Wyoming, The River, and Time
My father was fond of paraphrasing the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, saying to us kids, “You can’t dip the same foot in the same river twice.” Yet one constant of my childhood was a yearly visit to the little town where Dad grew up to see the house he was born in back in 1923, the theater where he watched Westerns in the 1930’s, and the corner Maid-Rite shop where his favorite sandwiches were still being made the exact same way (although the cost has gone up). So it’s no surprise, as I myself approached the age of fifty, that the way I wanted to celebrate my birthday was to bring my own kids back for a tour of the memory-filled place where I turned twenty.
The Lazy L & B Ranch lies about forty miles outside of Dubois, Wyoming; that’s “Doo-Boys,” not the French pronunciation. In 1973 Dubois was about as authentic a cowboy town as you could find, with covered wood-plank sidewalks along the single main street; a merry mountain stream tumbling along outside the town’s only inn; a taxidermist and a vet; and all manner of day-to-day supplies available at the general store, Welty’s.
My job at the Lazy L & B, which was about to open for business as a dude ranch, would be Program Director: playing guitar around campfires, running the lapidary shop, planning meals and activities for overnight camp-outs in the mountains, and generally making sure guests of all ages got up, got out and had a good time.
But first we had to get the ranch up to guest-level snuff.
A former working cow camp, the Lazy L & B was just a circle of old, ramshackle bunkhouses, a main building, a small tack house and some pasture land along the Wind River. The property had lain unused and unloved for at least a few decades before the minister of our church and his wife bought it as a “family camp” destination (it might have had something to do with someone’s midlife crisis). Bernard, the minister, was a dreamer with a big vocabulary and a boisterous accordion. His wife, Leota, was a gravel-voiced workhorse of a woman who’d grown up on an Iowa farm during the Great Depression. She was the one, we all knew, who would be running the show. Practical, stern and demanding, Leota expected a lot but would never ask you to do something she wouldn’t do herself. Her staff would start off as soft, suburban teenagers from the church youth group and go home, if all went well, as slightly tougher, leaner ex-ranch hands. We teens were willing to clean, repair, paint and generally revive a real fixer-upper in exchange for the occasional horseback ride and a chance to be away from home for all or part of a summer. Once the place was cleaned up and ready to roll, Leota had a few honest-to-goodness experienced Western ranch hands lined up to teach us the ropes and impress the guests.
I was hired because of my ability to play guitar, creative skills, and because I knew my way around a horse. About five years before, our family had moved to the edge of Deerfield, Illinois, to a house whose yard was up against a corral, a barn with six horses, and an adjacent alfalfa field. It wasn’t ours, but my younger sibs and I found a way to be a part of it: we helped harvest the alfalfa, fed and groomed the horses, and scooped manure year-round in exchange for riding privileges.
When Leota called and asked me to come out to the new ranch, I said absolutely. My parents said absolutely not.
She promised them that she would personally guarantee my safety. I wheedled and begged. Between us, we wore them down. They didn’t give up without a fight, though. My father, a lawyer, drew me up a last will and testament. I was nineteen and owned nothing that wouldn’t automatically go to him and Mom, or at least to my sisters and my brother. Guitar. Cello. Stereo. Pastels and paints. Manual typewriter. Of course, Dad’s ploy was to make me realize what a dangerous undertaking I was hankering for, and maybe bring me to my senses before it was too late. The signing ceremony was somber, with Dad and two neighbors as witness to my signature. As much as I didn’t want to, I kind of felt like I was sealing my doom.
But back down? Bow out? Not go on the adventure of a lifetime to the Wild West and all of its untamed, unnamed opportunities? Not this cowgirl.
So one day in May after college let out, a few of us climbed into Leota’s old station wagon and headed west to the Lazy L & B, driving straight through in 24 hours. We had a little less than three weeks to punch the place into shape before the first guests would arrive. Having ridden in the mountains of Colorado the year before, I knew that late May in Wyoming might still have a chill in the air. So in a momentary fit of wisdom and maturity I tossed in a ski jacket along with boots and jeans. This would later become my mantra when sending my own kids off on their first adventures years later. I don’t care what time of year it is: bring something warm!
When we arrived at the ranch there were no linens and only a few usable bunks, so we unrolled our sleeping bags wherever we could find something close to a working bunk. As the only girl in the group, I got my own cabin. Well, me and a family of mice. That first night, the moon rose brightly and wolves howled eerily atop nearby ridges. Surrounded by nothing but loose-fitting, weathered boards and endless miles of sagebrush, the Wind River rushing past my cabin, I remember shuddering at the thought of that last will and testament I’d signed. Darn you, Dad.
But I made it through the night. I made it through bathing only in the ice-melt of the river because Leota thought hot showers were a waste on mere staff. I survived several weeks of scrubbing down, sanding and sealing the dirtiest floors you’ve ever laid eyes on, beating the dustiest rugs and laundering tick bedding at least three times older than I was, then wrapping it in new mattress covers so no one would be the wiser. I made it through pitchforking heavy, sodden piles of old straw out of the barn and putting down fresh. I helped oil all the bits, reigns and saddles in the tack room, and woodburned each saddle rack with a horse’s name, which I got off a list from Leota.
I learned to use the ancient stove in the kitchen and how to make bread from a sticky wad of live sourdough starter that probably dated back to the last century. I saved out tin cans for the rifle range, another one of my upcoming responsibilities – a regular Annie Oakley. After it was too dark to do any meaningful work around the ranch, I poured through lapidary catalogs and ordered a tumbler, polishing sand, stone saw and inexpensive settings for the jade, tiger eye, quartz and other pretty rocks our guests would find and shape into jewelry under my supervision. I thoroughly enjoyed foraging around Welty’s General Store for supplies. But first I had to learn to drive the Lazy L & B truck up the narrow, winding path that served as a driveway from our valley to the gravel road high above. In my former life I’d been strictly an automatic girl, but now I could work a stick shift like I'd been born for it.
Nights were jaw dropping. Who knew there were that many stars in the heavens? Or that they could be bright enough to actually light your way to the outhouse without need for a flashlight…until you got inside, where you had to check for skunks, snakes and spiders. The days were beautiful, whether topped by whipped cream clouds in a cornflower sky or blanketed with ominous grey masses heavy with rain. On wet days I studied Indian sign language and symbols so I could interpret the many pictographs carved into the red rocks surrounding the ranch, and give my guests authentic Indian names; the Lazy L & B sat across the river from Shoshone and Arapaho lands. One day we drove to the reservation town of Crowheart Butte to buy some Indian blankets and furs for the main ranch house. I have never felt so very white, or so out of place.
Finally, just a few days before the first guests would arrive, Leota announced it was time to bring down the horses. The outfitters had delivered a few wrangler-grade horses not long after we arrived, up from Laramie where most ranch herds winter. We got to know them, riding the fence lines to look for repair jobs and other trouble. My horse was Bart, a long-legged bay with three white sox and a sweet nature. When preacher Bernard came out for a look-see during this pre-guest period, he’d take Bart and be gone all day, returning just in time for the dinner bell. He said he’d been out hunting prairie dogs. Leota, covered in dust and sweat from her day’s work, just gave him The Eye, which Bernard ignored. The “Lazy L” part of the ranch’s name was a joke.
The outfitters had taken the rest of the Lazy L & B herd to a big corral up in Beartrap Meadow to fatten on sweet spring grass. By this time, most of our college-age workforce had left for paying jobs, leaner and more muscled than before they came, with a few stories under their belts. A teenage cook, two teenage maids and a couple of high school boys who wanted to play Lone Ranger came in. Paul Klemp and Dickie Waitkiss were sixteen and all decked out in stiff new jeans and jean jackets, stiff new boots and stiff new Stetsons. I suppose you could blame it on the new gear, but they seemed to strut when crossing the pasture.
The next day, Leota gave Paul, Dickie and me a rope and a pair of leather work gloves each. She put me in charge of the expedition; it rankled the boys to have to listen to a girl. Dickie was on a graceful palomino named Goldie and Paul got Diablo, a wicked little black quarter horse. As I saddled up Bart, I gave them advice on how to tighten their own cinches. What you have to do, I told them, is toss up your saddle, cinch it pretty tight and then look away for about half a minute. Then quickly knee the horse in the ribs. This makes them let out the big breath they were holding. You immediately pull the cinch tighter to secure the saddle or you’ll get dumped when you put your foot into the stirrup to mount. Paul and Dickie did what I suggested as insurance against the possibility that they’d look foolish their first time up. Horses, I assured them, love to mess with na?ve riders in this way. Horses think it’s funny.
It was a clear June day. Blue sky. Gentle breeze. Leota gave me a quick rundown of how to get to Beartrap Meadow, winding through Dead-Eye Gulch and up into the lower Wind River Range, keeping a particular rock formation in sight. I’d never been there, but apparently it was a no-brainer. “And don’t come down without thirty-three horses,” she barked. Checking my gear, which included the rope and my now shabby ski jacket, I promised not to. The boys sniggered at Leota’s rock-hard demeanor and lanky legs hugged by well-worn Levis. They had known her only as the minister’s wife, dressed in modest skirts and blouses at church functions. I knew better. She was the Boss Lady and that was that.
It was only supposed to take an hour or so get to Beartrap Meadow so we didn’t pack a lunch. After about a half hour of riding uphill, though, we found ourselves in a sudden swirl of giant, fluffy snowflakes. It was very pretty. But as the snow accumulated faster and faster, we soon found ourselves riding through a good foot of it. The horses didn’t mind – they just kept trudging along, puffing out steamy breaths and looking for grasses and shoots sticking out of the white cover. The air grew more and more dense with swirling snow and soon we couldn’t see past our own horses’ ears. The boys had started to lose their swagger along with the feeling in their fingers. I’d already slid into my ski jacket; all Paul and Dickie had only the jeans jackets they rode in with.
The obvious thing to do, other than turn around and go back, was to let our horses do the navigating. I figured they were veterans of these parts and the snow would let up sooner or later. Concentrating hard, I kept a lookout for some kind of shelter. The boys were by now curled into themselves as much as possible, heads down, muttering something about not making it to seventeen.
Impossible, I thought. It’s June! You don’t die in a blizzard in June. But even I had to admit it was getting pretty chilly. I also had to admit I wasn’t positive we were heading toward Beartrap any more. Just generally uphill. Wyoming is a very big place with a lot of uphill, very few man-made structures and barely any people. But before I could despair, the shape of a rickety old wooden cabin appeared through the white swirls. The boys slid off their horses and ran inside, leaving me to tie all three mounts to a tree.
Of course our refuge was not a heated facility and there were big gaps in the walls. The cabin was one dark room furnished only with a rough cooking area and two rusty bed frames, bare except for a thin, stained old tick mattress on each. The boys promptly wrapped these around their violently shivering bodies. “We’re going to die,” they chanted.
“We are not,” I said, blowing into my hands and searching the cabinets. What I found was a half bottle of Aqua Velva shaving lotion and a box of lime Jell-O. I checked out the quaint potbelly stove hopefully, but its stovepipe was corroded and I could see some sort of nest inside it. What to do?
The boys’ moans were getting on my nerves so I went outside. Rooting around, I uncovered a relatively dry pile of firewood and laid out a good size campfire inside a ring of blackened stone. I had matches in my pocket, but the snow was still coming down pretty hard and the wood wouldn't light. Returning to the cabin, I grabbed the Aqua Velva. A good dousing and boom, the fire lit just fine. Going back inside one more time to search for some kind of pot or pan, I suggested to the boys that they come warm themselves at the fire. They were saved! I found a battered coffee can, filled it with snow and placed it on one of the rocks at the fire’s edge. As it heated, I cleaned off a stick with my pocketknife and asked Paul to stir while I poured in the box of lime Jell-O.
“There’s no sugar in it,” whined Dickie.
“Sorry,” I said, not sorry. It looked a bit out of place, our violently green elixir the only spot of color in an all-white world. When the powder was completely dissolved, I removed the coffee can from its stone perch and placed it, sizzling, in the now 18-inch-deep snow.
Both boys jumped up as if electrocuted. “What are you doing?”
I tried to tell them the Jell-O needed to set but they were not waiting another minute. They each drank big gulps of the steaming ambrosia, saving a slug for me. Sugar or no sugar, I have to say that was the best Jell-O I’ve ever tasted. As if we were characters in an enchanted fairy tale, the snow stopped just as we finished the last of our rations, and the sun reappearing on cue. Everything glistened, pristine. And everything was completely, utterly silent. Even the boys.
Now I was able to make out the singular landmark again, and we mounted up, letting the horses take us through the high drifts. It took longer than a nice dry ride would have, but the sun kept us warm enough. I dodged tufts of snow falling stealthily off of branches, but the boys were flinging the stuff at each other by now. I pointed out tiny flowers magically peeking out from protected rock crevices. Finally, we heard a distant whinny. Bart, then Goldie, then Diablo whinnied back enthusiastically, shaking us in our saddles. We laughed, enjoying the sensation. We’d made it to the right place in one piece after all.
Rounding a rock outcrop, we suddenly saw them; a beautiful herd of pintos, palominos, Appaloosas and sturdy brown quarter horses. White snow still dusting their manes and tails, they looked toward us with ears cocked. The boys had more or less returned to their imperious selves and enjoyed using their coiled ropes to round up and count the horses in an overly macho manner. We rode downhill, watching for slippery spots – the only indication that a foot and a half of snow had ever been there. Soon, we emerged from the trees into a field as dry and summerlike as we’d started out from that morning. Every time we hit a flat meadow, we all kicked our horses’ sides and whooped and hollered, flying across the earth at a hard gallop. Thirty-three additional horses bucked and pranced around us, as happy as we were. Suddenly we noticed a pickup in the distance, kicking up dust. The Boss Lady had come to rescue us.
Well, actually, she’d come to yell at us for taking so long to get back with the herd and giving her a fright. “Do you know what your parents would do to me if I’d lost you three,” she scolded. We tried to explain, our words tumbling over each other like puppies, how blinding the blizzard, how cold the cabin, how resurrecting the campfire and the Jell-O, how dazzling the sun and how we did, in fact, get down alive and with thirty-three horses.
For all that we got a taste of brandy. Like a St. Bernard with a life-giving cask, Leota lifted a goatskin flask from the bed of her truck and told each of us to open our mouths. “One squirt,” she warned. “And don’t tell your mothers.”
The brandy burned. It felt good. I was nineteen and had downed a few slugs of vodka and more than a few glasses of fraternity punch back at college. But my parents kept our house completely devoid of alcohol, so my experience was limited. Leota’s brandy felt like a coming of age. We talked her into another swallow each, but then she cut us off, saying that we’d fall off our horses, and there was still a good ride ahead of us. Then she handed us each a peanut butter sandwich and climbed back into the pickup. She had work to do and so did we, leading the horses into the corral I’d raked and readied the day before. Before we’d been up the mountain. Before we’d gotten lost in a surprise blizzard. Before I’d saved two boys from hypothermia. Before we’d finally found the herd at Beartrap Meadow and gotten them home just as the last rays of a hot orange sun sank below a line of purple peaks.
Paul, Dickie, myself, and the two older, experienced wranglers who’d arrived while we were up getting the herd, spent the next two days with the horses. We matched them with their tack, checked their hooves and brushed their coats until they gleamed. Finally the first guests came streaming down the treacherous driveway in dust-coated and mud-spattered cars. Passing under the antler-laden Lazy L & B entryway, they’d stop to get out and snap a photo. Then they’d pull up along the authentic hitching rail and everyone would climb out, stretch, and stand there for a moment breathing in the rustic charm.
I pointed the adults toward the now-immaculate main house to register with Leota and get a cabin assignment. Meanwhile, every last child tore instinctively toward the corral, ignoring their mothers’ warning, “don’t get your new boots dirty!” The older wranglers had brought their dogs, as well as a sweet little week-old lamb to be cuddled and bottle-fed, and a buckskin mare with a new foal. As every barn does, the Lazy L & B’s had a handful of cats keeping the mouse population down and purring for handouts. The kids could not get enough of these animals and the L & B herd. They were in heaven.
Paul and Dickie were also in heaven. Even though their main jobs were scooping manure, saddling horses and picking up guests’ cowboy hats that would blow off on the trail, young girls flirted with them and young boys idolized them. As their once-stiff jeans and hats and boots got broken in, Paul and Dickie’s strutting grew even worse. But it was harmless. Except for the day in town (we always went in for the Tuesday night square dance) I overheard Dickie on the phone with his dad, Big Dick. Little Dick was describing our Beartrap Meadow adventure, blow by blow, except that in this version he was the one who found the cabin, lit the fire and made the Jell-O. My nascent feminist heart seethed because Big Dick, being the church’s biggest blowhard, would spread the story far and wide and my own heroic tale would be violated. It was only Dickie’s and Paul’s word against mine. I remember hoping that Karma would catch up to them, which maybe by now it has.
One of my Program Director duties was to be the first one up – a human rooster – waking the cook and staff and, after the aroma of coffee and fresh baked bread was in the air, the guests. It was my job to make sure each and every visitor went home having had a great time, rain or shine. When it was too wet to ride, I brought out wood burning kits and we created mementos out of branding irons and rough disks sawed off the end of a pine log. Or I pulled out my pastels and made portraits of the kids.
I supervised games of Capture the Flag after dark, led songs around the campfire and made sure everything was put away properly, announced lights-out and was always the last one to bed. I slept like a log.
I liked the challenge of making every day a sunny day. I learned about those people who complain out of habit, and what to do about it. I learned to enlist the helpful guests and give problematic ones special assignments so they felt important. I learned to tell a bloviator from a storyteller, and I learned from talkers the art of passing time on a long ride.
I also learned from the real ranch hands that just because someone may not be talking, it doesn’t mean they’re not fully engaged. Instead of chattering away, these guys were always on alert. They’d spot a half-buried geode, which guests loved to bring back and crack open with a hammer to see the exquisite crystals hidden inside. They’d point out a mountain lion peering at us over a rock of the same color, only two eyes and the black tips of their ears giving the cats away. Real wranglers knew a snake was nearby by a swirl in the dust, or that water was ahead by a faint smell in the air.
One night I went to bed nineteen and woke up twenty. My birthday fell on a Saturday, the day when one batch of guests would be gone by ten a.m. and the next batch wouldn’t be in until four. Leota gave me that part of the day off, so no making beds and sweeping on my birthday. I packed up my sketchbook and pastels and headed for The Gorge on foot. The Gorge was a huge red slash in the landscape, miles away, carved out by the Wind River as it tumbled through the narrow space allowed by rock cliffs. This was the first time I’d been really alone, miles from anyone other than a prairie dog or two. Gazing up at the huge blue sky, looking out at the jagged line of mountains on the horizon, contemplating the sage-studded prairie dotted with bleached skulls, seeing the deep gorge that took eons to become what it was, I suddenly felt incredibly small and vulnerable.
What if I slipped and broke an ankle? What if a sudden storm blew up and left me exposed to lightning and the elements? What if…what if my parents had been right to worry? But then again, what if I simply came back older, wiser and more confident, and went on to lead a more fulfilling life because of it? Out here where the water and trees and rocks didn’t give a hoot, how important was I, really, in the big wide world? Not very, I realized.
When I returned, humbled, just before the first guests would be pulling in, I suddenly found myself surrounded by Lazy L & B cowboys and cowgirls. The whole staff had come out to meet me with a birthday cake! But that was only a ruse. What they’d really come out to do was start a Lazy L & B tradition: dump the birthday girl into a horse trough.
My struggles were fruitless and with a big splash I found myself submerged in a trough of freezing cold water straight out of the Wind River. Worried I’d lose my contact lenses, I kept my eyes closed and scrambled to get up. But the metal sides of the trough were coated with green slime and I couldn’t get a purchase. Thoughts of drowning on my birthday swirled through my head as I tried and tried but couldn’t get my head above water. The others must have thought it was hilarious. Finally one of the older hands pulled me out and saved me from having to admit that my dad was right.
As it happened, not one of us soft suburban church kids broke any bones (let’s not count the deep bruises), stepped on a rattler, or died of overwork all summer. We successfully led waves of tenderfoots into the mountains on challenging two-day rides and starry, starry overnights. As a matter of fact, on one overnight with a group of high school kids, the kitchen staff had packed our saddlebags with breakfast for the next morning, but forgot to pack dinner. What did we do? Eat half the sausage and eggs? No! We found a flock of prairie hens in a nearby meadow. The boys, and the girls with chutzpa, knocked the birds out with well-aimed stones and brought them to me. Knowing that my ancestors, some of whom had actually traveled the Oregon Trail in covered wagons back in the 1800’s, had survived worse situations, I took a deep breath and twisted each bird’s neck, plucked and disemboweled them, then had the kids thread them onto a spit over the fire to cook. We were all pretty proud of ourselves and I knew the kids would go home with a good story to tell.
At the end of the summer I was glad I went, and glad later when my sisters and brother followed me in their turn, with one sister so respected in her leadership and horsemanship she was named Head Wrangler!
Fast-forward nearly thirty years. Although I’d gone back to the L & B a few times as a youth group counselor, the years passed and my fascination with wild, wide-open Wyoming took a back seat to graduating from college, getting a big-city job in advertising, marrying and raising three kids. My fiftieth birthday was looming and I was not looking forward to that milestone. Not, that is, until I remembered the horse trough where I’d officially turned twenty. How many times had I told my kids stories of that dunking, of the ranch and the big sky spanning over it, of the June blizzard, of sunsets at Inspiration Point and more? Many, many times. Yet how many times had I brought them out west? None.
My youngest had just turned ten, as had my two sisters’ youngest sons. Old enough, I figured, for a family reunion at the Lazy L & B, which still existed, although under new management. Now a doctor far away on the east coast, my brother couldn’t get away, but the rest of us signed up for a week at the ranch and excitedly rustled up our old cowboy boots. I began feeling almost young again.
My sisters decided to fly out to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and rent a car for the remaining hour and a half drive to Dubois. But I had to recreate the whole thing again from scratch. “We are driving out,” I declared. Of course none of my kids said “yay.” The oldest was almost seventeen and too caught up in her life full of friends, movies and chat rooms. The fact that there was no Internet or cellular reception at the Lazy L & B made the whole trip a non-starter in her mind. The middle child, at fourteen, was also too cool to get excited. Horses? Bunks? Make jewelry out of rocks?
The youngest, Rob, and his ten-year-old cousins were perfect dude material, though. Cowboy shirts, boots, bandanas, cowboy hats, the whole nine yards. And this made me happy. The girls will come around, I thought. Predictably, none of the kids were impressed with Interstate 80 through Illinois, Iowa and especially Nebraska. But I knew that at the western end of Nebraska sat a break from the vast fields of corn and wheat, nothing to see or do but converse with your family and listen to mix tapes. “There it is,” I announced, “Scott’s Bluff!”
Usually, any time I found myself driving westward, I’d imagine walking alongside a prairie schooner dealing with grueling month after month of bumpy, dangerous travel toward a destination that promised only more backbreaking work. While the plains were tedious, at least they were not terribly challenging for a good team of oxen. But Scott’s Bluff was the first indication that things might get tricky. A tall spike of sandstone poking its large head up from the plains, it was kind of a sentinel, a notification of the high Rockies to come. All the kids wanted to do was get out of the car and stretch their legs. But even they had to admit that, as we climbed the steep-ish path to the top, the idea that we must be getting close to real, true mountains was a little bit exciting.
But first, the plains of Wyoming. “Is that mountains or clouds,” they’d ask half-heartedly. At first it was clouds, then foothills, then, finally, it was mountains capped with snow. We were still on 80 as we pulled into Cheyenne, Wyoming, stopping at a huge store filled with cowboy gear. I pressed boots and hats on them, and bought a handful of bandanas, explaining how real cowboys used their kerchiefs to protect their lungs from dusty trails, to filter water from the stream, to keep sweat from getting into their eyes and maybe even make a sling if they were shot in the arm. “Ha, ha,” they said. They knew their mother was not going to take them anywhere near real bullets.
Finally, after several more hours in the car, we were up close and personal with rocks of the ages. “This is like Disney,” said one of my crew, “only real!” I felt so good about that, I decided to take a short detour and visit a genuine Boot Hill in one of the small towns along the way. Reading old gravestones describing how each outlaw or unlucky wayfarer had met their demise was worth an hour or so. But not longer. I was hankering to see that steep, winding road down to the ranch. I was itching to stop the car under the big Lazy L & B sign festooned with antlers and, just like any visitor, stop for a photo. I was hoping against hope that I’d be able to pull up to the old hitching rail in front of the main building and the ranch, thirty years later, would be as wonderful as it had been that first year.
It was better!
At the hitching rail, we got out and stretched. We took it in. The bunk houses were exactly like they’d been in 1973 after our hard work scrubbing and repairing them, only now with new pine bed frames and comfortable mattresses. The main house was exactly as it had been, including the Indian blankets and furs we’d bought from the Arapaho and Shoshone reservation. The triangle we’d clanged at mealtimes still hung on the front porch. Plus, the new owners had built an impressive but unquestionably rustic dining hall annex behind it with locally logged pole pines and some Indian and cowboy art on the walls. They’d hired a real chef, not just a clueless teenager, to prepare our meals – yet another welcome upgrade.
I knew where to go for my cabin assignment. The kids knew to head straight for the corral, kicking up red dust like long-legged colts. I followed them as soon as possible. On the way, I noticed a new swimming pool and hot tub perched alongside the Wind River – a perfect place to soak away stiff muscles after long horseback rides. I found all three of my kids happily petting an adorable white lamb. Other youngsters lined the fence surrounding the small corral. They held out fistfuls of grass to a pretty mare flanked by the cutest foal. As if she knew her job well, the mare headed for the fence and her little colt followed. The kids were in heaven.
It didn’t take long to be forgiven for dragging three young butts over a thousand miles of plains, mesas and mountains. For Cate, there were the cute wranglers. She was the oldest kid at the ranch that week and the wranglers generously brought her into their fold, all of them playing guitars and telling stories around the fire late into the night. For Sarah, there were three other eye-rolling teenage girls to hang around with. Two of them were from Delaware and one was from California. They were all too cool for cowboy hats but didn’t mind their assigned horses and spent hours at the hot tub and pool.
For Rob and his pre-teen cousins, there were the horses. The branding irons. The river trout to catch. The prairie dogs to chase. The lasso lessons. The hunt for bleached bones, antlers and geodes. I joined them on a petroglyph hike to see how the new program director handled it – she did a great job. By that time even more ancient rock paintings had been discovered, as well as an old human skeleton at the bottom of a narrow crevice. Awesome.
For my sisters and me there were the memories. Stories came tumbling out around evening campfires about our various challenges, weather incidents and noteworthy characters (such as Dickie) who shared our summers on staff. As a nod to our former positions at the ranch, the new owners let us have first pick of any horse we wanted. I found a rangy gelding with white socks who reminded me of Bart. My sister, the former head wrangler, chose a short black horse with a little devil in him. On the overnight ride, we were indescribably happy to see that the stars remained just as plentiful and bright as decades (and undoubtedly centuries) before. The campfire grub was just as simple and even more delicious than we remembered.
One night that week I went to bed forty-nine and woke up fifty. I said nothing to the staff about the birthday dunking practically a lifetime ago. But around four o’clock in the afternoon, a troop of wranglers and other staff came toward me as I relaxed on the wooden porch of our cabin with my kids. My stomach knotted and my heart actually skipped a beat. As they came closer I bent down and whispered to ten-year-old Rob, whose half birthday it happened to be, “These people are coming to celebrate my birthday. But since it’s your half birthday, will you be my stand-in?” I would be there, obviously, to fish him out if the icy trough tradition remained the same.
Rob happily agreed, loving the attention, and the staff was delighted to have a lightweight ten-year-old to carry off instead of some old lady. To my relief, they tossed him in a shallow (but still ice-melt cold) galvanized tub of water. I took photos. He felt special. I shivered at the memory of it all…and after dinner we enjoyed cake and ice cream and a fun concert by a local cowboy band, the Prickly Pear Bunch.
As it turns out, I still got my cold dunking. But it was in a whitewater raft on the Snake River the next week – by my own choosing. My husband – 100% city boy, 0% cowboy – had elected to fly out after the ranch week was over, in time to drive home with us, hitting all the Western highlights along the way. Jackson Hole and a little rafting; Yellowstone Park with copious moose sightings and Old Faithful; Wall Drug; the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore; Little Big Horn.
For years, my son and his cousins talked about returning to the ranch to work when they got old enough, but through high school and college, they all ended up finding other challenges – their own character builders. One cousin studied engineering in New Zealand. One spent time as a healthcare apprentice on Haiti amid malarial mosquitoes and worse, falling to a bad case of dengue fever but surviving. Rob went to Spain teaching English, then spent the summer season in an Italian vineyard learning to coax particular qualities out of a mountainside full of grapes.
That’s all right. I would have been a little worried if he’d decided to work in Wyoming. I mean, the wilderness is still a big, wild place that doesn’t give a hoot about any of us, no matter how young and innocent nor how wise and well seasoned. I may not have had a last will and testament drawn up for Rob, but I would have seen Dad’s point and warned my son not to get too cocky out there.
Of course it’s true that none of us can dip the same foot into the same river twice. But I found that it’s possible to experience and appreciate that river’s twists and turns more than once in a lifetime, no matter what has changed in between.