“Oh, we had plenty to eat. Dandelions, watercress, wild onions, wild mint, mustard greens, wild asparagus, rock currants, sarvisberries, chokecherries, cattails,” she says. She places her brush in a jar of water. “Poor Scottie, he still makes a face about the taste of boiled cattails, even after all these years.”

“That bad?”

“Well, I guess maybe they might have been just a little bit on the tough side.” She wrinkles her nose and smiles. The pheasant feathers on her hat wiggle. “But you know, as Mother always says, ‘Life is for the living.’ We had a good adventure.”

“What did your neighbors think?”

“One day that summer,” she says, a twinkle in her eye, “a local friend drove all the way out to see us and brought some chocolate chip cookies. I said ‘Oh, no thank you, we’re living off the land.’ When I sent her back home with her cookies, she promptly told everyone in the town of Square Butte, ‘Those poor Dickson kids, their mother is making them live on weeds!’”

We laugh so hard, we can’t stop. While Phyllis pours us each a glass of homemade limoncello, I take my bowl of hot soup out of the microwave. I think of my own childhood, so full of seriousness and trepidation. But I’m here now.

“The experiences I’ve been having on the ranch,” I say, “it’s all been reminding me of Native American bundles. The whole valley feels like one vast living bundle, an enormous treasure chest full of mysterious information, with its specific pageantry of creatures.”

“Bundles?”

Willow moves closer to Phyllis, who rubs on her head while she listens. I take a few sips of soup before speaking.

“Bundles are wrapped collections of sacred items among some Native people of the Northern Plains. A large animal hide—elk, bear, bison,” I tell her, still thinking about my bison bull hide for the exhibition, “is filled with the pelts of interrelated birds and mammals—raven, magpie, muskrat, mink—along with feathers, rattles, bone whistles, bags containing red earth paint, pine needles for incense and tobacco, all wrapped inside the hide. They’re opened each year as part of seasonal ceremonies.”

“Isn’t that wonderful,” she says. “Have you ever seen one opened?” I pause before answering.

“Yes. I was surprised—and honored—to be invited once by a bundle keeper. It was a holy experience that I’ll never forget.” Mattie the cat stretches and jumps down from the bookcase. Willow lifts her head. Phyllis gets up to turn on the propane stove and then returns to petting Willow. Mattie jumps on my lap, purring.

“Various creatures on the ranch keep presenting themselves to me in unexpected ways, at unexpected times,” I tell her. “It makes me want to experience every single plant and animal, so I can learn from them. Horses are teaching me a lot—strong creatures can be incredibly tender and vulnerable. Even Harrison’s dog Tula has such deep knowledge of her valley. She knows every animal’s scent, calls, daily habits. And taste.”

I stroke Mattie’s soft gray hair. “Last weekend, I watched Tula eat every single bit of a muskrat. She rolled in the discarded head to cover herself with the scent before devouring it whole. According to her, muskrats are an exceptional delicacy. And then, of course, there is Harrison. Time with him always teaches me more about patience. Endurance. And keeping a good sense of humor.” I wink at Phyllis.

“Oh, you mean like my washcloth trick when you were maybe over- thinking things?! You never imagined how easy it could be to just wipe off your face and start over, did you?”

The two of us begin laughing all over again.

We step outside with our limoncello and take a short walk to the river before the sun sets. As we walk, her arm woven through mine, Phyllis mentions something about her 104-year-old mother, Mary, being ready to leave. “It seems like she might finally get her wish.”

Along the Missouri’s bank, chirpy rhapsodies of grasshoppers and crickets fill the air. Wind chimes ring. Kingfishers chitter. Swallows are visibly thrilled by a twilight hatch.

Over the weekend, Harrison and I circle back to the construction project we talked about during last spring’s flood. The water in Cottonwood is low now. Even so, each time I go for walks with the dogs, I must wear muck boots to ford the creek. Each springtime in this valley, when mountain snows melt and rain comes, the creek rises with rushing waters too high and fast for any person or vehicle to cross. Today, a warm late autumn Saturday, seems the perfect day to build our footbridge.

Neither of us is handy in the least. I never saw either of my parents build anything and have never built anything like this myself. But after the success of our homemade lantern, Harrison and I are game to try.

Our effort at engineering is primitive. We begin with two heavy wooden telephone poles on the ground. We hammer the poles together with a long series of short flat wooden braces. Then on both banks, under the cottonwoods, we build high pylons of piled rocks wrapped with chicken wire. Harrison brings the tractor to lift our new bridge and sets it in place. On my next walk down to the barn with the dogs, our bridge seems impossibly high. But the two of us feel good about our effort.

The following day, inspired by our bridge, I am ready to create something else. I drive over to the Red Nose cabin by myself with my carved box full of feathers, some canvas, and paints. Not far upstream along Cottonwood Creek, this cabin always feels wilder than Harrison’s house. The mares greet me. I inhale the luscious scent of cottonwoods and grasses on their necks, hold strands of their manes to my nose. This cozy spot by the creek, first built by Max, was later expanded by Harrison. The cabin has two wood-burning stoves and a small bedroom. I head inside to put water on for tea. Above its kitchen area, Harrison’s taxidermied mountain lion crouches on a platform near the ceiling, ready to attack. In the bedroom hangs an elk shot and mounted by Max.

Last time I was at Lonetree, I admired Phyllis’s technique for keeping crows and their mess off her porch. First, I cut, then paint, long thin strips of canvas with bright colors and designs. I use a hairdryer so the paint dries quickly. Next, I light some sage, as I’ve been taught by Native elders, and say a prayer over what has come to me as gifts. Opening the box, I examine my collection. I attach a single large feather—owl, hawk, crow—to the end of each strip. Outside with hammer and nails, I hang my fetishes, one every two feet, along the outer edges of the porch roof.

Willow and Tula are waiting for me on the newly decorated porch when I step back outside with a cup of licorice tea. The afternoon is pleasant, the sound of the creek soothing. I’m excited about our exhibition at the museum. While up north doing research on the reservation last month, I found this contemporary quote:

“In my body, in my blood runs the spirit of the buffalo.” —Arvol Looking Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux, 2000

I draw another sip of tea. As much as I might try, the true depths of these connections—over many generations—is impossible for me to fathom. My wish can only be for all human beings, at some point in our lives, to experience at least some measure of these relationships. The spirit of this dog is part of me. This cat. A horse. A cow. “Animal” is the single family to which we and all living creatures belong. We all share the breath of life. Listening to the creek, the story of amadou returns: the spongy fungi used by fishermen for drying flies, a natural substance that easily ignites. The spark of Spirit that connects everything.

Tula walks over to lick my hand. I feel her breath on my fingers. A kingfisher flies along the creek through cottonwoods. Tula’s ears perk. The mares are grazing across the creek now, far up on the open hillside. My heart is one with the spirit of those mares. In the feel of Tula’s warm breath, in the light of Willow’s soft brown eyes, the spark of Spirit connects us.

I close my eyes, fingers exploring Tula’s ringlets of soft poodle hair. A gentle breeze brushes my skin. When my eyes open, I am astonished. The feathers hanging from colorful strips have come alive, swaying back and forth. Their nature is to dance on the wind. Each feather still carries within it the spirit of a bird.

Bothered and Thirsty

Dressed in camo, we hike up the hillside at the top of the heifer pasture to sit inside a small hide of hawthorn bushes, not far from a watering tank. I nibble on sarvisberries along the way.

“We’ll be here for a while. This would be a good time for you to meditate. I’ll just take a little nap.” Harrison lies back and closes his eyes.

We often nap together in hiding places during the early hours of an evening elk hunt, lying on the earth and falling asleep to the sounds of birdsong, inhaling fragrances of pine and juniper. Today I cross my legs, get comfortable, and drop into a peaceful period of sitting. When I open my eyes, the light is changing. Harrison tells me he had a good twenty-minute nap.

“I was amazed you were still meditating when I woke up. You do a very good job of being still!”

I grin, refreshed. “I sat like a mountain.”

He brings an index finger to his lips. I turn my head slowly to follow his gaze. A large bull elk is traveling down the draw straight toward our watering tank. The bull arrives, bothered and thirsty. We huddle in excitement. The huge animal is so close that we hear him swallowing, gurgling, and snorting as he drinks. When he finishes, the bull lifts his magnificent rack. Mouth still drooling, he extends his long neck toward the sky and a thunderous scream erupts, like lava from a fiery volcano. His call leaves me quivering. None of us stir for several moments. The bull turns and walks away.

Two nights later, at dusk, another giant bull elk explodes out of the forest, a wild beast possessed. He tears down the mountainside, bursting and bristling, striking the expanse of a large open meadow like a bolt of red-hot lightning. His dominance crackles in every direction. The shock of it surges through me.

Harrison gets his annual elk with a rifle two weeks later, while I’m at work. I am relieved not to have been with him. When he picks me up at the museum on a Friday afternoon, he has just come from the butcher. Two coolers full of wrapped elk meat ride with us in the back of his truck. He leans over for a kiss at a stoplight on the east end of town.

“Tonight, we will have elk tenderloin.”

Setting the large table beneath our hanging lantern feels like preparation for the sacrament. It’s mid-November, a season for giving thanks. I light a candle, bring out wine glasses, and open a bottle of wine. How fascinated I was as a girl by the set of small delicate glasses kept in a purple velvet-lined case my father brought out in his services for church communion. Harrison arrives, carrying two plates of beautiful tenderloin medallions in a sarvisberry sauce, with sweet potatoes, and green beans.

“Bon appétit.”

I take a first bite and close my eyes. The taste is exquisite; the meat like sweet juicy butter. I imagine this particular bull with his herd of cow elk, grazing in the same high meadow where we watched that colossal creature explode onto the scene at dusk. I can feel the dappled light along secret trails through woods of lodgepole and limber pines where I, too, have traveled. Where I, too, have slept. Swallowing my first taste, I recall the sounds of that bull elk we watched as he swallowed, smacked his wet lips, then lifted his mighty head to bugle. I think of the cow elk who stepped out in front of us and gave her life that day we spent with Max last year. How she appeared, like a gift, on what was likely Max’s last hunt.

The following weekend on a warm day, we sit high on a hidden grassy knoll and appreciate a breathtaking view. On the steep incline of the hillside, we awkwardly attempt to make out, while our horses stand against the rocky cliff. They sense our amorous energy. Leaning in, they begin nuzzling one another and us. We laugh and finally give up. On our backs, we watch high clouds drift over wide-open plains.

I listen to the sounds of T and Andre breathing. Warm sunshine and cool moist air caress my skin.

“I’ve got an idea I’ve been thinking about,” Harrison says. He pauses for dramatic effect. “How would you like to come to Scotland with me?”

I’m stunned with happiness. Thus begins a plan that will take us to Scotland ten months later.

By December, cattle and horses are in winter pasture. Large groups of elk have moved to snow-blown hills or farther on to the east, down to lower elevations for grazing. Some bulls have separated to form their own bachelor bands while others are still traveling with their cows. A few white-tailed deer and mule deer show signs of late rut. Brook trout have completed their spawning.

Migrating birds have all departed except a few who stay: owls, magpies, certain hawks, eagles, ruffed grouse, and Hungarian partridge, still together now in coveys until they begin to pair off. Sharp-tailed grouse tend to come up from the east in December to eat hawthorn berries. Pheasants are poking around near whatever is being fed to cattle.

Each weekend, I put thistle seed out in feeders for chickadees, redpolls, and our growing group of some ninety stout winter finches. We discover their official name in our Stokes field guide to Western birds. Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches. Except for an occasional blizzard and the push of warm Chinook winds, this is the quiet time in Harrison’s valley before calving.