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-- and the men give
the bare structure
of what they did
and inferred,
a skeleton of
events and gaunt
conclusions.
I say, Earlier
I heard her declare,
`I was pretty nearly
scared to death
--
I was always
a coward.' And
as one listens
one sees how
fearfulness can be
a form of
vivacity.
And another old man
Next day I climbed a hill
To look around, then I came back
And said: `Boys, I can smell smoke.
They're having a fi ght up north.'
It doesn't sound reasonable
That you could smell powder fi fteen
Miles away, but I did. Joe Rankin
Has told me about the fi ght.
Two weeks later,
On the way to White River we camped
One night on the battleground. The dead
Were not buried very deep ...
... I sold my ranch on Collum Creek
To Gossard, the corset man,
So I could spend my winters
With my daughter in California.
This isn't an old man's country.
Toward the rear, a woman has been speaking
somewhat more animatedly than the others
... I was afraid, and I would start to cry,
and my brother would tell me to hush,
that he wasn't afraid -- but I was!...
In late summer the grass on the landscape
turned yellow like a fi eld of grain.
It looked beautiful to me -- and it was.
There was a natural meadow there
but it was close up under
the Flat Top Mountains,
and the winters were frightful,