Notes from the "Hush of the Land" tour bus

On Donkey Basketball and other adventures

Dear Reader,

Last Sunday I was prepared. A lunch for a long day, a book (“The Dead Girl” by Melanie Thernstrom, inexplicably out of print), and the bucket close by in case I had to throw up. As a child, when my father drove us over the alps in his favorite black Mercedes, I always sat in the middle of the back row squished between my older sisters as we flew down the narrow, curvy passes towards Italy. I threw up every time we reached the valley, where my mother washed me in the nearest fountain, usually in the middle of a small town square with a wrinkled Italian woman watching from an open window while my father scrubbed the leather seats and cursed. Ever since, I prefer front seats and slow descents.

On this trip over the Rocky Mountains, I quickly settled into my squishy seat, stretched my legs, enjoyed the view through the large windows, and had a bathroom nearby. Smoke was driving the spacious motorhome, his wife Thelma next to him. “This guy used to raise wolves and sell whiskey,” he says and points to a chain link enclosure in the woods I had never noticed before, the motorhome lightly swaying closer to it. The two have lots of stories to tell after 60 years of history driving route 200 from Missoula to the Rocky Mountain Front and I settle in for a guided tour along the southern edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. “The mailboxes along the road have tripled”, Thelma notices. Just over the hill, Smoke points out Rooney the mule, who had worked in an old Gold Mine. He was one of his best. I don’t feel sick once on the three hour drive, not even after descending Roger Pass down the curves into the lower hills.

(above) Smoke driving along the Rocky Mountain Front.

I have seen many beautiful places on this earth, but there is no place quite like the Rocky Mountain Front. From here the land is just that little bit bigger and wilder, and we shrink to the appropriate size just looking at the massive walls of rock towering over the prairie. I still remember the long exhale when I first crossed over the continental divide from west to east. I could see the horizon again! The land is drier, fiercer, the trees shaped by strong winds. I felt at home, although I was 20 000 miles, an ocean, and many mountain ranges from where I grew up. Just a few miles north of Choteau, I brought my kids on their first pack trip to a windy meadow of wild flowers above Birch Creek, worked my best trip as a packer (for Maggie and Yve of Dropstone Outfitting), and watched the most amazing sunsets in Montana. For Smoke and Thelma, this is home too. I love the story in the book when Smoke wants to chase the mules back to the Gleason Ranch (now Pinebutte Ranch) for good one early morning. Instead, he frightens the mules, Forest Service packer, and firefighters half to death, when he comes running down the trail in cowboy boots, yelling and pounding a rock on his water canteen, his white underwear glowing in the moonlight.

Many friends, packers and outfitters are at the reading in Choteau. The Alice Gleason room at the Public Library is named after an old friend. We are early, eventually almost 40 people settle in. One graduated college with Smoke 60 years ago. The other was just a little kid when they last saw each other. A former guest waits patiently in line to get her book signed and does not stop smiling when she introduces herself, “I never wore a watch again after I went on that trip with you,” she says. “Totally changed my life.” She got stuck in Wilderness time, she explains, rising and resting with the sun, living off the grid for the last 35 years.

The sun stands high over the mountains when we drive back. The motorhome is swaying in the wind that likes to pick up speed in the afternoon. After a full day of driving, storytelling and book signing, Smoke is in good spirits: “Just 20 minuntes until pie and icecream,” he explains with a smile. When we roll into Lincoln, the school parking lot is unusually full for a Sunday afternoon and the diner empty. As we sit down, Smoke spots a poster with similing kids on the wall: “Donkey Basketball,” he cries, “That is always a lot of fun.” I have no idea what he is talking about and he explains. Ten or so donkeys run around in a school gym with kids climbing on their backs holding basketballs. The rest of the time is spent trying to ride close enough to the basketball hoops to score. Only a score thrown from the back of the donkey counts. “The donkeys kick and buck, kids fall,” Smoke continues, “It is really fun.” I grew up in farmland, but this is true rural living, I decide. The diner fills with happy kids, excitelty dicussing their donkey success, none of them hurt, while we are eating warm peach and cherrry pie with vanilla icecream. More old friends come by, shake hands, talk about logging, the mountains, the low snow pack, the upcoming fire summer. A book tour with Smoke and Thelma never really ends.

(above) Smoke and Thelma in the motorhome.

The next evening, Smoke and I sit in front of a large room at the new Missoula Public Library. The north hills of Missoula and the tops of the Rattlesnake Wilderness tower behind us through large windows. Eventually the room will fill with over 200 people, a few more standing in the back. They listen intently as Smoke tells stories of the land and the people who travelled it, standing up for about an hour. I see sweat pearling down his face, while he takes his guests one more time up the North Fork of the Blackfoot River. We stop at Smoke Deneau’s cabin for lunch, learn why the North Fork Guard Station has two porches and where the best fishing holes are below the waterfalls. We set up camp in the Danaher Valley, Smoke’s favorite spot by the creek. The willows sway in the wind, the sun sets behind the ridge. When we eventually finish signing all the books, our hands are tired and the library is closed already. We turn to watch the setting sun paint the hills purple and orange and don’t say a word. The Hush of the Land is everywhere.

(above) Selfie of Smoke and I at the Missoula Public Library on April 22.

Thank you for reading.

Auf bald,

Eva

Upcoming stops on our HUSH OF THE LAND book tour:

• Helena, MT, May 30, 6-7:30pm, The Windsor

• Paradise, MT, June 5, 6-7pm, Paradise Center

• Lincoln, MT, July 27, Sculpture in the Wild

• Kalispell, MT, September 3, Flathead Valley Community College, 6-7:30pm

• Seely Lake, MT, December 6, Community Foundation Bldg, 2pm