- •Wind and Bones
- •Chapter One
- •Chapter Two
- •Chapter Three
- •Chapter Four
- •Chapter Five
- •Chapter Six
- •Chapter Seven
- •Chapter Eight
- •Chapter Nine
- •Chapter Ten
- •Chapter Eleven
- •Chapter Twelve
- •Chapter Thirteen
- •Chapter Fourteen
- •Chapter Fifteen
- •Chapter Sixteen
- •Chapter Seventeen
- •Chapter Eighteen
- •Chapter Nineteen
- •Chapter Twenty
- •Chapter Twenty-One
- •Chapter Twenty-Two
- •Chapter Twenty-Three
- •Chapter Twenty-Four
- •Chapter Twenty-Five
- •Chapter Twenty-Six
- •Chapter Twenty-Seven
- •Chapter Twenty-Eight
- •Chapter Twenty-Nine
- •Chapter Thirty
- •Chapter Thirty-One
- •Chapter Thirty-Two
- •Chapter Thirty-Three
- •Chapter Thirty-Four
- •Chapter Thirty-Five
- •Chapter Thirty-Six
- •Chapter Thirty-Seven
- •Chapter Thirty-Eight
- •Chapter Thirty-Nine
- •Chapter Forty
Chapter Sixteen
It was going to take a few days to be ready to drive up to the Whitlash area. I had to get online and study satellite maps and photos. I wanted to get a look at the Martin place from above and see how many buildings were at the farmstead. I needed to examine topographical and agricultural maps that pinpointed neighboring farms and other nearby landmarks like reservoirs, coulees, and roads. I also wanted familiarity with the surrounding terrain and what it was like between the Martin farm and the Canadian border. I was sure the border had something to do with why the Martins were clinging to their property.
From what I could learn from Billy, the farm hadn’t been worked in at least eight years, since the old man had an accident while supervising high school boys who were picking rock on some isolated acres close to the Sweet Grass Hills. The pile of rocks on the flatbed truck came loose and a few toppled on old man Martin’s back, permanently debilitating him. He was in his late sixties when the accident occurred. Farm work is the most dangerous profession out there, and to get away with over sixty years of work without serious injury or dismemberment is a miracle. I guess the old man’s number was up.
His boys, however, didn’t pick up where their father left off. They sold the best of the equipment and all their chickens, but did little else. They let their land go fallow, allowing the wheat to spring up wild and knapweed to move in.
Local folks took up discussing the Martins, shaking their heads and commenting, “What a waste of good farmland.” But here’s the truth: God never meant for the Hi-Line to be farmed in the first place. Humans being what they are, they attempted to farm there anyway.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, poor immigrants from all over the world were hoodwinked into believing that a homestead in Montana was the road to riches. So they flocked to their vision of honeyed land. The dream of owning a vast 320 acres became a hellish nightmare when the homesteaders awoke to the reality of their predicament. Nobody informed them that the temperature varied by 140 degrees within a year. It could be over 100 degrees in a grasshopper-infested summer and below 40 degrees in a winter blizzard.
By the 1930s and 40s, bitter and dismayed, the homesteaders abandoned their sweat-soaked properties, escaping to the small towns first, then farther west to Washington or Oregon. They sold their treacherous land to other farmers who were luckier, more wily, or less delusional. While small towns continued to cling to tenuous survival, the farmhouses and barns were emptied, along with skeletal windmills. Everything was left to dry rot in the sun and gripping cold.
Hence my bafflement at the Martins’ grasping to their rock-strewn, dead wheat fields was not unfounded. It didn’t make sense to want to keep something useless when they could have my money, maybe buy a business in Great Falls or relocate to Spokane and work in a warehouse or factory. Collect a paycheck, enjoy medical benefits, and save for retirement. No, something was off about it.