didn’t see it before because it’s the same color as the dirt.” Something brushed the back of his neck and he jumped, slapping it away.
“Damn big sagebrush,” he said, looking at it. Deep in the branches he saw a tiny gleam and the letters “OGG.”
“Jim, his nameplate’s in there!” Sparkler and Gloat came in close, peering into the shadowy interior of the gnarled sagebrush giant. Sergeant Sparkler reached for the metal name tag.
The botanist sprayed insect repellent on his ears, neck and hair. The little black mosquitoes fountained up as he walked toward the tall sagebrush in the distance. It looked as large as a tree and towered over the ocean of lesser sage. Beyond it the abandoned man-camp shimmered in the heat, its window frames warped and crooked. His heart rate increased. Years before he had scoffed at the efforts of botanical explorers searching for the tallest coast redwood, or the tallest tree in the New Guinea jungle, but at the same time he began looking at sagebrush with the idea of privately tagging the tallest. He had measured some huge specimens of basin big sagebrush near the Killpecker dunes and recorded their heights in the same kind of little black notebook used by Ernest Hemingway and Bruce Chatwin. The tallest reached seven feet six inches. The monster before him certainly beat that by at least a foot.
As he came closer he saw that the ground around it was clear of other plants. He had only a six-foot folding rule in his backpack, and as he held it up against the huge plant it extended less than half its height. He marked the six-foot level with his eye. He had to move in close to get the next measurement.
“I’m guessing thirteen feet,” he said to the folding rule, placing one hand on a muscular and strangely warm branch.
The Sagebrush Kid stands out there still. There are no gas pads, no compression stations near it. No road leads to it. Birds do not sit on its branches. The man-camp, like the old stage station, has disappeared. At sunset the great sagebrush holds its arms up against the red sky. Anyone looking in the right direction can see it.
The Great Divide
1920
T he black secondhand Essex rattled and throbbed along the frozen dirt road. The sky drooped over the undulating prairie like unrolled bolts of dirty wool, and even inside the car they could smell the coming snow. There was no heater, and Helen, a young woman with walnut-colored hair, was wrapped from her shoulders down in an old-fashioned buffalo robe, the fur worn to the hide in places. At a small cairn of stones her husband, Hi Alcorn, turned left onto a faint track.
“Close now,” he said. “Maybe two miles.”
“If that storm don’t beat us there,” she answered in her breathy voice.
“We’re okay,” he said. “We’re A-okay. Headin for our own place. Year from now drivin up we’ll be able to see the lighted windows.”
Hi’s feet worked the pedals, and she saw that the laces of his old worn oxfords were knotted with bits of string. An impasto of yellow mud which had ossified to stucco and then rubbed back into dust on the Essex’s floorboards discolored the shoes.
“I don’t see any houses,” she said. “It’s not like what we heard from Mr. Bewley. He said it would be almost a town by now.”
“Not yet. I guess this next year we will all build. The ones of us that come late.”
There were two sides to the colony, the east side already settled, the west side, where they had bought a homestead, still unformed.
Hi coughed a little from the dust and went on. “Mr. and Mrs. Wash, like us just startin out, and two brothers, Ned and Charlie Volin. They’ll be buildin. The Washes was at the picnic.” Abruptly he jerked the wheels to the right where a wooden stake, its top painted white, leaned. Fence posts without wire lined toward the west.
“Was Mrs. Wash the one with the strawberry mark on her chin?”
“I guess that was her. I remember something was wrong about her
“Damn big sagebrush,” he said, looking at it. Deep in the branches he saw a tiny gleam and the letters “OGG.”
“Jim, his nameplate’s in there!” Sparkler and Gloat came in close, peering into the shadowy interior of the gnarled sagebrush giant. Sergeant Sparkler reached for the metal name tag.
The botanist sprayed insect repellent on his ears, neck and hair. The little black mosquitoes fountained up as he walked toward the tall sagebrush in the distance. It looked as large as a tree and towered over the ocean of lesser sage. Beyond it the abandoned man-camp shimmered in the heat, its window frames warped and crooked. His heart rate increased. Years before he had scoffed at the efforts of botanical explorers searching for the tallest coast redwood, or the tallest tree in the New Guinea jungle, but at the same time he began looking at sagebrush with the idea of privately tagging the tallest. He had measured some huge specimens of basin big sagebrush near the Killpecker dunes and recorded their heights in the same kind of little black notebook used by Ernest Hemingway and Bruce Chatwin. The tallest reached seven feet six inches. The monster before him certainly beat that by at least a foot.
As he came closer he saw that the ground around it was clear of other plants. He had only a six-foot folding rule in his backpack, and as he held it up against the huge plant it extended less than half its height. He marked the six-foot level with his eye. He had to move in close to get the next measurement.
“I’m guessing thirteen feet,” he said to the folding rule, placing one hand on a muscular and strangely warm branch.
The Sagebrush Kid stands out there still. There are no gas pads, no compression stations near it. No road leads to it. Birds do not sit on its branches. The man-camp, like the old stage station, has disappeared. At sunset the great sagebrush holds its arms up against the red sky. Anyone looking in the right direction can see it.
The Great Divide
1920
T he black secondhand Essex rattled and throbbed along the frozen dirt road. The sky drooped over the undulating prairie like unrolled bolts of dirty wool, and even inside the car they could smell the coming snow. There was no heater, and Helen, a young woman with walnut-colored hair, was wrapped from her shoulders down in an old-fashioned buffalo robe, the fur worn to the hide in places. At a small cairn of stones her husband, Hi Alcorn, turned left onto a faint track.
“Close now,” he said. “Maybe two miles.”
“If that storm don’t beat us there,” she answered in her breathy voice.
“We’re okay,” he said. “We’re A-okay. Headin for our own place. Year from now drivin up we’ll be able to see the lighted windows.”
Hi’s feet worked the pedals, and she saw that the laces of his old worn oxfords were knotted with bits of string. An impasto of yellow mud which had ossified to stucco and then rubbed back into dust on the Essex’s floorboards discolored the shoes.
“I don’t see any houses,” she said. “It’s not like what we heard from Mr. Bewley. He said it would be almost a town by now.”
“Not yet. I guess this next year we will all build. The ones of us that come late.”
There were two sides to the colony, the east side already settled, the west side, where they had bought a homestead, still unformed.
Hi coughed a little from the dust and went on. “Mr. and Mrs. Wash, like us just startin out, and two brothers, Ned and Charlie Volin. They’ll be buildin. The Washes was at the picnic.” Abruptly he jerked the wheels to the right where a wooden stake, its top painted white, leaned. Fence posts without wire lined toward the west.
“Was Mrs. Wash the one with the strawberry mark on her chin?”
“I guess that was her. I remember something was wrong about her
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