Sun River (Part II)

The open prairie immediately beyond where the Sun River finally breaks free of the mountains and then weaves through drumlins and glacial scarps is no less wild than the mountain wilderness nearby. Colossal herds of elk rove the sunny rolls of grass where the Sun River Game Preserve extends across the plains. The area is famous for collecting the shed antlers of bull elk. Deer are equally common, and even grizzly bear can be spotted on occasion.

To reach the Sun River, we drove a truck through the summer-bleached plains up from Helena under a hard blue arch of mostly cloudless sky. My sister insisted that we stop by the Milford Hutterite Colony so she could purchase a frozen chicken. The Hutterites are similar in most beliefs to the Amish, with the notable exception that they fully embrace all modern ways of living. They live in mostly self-sufficient colonies, raising all manner of livestock and produce. They employ the very finest of equipment and have fully mechanized irrigation systems, as well as the newest technologies for harvesting and processing any grains, vegetables, and animals they produce. They are firmly pacifist, will readily drink all of your beer, if you let them, and they speak German when we are not looking. So we drove into the tightly packed colony tucked below a grassy bench with a cloud of dust following us all the way from the highway. We parked near the poultry processing building, a low metal structure circumferenced by gravel, and waited for one of the Hutterite women to find us.

Interesting thing about Hutterite women, they all develop eventually into one of two distinct shapes: bowling-ball shape or bowling-pin shape. My sister disappeared into the building with a bowling ball and a pin. Terry, my brother-in-law, and I stood watch near the cooler, which, by something less than coincidence, happened to be fully stocked with beer. “I am not offering any beer this time,” he informed me. “I made that mistake once.” He watched one of the round women step out into the sunlight wearing the same long, pale blue dress as all the others. “I don’t think,” he added flatly, “that the women are as interested in beer as the men.”

I watched the woman, wondering if I was interested in women.

Yes. Definitely interested. Round can be a pleasant shape, too. Looks better the older you get.

We left the colony in a cloud of dust, the truck eleven pounds heavier with the addition of a chicken. My sister and brother-in-law were forced to drink more beer so they could make room in the cooler for the frozen bird. Driving on, we rose and dropped through a series of swales. A stream wound out from the expanse of sun-bleached prairie grass, swung at the highway, and then receded again. A coyote, dragging a three-foot snake, crossed road directly in front of us. The Front Range, looking every bit as ominous as a piled-up freight train and extending as far north as we could see, drew nearer on our left and steadily expanded in size. After we drove through the cottonwood oasis town of Augusta, the stony reefs and mountain faces filled with shadow and detail and continued to expand across the sky before us.

My lovely companions drank more beer as we fell onto another long, dust and windswept road. With the windows rolled down, we allowed the unseasonably hot air to buffet all around us and send a paper skittering across the dash. Terry, my brother-in-law, talked about a coworker of his who grew up near another Hutterite colony a bit farther north. “When he was in high school, he and his buddies would sneak Hutterite girls out of the colony and drive around at night. They didn’t do anything with the girls. Just drank beer.”

I thought about “do anything.”

The mountains continued to grow in front of us. Stark and imposing. Sun Canyon slowly opened against the wall of peaks.

Do anything? I considered one of the bowling pin women I spotted in the Hutterite colony. If you really worked a few angles on her, you might call her attractive. I worked a few angles in my mind. Hot air whistled in my right ear, but my eyes kept finding their way back to the mountains.

--Mitchell Hegman