Days Seventy-Eight & Seventy-Nine, Achilleus

I limped the dozen miles down the hill to Ashland, just outside the Cheyenne reservation. There's not a lot to it; it's a half mile long but only fifty feet wide. The sawmill has gone out of business. But the people are kind and there is a motel that I can all but afford.

Each room comes with a fly swatter. I checked myself in for two days. I managed to put a bruise on my heel, compensating for my wounded toe. And so on and so forth all the way up my spine. It's what the engineers call a cascade failure.

I am on the road again in another ten hours, whether I like it or not. Winter, I know, is rolling in, just a bit faster than I can walk. It is my cherished hope, at the very least, to get the hell out of Montana.

Don't get me wrong, it's a paradise. God bless its every last cow. But it seems like I've been here a very long time. When I left Idaho I was young.

There is no pharmacy in Ashland, Montana. There might be a doctor somewhere. But I went at my wounds with nosehair scissors and an off-brand multi-tool. And emery boards and a butane lighter, a pipe cleaner and a pair of nail clippers. Surgery, I tell you, like MacGyver might do. I would have made a great doctor.

I am not quite healed but I can hobble again. Tomorrow will be test. I've got forty-six miles to Broadus, Montana with the heaviest pack I've had yet. I have packed enough water for almost three days. If I collapse it will not be from thirst.

Really, worst case, I put up a thumb. There are folks who'll pick up the most barbarous looking stranger. I suppose I might do the very same thing, but I would be prepared to chop him in the throat. But hitching a ride would not be in keeping with the Spirit of My Adventure.

The rest did me good. I had several baths and soaked my feet in a bucket. I trimmed off the most offending bits of my beard and pruned my eyebrows into submission. I am pretty again and that's good for my soul. My shoulder is rather sore. But I have no one to blame for that but myself. It is the price I pay for adventure.

I limped this morning to the far end of town in order to do some laundry. Next door is a saloon run by Zack and Sam. They were not in fact open. But I have become so skilled at elbowing my way in amongst strangers that I had downed two Cokes and a spectacularly good cup of coffee before I noticed.

They invited me up to the mountains to shoot off guns and I leapt at the chance. It was quite neighborly of them. We piled into a truck and drove to within a mile of my last camp. From there it was onto a series of goat paths and up to the top of the world. You can see a hundred miles from up there. Really. A hundred miles.

It is spectacular, like the Grand Canyon, minus the Canyon part. Just a couple of million acres of pine trees and grass and one or two lonesome cows. It is Indian land. Sam and Zack are Cheyenne, but not so much that you would notice. But they have been in and up and around these hills since they were just little kids.

Sam brought a long a big rifle and a bigger rifle and a bigger rifle still and an enormous pistol and a sort of evil looking pistol grip twelve-gauge shotgun. What fun, what fun.

The shotgun was a blast, with birdshot, that is. The buckshot rather made it kick. But we took turns sending a length of ductwork sailing into the sky. You don't really aim; you just hold it at your hip and pump out rounds until you get bored. I don't suppose it would be good for much more than that or cutting bad men in half.

And he had an elegant rifle, a .223 I think he called it, with a big scope. It was comparatively quiet and well-behaved and would put a bullet just about anywhere you asked it to, and at ridiculous distances. Took me a few tries, bit it did afford some measure of satisfaction.

I had the damnedest time hitting anything with the pistol. I think I was like one for twenty. And he had some soert of Yugoslav something-or-other with a built-in bayonette. And a too light rifle that chambered cartridges about the size of my thumb and kicked like a roided mule. I was pleased to fire that one just once.

Never again. Damn. It is like being beaten. I guess he saves that one for buffalo.

It was a nice time in a beautiful place that no one but a few locals would know about. And I walked right by there the day before. I am missing a lot of Montana. I am grateful for the chance at adventure. I was braced for a pretty dull day. My only regret is that we didn't meet any rattlesnakes.

So thank-you very much, brothers Zack and Sam, heroes, scholars, friends.

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