BIG SOUTHERN CHAPTER 35

JUNE 1907

NORA AND DANIEL

When John Reilh left Daniel's side and rode out of Nora's sight (she'd been hiding at a nook in the Butte) she rode from the Big Southern's northwest base toward Daniel. He'd ridden the Mackay train, was met by Reilh with a mount for Daniel to use to ascend the promontory. Having left her home place well before dawn, Nora had ridden roughly thirty miles, her mount unlikely to have enough energy left to assist her own way up.

She was in pants, so even if seen she wouldn't be recognized as a woman, had taken the Spring Creek drainage a goodly portion of the way. It being late spring on a good snow year, ponds remained here and there for the horse to drink from, the mustang knew where they were even if she didn't. She had come across only one loose herd of Herefords, probably Burke's, hanging near one of the waterholes. The bunchgrass, still ample by desert standards, might keep them another two weeks.

She had picked a day and time no cowboy was near sheerly by chance, and while some would say her life was at risk, being a woman, she thought little of that warning—but still carried a pistol and knew how to use it. As for her virtue being taken, that was too late, but she preferred giving it rather than it being taken, it's true. Her reputation might suffer if her escapades were relayed to the populace, but there were only the righteous who she'd never swayed to her favor anyway and a second category of sinners who'd revel not just in gossip but in admitting her to their club.

Daniel, knowing she was coming, saw her immediately and waited for her arrival. She pulled up alongside him, they leaned for a short kiss. "Horse is too tired, hadn't thought about that," Nora said.

"Ride him as far as he'll go, there's a little stream nearly half the way up, and when he gives out you can ride with me for a bit. Eventually it gets too steep, anyway. The last stretch we'll be afoot."

She assumed he knew the way and followed him up a long draw. The top of the Butte kept receding, it seemed, though she knew they were getting closer. It was a steep climb, not always sure-footed due to scree left by snow runoff, her horse slowing and finally balking. Daniel indicated it was time to tie him at a little copse that would be out of the sun, near grass and water both. She rode behind him then, arms around him, his horse fresh but still showing unhappiness upon hauling the extra weight.

Daniel stopped as the way got steeper—too steep, he said, for the horse to help much—so they tied him up, too, took their water and a lunch she'd packed and started the steep climb up. "Two miles," he told her when she asked how far they'd already come. "About one more to go, but it might take an hour." It was just past noon, she figured by the angle of the sun's demands.

She liked to watch him as she followed his steps, his feet slipping and his hands catching for brush where available. He was a wiry, supple man whose muscles she knew well enough but had rarely had the chance to survey quite so closely for so long a time. She carried two canteens and he had a pair, too, and from time to time they stopped to catch their breath and take a drink. It wasn't yet the heat of summer but it was getting close enough and both were sweating, glad for their hats.

He pointed out some places where obsidian rested, noted that the Shoshonis had come here for flint material. "You might get lucky and find an arrowhead or two," he said, "though I doubt it up here. More likely at the base."

The clarity of the day made the view wide and took it far, she looked behind her from time to time and thought she could see three sets of mountain ranges. She asked him their names but he admitted he hadn't been here as long as her so knew little more, though he would be working up on the Lost River projects and that was the name of the closest range, Lost River. He'd heard the names Pioneer, Beaverhead, and Lemhi but couldn't pick them out for her. Someone once told him you could see the Sawtooths even further away but he couldn't say.

They had been climbing in a crater of sorts, an imperfect one, so had been somewhat protected from wind, but as they ascended their protection lessened and the wind picked up, though finally they came to a spot where they could look southward, each step giving them a better view. About what looked like three hundred feet from the top, there was a thick copse of cedars and other trees, even some grass, growing in the protection of the peak. "Look like a place for lunch?" he asked.

"At last," she said.

They sat, drank heavily until sated, even before their breathing returned to a normal pace. "Not for tourists, is it?" she asked. He laughed.

She emptied the bag he'd been carrying for her. "I'm not a cook, as you know," she apologized.

"Better than me is good enough," he said, taking a sandwich of watercress and onion. "As long as there's enough water to wash it down with."

They ate, marveling. It was as Daniel had said, a wonder of its own. Nothing like the Rocky Mountains they'd had to come across, she from Nebraska years before his trip from Vermont, but a singularly charactered natural formation that defied, for her, comparison to other sights she'd seen. "The wind's always up, when I've been here," he said, adding it was his third trip up, the first for an initial reading for the American Falls project and the second for the Lost River just the year prior in preparation for this year's activity. The readings weren't really necessary, prior surveyors had done all the needed work, but Daniel, upon first spying the Butte on his train ride up had developed a curiosity he knew needed to be regularly fed.

They'd been talking about the Butte off and on for months, the first time one winter morning when the sun's angled light, glancing off the deep snow, made it seem closer and taller by a goodly amount. Daniel asked right then if she wanted to go and she gave him a funny look. "Now?" she'd asked, drawing his laughter. "No, a bit cold now. But in the spring." She had said yes but didn't expect to go when he said—or for that matter ever.

"Is it what I said it was?" he asked.

"It is," she said. "I don't even know what to say, to tell you the truth. On one hand, it's all just a desert—" she swept her arms toward the view to the east, somewhere that way the town of Blackfoot resting "—but on the other it's unspeakable, or indescribable, at least by me."

He smiled, withdrew a hand telescope. "Wait til you see this." He adjusted the lens, handed it to her. "You may have to work that one way or the other to fit your eye."

She lifted the scope to her right eye, saw only a blurred image so turned the adjustment. The sky came into focus, so she dropped the scope lower and found ground. She caught pockets of rock, areas of grass, a pond or two. "Can you see the town?" he asked. She said no. "Raise it a little. Follow the rails east." She did.

There it was, a half day's ride but right there, just barely, in sight. Blackfoot.

"That'll all be farmland someday. All the way to there," he said. "And we'll have been a part of making it so."

She didn't show any sign of relinquishing hold of the telescope, so he prompted her. "We need to get if we're gettin'," he said. "We still want to make it to the top, don't we?"

Rested, they took a drink and left the copse, scrambled up the slope, partly using their hands, and were up in just a few minutes. The wind howled, their hats resisting their stampede strings, and Daniel spread his arms and turned. They could see south, they could see east, they could see west. To see north, you had to descend through a saddle and ascend a second partial crater rim. He handed her the scope again. "Now look straight that way, you can see your place, maybe even your house, and to the southeast of that you can see Tilden, that wide green area, probably about as far as the scope can see before it starts to blur. I doubt you can see the railroad tracks on the other side of the flats, though I've been told by a fellow he did."

She started with the telescope pointing nearby, finding the cattle herd she already passed through this morning to orient herself, noticing a band or two of sheep to the west of her trail she hadn't seen about a mile further off—a recipe for a skirmish between herders, she thought, maybe we'll be reading about it in the paper. The stage road came into view and she followed it with the scope until it reached the Danilson Falls. She slowly moved the telescope westward three miles and pulled it back toward her own homestead. She didn't see her dwelling but smoke came from a place nearby. "Tillie Johnson's burning brush today," Nora said. "She'll be proving up before you know it."

"Wonder how that works with her sister wives," he responded.

She put the telescope down. "You are a rumormonger at times."

He shrugged. "Honesty is a vice and a virtue both. If you swing back to the east a couple miles from the way you came you'll go right through her husband's place—you might meet number two wife and number three. Might be more, can't say."

She gave him a stink-eye and slugged him.

The feel of distance being altered was disorienting, not unpleasantly so, but her thoughts went to amazement, a sense she had, since a child, tried to box up into something understandable. This, she couldn't box up. She lowered the telescope. "There aren't any words," she said. "There really aren't."

"I heard a preacher once say something, 'the edge of reverence', he called it. 'A place where we disappear." Didn't make me understand anything, but it did seem to put me a little closer."

"Maybe," she said, though she wondered if it didn't just confuse things further.

"About two-thirds of the way from Tilden to here, that's what I think can be irrigated someday," he said.

She laughed. "You're a little bit ahead of yourself, Glen Bothwell would say," she said.

He colored. It was true, they didn't even have the Big Fill done on their own project and the Lost River, which he had only a minor part in, was mostly as yet unstarted. "I don't want my list to get too short," he said defensively.

She handed him the telescope. "I don't foresee that."

He took one more look, spanned the full horizon, tucked it back into his pack. "I would say this is a good spot to consummate," he said. "But we are a bit pressed for time. Even though the going-down is easier in its way. Harder on the knees."

She leaned into him, pulled his head down to her and kissed him. "This will do for now," she said. "We'll catch up on what we missed."

He led the way down, checking her position frequently, and within an hour they reached his horse. "You ride," he said. "It'll be almost as fast for me to walk alongside."

They went on like that until they came to her horse, who from the eagerness it showed was fully rejuvenated.

The ride to the base went quickly and both made furtive glances for other riders. "I'm a bit trepidatious," he said, "That you don't have time to get home. You could take the train back."

She gave him a funny look. "You'd like to explain that?" she asked. "I'll be fine, it'll be after dusk but it's a full moon, plenty of light."

Neither one of them really wanting to part, they remained astride, unmoving, not waiting for something to be said and not waiting to say anything, until the moment grew too long. "Time's a wastin', as they say," Nora said. She grabbed his hand tight, let hers slide away and kicked her horse into action.

He watched her leave, pass around the Butte and out of sight, then headed to Reilh's to return the horse and spend the night so he could catch the train back in the morning, having missed today's return trip.

She ran her horse as hard as safely possible, catching as much space as she could while light remained. They passed back through where the Herefords had been, though they were off to the west now, and she looked for the sheep not too much further along the trail, saw a cluster of off-white in the distance that must have been them. As light dwindled, the sage and other brush took on richer hues, the glare no longer interfering with their expressions. She slowed as the going took on more shadows, though she knew the horse's better vision at night made for safe travel. She made allowances accordingly, running more speedily than she would if using her own eyes. Still, they slowed to three-quarters speed, then half, and by the time even the setting colors were gone their pace slackened more.

The air cooled quickly, took on a perfect fit with her own temperature for an hour or so before becoming chill. Still, that change from the long spell of heat on the Butte came welcomely, and they were well into the Spring Creek drainage before she truly felt uncomfortable.

© 2025 Ralph Thurston