?”
I kept my eyes on the edge of the world, which was to the south. With the vastness of the plateau, it was difficult to tell if we were looking at the edge, but I had my suspicions. “Once or twice.”
“When?”
I glanced down at the top of his hat, thankful for a view that didn’t pull at the corners of my eyes, especially the sore one. “When I was about your age.”
He looked up at me with the stampede strings still in his mouth and continued to pet Dog, who now sat on his foot. “Really?”
“Yep.”
He looked around. “Is it the same?”
“No.” I shrugged back at the dirt path we’d just driven on. “There weren’t any roads, and the only way up was a horse trail that they must’ve built this road over.”
“Were you hunting Indians?”
I smiled down at the half-Cheyenne boy. “Nope, as a matter of fact it was Indians who brought me up here.”
I figured I’d finally hit upon a subject that truly interested him, since he spit out the stampede strings, and looked up at me. “Cheyenne?”
“Yep.”
“I’m half Cheyenne.”
“I know.”
He now turned toward me fully, forcing Dog to reseat himself. “My father was Cheyenne.”
“Was?”
“He’s dead.” I nodded, and his next statement was as if we were discussing the difference between buttes and mesas. “He got run over by a train.”
I stopped nodding. “I’m sorry.”
He stood there for a while without moving. “Why do people say that?” He took as deep a breath as his young lungs would allow and sighed. “It’s not like I think they drove the train.”
“Well… maybe they’re just sorry for your loss.”
He nudged Dog and walked past me to the edge of the road. “He lived in Chicago with my mom, that’s where I was born.” He took his frustration out on a few rocks with the toes of his scuffed boots, his hands stuffed tight in his jeans as if he didn’t trust them. “He was a construction worker; he built big buildings and bridges.” I nodded, even though he still wasn’t looking at me, and patted my leg for Dog to come over. “My mom was mad at him because he took me up on one of the bridges he was working on one night. He carried me up on the girders and stood with me over the water, and it was really far down.”
Dog sat on my foot, and we both looked at the boy. “The water?”
“Yeah and you could see the reflections in the river from all the lit up windows ’cause it was nighttime.” He turned to look at us. “We flew that night.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I mean, we didn’t really except for maybe one second, but he held me out over the water and told me to not be afraid because even if he dropped me I’d just fly.” He kept looking me in the face, the way only children can without becoming self-conscious. “I closed my eyes for just a second when he held me out there-and I think I really flew, for just a second. Really.” His dark eyes seemed remarkably familiar for just a moment. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
I laughed. “No, I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“You aren’t going to tell my mom about me flying, are you? ’Cause she doesn’t know about that part.”
“No, I won’t tell her.”
He continued to study me. “Why’d you laugh?”
It was a time for truth telling and with children, if you didn’t make the reach, they might learn to stop asking. “I have dreams like that.”
He smiled back at me, and something passed between us, something old and powerful.
Hershel approached from around the truck, placing his palms at the small of his back and stretching. “Did you fellas know this is the biggest butte in Wyoming?”
Benjamin, Dog, and I continued to look at each other and we smiled, but none of us said anything.
October 30, 4:30 P.M.
We drove the truck as far as the first high shelves of rock that rose above the plateau, which created a giant series of sedimentary steps leading north. Hershel paired me off with a big bay, about seventeen hands, and watched as I tightened the belly cinch with a quick yank before the gelding could expand his lungs. Satisfied that I knew what I was doing, he assisted Benjamin in saddling the same grulla that I’d seen in front of The AR, as his dun waited patiently by the shade of the horse trailer along with Dog.
“I give you that big’un so you’d be comfortable, and so he would be, too.”
I checked the bedroll he’d provided, and the saddlebags I’d brought along. “I appreciate it.”
“Only one we got bigger is a Morgan from up in Montana, but he can get wonky when you put a saddle on him.”
The thought of a wonky draft horse on the high plateau was one my rear end was just as happy not to contemplate. “This one got a name?”
The old cowboy replied with a well-worn sentiment. “Don’t like naming things I might have to eat.”
“You got any rawhide? Some of the saddle strings on this one are broke offf a little short.” He motioned toward the rear end of the trailer, so I walked back and took some strings from a hook inside the door. Hershel had already established squatter’s rights. There was an antiquated McClellan saddle, along with an old cavalry canteen with the number 10 and the letter G stenciled onto its canvas side. It would appear that Hershel was quite the collector.
I fixed the strings on my horse’s saddle and tied my horsehide jacket to the bedroll. I found a neckerchief in the inside pocket and knotted the bandana at my neck, slipped a foot in the stirrup, and stepped up, gently flinging a leg over the bay. He took a slight counter to the left but then planted and turned to look at me, probably wondering why it was I was riding him and not vice versa. Then his long face turned south, almost as if he were looking for something in particular. I searched the horizon along with him but saw nothing and turned him along with the others.
After getting the boy saddled and seated, Hershel checked the sawbuck rigging on the packhorse and the canvas bags filled with supplies, oats, and two five-gallon containers of water, which we especially needed since there wasn’t any on the entire mesa.
Benjamin gigged his horse and yelped as it crow-hopped a little to the right and shot out about twenty feet before stopping and craning its long neck to inspect the foreign ground.
Hershel laughed and climbed aboard his own mount, where he readjusted the Henry Yellow Boy in his rifle scabbard and draped the old cavalry canteen I’d seen in the trailer off the horn of his saddle. “You know what they say about a horse bein’ only afraid of two things?”
“What’s that?”
“Things that move, and things that don’t.”
I smiled at the old joke and followed as he trailed the packhorse from a lead position. The horses fell into a walking pace with Dog going up ahead to stay with Benjamin.
There are people who prefer the spring and summer on the high plains, but I’m not one of them. My blood quickens, and I begin to sleep better when the cottonwood leaves begin their weekend turn to a varsity gold and a slight skim of frost surprisingly appears on your windshield one morning. I was glad I’d brought my jacket, and only hoped the bay, whatever his name was, didn’t notice that it was made out of horsehide.
