Article by Evelyn Baher-Murphy Art by Jake Greenblatt
The year I turned 18, I spent a short time in Montana. For a little over one moon cycle, I worked in exchange for food, lodging, and occasional gas money. I collected wisdom, conspiracies, tall tales, and additions to my ever-growing collection of far-right propaganda (have you heard about the freedom flag?). Some of the people I worked for I would now consider friends or family in the sense that they are my surrogate-cowboy-adventure-uncles. These misfits had a whole lot to say and sure made me learn to listen. This then, is a letter of appreciation for the strange men and women who shaped me in that time.
Full Moon
Two hundred sled dogs howl at the full moon, 8 bodies lie awake, patiently waiting. Then, at the whim of an elusive conductor, decrescendo, the howling stops. Chaos gives way to the serenity of nightfall, and in the warmth of the fire, I dream of a world where I live my life in widening circles. A world where those I meet while passing through are the same those that I will meet again and again and again.
Waning Gibbous
Crossing from the living room to the kitchen leaves my feet marked by a bottomless layer of dust. Each day we will try to sweep it away, but still, it remains. Layered in those particles are the scents of mildew and dog piss. The odors rise, coating the brisk air and enveloping the space. These characteristics leave me feeling grateful that my hygiene standards are amendable and perhaps more importantly, make the land outside the house increasingly magical by comparison.
At the foot of the prairie, the sled dogs, Minka, Freya, Deuce, Luna, Kishka, Garnet, and Koba reside. Before the sun makes the hidden Eden too warm, we harness ourselves to the dogs and run them—or they run us. Arms flailing, and my mouth gaping open with glee, one step feels like I am traveling fifteen yards. Flight. In the afternoon, the jar of peanut butter slowly makes its way around the table. We eat it by the spoonful. It is in this kitchen, with its distinct smells and a stomach full of nut butter, that I learned about Kelly and Anthony Estrella’s story.
Fundamental to their story is their renowned artisanal cheese business. A business that
the federal government shut down as part of the FDA’s campaign against raw milk. As a result, the Estrellas would be barred from selling hundreds of thousands of dollars of their product and would be embroiled in a multi-year legal battle that they would end up losing. Ultimately, this uprooting of their livelihood would lead them to fall into alcoholism, and then, salvation in Jesus.
Their story explains the church they attend, although “church” may be the wrong word for it. I am told it’s more of a libertarian militia group that is also religious. Some speakers at the church espouse views that, in the moment, were startling–climate change is a hoax, racism is overblown, and mask mandates are a sadistic means of government control. This was my first interaction with people who had opposing viewpoints to those found in my liberal Californian bubble. I was taught not to like these people. I was taught to find them ridiculous, or in Hillary Clinton's words, deplorable. Instead, despite their misgivings, I could not blame Kelly and Anthony for the way they arrived at their beliefs. Their story made sense. I too would be distrustful of the government if they took away my livelihood. I too would love Jesus if religion saved me from my own self-destruction. And maybe in their unfortunate scenario, I too would start a sled dog team while finding community in a group that merged libertarianism with guns, religion, and pseudoscience.
Waning Crescent
It does not take long for us to discover that there is not much to do in Big Sandy, Montana, and that there is even less to do when you are camped by a cornfield several miles out of town. So we drink gin and chase it down with raw carrots. Then, feeling artificially warm, and with straw dangling from our mouths, we climb the stack of hay bales and lie clumped together peering up at the stars. A shout goes up when a shooting star is spotted. “How long was it?” “7 inches at least!” This, a measurement system of our invention, determined it was the longest one that we had ever seen.
In the mornings, methodically row by row, we harvest. Twist, Rip, Peel Peel, Toss. Repeat. The colors of the painted mountain corn are wonderful. There are galaxies, vibrant sunrises, and on occasion deep monochrome uniformity. We are instructed to inspect each cob to ensure that genetically defective ones are removed. The mutants, however, are my favorite. They are hermaphroditic, containing tassel and cob, or they are eight cobs smashed together such that they share one base. The nonconforming shapes bring me a unique joy, the kind I want to hold onto and save for later. In this constant engulfment, I find myself to be the pinnacle of inefficiency, and I am grateful that corn-man Dave doesn't fire volunteer laborers.
At times we harvest in silence. At other times, we listen to Dave, our joyous guide, as he shares how some kernels contain antioxidants and others complete proteins or how the overlapping layers within each kernel create the multitude of colors we witness. Then the corn-talk shifts to how all beings are in relationship to each other, making the corn our sibling. I am inspired by Dave's deep connection to the land. Season by season he breeds the unique colorations into existence. I wonder if I'll find that one day. My rainbow corn, my something to dedicate my life to and live with.
At the conclusion of a long day's work, we sing Leonard Cohen's “Passing Through.” Dave leads us in rounds.
Passin' through, passin' through
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue
Glad that I ran into you
Tell the people that you saw me passin' through
This song will follow me, playing on a loop in my mind. I will think about the gatherings Dave told us about, where twenty or thirty people come together in a circle and sing this refrain. I envision it being sung at my funeral and at his too. Then the music stops playing and instead ringing in my ears is Dave's voice: “It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you have faith.” The problem is that I don't know what I have faith in or what faith really means. My mind is spinning; the harvest is over and I am glad to have met Dave Christensen.
New Moon
Of the collection of persons who have influenced my being, Nick Larson is one of the most formative. Mostly for the way his worldview quite wondrously contradicts itself. And also for the ways he frequently comes to the right conclusions for the wrong reasons.
For us free laborers, some linear (albeit chaotic) chain of cause and effect led us to work on Nick’s farm: an unfortunate car crash, a rainbow corn harvest where we first met him, a lack of food, and a Montana that was growing too cold to camp. For Nick, our arrival was a divine vision that came to life. The vision came the week before we did. It told him that people would arrive and stay on the farm. Our atheist and agnostic bodies fulfilled that message from God.
That October, the farm was ladened with snow and a flock of roaming turkeys that occasionally drowned themselves in the dog dish (they forgot to lift their heads out of the water). Some vegetables remained in the field yearning to be harvested before being buried too deep. And the soil was tough, tougher than Nick would like. An affliction he was trying to heal. As we’d soon find out, Nick was trying to do a lot of things.
Sitting in an old grain bin with our heads bowed down so as not to breathe in the smoke from the fire, we listened as Nick laid out his worldly concerns. First, was his plan to fashion the grain bin into a yurt of sorts, providing that he could figure out how to have a fire in it without asphyxiating the inhabitants. Second, was his plan for when, within the next decade, all metal on earth disappears. When all the metal disappears, his house will collapse, as all the nails will be cosmically destroyed. The new-fangled grain bin will be no longer. Not to mention that the tractors and all the other machinery we depend on will simply cease to exist. But those like Nick, who know this time will come, will be prepared and perhaps ready to host their neighbors as the seven-headed dragon tears through town and doomsday takes over the land.
I felt I was having scrambled morals for breakfast. Sorting through Nick's wisdom and religious fanaticism became an exhausting and thoroughly entertaining daily chore. It was difficult to reconcile the absurdity of his beliefs with the practical knowledge he held. I wished it could all be wrong. It would be easier if I could write off everything he said. Yet, he still knew a whole lot of things that I do believe in and find true. For instance, Nick was exceptionally handy. He had engineered the property and land in complex ways. He mobilized his chicken coop to spread nitrogen across the soil and terraced the hillside to recharge the groundwater of this increasingly dry landscape. He knew how to butcher and store a pig and fashion an industrial smoker out of an old refrigerator. He knew how to eat organically from the land. He knew that one day I would have to make a decision between making money and living in accordance with my own values.
For all that he knew in these respects, it was starkly clear that he knew things that most others do not hold to be true — the impending arrival of the seven-headed dragon, for instance, or his belief that at some point in time two of every animal in existence boarded a great big boat and survived the greatest flood in history. Do not ask for specifics. He is just a peasant farmer, he will say. The scientific complexities of how the Ark was constructed or how all metal on earth will disappear are beyond the pay grade of his social and spiritual status.
I find myself admiring the unwavering quality of his belief system. Maybe part of me hopes that through sustained contact I can change him. And I am sure he thinks he's changing me. Regardless, he grows the best carrots I have ever tasted and makes a damn good salami. Two things that are good for your mind, body, and spirit, no matter what you believe.
Waxing Crescent
It's dinner time at the Republican Headquarters in Havre, Montana. Nick is driving separately and says he’ll pick up food on the way. In the hours prior we were overcome by a strange giddiness to attend our first militia meeting. For us, this is a somewhat rare opportunity. We don our best farming clothes and fanciful nail polish.
The TV clicks on with a buzz. Doctors from well-known medical schools stand in front of a distinguished building. One by one they emphatically state that the pandemic is not a threat. This video is no longer accessible, but luckily Jerry Taylor Jr., the leader of this particular militia group, had the foresight to save it. We would later have Jerry and his family over for Taco Thursday, where we would learn he is a naturopath and friend of the Bundys — the notorious founders of the People’s Rights Network and occupiers of the Oregon Wildlife Refuge. At this time Jerry is offering to prescribe his constituents hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19.
To close out the meeting, they do an activity, perhaps a weekly tradition. Raise your hand if your Facebook page has been taken down. This week a human rights group had conducted a strike on the Facebook pages of the People's Rights Network. Off to one side, I try not to laugh at the unbelievableness of it all. I am at a meeting of the far right or the furthest right or not right altogether but libertarian instead. I am eating what could hardly be considered an organic meal, triple-decker Ritz cracker sandwiches filled with layers of spray cheese. Nick explains to the assembly how you can make a new Facebook account with a different name. The show will go on.
Beautifully contradictory and utterly fascinating. It is strange to think I consider this man a friend, yet I am grateful to have someone to contact when I am feeling distrustful of my microwave or am curious how the Postmaster General is affiliated in an epic scheme to control all banking on planet Earth. Nick will send me a video and I will watch it and notice that he is not alone in these views. But hundreds of thousands of religious fanatics and freedom seekers are there with him. Later the videos will be inevitably removed from social media and I will be lucky to have received a unique look into a frightening world.
Waxing Gibbous
We leave Nick's farm. Not because there isn’t more to learn but because if we stay, we might forget why we believe the things that are foundational to our beings. As a parting gift, he offers us a live turkey. Her name is Diane. Whichever one we caught would have that name, predetermined as she or he will die soon. Nick gives us a rabbit leash. The kind of leash you take your pet rabbit on a walk with. We plan to use it to walk our turkey.
It is not long before Diane is nearly strangled by the leash and we decide that road-tripping with a live turkey is too much stress for all beings involved. Following Nick's instructions entitled Diane’s Demise, we sever her head with an axe. Her body lies motionless for some time, then chemical signals innervate the muscles in her wings such that her headless body leaves the ground on its own accord. I skin her and gut her. It feels right to feel the warm flesh on my hands. And it will feel right when we eat her. My body and spirit will be more nourished than any food I have eaten before. I am thankful for this experience. The gift of killing an animal and the profound feeling of respect for Diane that I garner from it. This experience will make me loosely vegetarian. I will eat meat if I kill it. I will eat meat if it can nourish me like Diane did.
Full Moon
Two hundred sled dogs howl at the full moon. A concerto we are now used to and yet I find myself left with more questions than answers. I know one thing for sure. I will see most of these people again. I can feel it in my bones. I will pass through again and again and again.
Epilogue
Clayton and Shane talk cowboy stories. Each is completely enthralling: the time the sauna tent burnt down and they were left naked in the cold Montana winter, and the time they galloped away through a great valley as the game warden called to them, guns blazing from above. And one of my favorites, the time Shane broke in the wild horses: after a long day of ranching, Shane was eager to surprise his partner with a new cabinet he had picked up in town. He tied up his formerly wild horse to the deck of his home and then brought the new china hutch out from the garage and onto the deck for the surprise. With everything set, Shane opened the door with a bang and called out to his partner. In the clamor of Shane’s gift-giving, the formerly wild horse took off, and the deck went with it, china hutch and all. As they tell it, the more Shane ran, the more the horse galloped into the distance. Clayton and Shane talk of a time I thought was past. A wild west of pure adventure and potential disaster around every corner. Enough accidents and near misses for all of our lives and more.