Rural America
The River Is a Mile Wide and a Foot Deep. Now Get the Wagon Across Without Letting It Drink.
The river tells you it is coming before you see it, because the air goes damp and cool in the throat and you can…
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Rural America
Frontier Survival and Amos’s Diary.
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Rural America
The Axle Is Singing, the Nearest Blacksmith Is Two Hundred Miles Behind You. Now Fix It With a Green Pole and Wet Rawhide.
You know the axle is breaking before it breaks, because the wagon starts to sing.…
Rural America
You Come Out of the Mountains One Horse Short and Two Hundred Miles From the Next Post. Now Do the Arithmetic.
You wake before light because the chestnut mare is down. It is early June, 1848,…
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Rural America
You Cross a Country of Alkali Flats Where the Only Water for Forty Miles Tastes Like Soap.
You wake because your tongue has gone thick and your head is splitting behind the eyes. It is late July,…
Rural America
You Fire Into a Thousand Buffalo and Take Only the Tongue. Now Cut Out the Meat and Move On.
You wake because the ground is shaking. Not much, just enough that the tin cup beside your bedroll rattles against…
Rural America
You’re a Thousand Miles From the Nearest Lick, and the Pork Has Turned. Now Salt or Starve.
You wake because something is moving in the wagon, a low, wet sound like a man turning over in mud,…
Rural America
You’re 1,200 Miles From the Nearest Icebox. Now Keep the Meat From Rotting.
You wake up because a mosquito is drinking from the corner of your mouth. Late June, 1843. The canvas glows…