Thanks to all who tossed in their advice on the first chapter of the first draft of my first "kid's story". Keep the advice coming!
For a look at Installment One, go to archives, January 2007.


Installment Two

There was no rain that spring. The wheat had been planted in the fall and had begun to grow. But by May, when it should have been six inches high and as green as the way Pappa Robert remembered Ireland, it was short and yellow. Unless it rained there would be no crop to sell and so no money to buy the things they could not grow, hunt or make for themselves. There would be no new shoes, no cloth for trousers and dresses and shirts, no salt, no sugar.

But, if Jack had anything to say about it, there would be enough meat to keep them healthy. The hunting was difficult, even the rabbits were hard to find, and Jack was forced to range out further and further. Sometimes, if Shamrock, their only horse, was not needed by Pappa Robert, Jack would ride out in search of antelope. They lived on the great flats above the river bottom and they were very wary. Jack learned early on that they could see a rider or a hunter on foot a mile away. Time and time again he would creep for an hour on hands and knees. He would keep the smallest knoll between himself and the antelope but always, as he rose up to take his shot he would find that the antelope were gone. When he told Molly about how the antelope seemed to know he was there, even when he was sure they could not see or smell him Grandmother Iron Cloud moved closer to listen. Her eyes narrowed as he told about the herd he had spotted two miles away. How he had ridden down-wind of them and tied Shamrock to a sagebrush. There was a small, rocky butte in the middle of the prairie and he had used it conceal his movement. He was sure that the antelope had not seen him but, as always, when he slowly raised one eye above the rocks of the little butte the antelope had moved. They were well out of range of his rifle. Molly was fascinated by the story but Grandmother Iron Cloud only shook her head.

The Andersons left the valley in June. They had relatives in Oregon where it rained all the time and Mr. Anderson spit in the dust when they stopped by with the wagon piled high to say good by. "I can leave you with that much moisture," he said. All the adults laughed but the laughs were not because what was said was funny. The two families looked at each other; Mr. Anderson on the ground looked level into the eyes of Pappa Robert and his wife and little girl, Jennifer, on the wagon seat looking across to Jack and Molly. Before Mr. Anderson again spoke he looked around the homestead. He saw the withering wheat filed and the failing garden, the small house built with a few timbers and sod. He looked to Grandmother Iron Cloud's dugout and found her standing silently by the door. "You should get out too," Mr. Anderson said to Pappa Robert. Pappa Robert smiled without showing his teeth but he said nothing.

Then Mamma stepped up to the wagon and put her hand out to Mrs. Anderson. "We wish you luck," she said. "We hope Oregon is good for you."

Mrs. Anderson nodded and looked to her husband. "Could we give some of the meat?" she asked.

Mr. Anderson looked embarrassed. "I guess we probably shot the last deer in the valley. We made it all into jerky for the trip but we'd be happy to share it with you. The two men looked at each other for only an instant.

"No," Pappa Robert said. "You're going to need it. It is a long way to Oregon." Then the adults began to nod silently and Mr. Anderson climbed backup onto the wagon seat and looked off to the west where they were heading. They pretended to look all the way to Oregon but everyone knew they were looking for rain clouds.

"You Ryans take care," Mr. Anderson said without taking his eyes of the horizon. Only little Jennifer looked down at them as the wagon began to roll. She clutched her doll in one arm but she raised her other hand in a tiny wave.

Two weeks later they knew it was time to kill the cow. She had long since stopped giving milk and, since the grass had not gotten green, she was as fat as she would get. All that morning they sharpened the knives so the butchering would go easily. Pappa Robert had a small grinding wheel that he had brought all the way from Ohio. It stood in a cradle and was made to turn with a pedal that Pappa Robert worked with one foot as he pressed the knife blades carefully on the spinning wheel. Grandmother Iron Cloud watched him work the machine and shook her head. One of the only things she had brought with her was a knife and, when she saw that they would be butchering the cow the next day, she took the knife from the beaded leather it was wrapped in and, on an ordinary stone she found near the corral, began to draw the blade slowly over the flat, rough surface. Jack saw what she was doing but was more interested in the grinding wheel that his father operated. Molly moved closer to Grandmother Iron Cloud and watched to see exactly how it was done.

Jack was asked to shoot the cow. He had shot many rabbits and a few deer but he had never shot anything as large as a cow. He had also never shot anything that he loved. The cow's name was Edith and they all remembered when she was a calf back in Ohio. She had had her own calf the spring before they came to the Cheyenne River and the sale of that calf had helped to supply the money to buy the wagon that had brought them. Jack and Molly had milked her twice a day for the last year. They had grown strong by drinking her milk and now Jack was being asked to shoot her.

The night before the butchering Jack could not sleep. Earlier that evening, he had heard his mother and father talking about him. They were sitting on the bench at the side of the cabin enjoying the last rays of sunlight before the family went to bed. Jack and Molly had been at Grandmother Iron Cloud's dugout and they did not know that Jack had wondered by to the house and stood just around the corner from where they sat. In a hushed voice, Mamma said that she didn't think he should be made to shoot Edith, but his father had stood firm. "No one is making him," Pappa Robert said. "It is part of his job. Things are tough here and they might get tougher. I've got to be able to count on Jack." There was something in his father's tone that Jack had never heard before. "A lot might depend on Jack," he said. They were silent then and Jack knew they were thinking about something that they had never mentioned to him or Molly. He heard a sound like very gentle applause and, because he had seen it many times before, he knew it was his mother reassuring his father by patting his knee.

"It could still rain. That wheat could come out of it and make a wonderful crop. There might be plenty of cash for what we need to buy."

"Could be," his father said. "But if it doesn't, we will all be depending on Jack. It will be up to him if I have to leave here to find work." Jack had to reach out and steady himself on the wall of the house. Leave to find work? His father couldn't leave? How could they get along without Pappa Robert?

That was what he had been thinking about all night. Those were the thoughts that kept him from sleeping. He rolled in his bunk and looked out the wavy glass of one of the two windows in the house. Molly slept in the bunk beside him and his mother and father in the bed across the room. His mind was filled with the thoughts of his father leaving and of the task that he would face in the morning. He felt all alone but when he slid his legs silently from under the blankets and reached for his trousers, he looked up and saw Molly staring from under the blankets of her own bed. They communicated without making a sound and in a minute they were both out side the house, standing quietly in the moonlight that dusted the river bottom in silvery white.

They moved away from the house far enough so that they could talk without waking their parents. "Couldn't sleep, huh?" Molly whispered as they walked.

"No."

"'Cause you have to shoot Edith?"

That was only part of it. He wanted to tell Molly about what he'd heard their parents talking about, but he decided not to. "Yea," he said and they fell silent again as they moved passed Grandmother Iron Cloud's dugout and down toward the river.

But Grandmother Iron Cloud was not in her dug out. She was sitting, very still, on the ground beneath the first cottonwood that grew beside the river. He voice come from nowhere. "It will be all right," she said. Jack and Molly jumped and Molly grabbed at Jack's arm as it come up, ready to fight. The old lady was bathed in moonlight and they could see the embers of a tiny fire that had been burning in front of her. "Sit," she said. And when they did, she looked directly at Jack and said, "I have watched you trying to hunt antelope, rabbits, and deer. " Then she looked at both of them. "Let me tell you about animals and people."

---

by Gervase Hittle

In many respects this month has been rather slow at the ranch--and at times a little bleak. The buffalo are out on the US Forest Service ground; so we see them infrequently. And we have had almost no snow when everywhere else on the Great Plains has had more snow than they want or need. We have had hardly enough to measure. We have, however, had our share of cold weather, at least a couple of weeks of well below 0°F at night. Lately it has been warmer than usual, still no moisture; but the wind, a Great Plains given, continues to blow.

During the slow times at the ranch, especially when the weather keeps us a little housebound, it's a good thing that all of us are readers. Our bookshelves all are overflowing. We read a wide variety of things including novels and nonfiction; we read about gardens and birds, economics and politics; we read catalogues and newspapers: we read about buffalo, environment, and food, which brings me to a book, OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, that I have just finished, that I almost devoured, and that I recommend to everyone who reads this column, who is or might be a client, customer, or friend of Wild Idea Buffalo.

I am not really a book reviewer, but I need to recommend this book to you and tell you a little bit about why you should read it right away. The biggest reason for everyone to read this book is because most of us probably think we know a little bit about food. We think we know about its origins, sources, and contents; about eating "healthy," about where we fit in the food chain. We think we have a pretty good idea where our culture fits within the world's food cultures and markets. Well folks, let me tell you that most of us who read this book are in for a shock.

The shock of that new realization will hit the next time you are in your favorite grocery store filling your cart, not just with bottles and boxes, packages and cans, but also with vegetables (frozen or fresh), fruits, meat and eggs. You will likely find yourself in something of a quandary about what to select, the reasons behind that selection, the options available to you, and how to make the decisions that you will ultimately have to make.

When you read this book, you will discover that you are constantly evaluating your position and role in the food system within which you function. You will constantly evaluate what you and your food are doing to each other. This evaluation will acquire overtones of government policy, of economic effects, of national politics, of conflicts between production and marketing, of issues of personal habits and health, of food and eating.

This book, OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA, is a challenge for us all, a challenge to realize where we are, the knowledge of how we got here, and the difficulty of how to solve the problems confronting us. It is also an analysis of our individual struggles and efforts to do right by ourselves through the quality of the foods that sustain us. You will wander through cornfields, grasslands, and forests shoulder to shoulder with Michael Pollan and learn more about food than you ever wanted or thought possible to know. Have a good read and a great meal.

NOTE FROM DAN:

I first met Michael Pollan in a very nice NY restaurant. He was living there at the time and I was doing book business. Our mutual friend, Sam Hurst, connected us. We hit it off and talked and laughed and shook our heads about all the same things. The next time I meet Michael was in SD. He had come out to work on a really terrific NYT Magazine story, "POWER STEER". Jill cooked us a buffalo dinner, we drank a little wine and we had a big time. I introduced Michael to my neighbors who sold him the steer which became the center piece of his story. After the story came out, my neighbor's attitude toward me cooled. As Michael said, that was a regrettable loss. But the fact remains that POWER STEER and all of Michael Pollan's stories and books are the truth - and the truth has just got to be told. I second Gervase's recommendation of OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA. Michael Pollan speaks for all of us here at Wild Idea. Read every bit of his stuff!