The Ogallala Road: A Memoir of Love and Reckoning (34 page)

In this weather and with a newspaper you had to pay good money for? It’s a bunch of damned foolishness if you ask me.

The stones look beautiful with the flowers beside them. I always used to think that decorating graves was pointless, but I don’t think that anymore. I have two sets of grandparents, several aunts and uncles, and one cousin buried in this cemetery, but it would take me all day to find them.
I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t have time.

That’s okay. You should be getting home to Jim.

Mom, Dad, Clark. How is it possible that they live so fully in my mind yet they aren’t here anymore? That no matter how much I imagine conversing with them, the responses are only memories? I turn to leave but change my mind. I need to say a fitting good-bye, so I kneel, knees in the snow. I put my hands together. I say “Dear God,” because the word, however inadequate, acknowledges agency in the universe and I want there to be agency. “Help me accept the loss of these people who gave me everything and asked for so little. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad. Thank you, Clark. I love you. Amen.”

I follow my shadow back to the truck.

“Perhaps the soil of your narrative needs to be turned once again,” said visual artist Joan Waltemath at the Jentel artists’ residency I attended in Wyoming. Earlier that evening, I had read aloud from what I thought was a finished chapter of this book. I have been grateful to Joan ever since for voicing then what would become my operant metaphor throughout the many years and drafts that followed.

My sincere thanks to the members of my writing group, who nurtured me through those plow-ups and replantings: Elisabeth Hyde, Lisa Jones, Marilyn Krysl, and Gail Storey. Many thanks to others I unwittingly called upon to explain how much work yet awaited me. Abby Bair, Marian Clark, Mary Galle, Janis Hallowell, Joy Harris, Kathy Kaiser, Vicki Lindner, Laura Pritchett, and Jessica Tauber read and commented on entire drafts. Jody Berman, Chavawn Kelley, John Price, Priscilla Stuckey, and Elizabeth Wrenn read portions.

I am grateful to David Chernikoff, who helped me come to terms with the sale of the farm and convey that understanding onto the page and to Terry Ray for her wise counsel in that matter. Thank you Stephen Collector, for the head shots; Joy and Dick Hayden, for your hospitality in Goodland; Tony Hoch, for the use of your cabin on Lake Hattie; Sharon Palmquist, for forwarding me articles on the Ogallala; Lee Rentz, for the cover photo; and Steve Sutter, for loaning me your library card.

To those whom I’ve interviewed or consulted over the years, thanks for your patience and honest sharing. Among these were Kim Barker, Darryl Birkenfeld, Scott Bontz, Wayne Bossert, Rex Buchanan, Robert Buddemeier, Beulah Cress, Alice Hill, Bob Hooper, Charles Howe, Doug Irvin, Mark Jones, Joan Kenny, David Kromm, Freddie Lamm, David Leonard, Bob Mailander, Tom Potter, Becky and Stan Purvis, Marios Sophocleous, Chris Sramek, Donald Worster, and Tobe Zweygardt.

Thanks to Peter Barnes, Katie Christensen, Sharon Dynak, Mary Jane Edwards, Neltje, Raymond Plank, and all the others who directed or provided refuges where it was safe for creative energy to flow. At Jentel, I discovered and found the courage to begin the first of many rewrites. At Ucross, I remember with special fondness my fellow resident Susan Gordon Lydon, who, although she was terminally ill, kept me laughing while convincing me it was okay to write honestly about sex. At Mesa Refuge I received encouragement from coresidents Jane Juska and Dan Nickerson. At Brush Creek, I was given a womblike cottage where what really was, at long last, a final draft found its way onto the page.

Here at home, the Boulder Media Women provided me with a warmly supportive professional community. I also received generous advice and referrals from Joe Blair, John Calderazzo, Rosemary Carstens, Lisa Hamilton, Celeste Labadie, and Florence Williams. Thanks to Elizabeth Howard and Julie Heins for your assistance.

I regret that I was not able to do full justice to the story of the plainspeople whose lives ours supplanted. For any who wish to learn more, I recommend Donald J. Berthrong’s
The Southern Cheyennes
, William Chalfant’s
Cheyennes and Horse Soldiers
,
Stan Hoig’s
The Sand Creek Massacre
, George Hyde’s
Life of George Bent
, John Monnett’s
Massacre at Cheyenne Hole
, and all of the seminal histories on the Cheyenne by George Bird Grinnell.

Thank you, Jo Ann Beard, for your inspired craft advice and much needed encouragement and advocacy. Thank you, Emma Sweeney, for your passionate representation. Had you not championed this book, I might have given up and plowed it back to dust. I am also grateful to Noah Ballard, who helped me publish related essays. I have been blessed by the counsel of a discerning, insightful, and accomplished editor, Carole DeSanti. Thank you, Carole, for believing in the story and working tirelessly to help me perfect it. Thanks also to Chris Russell, who smoothed the publishing process, and to the entire Viking Penguin team. Your professionalism, generosity, and flexibility exceeded even my optimistic expectations.

For enduring my version of our shared truths, thanks to my beloved son, Jake; my brother, Bruce; and all others whose partial stories landed in these pages. And thank you, Jim, for your insights, and for believing in me and my work.