Westward Go!
“But I can go into hiding without ruining my life.
Hell, I’ll go to the Dakotas and they’ll never find me.”
Mario Puzo
Omerta
Work, we do it. Punch in, go to lunch, eight-to-five, do it again. At least there are vacations, a chance to break free and take a different direction. That’s why I don’t understand why some people willingly lock themselves into vacation plans that run tighter than a prison schedule. I’m talking about ads you seen in the newspaper or online:
SEE THE WORLD IN EIGHT DAYS AND NEVER
LEAVE AN AIRPORT PARKING LOT
Some think this prepackaged itinerary is the only way to go. They are the kind of tourists so locked into their daily work routines that anytime they are not looking at a fresco, a grotto or a Michelangelo is downtime to be spent at the souvenir shop.
I think there is more work than vacation to these schedules. Even if you are not punching a clock, you still pay up, learn French, present your passport, fly on a plane, get on a tour bus, check into your room, get antsy, go out, get lost, ask for directions (in French), remain lost (in France), swear (in English), come across the Louvre and find it closed for night. Where’s the vacation?
As far as I’m concerned, vacations should go unscheduled. At least that was the game plan when I picked up my friend, Marco. We both had a week of vacation and that gave us plenty of time to reach the Big Sky of western Montana. Soon we would see antelope, moose and an inexplicable herd of camels; German hikers would move amongst Japanese photographers; historical landmarks would be followed by roadside attractions; clear streams would lead to snow-capped mountains; Old Faithful would belch in front of us; Deadwood’s casinos would rob us; the continual comic pleas of a daytime disc jockey for anybody on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to bring him lunch would keep us laughing as we crossed the Missouri River and back home. But at the moment it was the land along the way that interested me; land most flew over; land with few conveniences or points of interest; land with grassy knolls blanketing an endless prairie.
Out there is nowhere and nothing falls between. It’s where it all began and it never did change. Maybe that’s why they call it God’s Country. I’m sure during biblical times, when a squabbling feud broke out in every chapter of the Old Testament, God must have found great relief leaving his bickering creation for a while. Abel, Cain and the jealous brothers of Joseph could argue all they want. God was grabbing a six-pack and heading to the Peace Garden State, North Dakota.
Marco and I were already on our way, rolling down the road with nothing ahead and nothing behind. No cow pastures or cornfields, barns or farmhouses, the horizon lay in front of us like an open canvas. Most would find infinite boredom under such vacant skies, but I found the moment exhilarating: to find a place that allowed one to break from the routine and forge a new identity. This is the myth of the West and Marco and I were driving right into it.
Actually, Marco was driving. I was in the passenger’s seat happy not to be sitting at a desk. The day turned into a friendly smile. I unbuckled my seat belt and stuck my head out the window. At eighty miles-an-hour, I quickly pulled my head back in before I lost my eyebrows. I felt like a kid. I wanted to listen to some music. So I fiddled with the radio, but too many miles separated us from civilization and the only station I could find was one airing a gardening show.
I tried to sing until Marco asked me to stop. Then I tried the radio again.
The scanner ran the dial and never stopped. Even the gardening show had disappeared into the white fuzz.
Marco and I may have been in the United States, but to the rest of the commercialized world we may as well have been driving on the moon.
I resigned myself to a quiet road until the scanner hit. The song was neither county nor rock ‘n roll. It neither had the heartfelt strings of a violin sonata nor did it carry the heavy pound of a hip hop beat. Although familiar, the song remained elusive.
Later we would be told it was jazz saxophonist John Coltrane playing “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. But at the moment all we heard was a drummer slightly holding back, yet somehow propelling the band forward; the bassist providing a warm, rich sound; the piano building layer upon layer until Coltrane stepped in and above them all with his soprano saxophone to fill the car and fly out the window like a barn swallow, swooping over the barbwire fence, over the unplowed fields and onto prairie that turned into a sea of motionless waves. No longer were we in a car headed for Montana. We were in a stream of cascading notes. Coltrane played like he would never stop. We drove like the ride would never end. Even if the car ran out of gas, surely the momentum would carry us forward.
The song still played in my head as I filled the gas tank a few years later. Again I was on vacation, again heading west, again picking up Marco.
Marco’s has always been good luck when it comes to vacations. Over the years we’ve taken a few and never once did we experience calamity. The weather was always pleasant. The National Parks were never busy. Every truck stop and small town diner provided a great meal. (Banana cream pie at The Busted T in Lemmon, SD. Try it!)
This time we were heading to Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Along with thousands of other visitors, Marco and I would stand on a frost-covered bluff in a pre-dawn chill with cups of hot coffee while waiting for a herd of buffalo to appear.
I knew the annual buffalo roundup would be a one-of-a-kind experience. It’s not every day you get to witness a collective herd trample across an open prairie and into a makeshift corral; see the park’s staff separate the calves from their parents with chutes and gates; watch the calves get branded, tagged and immunized; observe interested buyers survey a herd that needs to be culled; sit in lawn chairs on a giant bluff and eat lunch in front of an endless panorama; drive through that endless panorama until reaching the ever-twisting Needles Highway; come across a pack of donkeys waiting in the middle of the road, the biggest of them with a beer gut like a Southern County Sheriff, swaggering up to the open window with a: “I do believe you was all speeding here in my State Park.” Pay off the sheriff with a snack; head into Keystone; saddle up to the nearest saloon and run into an actual celebrity: Ken Burns filming his documentary on the National Parks. (No paparazzi in tow.)
It would be a great day. We just had to get there.
I decided not to take I-90, which would have gotten me to Marco’s hometown in Chamberlain, SD in a timely manner. Instead, I wanted my vacation to start the moment I left my Minneapolis home. So instead of ripping down the interstate at 90 mph, I took an easy stroll on U.S. Highway 14 through New Ulm, Sleepy Eye and Walnut Grove. Then crossing into eastern South Dakota, I grabbed State Highway 34 , which took me through Madison and Artesian.
It was an uneventful trip as I maintained an uneventful speed. I was so successful in my uneventfulness, I realized I was running late. So I picked up the pace after Woonsocket.
With nothing ahead and nothing behind, a thin strip of highway was begging me to go faster.
In no time I reached Wessington Springs. I was driving so fast I didn’t even catch the town’s billboard congratulating Wes Springer State Rodeo Champ, 19… Forget it! I was already past, pushing on, gaining momentum.
Moving up and down the prairie bluffs felt like a roller coaster ride as my car’s tires slightly lifted off the ground when I crested another peak. If there was ever a time to speed, surely this was it. No barns or farmhouses. No cars from the opposite direction. There was no reason I couldn’t push my gas pedal further into the floor. It was a beautiful day, a clear day. I could see for miles and the vista was endless. I was a speck, a lark, a Coltrane solo. Nothing was going to stop me as I climbed and climbed, and as I crested another motionless wave, I saw a turtle in the middle of the road.
Before I knew it, my car sailed over the slow-moving jaywalker and landed back on the ground.
I snapped my head back and saw the turtle retract its own.
That was it, but in an instant everything changed.
What I really truly loved about this part of the country was always a passing glance. How conveniently I set aside the rest:
Blistering days, sub-zero nights
Howling tornadoes, endless snow
Locust and land grabs
Foreclosed farms, boarded-up stores
Broken treaties, forced moves
Endless stretches, nothing more
Vacant and isolated, this land would not rush to my aid if a turtle caused my car to careen off the road. That was the good, the bad and the indifferent.
I let my foot off the gas and gripped the steering wheel. I could have easily became another X, a road sign, indicating where a life was lost. And my death wouldn’t have been at the hands of a gun, arrow or stampeding buffalo. It would have been a reptilian banana peel that done me in. Certainly, not a fitting chapter when it comes to the myths and legends in this part of the world.
For Naught 
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