Off Track Betting South Dakota - Be a Better Bettor

Winter had sucked all the color out of the world.
The prairie in the glory of midsummer had been a surge of green, summer winds sending pulses through the tall grass, causing it to wave like an underwater kelp forest in a strong current. Now, however, it had relinquished its blooming majesty, its former radiance dulled to straw the color of a deerhide. The flowerheads were stripped of their colorful identities, appearing like sepia photographs of themselves; the ghosts of summer past. The sweetclover, which had extended from one horizon to the other back in June, covering the prairie in a blanket of gold, was now skeletonized, its broken-off stems rolling like tumbleweeds in the winter gales.
Trevor was over it. Another South Dakota winter, another four months until the snows would cease and the ice would melt in the creek. In March and April, the spring blizzards would bury the world and on the subsequent sunny days, the combination of blue sky and white land would be startling, like finding oneself living in the center of a bicolored flag.
But for now, a capricious midwinter thaw had left snowdrifts only in the prairie draws, on the north-facing ridges, in the shadows of the ponderosas that speckled the hills. And around the trailer, mud. In a few nights, a deep freeze would turn the sides of the tire ruts into knife edges, testing the suspension of any vehicle that took the approach too fast. Still, that was better than the loamy mud, which could imprison even a 4x4 until freezing cold or drying winds finally freed it.
The view from the front porch could be gorgeous. Back in July, when the church group from Virginia had constructed a wheelchair ramp for the trailer, the evening sun had set the prairie on fire, its light reflected by a thunderstorm hanging in the sky as if by a puppeteer’s strings. “God almighty,” the youth pastor had exclaimed. But now, grays and browns mingled in a decidedly drab palette. Over at the little bird feeder, the goldfinches were no longer yellow-and-black exclamation points, but had acquiesced to dullness, dressed for a time of year when vibrant color seemed to be outlawed by some unseen authority.
Trevor stared at the expanse of mud that spooled out from in front of the trailer and unwound into a ribbon that led over the hill toward the old sundance ground and, eventually, the paved road. He wondered if he would get out today. Always a calculation this time of year. Driving on the muddy channel that was his approach was out of the question; he would set a course across the grass, which would provide enough barrier to keep his tires from sinking in again. Two-tracks radiating out onto the prairie showed how many times he and his family had taken this course of action since the last snow.
It felt ironic that their approach took them by far the long way around – heading north to go south; harder than it needed to be, like so much of life around here. But the way south was blocked by Roanhorse Creek. This wasn’t all bad; the creek provided nice wading in the summer and water for the horses for most of the year. It also gave rise to the only trees on the property, although the cottonwoods whose leaves whispered in the summer breezes now stood dumb and impassive, and resembled skeletal wraiths at nighttime.
A horse would make it, of course. He could saddle up the buckskin, ride cross-country and be in town in twenty minutes. But that would be silly…he snorted at the ludicrousness of this thought. First of all, he had to go way beyond town today. And even if he were just going to his old job at the tribal building, was he supposed to just hitch it up outside for the day? Tie its reins to one of the smokers’ benches by the entrance? What was this, 1895? No, better not to risk TȟatéZi getting stolen or having some gang sign spraypainted on it or some shit. Besides, he needed to pull into his job interview looking halfway decent, not spattered with mud and smelling like horse sweat.
Trevor regarded his truck, sitting smack in the middle of the sloppy mess. Fuck, he thought.
Still, he didn’t really have a choice today. No job interview, no job. No job, no funds. Another calculation, but this one was straightforward. He went back into the trailer and made his way to his bedroom in the back, passing his brothers in the living room. One was sleeping on the couch and the other was crashed out in the recliner, oblivious to the flickering hearth of the muted TV. Let ‘em sleep today, Trevor thought.
In the bedroom, he stepped across piles of clothes – some clean, some dirty – and over the miscellany of his life; a pile of old DVDs, a defunct gaming console, a canister of Bugler and squares of broadcloth for the tobacco ties he was supposed to make for ceremony, a scattering of empty Mountain Dew cans, a 24-pack of ramen, a basketball.
He hunted around in his closet for the dressy clothes that he knew were there. He had worn them once, on the day of his high school graduation, three years before. And there they were; a purple button-down shirt, a solid black tie, and black chinos. Further rummaging found him a pair of brown loafers and a tan braided belt. He would look sharp for this interview – couldn’t hurt.
Trevor took a quick shower. The hot water always took forever to come and once it did, didn’t last long. He got dressed hurriedly, glad the tie that had come as a set with the shirt was a clip-on, and ran a comb through his hair. It wasn’t long enough to do much with other than backcomb it a little with some hair gel, but he figured that looked better than not. He considered putting in big stud earrings to look extra fly, but decided again it; might not be the right look for the occasion.
Now fully dressed and ready, Trevor took stock of his appearance. His summer tan was long gone and his skin was as pale as the white kids he had met during his one semester of college. The same change of season that had desaturated the prairie and garbed the birds in dull colors had undone all those days spent out in the badlands sun – working with the horses, swimming at the dam, helping keep fire at sundance. Too many French fur traders in his lineage. He recalled the book that his eighth grade teacher had assigned them – Part-time Indian or something – and thought, Yup, that’s me. Indian in the summer and wašiču in the winter, like changing plumage.
Trevor envied his brothers their melanin. He had learned that word in one of his college classes and now thought of it nearly every day. Travis was a rich brown complexion even in the dark days of midwinter. Trenton was in between the two but had jet-black Lakota hair and definitely looked “ethnic,” enough to be followed around stores in the border towns. Trevor knew it was his privilege to be exempt from such treatment, but it bugged him nonetheless. He hadn’t asked to be light-skinned. His brothers called him žiží – a reference to his tawny hair. They had gotten into scraps over this, and Trevor even bloodied Travis’ nose in one such altercation. Once one of them had even called Trevor a “half-breed” but Trevor retorted with “Fuck you, boy, you got the same blood as me. Fuckin’ dumbass.” This seemed to put the issue to rest.
Trevor’s brief stint at college had been at an out-of-state school, which now struck him as an ill-advised decision. At least South Dakotans had some experience with Natives. Even the East River kids had at least crossed paths with one at some point, and didn’t think of Indians as something from the pages of a dime novel. Trevor was the first Native in many years – maybe ever – to attend the small-town liberal arts college in a neighboring state. He thought the fact that the college was reasonably selective would mean that the students were smart enough not to ask dumb questions. He was wrong.
The queries were predictable enough, clichéd even; Are you really Indian? (Yes) Do you speak your language? (No) Did you get in because you’re Indian? (Who knows? I’m pretty smart and got good grades.) Does the college have admissions quotas for Indians? (If it did, you’d think more would go here.) What’s it like on the reservation? (I don’t know; different.) Do you prefer “Native American”? (I find the question annoying, to be honest.) Do you like Leslie Marmon Silko? (Who?) Have you seen Dances with Wolves? (Some of it.) Do you know a guy from Pine Ridge named Verdell? He used to work with my dad. (Maybe) His last name was something Horse. Running Horse? (No)
Fielding these questions was exhausting and added another layer of weariness and alienation to his college experience.
He found himself having to answer such inquiries from his roommate, classmates, professors, his R.A…Sometimes they were cloaked in well-meaning concern (I bet you get tired of all these questions, huh?) but they were always there. Most evenings, Trevor would retreat to his room and call his mom. His roommate, Skyler, a cross-country runner who was handsome in an unspectacular way and who monitored his water intake religiously, was hardly ever around. He seemed to have no trouble making friends in college and reveled in the social opportunities around him.
In his phone calls back home, Trevor found himself experiencing a homesickness that inhabited the pit of his stomach like a hunger pang. He had never been gone from home for that long. Really, his only trip away had been the summer before his senior year, to a weeklong STEM camp for Native kids that one of the state colleges had put on. But that had been with a half dozen other students from his high school. Here he was alone.
The subjects of their conversations would leave Trevor feeling a gravitational pull toward home: Trenton got into a fight at school and got suspended. Travis is drinking again. We had sweat for your auntie because they have to amputate her leg after all. Those dogs were back again. Everett hit $200 at the casino on Tuesday night but of course he put it all back in. They’re having a basketball tournament for that boy who got paralyzed in that wreck. Our hot water heater went out but uncle came and fixed it. They still haven’t found that Two Arrows girl that went missing. Travis wants to go up on the hill this spring – maybe that will get him to quit drinking.
Good news, bad news, mundane news…The latter tugged at him the most. Like many who grew up on Pine Ridge, he had a love-hate relationship with the reservation. It was the home of his people after all, and could be so beautiful (“God’s country,” as it was called by even those who had no time for the white man’s God). But the hardships, the tragedies, the death…it all wore away at your spirit, hardened you. Still, the news of day-to-day life going on in his absence; a school powwow, a bingo tournament, tribal council drama, rumors of a Dairy Queen opening. It made him miss home in an ineffable way.
The last vestige of his indecision evaporated after a particular conversation in the lounge of his dorm. He had been sitting on a beanbag chair, discussing random topics with two friends (at least, he considered them friends, in some ill-defined adolescent way). They had all left a dull party that hadn’t livened up even after a couple of drinks, but still felt heady and obligated to prolong the night a little longer. So, they were shooting the shit, in a garishly-lit common space that smelled of burnt popcorn, and Trevor was feeling rather collegiate. An off-campus party, late-night conversation; weren’t these the trappings of university life that he had seen in teen movies, if a much more prosaic version?
Kayleigh, tipsy off Jäger bombs, started the chain of events that would unravel his college experience with a simple, but pointed question: “How Indian are you, anyway?”
Colton snorted at this comment. “Kay, you can’t just ask that!” But he was clearly more amused than disapproving.
“You mean like my blood quantum or what?” Trevor asked.
“Is that what you guys call it?” said Kay, now playing the innocent party. “I just mean, like, you say you’re Indian, I mean like I know you are, like, I know you are on paper…” The alcohol was causing her to trip over her words but she plowed on. “I mean like, okay, if I were to like, run into you on the street…” Kay was now gesturing expansively, as if the meaning of what she was saying wasn’t explicit from words alone. “Like, I wouldn’t be like, ‘Damn, look at that Indian,’ right? I’d just assume you were a white guy. I mean you know what I mean? Ugh, I’m not making sense.”
She was making perfect sense. Colton looked embarrassed, and for a second, Trevor thought he might shut Kay down. But instead, his inhibition similarly worn down by a few shots of German 70-proof, he followed suit. “I think what Kay’s drunk ass is trying to say is, like, your ancestors are Indians, right, like in the history books. Like Geronimo or whatever. But do you consider yourself one of them? Or are you, like, their descendant?”
Trevor could feel the ball of rage growing within him, a sea urchin radiating spikes in his gut. Stop talking, he thought. Just stop talking.
Colton continued, heedlessly. “Okay, so like I’m Irish but I’m not like Irish Irish, like a leprechaun or some shit. Like my ancestors…”
Trevor stood up, his fists balled. He was now stone-cold sober but his anger was its own intoxicant. “It’s none of your fucking business. It’s none of your business what the fuck I am!” He was shouting; he couldn’t help it. He picked up a half-empty can of PBR and threw it at the wall, slamming the door to the lounge on his way out. The sudsy contents of the can leaked onto the ugly orange dorm carpet, as Kayleigh and Colton sat in stunned silence.
“Jesus,” said Colton finally. “Just trying to ask an honest question.”
After that, Trevor had holed up in his room for a few days, skipping classes and avoiding other students. When he told his mom he was dropping out, she hardly sounded surprised. He knew she would be glad to have him back home; the prodigal son returning. Trevor, the one who had his shit together, who had gone to a STEM camp and was almost salutatorian. He knew she thought that once he got back, he could do what she couldn’t; get Travis on a better path, bring another income to the household, fix what needed to be fixed around the trailer, shoot at the stray dogs when they came around. It would all fall to him. His failure was their blessing; they would lean on him as long as he could stand.
So here we fucking go, he now thought, patting his gel-stiffened hair and giving himself one last hazel-eyed glance in the mirror. Gotta get that bread. His brief stint at the tribal building hadn’t panned out. He was a good worker but wet weather made his road too sloppy to get out easily. Too many latenesses had translated into a pink slip. “Shit man we all got bad roads. Gotta leave earlier,” his boss had said.
So, lesson learned, he was giving himself extra time getting ready for this interview. Really, the lady had just told him to come by “around mid-morning,” so he’d probably be okay. The job was off-rez, down at the county livestock auction and sale barn in one of the closest border towns, “white towns,” as Ridgers called it. It was mostly going to be paperwork – inventory and itemizing and that kind of shit – but it was decent pay and Trevor hoped that he could transition over to working with the animals before long. On most days, he preferred their company to dumbass people.
Grabbing his bag, Trevor stuck the loafers inside with his other miscellany. He would need to wear his cowboy boots across the muddy expanse between the bottom step of the porch and the door to his Blazer so he jammed his feet into them. Outside, he walked gingerly so as not to stain his black slacks with muck. Once in the driver’s seat, he figured he would leave the boots on for the drive, since they were already smearing mud on the floor liner, and in case he got stuck and needed to get out. Trevor knew that the people who worked at the sale barn were as countrified as he was and wouldn’t judge muddy boots under most circumstances, but he also knew that being from Pine Ridge meant he had to put his best foot forward, literally in this case.
Trevor fired up the Blazer, put it in four low, and gunned it. His tires found grip and he jerked along, slimy divots of earth spattering his windows and roof like hail. His windshield wipers left a pasty smear that obscured much of his view, but he practically knew the way by feel. As soon as he could, he bumped up onto the grass, gopher holes and clumps of prairie bluestem jolting his ride, testing what was left of his suspension. When he finally hit the pavement, the smoothness was startling as it always was, like a TV being suddenly muted, like silence after a door slamming.
He cruised through town, passing the gas station, the other gas station, the commod building, the quonset hut, the old BIA headquarters…and turned south into Nebraska. He tried to ignore the persistent squeal under the hood that had gotten worse lately. The overcast sky reflected the dullness of the land – as below, so above – and Trevor alternated between zoning out and counting hawks on telephone poles. A handful of miles south of the border, the vehicle gave a jolt and Trevor felt a temporary loss of control. He hit the brakes and steered toward the shoulder, but the Blazer was suddenly steering like an army tank. Fuck, he whispered.
Once he wrestled Blazer off the road, Trevor got out and popped the hood. He already knew what he would find under the rising steam. “Fucking serpentine belt,” he hissed to the universe. Trevor was good with cars but he didn’t have the tools for this fix. Luckily, he thought, out here in the country, somebody who did would be by soon. Lots of Natives on this road, maybe even a cousin would happen by who could at least give him a ride to town. Trevor thought of calling his dad’s brother Everett on his cell, but figured he’d give it a bit. He hated the thought of owing Uncle Ev anything.
Sure enough, in a few minutes, a gunmetal gray truck passed by slowly, hit a u-turn, and pulled up behind him. Trevor felt a twinge of envy over this late-model Dodge Ram MegaCab with duallies. It had county plates on it, so the cowboy-hatted driver was a local guy, and as he got out, his Carhartt overalls and mud-caked boots identified him as a rancher.
“Trouble?” MegaCab asked, giving Trevor an easy smile.
“Serpentine belt busted,” said Trevor, unconsciously smoothing out his rez accent in favor of a more neutral affectation. Code-switching – another term he had learned at college (by the professor who asked him if he prefers “Native American”).
“No shit, huh?” MegaCab considered this information. “I got nothing for that but I could give you a ride somewhere. You call anyone? Someone coming after you?”
“No,” said Trevor. “I’m trying to get down to the sale barn for a job interview.”
MegaCab looked at Trevor as if for the first time. “Oh ok so that’s why you’re all fancied up. Well, hop in if you don’t mind leaving it here.”
Trevor considered this. He was off the rez so there was less of a chance that the Blazer would end up with busted windows or slashed tires. And he was eager to get his interview over and done with.
Before he could answer, MegaCab added “I have to stop in Whiteclay first but then I’ll take you down.”
This was only a few miles out of the way so Trevor assented and climbed into the rancher’s idling behemoth. It still retained some new-truck smell, mixed with a tinge of manure and rich earth. Really, it was almost luxurious.
MegaCab flipped a u-ey again and headed back north toward Whiteclay. Formerly notorious for copious alcohol sales to people from the dry reservation whose border it sat on, Whiteclay’s package stores had been shuttered after the state had revoked their liquor licenses following years of protests over their depredatory business model. Now, it was just a town of a couple small stores and fewer than a dozen permanent residents, its streets empty of vagrants, its ghosts banished.
“So, you from Hot Springs?”
Trevor momentarily wondered where this question had come from, and then remembered that he had 27-plates on the Blazer – Fall River County, a relic of when he bought the car from a white lady over there. He had kept the off-county registration because the plates were far less likely to get you pulled over off-rez than the infamous 65s of Oglala Lakota County.
MegaCab continued without waiting for an answer. “I used to go up to Hot Springs a lot when my dad was in the V.A. hospital up there. Nice town.”
“Yup, it’s pretty nice,” said Trevor, wondering if he would have to sustain this small talk the whole way.
Luckily, MegaCab took it from there, reminiscing about his high school football team dealing Hot Springs a particularly lopsided loss, and then they were at Whiteclay. Trevor played around on his phone while his driver of the moment went into the little grocery store. He looked up his old roommate Skyler on Facebook (why, he didn’t know; certainly not to friend him) and then Googled “Pine Ridge South Dakota Dairy Queen” just to see if there was any truth to that rumor.
MegaCab returned with some mail – Trevor had forgotten that there was a little post office in there – and they turned south toward Rushville.
Two miles and five hawks-on-telephone-poles into their trip, MegaCab got chatty again:
“I still can’t believe that the state revoked the liquor licenses. They had no legal right to do that of course, but just like everyone else these days, they bowed to the pressure from liberal special interest groups. Those store owners – my brother was one of them – followed the damn law to a T but still got their rights taken away. They’re the real victims in all of this.”
Trevor, whose father was found dead in Whiteclay when Trevor was ten years old, didn’t answer.
“You know it’s just going to push the problem down the road. These Indians are gonna get their liquor one way or another. You guys must see that all the time up in Hot Springs.”
These Indians. You guys. Trevor suddenly recognized MegaCab’s presumption, and wondered when if he should correct it.
“If they wanted to buy millions of cans of beer in Whiteclay every year and drink themselves to death, shit, I say let ‘em. It’s a free country, right? Those AIM types are always going on about Native rights and shit, y’know? Well shit, you have the right to drink and die if you want. Not saying that I want that for those people or anything, but the nanny state can’t be protecting everyone from problems of their own making.”
Trevor, whose brother had first gotten jailed for drunk and disorderly at age 14, two years after their father died, said nothing.
MegaCab continued to rhapsodize about “the Indians” and their problems, adopting the tone of an expert, one who knew all about them. Trevor felt the blood rise to his face. Some coloration at least, he thought darkly. In the pit of his stomach, the sea urchin had returned to stab at his insides. What must it be like, he wondered, to live a life in which people aren’t constantly telling you who you are, naming your characteristics like symptoms, trying to trap you like a spirit in a photograph?
The Blazer came in sight on the shoulder ahead. “Can you let me out at my ride?” Trevor asked, his voice hardly recognizable to his own ear, like hearing himself talk underwater.
“Sure, you need to grab something out of it?” said MegaCab, reluctantly pausing his diatribe.
“No it’s okay,” replied Trevor, “I’m gonna call someone to come help me fix this after all.” He fiddled with his phone as if to underscore this intention.
“Well, if you’re sure,” said MegaCab. “And hey,” he added as Trevor stepped down onto the running board. “You be careful around here. One of these rezzers might see you here all by yourself and try to mess you or your car up. And watch out for drunk drivers. You just never know with these Indians.” MegaCab gave a serious nod to accentuate this show of concern. Then he wished Trevor luck and drove off.
Trevor watched the truck recede into the distance until it was merely a gray speck between the monochrome earth and the steely sky. He sat down in the cold front seat of the Blazer and looked into the rearview mirror. Hazel eyes stared back at him under a pale forehead. Fuck it, he thought; people are dumbasses. Let ‘em believe what they want; that he was from Hot Springs, that could be was related to that Apache, Geronimo, that he was only Indian on paper. Trevor saw what they didn’t; the hidden depths beneath the surface, and in their faces, in the spaces between their words, their ignorance displayed like a tattoo.
In another minute or two, he would call Uncle Ev for a ride. In another hour or two, he would be offered a job at the sale barn that would bring another income into his household (and buy him a new serpentine belt). In another day or two, he would finally finish the tobacco ties for ceremony, at which he would pray for Travis’ sobriety and his auntie’s diabetes. In another month or two, the lengthening of the days would be unmistakable.
Spring would come as it always had, first heralded by a single meadowlark piercing the predawn silence with his song. This would be followed by a green sprig on the prairie, pushing up, perhaps, through snow. Then a cluster of pasqueflowers appearing suddenly on a hillside, a skein of geese overhead, sheet lightning on the horizon. Small miracles, one after another. Finally, color would surge back into the world like paint scintillating on a canvas, causing goldfinches to glow like stars and evening thunderheads to stand like towering fires.
The brilliant Dakota sunlight would stoke the melanin in Trevor’s skin, and nobody would mistake who he was. He would go up on the hill for two days and nights with Travis that spring, and Trenton would keep fire for them. He would pray for the coming year, for the survival of his people, for enough blessings to outweigh the hardships. And there, among a sea of undulating green, facing the crimson blaze of sunrise, he would again know himself and find the strength to carry on, in the face of all the peculiar indignities of this world.

I have a couple of stories to tell here, all of them involving my family's cabin in Wyoming. so for starters, I need to put this into context. I was born and raised in South Dakota and if you ever look at a map of it you'll see that it's a great beige almost rectangle with a singular circle of green right on the west side of the state, that's where I grew up. now the west side of South Dakota has some pretty amazing sights and it kind of makes up for there being shit-all to do here. but in my opinion, nothing here holds a candle to the cabin. the cabin is exactly what it sounds like, a log cabin with no running water, a well, and a creek adjacent. the only modernity it has is electricity and that was added in the 1930s. its an hour away from my home town and if you die up there there is no chance you will ever be found, so its my favorite place to go. it was great when I was stressed from high school and just needed to get away, and now that I'm twenty- five it's my favorite place to unwind after a long week. but that being said, it has its quirks.
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I'm going to start with the most normal of the stories, not normal cause this happens all the time but because there was no paranormal/ extraterrestrial/ Ooga Booga stuff. I was thirteen at my sister's birthday party (my sister and I always celebrate our birthdays up there). my dad had to leave to take my sister's friends who couldn't sleep over back to their homes, my mom doesn't like to spend the night up there so she left before the sun went down, this left 13 year old me with about five 10/11-year-old girls; in short, I was miserable. I was poking at the fire planning on dropping some scary stories on them so that they would have nightmares when I heard a distinct rustling noise coming from the dry creek just ahead of us. I looked up from the fire and saw a figure approaching us, I told my sister to quietly get back to the cabin. she looked at me and was about to definitely say "why!?" when she saw that my eyes were fixed on a singular point. she followed my gaze and not long after saw an old bearded man, wide-eyed, stumbling towards us. she screamed, prompting her friends to scream, and they all ran back to the cabin. the screaming stunned me as I was sure that this man would now proceed to kill me and after he was done march to the cabin to finish off the girls. but that didn't happen, instead he stopped and just started mumbling. I could only make out a few words, deers, rope, "crick" and razor blades. eventually, I gathered up the courage to tell him off. I let him know there were guns in the cabin, and if he didn't leave I would go get one. after I said this I began backing towards the cabin and eventually retreated inside it. we told my dad when he got back what happened and he wasted no time gathering up people from the surrounding community.the old guy was caught, but not by police. he was caught by his daughter who thanked my dad (I wasn't there for that). I guess this guy was just a very old man with dementia who wandered out of his cabin and followed the road to ours thinking it was one of the cut-offs to the creek. as for the razorblades, well back in the 70s, a group of rednecks got tired of "city people" swimming in "their creek" so on one of the rope swings they attached razor blades. a bunch of kids cut their hands up. the red necks were never caught and all they managed to do was get every rope swing along the creek cut down. ultimately I feel more sad than scared when I remember this, however, this is only the first story I have from up there.
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the next one happened when I was 19. my first long term relationship had just ended and to say I was taking it hard would be an understatement. fortunately, my childhood friend (who ill call Josh) was coming back to South Dakota from basic training. this was also around my birthday so I had already gotten some days off of work. there ended up being a ton of people going up there so many in fact that there was no room for me to sleep inside the cabin. that wasn't an issue for me though as at the time I drove a Subaru hatchback and I had no qualms about sleeping in my car. I had a whole system. I blew up an air mattress put down my back seats, slid it in and I was off. the air mattress took up the entirety of my back seat and trunk leaving no room for me to put my clothes while I slept. so I grabbed some hangers from the cabin and when it was time to go to bed and hung my clothes up on the inside handle of my trunk door. I kept the door open because I like the night air while I sleep the weight and warmth of the blankets mixing with the general feeling of chill that came with the mountain night air was and still is very relaxing. I was even happier when it started to rain. however that night I woke up with a strange feeling just kind of looming around me. I sat up and got a little disappointed at how deflated the air mattress had gotten before I started to hear the soft squishing noises of bare feet in mud and grass. I looked out the windows to see who was coming to scare me, I was naturally irritated and called out saying something to the effect of "fuck you, I hear you." but no one made their presence known. I bit the bullet and threw the covers off of me, hopping out of the car into the pouring rain. I looked around my car and didn't see anyone, I was confused and a little scared but decided it was a good idea to just go back to sleep. as I wrapped myself back up I began drifting off to the sound of raindrops tapping the roof of my car, and then as I was about to go to sleep there was a loud thump that ripped me awake and sent me flying back up.it sounded as though someone had just slapped the back window of my car, and thus I didn't sleep that night. when the sun started to come up I donned my clothes (which were somehow still dry) and began to search the surroundings. sure enough, there were footprints around my car, and a single handprint on the back window. I thought about letting the group know, but decided against it as they probably wouldn't believe me even if I showed them the evidence, but also cause I didn't want to ruin the weekend. the only one I tell is josh, who also said it was a good idea not to tell anyone. he's a very spiritual person and believed then, as he does now, that it was some kind of ghost.
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I have a few others but this is already way too long so ill just end it on the most recent happening up there. due to financial irresponsibility that is 100% on me, I now live with my parents again, at the age of 25. as such I've been helping out where I can, doing the shopping, mowing the lawn, and taking the dogs out. but recently my dad and I have started renovating the cabin at the beginning of the summer. we fixed the road (which had collapsed in the 80s and we had been driving around for years on end) and fixed up the well so that it actually pumps water now. we finished the well reno yesterday actually. some family friends came up after the renovation and we all had a good time. beers were had and the cabin was full of laughter. around 3'oclock I packed up my stuff and left for home. after a few hours, my mom got back from work and told me she was heading up to the cabin with dad and the family friends. I assumed they'd be gone for a couple of hours at most but by 9 I figured they were spending the night up there. mom still doesn't like doing that but will do so to make dad happy. but at 11 I heard the heavy front door shut. when I came out of my room I saw them both quietly walking in like something bad happened. I said I thought they were spending the night and my mom said no very quickly. my dad asked for my help tomorrow (at the time of typing this it's today) to help him fix up his car which quit out up there, then he said "after that, we'll go for a hike and find out what the god awful noise was." he said it sounded like a horse violently dying and my mom backed him up. apparently everyone up there heard it and the festivities stopped soon after.
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unfortunately, I'm busy today, using my free time to type this out, so I can't go up there to help him today. but honestly, after all the stuff that has happened, the two things I wrote about here, a strange sound like a horse violently dying doesn't shock me in the least. I love that cabin, I always will, but there is something in the hills that could very well be dangerous. when night falls up there, your best bet is to leave.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN by Dave Barry
Let’s say a guy named Fred is attracted to a woman named Martha. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.
And then, one evening when they’re driving home, a thought occurs to Martha, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: “Do you realize that, as of tonight, we’ve been seeing each other for exactly six months?”
And then, there is silence in the car.
To Martha, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he’s been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I’m trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn’t want, or isn’t sure of.
And Fred is thinking: Gosh. Six months.
And Martha is thinking: But, hey, I’m not so sure I want this kind of relationship either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I’d have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily towards, I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?
And Fred is thinking: . . . so that means it was . . . let’s see . . . February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer’s, which means . . . lemme check the odometer . . . Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.
And Martha is thinking: He’s upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I’m reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed—even before I sensed it—that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that’s it. That’s why he’s so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He’s afraid of being rejected.
And Fred is thinking: And I’m gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don’t care what those morons say, it’s still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It’s 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.
And Martha is thinking: He’s angry. And I don’t blame him. I’d be angry, too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can’t help the way I feel. I’m just not sure.
And Fred is thinking: They’ll probably say it’s only a 90-day warranty . . . scumballs.
And Martha is thinking: Maybe I’m just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I’m sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.
And Fred is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I’ll give them a warranty. I’ll take their warranty and stick it right up their . . .
“Fred,” Martha says aloud.
“What?” says Fred, startled.
“Please don’t torture yourself like this,” she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. “Maybe I should never have . . . oh dear, I feel so . . . ” (She breaks down, sobbing.)
“What?” says Fred.
“I’m such a fool,” Martha sobs. “I mean, I know there’s no knight. I really know that. It’s silly. There’s no knight, and there’s no horse.”
“There’s no horse?” says Fred.
“You think I’m a fool, don’t you?” Martha says.
“No!” says Fred, glad to finally know the correct answer.
“It’s just that . . . it’s that I . . . I need some time,” Martha says.
(There is a 15-second pause while Fred, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)
“Yes,” he says. (Martha, deeply moved, touches his hand.)
“Oh, Fred, do you really feel that way?” she says.
“What way?” says Fred.
“That way about time,” says Martha.
“Oh,” says Fred. “Yes.” (Martha turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)
“Thank you, Fred,” she says.
“Thank you,” says Fred.
Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Fred gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a college basketball game between two South Dakota junior colleges that he has never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it’s better if he doesn’t think about it.
The next day Martha will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification.
They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it either.
Meanwhile, Fred, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Martha’s, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: “Norm, did Martha ever own a horse?”
And that’s the difference between men and women.

Happy birthday, Babe Ruth! The Big Fella would have turned 125 years old today, and if he were somehow with us I bet he could still turn around a fastball.
In honor of the Babe, what would the All-Babe Team look like? And who had more Wins Above Replacement according to Baseball Reference (bWAR): Babe Ruth, or the combined total of the 30 other guys who also had the nickname Babe?
I'm not including the various players with nicknames derived from Baby, the 1950s player Loren Babe, or Samuel Byrd -- who, as a frequent pinch-runner and defensive replacement for the Bambino, had the nickname "Babe Ruth's Legs." These are just players nicknamed Babe — whether in honor of Ruth or for unrelated or unknown reasons — according to Baseball Reference.
Lineup: CF Babe Ganzel: 0.4 bWAR SS Babe Pinelli: 5.7 bWAR RF Babe Herman: 40.3 bWAR LF Babe Ruth: 162.1 bWAR DH Babe Phelps: 14.0 bWAR 1B Babe Young: 11.3 bWAR 3B Babe Dahlgren: 4.2 bWAR 2B Babe Ellison: -0.9 bWAR C Babe Roof: 3.3 bWAR
Ganzel had a career .378 OBP so we'll bat him lead-off. Pinelli -- who was more of a third baseman, but did have 71 games at shortstop -- is your old-school bunt/slap hitter in the 2 hole. Herman should see a lot of fastballs hitting in front of the Colossus of Clout. Of course Ruth hit third for the Murderer's Row Yankees — that’s why he wore #3 — but we'll bat him clean-up here. Phelps will start against righties, but we may have to platoon him. Young should flourish as the six hitter. Dahlgren was primarily a first baseman, but we need him at third. Ellison was a terrible hitter but we don't have another second baseman on the roster. Roof is your typical good glove/bad bat catcher so we'll bat him 9th.
Bench: 1B Babe Borton: 3.8 bWAR OF Babe Twombly: 0.3 bWAR C Babe Wilber: 0.2 bWAR C Babe Towne: 0.1 bWAR 1B Babe Danzig: 0.0 bWAR OF Babe Klee: 0.0 bWAR OF Babe Bigelow: -0.2 bWAR 1B Babe Butka: -0.4 bWAR OF Babe Martin: -0.6 bWAR OF Babe Barna: -0.7 bWAR OF Babe Nelson: -1.0 bWAR
Borton’s really the only Babe on the bench we’d want to use as a pinch hitter.
Pitching Staff: P Babe Adams: 52.2 bWAR P Babe Ruth: 20.3 bWAR P Babe Marchildon: 9.5 bWAR P Babe Klieman: 5.1 bWAR P Babe Birrer: 0.9 bWAR P Babe Meers: 0.9 bWAR P Babe Linke: 0.9 bWAR P Babe Doty: 0.5 bWAR P Babe Davis: 0.2 bWAR P Babe Sherman: -0.2 bWAR P Babe Picone: -0.3 bWAR
Our top two are formidable, with the right-handed Adams and the lefty Ruth, but it gets ugly quick. Marchildon had 162 starts in the bigs, going 68-75 with a respectable 3.93 ERA, but 5.1 BB/9. Kleiman was 26-28 with 33 saves and a 3.49 ERA. After that... well... maybe we'll go with the "opener" strategy.
Now lets take a look at them, Babe by Babe:
OF/P Babe Ruth: 182.4 bWAR
According to Baseball Reference, The Bambino had 162.1 bWAR as a batter and 20.3 bWAR as a pitcher... which is the second-highest pitching bWAR of any Babe in baseball history. Almost all his value as a pitcher came in just two seasons, 1916 (8.8) and 1917 (6.5) -- ages 21 and 22. In those two seasons, he had a combined 47-25 record with 650.0 IP, 1.88 ERA, and 1.077 WHIP.
George Herman Ruth -- who usually was called "Jidge" by his teammates, a funny mispronunciation of George -- picked up the nickname Babe when he was an 18-year-old prospect with the minor league Baltimore Orioles in 1913. There are several origin stories for the famous nickname... some say because he had a round baby face, others because he was so naive and rambunctious he was like an overgrown baby, and some because Orioles manager Jack Dunn doted on him like his own child.
People usually think of Babe Ruth as a right fielder, but he played almost as many games in left (1,048) as he did in right (1,130)... not to mention 74 games in center field, 32 at first base, and 163 at pitcher. In fact, Ruth almost always played left field except in stadiums that had a big left field -- like Yankee Stadium! Almost all of Ruth's career games in right field were at Yankee Stadium, Cleveland's League Park, and Washington D.C.'s Griffith Stadium. Everywhere else, he almost always played left field.
P Babe Adams: 52.2 bWAR
The second-best Babe was a star pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates during the deadball era, going 194-140 with a 2.76 ERA and 1.092 WHIP over a 19-year career. He was renowned for his control, walking just 430 men in 2,995.1 career innings — 1.29 BB/9. To put that in perspective, Greg Maddux had a 1.79 BB/9. Charles Adams was known as Babe several years before George Herman got the nickname. He picked it up in the minors in 1907 or 1908, supposedly because the female fans in Louisville were so enamored with his beautiful baby face.
OF/1B Babe Herman: 40.3 bWAR
Like Ruth and Adams, Floyd Herman picked up the nickname Babe in the minors. In 1921, the 18-year-old rookie with the Edmonton Eskimos in the Western Canada League introduced himself as Lefty, but his manager didn't like that -- too many players already named Lefty. After seeing Herman’s power in spring training, the giddy manager said: “You’re going to be my Babe,” as in Ruth. Over a 13-year MLB career, Herman hit .324/.383/.532 with 181 HR and 997 RBI. Such great numbers, why only 40.3 bWAR? Herman was a famously inept baserunner, and the source of an epic line from Ring Lardner: "Babe Herman did not triple into a triple play, but he doubled into a double play, which is the next best thing." He was even worse as a fielder -- in 1928, many decades before Jose Canseco, a fly ball bounced off his head. Years later, a sportswriter asked Herman about the play, and he said the story was all wrong: "The ball actually hit me in the shoulder!” I'm... not sure that's better. His defensive WAR was -9.7!
C Babe Phelps: 14.0 bWAR
The 6'2", 225-pound Ernest Phelps got the nickname Babe because of his resemblance, both in terms of body size and his face, to Ruth. Like Ruth, put on weight as he got older... by the end of his career, he was sometimes called "Blimp." A left-handed hitting catcher, Phelps hit a respectable .310/.362/.472 over an 11-year career.
1B Babe Young: 11.3 bWAR
Like several others on this list, Norman Robert Young lost some prime years to World War II. From 1939 to 1942, ages 23 through 26, the first baseman hit .277/.359/.454 in 424 games for a .813 OPS, accounting for 8.9 of his career 11.3 bWAR. He missed the next three seasons as he was in the U.S. Coast Guard, returning in 1946 at the age of 30. I can't find the origin story of his nickname, but as a left-handed slugger who played for Fordham University in the Bronx in the 1930s, I can guess it was in honor of the Bambino.
P Babe Marchildon: 9.5 bWAR
There are several people on this list who we can't even guess as to how they picked up the nickname Babe. This is definitely one of them. Babe was a most unlikely moniker for Philip Joseph Marchildon, a 5'10", 170-pound right-handed Canadian pitcher who lived a very tough life. Born in Ontario, he didn't play baseball until he was in high school, then got a job working in a nickel mine. At the age of 25, pitching for a semi-pro team, he went to a try-out with the minor league Toronto Maple Leafs; Marchildon struck out seven of the nine batters he faced, then drove back to Sudbury to resume life as a miner. As the story goes, the manager drove all the way to Sudbury to find him, dragged him out of the elevator just before it descended into the depths, and forced him right then and there to sign a baseball contract. Presumably because of his time as a miner, Marchildon had incredible strength in his fingers, enabling him to throw a fastball with remarkable movement... but he also struggled to control it, and often was among the league leaders in walks, wild pitches, and hit batters. In 1942, Marchildon joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a tail gunner on a bomber. Two years later, his bomber was shot down over Denmark. Marchildon and only one other crewmember survived; they were captured by the Germans and sent to Stalag Luft III, the prison camp made famous by the movie The Great Escape. After the war, Marchildon returned to baseball, but those who had known him before and after said the war had changed him, and he was long tormented by nightmares about what he'd endured. Marchildon, who went 68-75 with a 3.93 ERA and 1.456 WHIP in a nine-year career, is a member both the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.
IF Babe Pinelli: 5.7 bWAR
If only umpires accumulated bWAR! Rinaldo Angelo Paolinelli (he would later change it to the more American-sounding Ralph Pinelli) was born in San Francisco in 1895 -- the same years as Ruth -- to Italian immigrants. (His father was killed by a falling telephone pole in the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.) As a boy, he loved to play baseball, but the older boys wouldn't let him, and taunted him as "Babe" (as in baby) when he cried about it. Eventually they let him play, and he proved to be good enough that he would have an eight-year career in the bigs, hitting .276/.328/.346 in 2,617 ABs primarily as a third baseman for the Reds. After his career ended, Pinelli became an umpire; it's believed he was the first Italian-American umpire in MLB history when he made his debut in 1935. Pinelli was behind the plate for Don Larsen's perfect Game 5 in the 1956 World Series, and retired after Game 7. He wrote the first autobiography by an umpire, Mr. Ump, and was known as "The Lou Gehrig of Umpires" because he claimed he never missed a game in his 22-year career. He wasn't always on time, though: In 1941, Pinelli's umpiring crew was taking a boat from New York to Boston, and got lost in the fog. The first inning was umpired by the players, but the umpires arrived for the 2nd inning. Boston's manager was Casey Stengel, and from then on whenever Pinelli missed a call, Stengel would holler: "You're still fogbound!"
P Babe Klieman: 5.1 bWAR
We don't know why Edward Frederick Klieman was called Babe, but he also was called Specs and you can see why. Klieman was a swing-man for the Indians in the 1940s, going 26-28 with 33 saves and a 3.49 ERA in eight seasons.
1B Babe Dahlgren: 4.2 bWAR
Ellsworth Tenney Dahlgren was born in San Francisco in 1912, two years before Ruth made his MLB debut. His stepfather dubbed him "Babe" after the Sultan of Swat. Dahlgren actually followed in Ruth's footsteps, making his debut for the Red Sox in 1935 and then a few years later joining the rival New York Yankees, and later in his career played for the Boston Braves. Dahlgren famously replaced Lou Gehrig at first base when the Iron Horse ended his consecutive games played streak. He hit .261/.329/.383 over his 12-year career.
1B Babe Borton: 3.8 bWAR
A deadball era first baseman, it's unknown how William Baker Borton was dubbed Babe, but he was known by that nickname in 1913, a year before Ruth. A seldom-used reserve for the White Sox and Yankees, Borton jumped to the Federal League in 1915. That season, playing for the St. Louis Terriers, he would hit a respectable .286 with a .395 OBP (leading the league with 92 walks!). After the Federal League folded, Borton returned to MLB and would hit .224/.350/.306 in just 98 ABs, and then like many other former Federal League players was released. He would keep playing professionally in the Pacific Coast League, but in 1920 -- the same year the Black Sox scandal was unveiled -- the 30-year-old Borton was caught in a scheme trying to fix games, and booted from professional baseball.
C Babe Roof: 3.3 bWAR
The last MLB player with the nickname Babe was Phil Roof, who also had the grand nickname of the Duke of Paducah. Roof was a light-hitting catcher, putting up a .215/.283/.319 line in 2,151 career ABs... and yet he had a good enough glove to have a 15-year MLB career, retiring in 1977 at the age of 36. Babe Roof hit 43 home runs in his 15-year career... which means he averaged less than three a year.
P Babe Birrer: 0.9 bWAR
A pitcher in the 1950s, Werner Joseph Birrer posted a career 4.36 ERA and 1.387 WHIP in 119.2 career innings over three seasons. I can only imagine the disappointment of a little boy opening a pack of Bowman Cards and finding not a Mantle or a Mays but a Birrer. But for all that, Birrer did have one shining moment, and how he got the nickname Babe. On July 19, 1955, Birrer pitched four shutout innings in relief... and hit not one but two three-run home runs. A pitcher who hits home runs, naturally he was given the nickname Babe!
P Babe Meers: 0.9 bWAR
Russell Harlan Meers was a left-handed pitcher for the Cubs who pitched in one game in 1941 -- taking the loss despite giving up just one earned run and five hits in 8 innings -- and then of course World War II happened. He would spend 1942-1945 in the U.S. Navy. After the war he'd pitch another two seasons with the Cubs, then bounce around a few more years in the minors. In his MLB career, he went 3-3 with a 3.98 ERA and 1.482 WHIP. He threw hard, but had fantastically bad control... as a 20-year-old rookie in the Mountain State League in 1939, he walked 191 batters in 227 innings!
P Babe Linke: 0.9 bWAR
Edward Karl Linke posted a 5.61 ERA and 1.695 WHIP but somehow lasted six years in the bigs. Maybe he kept getting chances because he threw a no-hitter in the minors as a 20-year-old in 1932. Linke's career very nearly ended in 1935, when he was hit in the face by a line drive; it hit him so hard that it bounced off his forehead and went back to the catcher, who caught it on the fly and threw to second for a double play! Linke was hospitalized for two days, but returned to baseball (and would win eight of his nine decisions after that). Unfortunately we don't know why he was called Babe.
P Babe Doty: 0.5 bWAR
The original Babe according to baseball-reference.com, Elmer L. Doty was born in 1867. He had just one MLB appearance, but it was a pretty good one -- a complete game win for the Toledo Maumees, allowing just one run and one walk while fanning four against the Brooklyn Bridgerooms. He would continue to pitch semi-pro and minor league ball for a few more years before becoming a woodworker. Alas, he may be the original Babe, but we don't know why they called him that; quite possibly it was because he was just 22 years old when he made his debut.
OF Babe Ganzel: 0.4 bWAR
He was born Foster Pirie Ganzel, so I understand why he wanted a nickname, but I don't know why it was Babe. He had two brief stints in the majors, hitting .311/.378/.473 in 74 career ABs; but the outfielder had a long minor league career, beginning as a 21-year-old in 1922 and ending as a 41-year-old in 1942. He was later a minor league manager; one time in response to criticism from fans that he never told his players to bunt, he ordered his first nine batters to do so. All nine reached base safely. I guess the fans were right!
OF Babe Twombly: 0.3 bWAR
Clarence Edward Twombly played two years for the Chicago Cubs, 1920-1921, hitting .304/.357./366 in 358 career ABs. We can speculate he got the nickname Babe because he was the baby brother to another major leaguer, George, who played five seasons between 1914 and 1919 (hitting .211/.289/.247 in 417 ABs). Interestingly enough, big brother George was playing for the minor league Baltimore Orioles in 1914 when he was stricken by appendicitis, and he was replaced in the lineup by a baby-faced rookie named... Babe Ruth. Later that year, the Reds were given the opportunity to purchase two players from the Orioles roster; instead of Ruth, they took George Twombly and a former major league infielder named Claud Derrick. Later that year, the Red Sox were given the same deal and they took Ruth and Ernie Shore.
C Babe Wilber: 0.2 bWAR
If not for World War 2, maybe Delbert Quentin Wilber would have been higher on this list. As an infant, his mother called him "Babe" and it stuck. Wilber made his minor league debut as a 19-year-old catcher in the St. Louis Browns system in 1938, hitting .304 with a .490 SLG in 398 ABs, and he'd follow that up hitting .308 with a .472 SLG in 435 ABs in 1940. But three months after Pearl Harbor, Wilber found himself at the Jefferson Barracks Army Air Force Base in Missouri. He entered the war as a private and left it as a captain, spending most of that time on military bases as a playemanager for baseball teams often loaded with MLB stars. He would finally reach the Show as a 27-year-old in 1946, getting a cup of coffee with the St. Louis Cardinals. Over his eight-year career, Wilber would hit .242/.286/.389 in 720 ABs.
P Babe Davis: 0.2 bWAR
Born in 1913 -- one month after the inauguration of the 28th president -- Woodrow Wilson Davis pitched in just two MLB games, giving up one run on three hits (but four walks) for the Detroit Tigers in 1938. He did have seven years in the minors, going 50-55 in 190 games across six different leagues, but like many others on this list his professional baseball career was derailed by World War II, serving in the U.S. Navy. I can't find a source for the nickname Babe, but he obviously liked the nickname -- after baseball, he founded "Babe's Mighty Mites," a baseball and softball youth program in Wayne County, Georgia.
C Babe Towne: 0.1 bWAR
A catcher for 14 games for the Chicago White Sox in 1906, Jay King Towne went 10-for-36 with seven walks (.395 OBP) and had a pinch-hit appearance in the 1906 World Series, but apparently that wasn't good enough to bring him back to the bigs the following season. He had a long minor league career, though, starting as a 22-year-old catcher for the Rock Rapids Browns in the Iowa-South Dakota League in 1902 and ending as a 36-year-old playemanager of the Fort Dodge Dodgers in the Central Association in 1916. In 1911, he hit .366 for the Sioux City Packers of the Western League! Like many others, I can't find the origin of the nickname Babe, but he had it years before Ruth did.
1B Babe Danzig: 0.0 bWAR
Harold Paul Danzig went 2-for-13 in his only MLB season, in 1909 with the Boston Red Sox. Danzig would spend a total of nine years in professional baseball, playing in the Pacific Coast League, the New England League (hitting .345 for Lowell Tigers in 232 AB), the Southern Association, and the Empire State League. Danzig -- born eight years before Ruth, and making his MLB debut while Ruth was a 14-year-old boy at St. Mary's School for Boys -- reportedly picked up the nickname Babe because of his large size as a youth, in reference to Paul Bunyan's blue ox!
OF Babe Klee: 0.0 bWAR
Ollie Chester Klee appeared in just three MLB games, all with the Cincinnati Reds in 1925. On August 10th, he replaced future Hall of Famer Edd Roush in center field in the 7th inning of a 10-6 game against the Brooklyn Robins; he would then lead off against Dazzy Vance in the 9th, and strike out. (Vance would strike out the side, going the distance in the 13-7 victory.) On August 14 and August 26, the 25-year-old got into games as a pinch runner, but didn't get to bat or field... or even advance a base. Klee had been a star halfback at the Ohio State University and later was a high school football coach. Unfortunately, we don't know when or why he picked up the nickname Babe.
OF Babe Bigelow: -0.2 bWAR
Maybe the Boston Red Sox thought they'd reversed the curse in 1929 when they signed a left-handed power hitter nicknamed Babe. Elliot Allardice Bigelow had been a minor league sensation, tearing up the Florida State League, the South Atlantic League, and the Southern Association. Between 1924 and 1928, his lowest batting average was .349. Supposedly the right-field fence in Chattanooga was so deep that only three balls had ever been hit over it... two of them by Bigelow. Of course if he'd played today, they'd call him Bam-Bam, but in 1926, you call a guy like that Babe. In Boston, the 31-year-old rookie would hit a respectable .284 with a .357 OBP, but only one home run in 211 ABs. In addition to his lack of power, his other problem was, in those pre-DH days, Bigelow was just too slow and awkward to play the field. After one season in the Show, he returned to the minors to terrorize the pitchers of the Southern Association. In 12 seasons in the minors -- 1,473 games -- Bigelow hit .349!
P Babe Sherman: -0.2 bWAR
Lester Daniel Sherman had twice as many nicknames -- Babe or General -- as he did games played. He pitched in just one game, facing three batters -- getting one out and walking two -- as a 23-year-old pitcher for Chicago in the Federal League in 1914. He would pitch sporadically in the minors after that, going 10-15 in 44 games. Maybe they called him Babe because of his youth, or his size -- he was listed at 5'6" and 145 pounds.
P Babe Picone: -0.3 bWAR
Another guy who we don't know where the nickname came from. Mario Peter Picone played pro ball for 13 seasons, but had only 40 innings in the bigs, scattered between 1947 and 1954. The righty went 0-2 with a 6.30 ERA and 1.700 WHIP in three starts and 10 relief appearances.
1B Babe Butka: -0.4 bWAR
A war-time replacement, Edward Luke Butka hit just .220 in 50 ABs between 1943 and 1944. He got the nickname Babe as a teenager playing semi-pro baseball in Pennsylvania in the 1930s because of his impressive home run power. Butka, the son of Polish immigrants, wanted to fight in World War II but was ruled 4-F because of a punctured ear drum; he tried to enlist more than once, but was always turned away. After the veteran players returned from the war, Butka kicked around the minors for awhile and later became a player-manager.
OF Babe Martin: -0.6 bWAR
Boris Michael Martinovich was born in 1920, the son of a Montenegro-born professional wrestler known as Iron Mike Martin. The youngest of five children, Boris was called Baby for years, and the nickname stuck; when he grew into a man, it soon became the more baseball-friendly nickname of Babe. He spent most of his professional career in the minors, though he did get 185 at-bats with the St. Louis Browns in 1945, hitting .200/.245/.281. In Double-A in 1944, he hit .350/.418/.580 in 386 AB, and in Triple-A in 1947 he hit .319/.383/.555.
OF Babe Barna: -0.7 bWAR
Herbert Paul Barna was a three-sport star at West Virginia University in the 1930s, excelling in football, basketball, and baseball; the Philadelphia Eagles wanted him, but instead he signed with the Philadelphia Athletics. West Virginia University also was where he got the nickname Babe, presumably because of his size (6'2", 210 pounds) and because he was a left-handed power hitter. The outfielder may have had a better career in the NFL, as he hit .232/.311/.346 in five MLB seasons.
UT Babe Ellison: -0.9 bWAR
Herbert Spencer Ellison would hit .216/.282/.284 in 348 AB between 1916 and 1920; despite his poor hitting, he was a useful utility man, seeing time at every position except pitcher and catcher! After a standout freshman year for the University of Arkansas baseball team, at the age of 18 he turned pro, playing for the Clinton Pilots in the Central Association. We can speculate he got the name Babe because he was so very young. A year later he would make his MLB debut with the Detroit Tigers, where he'd play his entire five-year MLB career. After that, he would be a star in the Pacific Coast League; he and Babe Pinelli were teammates on the 1927 San Francisco Seals. It's possible he was known as Babe before that other Babe was too widely known; we can speculate he got the nickname because he was so young when he turned pro.
OF Babe Nelson: -1.0 bWAR
Another big left-handed outfielder, Robert Sidney Nelson hit just .205/.295/.254 in 122 AB with the Baltimore Orioles between 1955 and 1957. He got the nickname Babe because of his prodigious power in high school -- he was known as "The Babe Ruth of Texas." After he joined the Orioles, he was given another nickname -- Tex -- by his roommate, future Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson. Nelson was pretty much on the bench for three years, then went to the minors where he had some good seasons, but some bad ones too. He was out of baseball in 1961, at the age of 24. He would never hit a home run in the bigs, but he did have 75 of them in the minors.
And finally... Who had more bWAR, Babe Ruth, or the 30 other Babes combined?
Babe Ruth: 182.4 bWAR 30 Other Babes: 149.5 bWAR
The King of Crash also is the King of Babes!

Please welcome today's contestants:

• John, a financial trader from Illinois, knows why you should stand in the corner if you're cold;
• Peggy, a publisher from Washington, D.C. runs an online forum about neighborhood issues; and
• Jason, a math teacher from New Mexico, brought his stuffed manatee to class. Jason is a two-day champ with winnings of $45,200.

Jason opened the game by running a literature category and led at every break. John had a chance to complete an amazing last-to-first rally on DD3, but didn't bet enough to take the lead, so he settled for second going into FJ with $15,000 vs. $18,600 for Jason and $12,400 for Peggy.
DD1, $1,000 - COMPANY ADS & SLOGANS - This bank was "Established 1852. Re-established 2018" (Peggy won $2,000 from her score of $3,200.)
DD2, $2,000 - STATE OF THE ART (the state where the art is located) - The Crazy Horse Memorial (Jason won $2,000 from his leading total of $9,800.)
DD3, $800 - THE 40-YEAR-OLD GERMAN - After the 1994 election, she became Germany's Minister of Environment, Conservation & Reactor Safety, but a promotion awaited (John won $4,000 from his score of $11,000 vs. $17,000 for Jason. Going all-in to nail down first place going into FJ was the way to go here.)
FJ - TOYS & GAMES - The prototype for this game that was introduced in 1948 was called Lexiko
Everyone was correct on FJ, so John's timid wager on DD3 cost him the game. Jason added $11,500 to win with $30,100 for a three-day total of $75,300.
Triple Stumper of the day: No one knew the legendary lost city where one might "pick up some gold" is El Dorado.
Shameless shilling: Please refer to DD1.
Correct Qs: DD1 - What is Wells Fargo? DD2 - What is South Dakota? DD3 - Who is Merkel? FJ - What is Scrabble?

That reminds me of a story.
Continuing
Javen Spanner calls Jerry to have him remind me that we have a meeting planned and tonight would be a good time. I ask Jerry to call him back and accept for me.
Properly showered and decontaminated, I show up at the Spanner Ranch once again. I know where to park, I know which do to go to.
The butler greets me and takes my duster and hat as usual.
“Drawing room, Mr. Rock. Mr. Spanner is waiting.”
“Thank you, Jeeves.” I never did learn the guy’s real name.
Once again into the den. Javen greets me warmly and tells me to pour him and me a drink.
“Double bourbon and branch, neat?” I ask.
“Good man. I don’t like to have to tell anyone anything twice.” Javen remarks.
I decide to make two. I hand Javen his drink and ask what’s on his mind.
“First off, Sani sends his regards. Says you finally finished that work you were doing and just wouldn’t quit. I like that. Determination.” He says.
“Ah, Sani. He’s a real character, isn’t he?” I reply.
“He likes you. You could have gone off on him and gotten abusive. Hell, you’re twice, three times his size. But you stuck to your guns and got the job done. Good. Sani was impressed as well.” He says.
“It was…necessary. It was a key to figuring out the area.” I reply.
“Determined and motivated. I like that.” He hits a silent button on his desk.
I sip my drink and wonder curiously.
“Have a cigar” Javen says as he offers me his open humidor.
“Thanks. Cuban. Oh, very nice.” I say.
Javen leans back in his big leather chair and smile.
Jeeves walks in a few minutes later pushing a cart with some largish object on it, covered with a white tarp.
“Ready for another?” Javen asks.
“Sure,” I reply.
Javen goes and gets the drinks. Hands me mine and stands next to the cart.
“Curious?” he asks.
“A bit”, I reply.
He pulls off the tarp. “Here, this is for you.”
It is a hand-tooled leather, custom Western saddle, burnished until it shines. Silver Conchos, silver this, and silver that. It is exquisite.
“Whoa. Thank you, Mr. Spanner. But what…”
He cuts me off. “Come over here and look at this” he instructs me.
I go over to the saddle and he points out the name “Esme” hand-tooled into the fore and aft of the saddle. I know there are names for every part of a saddle, but I don’t know them, so front and back it is.
He also shows me where it was created: it was signed “Spanner Saddlery. Torreon, New Mexico”.
That’s it, I’m stumped.
“Whoa, Javen. Wow. What can I say but thank you?” I sputter.
“We take care of our own out here. You helped me, I help you. Thank you.” Javen says to me.
“Again, it’s beautiful. Esme will just love it.” I say.
“And you too when you give it to her.” He chuckles.
I smile and do my best ‘aw, shucks’ Andy Rooney routine.
“Now, come. Another drink and we will talk business.” Javen says.
We get our own drinks as Jeeves takes my keys to deposit the saddle in my truck.
“Now, Rock. I have a business proposition for you”, Javen says. “How much longer are you going to be in school?” he asks.
“At least a year until I finish and defend my thesis. Then maybe two or three more if I decide to pursue my Ph.D.” I explain.
“What would you say if I offered you a Vice President position at Spanner Enterprises once you finish your Master’s?”, Javen asks.
“I’m not sure,” I replied.
“Well, I am. I could use someone like you. Smart, determined, motivated. I’ve got so damn many irons in the fire, I can’t even count them much less keep control. I need someone like you. Good pay, good benefits, use of the whole Spanner Empire’s resources. What do you think?” he continues.
“Would that be here in Torreon? “ I ask.
“Depends where you want to live. I’ve got houses in Cuba, Torreon, Albuquerque, Farmington, Taos. Take your pick.” He says.
“Javen, I’m honored and I thank you. I will have to give this a lot of thought, though. Can I have some time to think it over? See, I might possibly be getting married when I graduate as well. So there’s another consideration.” I say.
“Take your time. Make sure before you leave New Mexico that I have all your contact information. It’s not time-critical. I know you need to finish your Master’s. But after that, you let me know what you want to do.” Javen explains.
“Absolutely, Javen. Let me chew it over for a while. I will definitely give you my decision as soon as I sort a few things out.” I say, still reeling.
“Well let’s have another drink and a spot of supper, shall we?” Javen smiles.
I don’t remember a thing from the ride back to camp that night. My mind was a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
I awoke the next day to pummeling rain. A cold front had run headlong into a warm front and the results were leaking out all over northern New Mexico. It was windy, somewhat dark, and raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock. Most unusual weather for this part of New Mexico at this time of year.
My tent, well repaired, was high and dry so I decided it’d be madness to go into the field today. I’d never get across any of even the minor wadis and everything would be turning to sticky mud for the next couple of days. Luckily, John let me store Esme’s saddle in his house until Jerry and Bets left for Texas.
I had an unplanned day off. I had plenty of cigars, loads of beer and such and some work I could do while I was imprisoned. After 5 hours of mapping and re-correlating sections, I grew restive. Maybe some coffee would help. I wandered over to the office to see if anyone had made a recent pot.
It continued raining so I just slogged it over to the office in cargo shorts, T-shirt, and the cheap tennis shoes I bought in Cuba; I didn’t want to ruin my fuzzy-bunny field slippers in this mess. Plus, I was tired of all the shit I got every time I wore them.
John, Derek, and Ace were all in the office, can’t weld too much when it’s 100% humidity.
There was a pot of semi-fresh coffee and I helped myself to a cup.
“This weather normal? “ I asked.
“Not really” Ace replies.
“It happens, but not for years. You’re lucky to see this.” Derek adds.
John calls me over to the window, “Rock, take a look at this.”
The ditches we blasted and dug were filling with runoff water but seemed curiously ‘alive’.
“So, Dr. Science, what the hell’s that? He asks.
“Dunno,” I reply. “Let’s go find out.”
We all troop out in the rain and look into the filling culverts.
“What the fuck? “ Ace says.
“That’s weird,” I say and bend down to scoop up some of the bubbling water.
“Holy shit!” I exclaim, “Its toads. Thousands of toads!”
Seems there’s this species of estivating toad that makes its home in this part of New Mexico. They are the New Mexico Spadefoot Toad (Spea multiplicata) and go absolutely sex-crazy and reproductively obsessed when there’s a soaker like today. They’re not protected or anything, but unusual. They show up only once every few years and only for a day or so.
And a perfect way for me to supplement my bank account.
Dr. Nax wants are representative herpetofauna; herpetofauna meaning both reptiles and amphibians. And currently, we’re up to our hip boots in amphibians.
“John,” I ask, “You got a landing net by any chance?”
“No, but I’ll wager Jerry does out on his boat.”
We run over to Jerry’s house and ask if he has a landing net. He does, it’s in his boat out back, and we could borrow it, if we return it when we’re done.
“Will do” I yell as we run back to retrieve the net.
“Ace, take the net and start scooping out toads. I’ve got to get some buckets. I’ll give you a six-pack for helping me.” I yell.
“On it, Rock!” Ace yells back.
“Holy wow”, I think, “This is a bonanza! At even a buck or two each, it’s money in the bank!”
I run back with my buckets, mis-negotiate a corner, and go face-first into the wet, sloppy New Mexico mud.
“Fuck it. I don’t care. I’m washable.” I think as I run toward my meal ticket.
There were toads everywhere, particularly in the slit-trenches we built. They were full to overflowing with water. The toads burbled out with it.
I was trying to grab the slippery bastards and throw them in a bucket, but they were fighters. I was slipping and slopping around, and just getting covered in mud. I didn’t care. This was too much fun.
Ace slips and he joins the mudmen corps. He didn’t care as long as he earned his six-pack.
John was doing well and had gotten about a dozen of the croakers into my bucket when he joined the corps. Of course, we were all too polite to laugh…too much.
One after another, we all got covered thickly with mud. I had buckets of toads but kept going, maybe there were more than one species here. This was for SCIENCE!
Danny wanders over after some church-related meeting. Due to the flooding, the frothing, and the toads didn’t see the slit-trench and stepped right into it. He went all in three and a half-full feet.
Danny picks himself up as he asks what’s going on.
“Toads! We all yell back.
“So?”
“Rock collects them for his museum. Get over here, these bastards are slippery.”
Figuring he’s already soaked and filthy, he does help out.
After an hour or so, I’ve got five five-gallon pickle buckets full of amphibians. I tell everyone to wait here, I’m going to get my truck.
Jerry walks over to see what all the commotion was and sees his whole crew, plastered with mud, sitting around and on my truck. We were all drinking beer, or Orange Fanta, as I had bought some in case Danny ever came back over to our side, actually as a mixer for some of the local firewater, smoking cigars and laughing like loons.
“Rock. You are a very bad influence on my workers” Jerry laughed as he shook his head.
I spent until 0330 the next day fixing, formalin-ing, and collating toads. There turned out to be four different species. I couldn’t tell the difference, but Dr. Nax could.
“Now that’s a representative herpetofauna,” I said to no one as I creaked back to my tent.
After a day to recover, Jerry comes over and asks if I’d like to ride the pipeline with him.
Once a week, someone takes the one-ton company pickup and rides from one end of the pipeline to the other for visual inspection. It’s a full day affair and Jerry thinks it’ll give me a good overview of areas I’d either normally avoid or not see.
I respond in the affirmative and we take off on our journey. It was a long, hot, dusty drive.
Truth be told, it was boring as hell. Sure, there were some places of interest, but since there were so many out here, these were moderately ‘OK’ versus the ‘Wow’ of the others I was working with.
We drive all morning and Jerry says, “Hey, I know a good lunch spot. You’d never find it if someone didn’t show it to you. Maybe you can tell us what it is.”
We drive for a while longer and pull off to the left and go seriously bush for a mile or so until we come to a clearing surrounded by short, badlands-type outcrops a few dozen feet tall.
We park and Jerry say “Come over here and look at this. What is it?”
I look at the ground and there are dozens of felled trees, all lying on top of one another. Huge trees, fully 40 or 50 feet in length and 3-4 feet in diameter, all lying around like thrown jackstraws. Thing was, they were all solid quartz. It was a fossilized Late Cretaceous log jam.
Jerry was right, I’d have never found this on my own.
I took seven rolls of film and ran through each one of them. I mapped as best I could and noted the locality on the geological maps I was building.
“Holy hell, Jerry”, I say. “If I’m reading this right, this is at the very top of the Late Cretaceous.”
“Yeah, and?” he says.
“This, if I’m reading this right, might be the New Mexico result of the Yucatan asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. I’ve seen the tsunami deposits in Texas from the event, and the fallout in North Dakota and Nebraska. This could be a result of the asteroid impact tsunami, and the wiping out of local coastal forests. Jerry! This is incredibly important shit! Holy hell! This could be the find of a career!” I was jumping up and down.
“Oh, good. I’m glad I brought you here then.” He flatly says.
I just goggled at this lack of enthusiasm.
A few days later, after I map the fossil log jam and sample and document it as much as I can, I’m out riding around the country looking for likely looking outcrops. I come around the corner and run directly into Sani on his horse. He motions for me to pull over so we can talk.
“Sani Yáʼátʼééh shi akʼis”, I greet him.
“Yáʼátʼééh Kǫʼdził-hastiin”, Sani replies.
“Kind of hot today,” I say.
“Yeah. Dusty too.” He agrees.
I grab a couple of cold beers out of the cooler and hand one to Sani.
“What’s up? “ I ask.
“I was looking for you. You found the trees?” he asked.
‘Yeah. What a find. Jerry showed me. It’s an amazing locality.” I replied.
“I asked Jerry to take you there. You needed to see it, I was told,” he said.
I knew better than to ask ‘by who’?
“Thank you. Most appreciated.” I reply.
“Now you follow me. There is trouble ahead. Kǫʼdził-hastiin will fix it, I was told.”
“Sure. I’ll follow you. OK?” I said.
Wordlessly he hands me his empty beer, mounts his horse, and waits for me to follow.
I drive about 10 miles, right off the edge of my map area. We stop at a small collection of hogans, the native structures in which the locals sometimes live.
Sani motions me over to a structure on the side of the compound. Turns out it’s a hand-dug and relatively ancient water well.
The problem was, it was dry.
Sani tells me that it gives good water, sometimes running high, sometimes running low, but always sweet water. Now, it’s dry. This is bad.
“Kǫʼdził-hastiin will make it work,” Sani tells me.
“Sani, I’ll do my best,” I reply.
I go over to my truck, get some climbing gear as its big enough to enter and a flashlight as its 35 or so feet deep and dark at the bottom. I back my truck up so I can tie off and rappel down into the well.
There’s some junk down here, tree branches and the like but the thing that I notice is the amount of very fine sand covering the bottom of the well. This well was choked off by the recent rains. Too much runoff, and when it subsided, it left a load of sand and clay which plugged up the porosity of the aquifer.
Easy fix. If you know what you’re doing.
I climb out of the well and Sani just looks at me with those big brown eyes and weather-beaten visage.
“No problem. I can fix it. Take a bit of time, but I’ll have it up and running by late this afternoon.” I say.
Sani shakes his head yes and goes back to talking with some of the other locals.
Two round trips and a few buckets of well-bottom schmoo later, I’m sitting on the back of my truck, wiring up a blasting harness. Sani comes over and asks how I’m doing.
“OK, just need to clear out some of that sand, create some new fractures and you’ll have plenty of water. I’ve got to blast, so keep everyone away. I don’t know the local lingo for FIRE IN THE HOLE, literally. So, just tell everyone to stay away until I give the all-clear.” I tell him.
“Kǫʼdził-hastiin has spoken. It will be done.” Sani tells me.
What to use, what to use? Dynamite? Too messy, lots of leftovers after a shot. C-4? Nah. Probably too much shock. Primacord? No. What to use?
A lightbulb goes off. “Binary liquids!” No residue and I can use an empty beer can for the charge. I‘ve got lots of those. The aluminum will be atomized and won’t contaminate the water.
Beer. Is there nothing it can’t do?
I mix up 8 ounces of my new binary liquid explosive. It’s really stable and even a bullet out of a gun won’t set it off. I rig a blasting cap to the top of the beer can and spool out 50 feet of demolition wire.
Back in the bottom of the well, I dug a hole about two foot deep and set the charge. I cover and tamp it well so the blast goes down and sideways instead of up. I ascend up out of the well and toss all my gear into the back of my truck.
I pull away from the well a few feet and rig to blast. I look around and there’s no one to be found, even Sani’s disappeared. I hit the horn three times, yell fire in the hole, feeling a bit weird. But I stop and take a look around, just to be certain no one’s around.
Can’t see anyone, so I hit the horn again and go back to the blasting machine.
FIRE IN THE HOLE! Literally.
I say “HIT IT!” and push the big red shiny button.
There’s a hellacious THUMP and the ground literally shakes.
I quickly rewind what demo wire is left and wander over to the well and shine my flashlight down to the bottom. There’s a lot of dust and swirling, and if I listen carefully…
“I hear water. Good.” Sani says, sneaking up behind me and scaring the hell out of me.
I listen for a few minutes and don’t hear anything. I toss a small rock in and hear a rewarding splash.
“Mission accomplished,” I tell Sani.
“See, I was told Kǫʼdził-hastiin will fix it,” Sani says matter of factly.
Jerry and Betsy were hitching up their boat, getting ready for their annual fishing trip holiday down to South Padre in Texas. He calls me over for a confab.
“Rock, here are the house keys. I didn’t put the key to my gun cabinet on the ring since I figure you already have that covered. Please look after my place and keep the mud to a minimum,” He laughs.
“Don’t worry, Jerry. I’ll watch and take care of this place like it’s my own.” I reply.
“Help yourself to any food in the fridge or freezer and don’t worry about replacing it. It’ll just go bad otherwise. Hope you and Esme, that’s her name, right? Have a good time. See you September first. We’re gone.” He says.
Betsy comes over and gives me a quick hug. “Thanks for this Rock. I feel better leaving the house in good hands,” she says.
“Don’t worry about anything. We’ll take great care of your place and guard all your stuff. Now, GIT! And have a great vacation.” I tell her.
I decide to leave my tent up as I don’t want to tear it all down and it’ll give me a good place to unwind, smoke and do my mapping. I want to live in their house, not squat.
Long John brings Esme’s saddle over and we both stand there looking at it.
“Damn, Rock. Javen is tighter'n a bull's ass in fly time, and he gave you this? Holy hell. He must really like you. That saddles gotta be worth four or five thousand dollars, easy.” He notes.
“No shit?” as I had no idea what horse riding kit cost, “Did I tell you he offered me a job?”
“As what? Drinking and Boone companion?” John chuckled.
“No. Vice President of Spanner Enterprises,” I reply.
“No shit?” John goggles, “People would kill for a job like that. When do you start?”
“Don’t know. Don’t even know if I’m going to take the job. I’ve got to finish my Master’s and that’s a year. Then, Ph.D.? I don’t know. Then there’s Esme.” I explained.
“Damn. That’s a lot on your plate. Hell, you take that job, and I’ll be working for you as Spanner Enterprises owns 50% of this plant. Now there’s a revolting thought.” He laughs.
“I just don’t know,” I tell him. “You’re right, things just got a lot more complicated.”
A couple of days later, I’m out mapping to the west. I note that I’m only a few miles shy of the Scavada wash. The next thing I know, I’m parking at the Scavada Trading Post and Silver Bullet Station.
“Hello, the trading post!” I yell as I enter.
“Hello “Kǫʼdził-hastiin. Enter!” Fred chuckles.
“Where the hell did you hear that?” I ask.
“News travels fast on the res. You’re quite the celebrity.” Fred tells me.
Fred grabs two beers and we stand around the front desk, chewing things over.
“Sani speaks highly of you. I heard of your introductions out at the grim Mount Badass. He pranked you good. He likes you.” Fred chuckles.
“You know Sani?” I ask semi-rhetorically.
“Everyone knows Sani,” Fred replies.
The door opens and two locals come in. Fred greets them.
They turn to look at me and say “Yáʼátʼééh Kǫʼdził-hastiin”.
I guess I am becoming a local celebrity.
They stopped in to see if Fred would spot them a beer or two on credit.
Fred says: “Guys, you know my rules. No credit. No free beer. Unless you have money or something to trade…”
One of the older gents turns to me and says, “Maybe Kǫʼdził-hastiin would like to hear of our stories from the war.”
Fred looks at me and says “For return of a beer. Tales for booze.”
I said I’d rather like hearing of their exploits.
They were Code-Talkers during World War Two. No matter what age they were, meet an older male local and they were a Code Talker. But if there were Talkers or not, they provided some entertaining stories. Definitely worth a beer or two.
After a couple of hours, they left and I had an idea.
“Fred, my girlfriend’s coming for a visit. Is that jewelry there on pawn or is it for sale?”
“Most of its ‘dead pawn’; they pawned it and never redeemed it. I sell it to help keep this pile of shit running”, he replies.
“That’s quite the collection. Does it come with a Kǫʼdził-hastiin discount?” I ask.
“Make me an offer.” Fred chuckles.
I leave an hour or so later with 5 exquisite native necklaces, a couple of pairs of earrings and a silver concho belt. Total cost, 75 bucks. Lots of turquoise, lots of bone and shell, all quite striking.
Well, Christmas is coming and all that.
In our last letter, I sent Esme a map detailing directions to Cuba. I wanted to meet her there, have a spot of lunch or dinner, pick up any supplies she might need and then have her follow me out to Lago de Estrella gas plant.
Well, today was the day she was driving in.
I waited for her at the Atomic Bar. It had a good view of the only approach into town from Albuquerque and it was cool and the beer was cheap.
Finally, I see a gun-metal gray Chevy Nova come wheeling into town.
She’s here!
I run outside and flag here down. The reunion was quite moving. I had missed her more than I had realized. A monumental decision was made that moment, that day, standing in the dusty parking lot of the Atomic Bar.
“Hungry?” I ask her.
“Famished.” She replies.
“Let’s go across the street. The food there I incredible.” I suggest.
“Lead the way.”
After checking for the nonexistent traffic, we go over to the Cuba Café, enter, and grab an empty table.
Sindy comes over with menus and asks if I’d like my usual.
I reply “Yes, make it two.”
Esme looks at Sindy and Sindy stars daggers back.
“So, you’re a regular here? I would have expected that across the street.” Esme chuckles.
“Oh, I’m just a regular celebrity around these parts,” I say.
Sindy returns with our beers and I say “Where are my manners? Sindy this is Esme, Esme this is Sindy. She helped me out when I first hit town.”
“Hello. Nice to meet you” Esme says.
“Yeah, hi” Sindy glacially says and shuffles off.
“Helped you out? How so?” Esme asks.
“Well, she brought me my laundry once; gave me the lay of the land. All very proper and above board. Nothing else. She’s married, well, separated. Everything was nonphysical and friendly.” I say.
“Oh, I see. Well, it was good you made friends while you were out here. The tone of your letters made it sound like you were forced into being a monk or hermit.” Esme says.
“I was simply pining away for my one, true love” I poured it on with a bucket.
“Good. You should. Now, tell me all about Cuba, New Mexico.” She says.
“Nope, you tell me all about Alpine, Texas first,” I reply.
We spent the rest of the day filling each other in about our respective summers. It was so good to see her, I hope she likes the crowd out at the gas plant.
“Well, we best be off. It’s not that far to the plant, but the roads are kind of windy and I got lost several times. Best take it slow and be certain.” I say. “Need anything from town before we head out?”
“No, I’m good. Gassed up in Torreon, so I’m still pretty full.” She says
“OK, then. Let’s go to your new home.” I snicker.
We arrive at the gas plant without getting lost nor sidetracked. I show here where to park and grab her luggage.
“Welcome to Lago de Estrella!” I say as we enter Jerry and Betsy’s place.
“Wow. Sure beats the tent I’ve been living in these past three months.” Esme says.
I show her around and she says she’s tired but would love a shower.
I show her the place and grab some towels for her.
“Where do you want your luggage”, I ask, sheepishly.
“In the bedroom, silly. Where else?” She says.
The cosmic karma fairy has indeed been generous to Kǫʼdził-hastiin.
The next day, Esme says she’d like a day off after her long drive and field camp.
I need to go out and map a few more areas.
She says: “Go. That’s what you’re here for. Don’t let me alter your plans. Knowing you, you’ve got time mapped out to the second. Go. I’ll be fine.”
“If you go out, watch for Danny and Beth, they’ll try and convert you. Ace will try to be his most flattery goofy self, he’s harmless. Watch out for the tall character, he’s Long John. He’s into pranks and practical jokes. Again, mostly harmless.” I say.
“OK, go. I’ll probably be napping anyways. I’m beat after a full summer of climbing mountains.” She says.
“Oh, yeah. Stay out of the spare bedroom. Jerry doesn’t want anyone in there.” I lie. It’s where I hid the saddle.
“Sure. No problem. Now go so you can get done and get back.” She tells me.
Yep, now I know I made the right decision.
I drive out and look at my field notes. I need to map an outcrop of coal where the locals have been filching the stuff for use in heating and cooking. It’s not technically illegal, as this stuff is local, at least in this outcrop, low yield and never be targeted for mining. But, it does technically belong to the company that has leased the lands. Still, it’s not very much and…
I stop as Sani is on his horse, right in the middle of the road.
After the usual greetings, he instructs me to follow him.
Here we go again.
Right to the coal outcrop where I was headed.
“Sani, what’s the deal?” I ask.
“Many people depend on the coal here. But look, there is no coal here, just rock. I was told Kǫʼdził-hastiin will know what to do. I was told where to find you, and now I bring you here.” Sani says.
“Sani”, I say, “This is weird. I was planning on coming here today. I told no one except Esme. Oh, yeah. My girlfriend is in town, I’d sure like you to meet her.” I say.
“This I know. I will meet her. But first you need to talk to rocks.” Sani direct.
“OK, Sani. No problem. Let me look at what’s going on and I’ll see if I can figure it out.”
“You will. That’s what I’ve been told.” He says.
I get my kit out of the truck and attack the outcrop. It’s about 60 feet wide and 20 feet tall. It’s mostly low grade, sub-bituminous coal. Late Cretaceous in age, Fruitland Formation. I start to map the outcrop after photographing it and get a sense of what was going on here during deposition.
The rock Sani referred to was a medium-coarse grained sandstone. I start to dig around it and see it’s a point-bar deposit. That means it’s not laterally extensive and hasn’t displaced the coal. It’s just a fluvial distributary or levee-break sand that cut through the coal swamp, probably from a storm, and deposited a blob of sand in the middle of the coal swamp. Everything got buried and lithified, and well, Bob’s your uncle.
It’s a textbook case of a fluvial point bar, so I photograph it some more and retire to my truck tailgate to update my maps and integrate this discovery into my maps. Plus, it’s hotter than the hinges of hell, so I grab a cigar and a beer.
“Please, make it two,” Sani says after sneaking up on and startling me and making me bash my skull on the top of the truck cap.
“Sneaky Indian” I chuckle as I hand him a cold one.
“Kǫʼdził-hastiin talk to rocks?” Sani asks.
“Yes, I have. I’ve got it figured out. It’s a sand bar from an ancient river. Just continue to remove the coal around it and it’ll eventually just fall away.” I tell him.
“But that will take much time. Maybe past winter.” He looks hopefully to me.
“Or, I could hurry its departure; if that’s what you want,” I say.
Sani closes his eyes, nods, and smiles.
This one’s going to be quick and dirty. There’s no one that I can see for miles, except for Sani. I haven’t gone old school for a long while and have plenty of dynamite. I’m going to show that sandstone what for.
Sani watches as I pound a stake in several places around the sand body.
“Shot holes” I explain.
Weird, a couple of the shot holes I poke yield a feeble flow of water. Out west, they’re termed “tiñaja”, a coal that acts as a spring. The water is blood red, rusty, and foul-smelling.
Hydrogen sulfide. Definitely not potable water as some are.
I go to tell Sani what I plan and he’s disappeared again. Damn, he’s stealthy.
I rig it up old school. Full sticks of 60% in each hole, blasting caps with super-boosters tied to Primacord. All leads tied back to one length of Primacord and that terminated in a safety fuse igniter. Pull the pin, pop the cap, the fuse ignites and heads for the Primacord. Primacord detonates at 25,000 feet per second, actuates all the blasting caps and boosters simultaneously, and boom. No more sandstone.
Since we’re out in the middle of nowhere, no houses or hogans in sight, I didn’t bother with cutting down the charges. Sure, I could have gotten away with less, but where’s the fun in that?
I lay on the horn three times to warn the mule deer, rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, and Race Runners that the show is about to begin.
FIRE IN THE HOLE as I yell even there are no people anywhere in sight, even after my horning.
“HIT IT!” I say out loud and pop the safety fuse cap.
I get in my truck and back up about 75 yards, perpendicular to the blast path.
Three minutes later, there is a titanic explosion as all eight stick of 60% detonate simultaneously. Evidently, as I found out later, with water flowing through the cleats and fractures of the coal, there will be coal seam gas.
I didn’t know that at this point. I do now. Coal seam gas is eminently flammable.
The explosion was heard in Cuba I found out later.
Well, the sandstone point-bar disappeared and there were piles of coal lying everywhere. A new outcrop of coal had appeared and it was free of sand bodies. Just nicely fractured, low-grade coal for whoever needed it.
I pulled my truck up to further inspect the results. Damn, that was a bit more energetic than I had counted on. Still, it all worked out. No need for mining coal, just gather it up.
I make my notes and enter the data in my field notebook and blaster’s required paperwork when someone grabs my shoulder from behind.
After landing back on Earth, I see Sani standing there with a smile on his face.
“I was told Kǫʼdził-hastiin would fix it. You have. Thank you.”
“Fix it? I almost put it into orbit. Tell whoever comes here for coal there’s bad gas here too. Hydrogen sulfide smells like rotten eggs. There should be no problem out in the open like this, but later if digging here, watch out for enclosed spaces. That stuff is nasty, it’ll kill you in low concentrations. If I get a sign made can you have it translated into the language so they might know?”
“No need Kǫʼdził-hastiin. They will know. They will be told. They will heed.” Sani says.
“OK, then. Well, do you want me to help clean some of this mess up? It did kind of go everywhere.” I asked.
“No, Kǫʼdził-hastiin. You did what was needed. Thank you.” And with that, he turns, gets on his horse and leaves.
Since I’m out in the field, I notice I need gas. What better excuse for a Scavada visit?
“I figured that was you”, Fred says over a cold Silver Bullet. “Really rattled the rafters. That old illegal mine? Hell, it’s gone now, I bet.”
“More or less. It’s just a lot safer and available.” I reply.
“Oh, I hear your main squeeze made it in. When you going to drag her out here so we can meet?” Fred says.
“Never. She’s too pure for the likes of you.” I chuckle.
“An insult! I am wounded!” he feigns real injury.
“See?”
“Hey. I’ll be on my best behavior. Drag her out here. I’d like to meet her and tell her all sorts of lies about your sordid past out here.” He laughs.
“Yeah. We’ll see. Maybe in a week or so,” I say.
“Give her the saddle yet?” he asks.
[Stunned] “How the hell did you know about that?” I ask.
“Ain’t no secrets on the res, Kǫʼdził-hastiin.” He chuckles.
I spend the next week out in the field. Sometimes Esme comes along, but she prefers to just take a bit of a breather after her field studies.
Time is wrapping up for me. After Lago de Estrella, I’m off to Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana. I’m going to meet Dr. Jak and the museum folks there to recover some dinosaur fossils found the previous season. They need my truck and me back on the job.
Esme has a new job waiting for her back in Brew-city. Parting will be such sweet sorrow.
So, I plan to make the best of it with the time we have until life intrudes and we have to go our separate ways; for a while at least.
Out in the field, we’re at the fossil log jam Jerry showed me. I had to show Esme and get her ideas, she’s a geologist as well. I’m on the ground, slowly digging around one tree trunk, thinking I saw a glint of bone in the tangled mess.
Esme walks over and nudges me. “Rock, there’s some guy on a horse over there. He’s just sitting there, watching us.”
To be continued…

Prompt from bwgarlick
Sweat drips from my nose into the dirt, staining the dark earth with each drop. The sun blazes in the midday sky and I despise my father for every moment I stand underneath it. I mutter curses against my family and the land we inherited, I curse the Countess Lannell who watches over us, I curse the Dames and Knights that own the land they expect us to work. I curse it all and sink my shovel into the soft earth again, then again, and yet again.
My muscles burn with the effort, two days I have worked on this damnable ditch that will divert cool, fresh water to the parched fields. My progress is slow and no one will help me, my father is busy tending to shoeing horses for those in stations above us and my brother is gone to bring what meager harvest we gathered last month to the town square.
I pause and lean on my shovel, taking a sparing drink of water from the canteen at my waist. Then I heave another shovel of dirt up, carving the ditch ever forward.
"A hot day for it." The voice that speaks is pleasant, the voice of one born into the privilege of a merchant or knightly family. A rich voice just finished school and come to taunt. "I bet you'd rather be inside reading."
His jibe earns laughter and I'll never understand it. For the struggle of this life, you would think that everyone would understand escaping reality. That is all I have now.
How I wish I could escape from this now. He is tall and handsome and no better than an ass. Loud, braying, his group of bullies wander the farms and torment those of us that have to work for a living.
I think it's the heat because I make a mistake, watching him sneer at me from up on the lip of the ditch I've worked on. I heave a shovelful of dirt onto his very fine shoes and pants. There are some gasps from the other four he is never without. The life of a farmer has given me some bulk but that is nothing against five pairs of fists.
"You filthy farm rat!" He shouts, kicking a clod of dirt into my face. I sputter and wipe it away just in time to see his knuckles before they slam into my eye socket. It's not hard enough to break anything but it's more than enough to knock me down. I can feel the bruise growing already. He stands over me ready to stomp his boot down, his friends eager to deliver a beating.
"Come lads!" I see the lightly dressed knight on his horse call the boys away, sparing me what could have been fatal. It isn't kindness though. Not from the shaved head man with the morning star dangling from his horses flank.
"It's not worth dirtying your boots."
It. He thinks of me as an it. I press my hand to my eye and watch them leave, kicking mounds of dirt into the ditch and laughing. I add them to my list of curses and sink the shovel in again, this time with more effort than the past two days.
Clang
I stop. More because the shovel struck something hard, driving the shaft into my chest and forcing all the air out. I gasp a few breaths and kick at the ditch in anger. Rocks, there are rocks everywhere!
But...it's not a rock. Underneath the dirt that I kick away is a slightly rounded metal surface. I drop to my knees and clear the dirt away with my hands. The object is like a half sphere, set into dark gray concrete that I've only seen in town, the magistrates office and courthouse are made of it. I clear away more, tossing clods of dirt away around the thing. It takes the better part of an hour until I have it revealed.
The metal is rounded at the top, like a sphere cut in half. A circular handle tops a threaded cylinder, much like the wheels that control the precious water supply. It is set slightly into the concrete, which extends far beyond where I've cleared as far as I can tell. It appears to be a rectangular area, at least twelve feet in each direction of the metallic object.
It almost looks like a door.
On the surface, covered by dirt and some brownish rust, is a rectangular piece of art. It is heavily faded and peeled but still I can make it out.
There are red and white lines, horizontal. Seven red and six white. I wonder their significance but they are not the most stunning bit of the art. In the top left is a field of white stars painted against a blue background, I count fifty.
I drop my shovel and sprint to the farmhouse, the symbol is familiar. At the house I pull open my trunk, thankful that no one is here that I would have to reveal my secret to.
I take one of the books and sprint back to the ditch, opening the ratty hardcover book, flipping through pages of history until I find it. There, a small picture that matches perfectly.
"The Third Civil War: The Fall of the United States" is the chapter title. I remember it from the little school I was allowed to attend, nearly ancient history from a hundred years past.
The ditch forgotten I clear out more dirt, digging deeper and deeper until I find something else. Words, stenciled in black against the concrete and near the door.
I dig and forget the ache in my arms and back, forget the sweat that pours off me. I dig, dig, and dig until the words are clear.
MINUTEMAN THREE EMERGENCY SHELTER
I take a deep breath and marvel at the find. If the door can be opened we may find leverage to sell the farm, live a life of comfort and wealth. We could be free of this labor!
While I stand there and think about the things we could buy, the safety and leisure that could come from this, something I did not expect happens.
Someone begins knocking from the other side of the door.
 
I fall back and land in the dirt, pushing myself away from the noise with my feet until my back is firmly planted against the ditch wall. Some is alive in there?! It's not possible. It can't be. The banging continues in short raps, in a sequence of threes.
Bang Bang Bang
Bang Bang Bang
Bang Bang Bang
I ease off the ditch wall and take a few cautious steps towards the door, listening as the banging repeats itself. My hands touch the warm metal ring sitting on the threaded pipe, threads caked with dirt and rust. I tug at it gently and it does not move. The banging continues.
There could be anything behind that door, anything at all.
I could bury it, reroute the ditch and plead innocence because of the rocks. Father would believe that. My grip tightens on the wheel, listening to the almost desperate cadence behind the door. I could leave whatever or whoever it is to die.
I could walk away.
It is only a few hours to dusk and then father will come looking for me, with questions.
The banging stops I can almost hear the disappointed and grief stricken mumbling. A life without sunlight, even the burning heat of this one, is no life I would want to live.
So I wrench on the handle, turning with every ounce of strength I have left. It doesn't move, not at first. So I lean into it and use all my strength to heave. Dirt breaks and falls away from the threads and the wheel moves an inch, then two. I let a howl loose and turn it, rusted metal grinding until there is sweet relief as the wheel spins round and round.
There is a long pause before the door opens upward on squealing hinges. I find myself pressing into the ditch wall again, not realizing I'd stepped so far back from the now open doorway. Arms from inside push at the hatch until it stands vertically, leaving a black hole into the pitch black darkness below.
The arms disappear and are replaced with a single face, a man in his later years pulling himself up out of the hole. His hair is short but messy and his beard similar, both graying. His clothes are a strange colored pattern I have never seen before, with a name stitched over his right breast. He blinks in the sunlight and takes long, deep breaths. More follow, men and women in similar attire and carrying long black objects in their arms. They grin and laugh and slap each other on the back, happy to be above ground.
Then the older man lets his eyes fall on me.
"Thank you, son." He says, his voice is as rough as his hands as he takes mine in a firm handshake.
"Who are you?" I ask him, incredulous. More people pour from the doorway into the light, dozens and dozens of them.
"Lieutenant Colonel Byers, commander of the South Dakota National Guard, 196th. Who the hell are you?"
"South Dakota?" I ask, I've never heard of this place before.
"South Dakota? The state? Where we're standing?" He is confused.
"We stand in the lands of Countess Lannell, ruler of the Black Hills, more precisely in Hereford under the protection of Knight Bennett."
"Did he just say knight?" One of the men behind this Byers man asks. Another echoes the question and I see their tension, their fear, their concerns written on their faces. Strange folk live in the earth, though would I expect different?
"Yeah, Captain, he did. Something tells me we ain't in Kansas anymore."
"Kansas? Where is that? Is that down there?" I ask, peering into the hole where still more people exit.
"Sure, kid, sure. Down there is Kansas. Up here sure as shit isn't. Tell me, what year is it?"
"Year?" I resist the urge to laugh, these people are insane. Lack of sunlight, likely. "By the years of the bright one, it is one hundred and eight, of course."
"Sir, by my tally he means 2132, like we thought. Hundred and eight years since the bombs. Started a new calendar, I guess." The one named Captain says. That seems impossible.
I hear hoof beats and look up over the ditch to see Knight Bennett himself riding, surrounded by his retainers and squires, including the one I dumped dirt on.
"Company coming in sir! Wearing...wearing armor, sir." Another one from the underground shouts out the warning, the others form a line in the ditch and the one called Byers smooths his clothing out.
"Neat. What was your name?"
"Owen."
"Thanks for getting us out. Tell me more about these Black Hills and their rule."
We have some time before Knight Bennett arrives and I feel comfortable with this Byers man. So I tell him.
I tell him everything I know.