They Must've Been Dreaming

There it sits. Off the road a few hundred yards. It's down in the valley below the sage and aspen covered hills but just barely. Just as the slope of the hill guarding its east side from the morning sun turns from level to a steady slope, it sits. It's a two story, wood frame, cracker box house that is probably built of plank walls and full cut lumber, making it obvious that it was built many, many years ago. Who knows how long it's been vacant. My friend tells me the people who own the property now are third generation owners, and yet this structure has been vacant since long before they bought the place. It lies in a part of the country where size of a place is measured in sections not acres. A section is 640 acres or a square mile in size. This house sits on several sections surrounded by hundreds of sections that are public lands leased from the federal government. The wood frame is an ash colored gray though it was once painted or at least whitewashed. The front porch is drooping now, but other than that, the rest of the house looks sturdy. As we drive on down the highway, my friend says casually, "There was someone's dream."

Most of the settling of the western frontier was based on dreams. Dreams of a better life. A place where you can live off the land and raise a family. A place where you can build an empire. An empire of land, horses, cattle, sheep, goats, or whatever your heart desires. That was the dream. The American dream, rural style. Not the building of wealth, or corporations, but the building of a life. Some succeeded in fulfilling that dream, but many failed. Why? Was their dream bigger than reality? Was it unrealistic? Surely not, because, as I said, some fulfilled it. What was it that caused those dreams to fail? For some it was drought. For others it was blizzard, or sickness, and even death. I'm sure some came to the dream enthusiastic but along with the joy and expectancy of childbirth came the terrible unexpected loss of death. Death of a child, a mother, or both. Either way, after a while and several setbacks or losses of one thing or another, the dream died. The people, those who were left, went away. Some went back east, some just went away, never to be seen or heard from again. It takes a small spark of interest to birth a dream but much more to kill the dream, and even more than that to keep it alive. Each one has his own breaking point and when that comes, it's over. No matter what.

For the few, the dream lived on. It carried on for the next generation, the next, and the next. Their children carried on in their footsteps as did their children and their children's children.

Cattle are still raised on the land, as are sheep and goats by some. The land still supports those who fell in love with it over a hundred years ago. There are new houses there along with barns, stalls, paddocks, and corrals. Children run and play on a swing hanging from a big elm tree in the front yard. A dog jumps and plays along with them. Standing on the front porch is a woman, probably the mother, with her hand to her forehead, shading the sun from her view. Off in the distance to the west is a small herd of cows being driven in the direction of the corrals. Four people, three men and one woman, sit horseback moving slowly and pushing them along. The young woman, because of her clothes and the way she carries herself on her horse, could easily be mistaken for a young man from this distance, were it not for her golden braids falling on each shoulder hanging from beneath her wide, flat brimmed hat. The valley is lush and green from a good year of snow and rain, unlike the valley on the other side of the mountains to the east. They keep plodding along with the cattle. They are living out the dream of their ancestors. They may not always know it or think it is a dream themselves but to those who went before them and put down the first roots of this ranching tradition in which they are now living, it was quite a dream. Unless something unforeseen takes place, there will come a day when someone will drive by this ranch and see one of the little girls I see now at play, standing on the porch, with her hand shading her eyes as her husband, sons, and daughters or grandsons and granddaughters, are driving cattle to the corrals. Small children will play in the yard just like this women's children are doing just now. On and on it goes for some. Though others fell by the wayside, this family did not. What it would be like to sit with the original settlers here on this place if they could see what I see now. I'm sure they would be happy. I'm sure they would feel a satisfaction in what has become of this place. Just what they thought would become of it. Just what they had intended. If not for them, then at least for those who have come after. They must have been dreaming. And, oh my, what a dream it was.