Queen of the Rodeo

I spent that first 4th of July in the oil patch, near Theodore Roosevelt's old haunts in those Grasslands west of Dickenson .  Many a dream had been destroyed on those high plains, to drought, cold, illness and just bad judgement.

Teddy lost his shirt in the process, though he could retreat to his father's New York salon and the prospect of fortune less variable to the smartest men in the room and the creation of his own myth it compelled. 

Not my grandfather however. One of nine boys in an immigrant  family of Norwegians, he couldnt' just step in like the favored son and command that rich Iowa soil.

Not like some privileged upstart, born of old money, in love with war and a Tweed-like character's dalliance with Marxism and the manipulation of the Proletariat for demurely selfish reasons.

It was a full moon on that night, too. Just like Teddy, as the weather changed so did I, moved by the cold and snow, yet without any prospects to enhance my personal fortune.

For my Grandfather, North Dakota's dispersal of free sections of land, unvarying in it's landscape and the promise it held for those with the endurance to achieve them became the destination.

.By day, due the vastness of its vistas, its agrarian riches resembled hues of golden sunlight and Sapphire sky well past midnight in summer. Criss-cross currents of air dispersing heat and cold operated in eternal motion that could not be staunched. Occasional rivers of fog could be seen above the coulees and creek beds and wallows,  its mingling cargoes of soils and seed and pollen and scent in dampness as though the Titan's could mold the Unseen ore of the atmosphere that once was an inland sea, wave upon wave of fiery phosphorescence in the heart of the germinating seed set adrift in an Ocean of moonlight. 

set among stars. 
wave upon wave
 Six months later I was standing beneath a 50 foot high rendition of a sky lit teepee talking to a young Lakota man.  With a wit as dry as the plains, he had a few jokes at his own expense thrown in. He described how he had lent his car to only to receive it back a week later. Yet he  remained unperturbed. I smiled at his explanations.

I was his boss, but, on that job I held no one to account. Instead I referred to them as honorable men. Assuming a standard, it was like all the other Federal jobs I'd been on before. Plus the people we worked for happened to be crooks.

Besides, this young fella ran his own show. He showed up a few days, and then he was gone.  From Pine Ridge, I think he said, near tell, maybe, the "Trail of Beers". Yet his demeanor alluded to an unspoken confidence between him and the unruly weather that swept that sandy scrub, and an enthusiast of tradition, of medicines and things, as well. 

We spoke of people we met, of places and ways, comfortable in each other's company, when I happened to mention the moon on the 4th. He looked at me quietly, then described each piece of clothing I had on that night.

Across the Big Muddy, it was a distance of some 400 miles from where we stood, and I knew he hadn't been there. I would have recognized him in an instant - his hair worn long in the native style, as well his bearing, right down to the A.I.M. patch on his jean jacket. He had that look of someone who saw in depth and distance, attentively, as though walking through an art museum, the perception that of an elder, or a mad poet.

That 4th of July was the night I wore cowboy boots and hat and gear in public. The only time, really.


 

most any other day
I'd keep my company close --

Queen of the Rodeo