Man's West Once

by Susan Kay Anderson

“Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies, gone down the American river!”

–Allen Ginsberg, “Howl”

 

I.

Fed by the Coloradans, I studied their ways, their trees,

and what was written on them, what was left. Names, dates.

 

They took me in, gave me Nescafe

instead of an Americano to-go,

Ramona’s hands arthritic

would not straighten. Roy’s

gigantic mitts

which knew

irrigation and barbed wire.

milk-marinated elk steak

instead of Nancy’s Yogurt.

 

That summer, I was 22 and fresh

out of college. I was given One Man’s West,

                                                                                   

by David Lavender. A present from Ramona.

Ramona was a summer babysitter for Little David.

 

Ramona’s favorite book! She was mentioned,

only under another name. She was

 

David Lavender’s biggest fan—handed everyone

copies of One Man’s West and told about Cy Orr,

 

the cowboy with one eye, featured in the book,

who heard her recite “Panhandle Cob”

 

when she was in the second grade. After the program

Old Cy said he knew Panhandle Cob

 

and from then on they were friends

and she took his photo at the Boar’s Nest—

 

with a borrowed camera,

he was on Old West treasure!

 

She left her May Day basket

on his porch after knocking.

 

His shack perched on some rocks

near the Bedrock Store, half alive

and all alone, while maggots

busily cleaned his empty socket.

.

She was so small when she was born,

they did not name her,

the youngest of eleven.

She fit in a shoe box,

set on the door of the oven,

oiled and wrapped in cotton.

Her father moved the family around

in a covered wagon.

Her father had a violin.

 

 

I loved Roy. I loved Ramona. Loved

                                                                                                their

 

photo album.

The cougars,

dead,

“Sweet Georgia Brown”

on the player piano,

played by Ramona—

 

Their kitchen smelled of aspic and linoleum,

failed cakes, bacon and eggs, and Delta’s cottonwood air

of the old Council Tree

and of the dinosaurs’ search for water—

dry, dry, as Captain John Smith’s Rock House

we drove to see—Ramona’s favorite place—

and her emerald eyes were startling.

 

From the second floor window of the old homestead

now in town, Grand Mesa’s outline loomed from across

Delta’s moonscape of sage and islands of alfalfa.

 

 

Roy wanted to see The Natural

at the Delta Drive-In.  He fell asleep

just as it got interesting.  But he sure knew

 

beautiful bodies

all in a row at the feet of the hunters

who tracked them on horseback

ball games. He was a great pitcher

and two-stepper. He was the one

you wanted on the dance floor! They hated Reagan

and I was surprised. I was “the nice girl from Germany”

even though I said that was my mom, not me.

Roy was their guide

in the West Elk Mountains.

 

Their dog, Babe, an ancient lab

with weeping eyes. Ramona loved The Rubiyat  

 

with dogs—

visitors from Chicago

in the 60s and 70s

when there were still

so many.

 

by Omar Khayam, “the moving finger writes

and having writ, moves on...”

Packing them in

and out

of the wilderness.

That was Roy,

his extra income!

Being a plumber,

times were rough.

Six mouths to feed.

I thought:

this is the West

I have escaped

to somewhere else.

 

There was no argument

no protest, with One Man’s West

in my possession

up at Lone Cone. I wanted

answers

to my questions,

who traps whom?

Would I be forever left

wading through the doghair aspens

growing back so thick

after a clear cut

sticking to my jeans

holding me back

impossible to pass.

                                    Who is able to hear

                                     a cloud floating?

 

Hank wrote a Dear John letter

only saying:

                                    Whenever he appeared

                                    with his trusty band,

                                    terror reined among

                                    the cattle, and wrath

                                    and despair among

                                    their owners.

                                                                                                Dear Susan,

I am happy

with someone else. 

She does her nails,

they are painted

fancy,

sharp. 

We sleep together

on a mattress on the floor.

There is no home

for you

to come home to.

Stay in Colorado.

 

                                    Old Lobo was a giant among wolves,

                                    and was cunning and strong in proportion

                                    to his size.  His voice at night was well-known

                                    and easily distinguished from his fellows.

Ramona said:

“Tell him to have at it.”

when I asked for advice

about Hank.

           

                                    Wild animals

                                    become scapegoats for our own fears.

What did I have to fear?

The light stayed the same. 

The city pool glistened.

Work went well

and it was

past.

It was past

time to go.

 

                                    An ordinary wolf might howl

                                    half the night about the herdsman’s

                                    bivouac without attracting more

                                    than a passing notice, but when

                                    the deep roar of the old king came booming

                                    down the canyon, the watcher bestirred himself

                                    and prepared to learn in the morning

                                    that fresh and serious inroads

                                    had been made among the herds.

 

 I was afraid

of the wolf

at the door

suddenly appearing

 

                                    It will be seen, then that these wolves

                                    were thoroughly well-known to the cowboys

                                    and shepherds.

my future

wanting in

                                    How many of us have ever got to know

                                    a wild animal? 

begging me to feed it

more

or it would take what

it wanted

all along.

***

Our malamute was not a toy

but looked like one

when he was little

up in Nome.

                                    I do not mean merely to meet with one once

                                    or twice, or to have one in a cage, but to really

                                    know it for a long time while it is wild,

                                    and get insight into its life and history.

 

I remember him running across

the tundra

hitched to a saucer

pulling Suzanne Chung

into the nowhere

of Anvil Mountain

from Chicken Hill.

 

                                    The trouble usually is to know one creature

                                    from his fellow. One fox or crow is so much

                                    like another that we cannot be sure that it really

                                    is the same next time we meet. 

 

How did he get back?

 

                                    But once in awhile there arises an animal who is stronger

                                    or wiser than his fellow, who becomes a great leader,

                                    who is, as we would say, a genius, and if he is bigger

                                    or has some mark by which men can know him,

                                    he soon becomes famous in his country, and

                                    shows us that the life of a wild animal may be far

                                    more interesting and exciting than that of many human

How smart was she

to fall off, letting go

of the plastic handles!        

                       

                                    beings. 

One hundred and fifty years ago

the Great Plains was the richest place on Earth

teeming with fauna

quickly silenced.

                                    Of this class were Courtrand, the bob-tailed

                                    wolf that terrorized the whole city of Paris

                                    for about ten years in the beginning of the

                                    fourteenth century;

.

***

I was never afraid

of tornadoes. I trained myself

by lying in ditches in Missouri

just in case one would come—

and in Nome, practicing closing my mouth

and only breathing through

my nose

my babysitter said our lungs

could freeze, otherwise

                                    Clubfoot; the lame grizzly bear that in two years

                                    ruined all the hog-raisers, and drove half the farmers

                                    out of business in the upper Sacramento Valley;

snuggling inside

                                    Lobo, the king-wolf of New Mexico,

                                    that killed a cow

                                    every day for five years, and the

my wolverine ruff

 

                                    Soehnee panther that in less than two years killed nearly

                                    three hundred human beings—and such also was Silverspot.

on the hood

of my parka.

 

                                    They are successful hunters not farmers.

 

II.

                                    It was a very peculiar sensation of discomfort, or frustration;

                                    my whole body moved and stretched with unusual lightness

                                    and strength. My arms and legs itched. My shoulders seemed

                                    to swell; the muscles in my back and neck made me feel like pushing,

                                    or rubbing, against trees. I felt I could demolish a wall by ramming it.

 

Shumagin, our husky,

could not stand it for long—the wait in the car

made him snappy.

Where is my West?

How do I find it?

Once, we got to the beach,

and let him loose,

he got into a fight

with another dog

at the party.

                                    I was there by myself. 

                                    If something harmful

                                    was going to happen to me,

                                    there was no one there to help me. 

                                    I wanted to run away.

 

I saw how the other dog, Muchuck,

had Shumagin’s eye

in his mouth

and seemed to be pulling,

pulling.  I saw the optic nerve,

and some adults pouring beer

over them to stop their fighting.  It dripped,

sliding to the gravel bar

in full view of the gold dredge.

Ribs from an abandoned

Quonset hut, frowning. It will be

wildly cold. 

 

 

 

 

 

***

So many times

I imagined my other life.

A life of glass surfaces.

Easy to polish,

 a cinch to wipe clean.

 

                                    I had an alarming sensation

                                     of indecision,

                                     of not knowing what to do.

 

                                    A flood of thoughts

                                    rushed into my mind,

                                     flashing

                                    with extraordinary speed. 

                                   

                                    I noticed

                                    they were rather strange thoughts;

                                    that is, they were

                                    strange in the sense

                                    that they seemed to come

                                    in a different way

                                    than ordinary thoughts. 

 

I read about an animal

quite unlike any other.

The information is startling

so familiar.

Who is

 this strange animal?

 

                                    I am familiar

                                    with the way I think. 

                                    My thoughts

                                    have a definite order

                                    that is my own,

                                    and any deviation

                                    is noticeable.

 

In Nevada,

our beautiful malamute

was shot

by a neighbor.

“He was such a nuisance,”

they said, “never tied up,

always roaming.”

 

                                    One of the alien thoughts

                                    was about a statement

                                    made by an author. 

                                    It was,

                                    I vaguely remember,

                                    more like a voice,

                                    or something said

                                    somewhere

                                    in the background. 

                                    It happened so fast

                                    that it startled me.

The wolf is imaginary.

The real one howls

for home

for a river

An American river.

 

                                    I suddenly remembered

                                    it was Alfred Kroeber. 

Our world

known only in photo albums?

 

                                    Then another alien thought

                                    popped up and “said”

                                    that it was not Kroeber,

                                    but Georg Simmel,

                                    who had made the statement.

How

to win

an argument

against a gun?

                                    I insisted it was Kroeber,

                                    and the next

                                    thing I knew

Are they howling

or do they

yelp?

 

                                    I was in the midst

                                    of an argument

                                    with myself. 

                                    And had

                                    forgotten about my feeling

                                    of being doomed.

 

III.

 

We were taught to love everybody.

 

All the girls               who have flower-names                  dance along together,

and those who have not                                          go together also. 

 

Our fathers

and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers

make a place for us

where we can dance.                        Each one

gathers the flower she was named for,

 

and then

all weave them into wreaths and crowns and scarfs

and dress up in them.

 

Some girls are named for rocks                 and are called rock-girls,

and they find some pretty rocks which they carry; each one

such a rock as she is named for,                or whatever she is named for.

If she cannot,                        she can take a branch of sage-brush,

or a bunch of rye-grass,                 

which have no flower.

 

            They all go marching along,                                  

each girl in turn singing of herself;

but she is not a girl anymore--she is a flower singing.

 

 

 

 

Notes:

 

This title comes from a play on words from the book, One Man’s West, by David Lavender, 1943, 1956, 2007. University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

 

Ideas in italics in Part I are found in Barry Lopez’s, Of Wolves And Men, 1978, Scribner & Sons, New York. The italics also contain material found in Ernest Seton Thomas’ Animals I Have Known, 1898, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

 

The italics in Part II are found in Carlos Casteneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, 1968.  University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.

 

Part III is found in Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins’:  Life Among The Piutes:  Their Wrongs And Claims, 1883, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; 1969, Chalfant Press, Inc., Sierra Media, Inc., Bishop, California.