Early evening in the Absarokas

©me Source: my photo

Photograph: Plenty Coups and another Crow/Absaroka leader. 

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Speaking of having books you haven't read, I finally picked up the philosopher/psychoanalyst Jonathan Lear's Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, which focuses on how the Crow/Absaroka leader Plenty Coups found a way forward for himself and his people after the end of the world they knew, the end of their freedom to roam, of the bison hunt, and the rest. It was written in 2006 (it's been sitting on my shelf for nearly 17 years, I think), and it seems more relevant than ever as people face the end of the familiar world in wonderful and terrible ways as we exit the age of fossil fuel and enter the age of renewables, all driven by the profound impact of climate chaos. It's about how to live after the end of your world, the world in which your roles, actions, goals, principles, rites make sense, how to hope for something you can't yet imagine and keep going. (It's also making me think more about the many people here in the US now who are more recent refugees from indigenous and traditional cultures and the places on which they were lived out, whose way forward hit the same kind of wall and had to figure out how to keep living on the other side of that wall.) It was written in consultation with Crow scholars, but I'm sure the extent to which Lear imagines through this person he does not know would be considered problematic, though he does constantly say he does not know but that the words of Plenty Coups and his example set him thinking. I'm finding it a profound and useful book on hope in catastrophe. [Rebecca Solnit]

A perfect night for some #Absaroka Double-Cask Gin by the fire! . . . . . . . . . @jhstillworks @solostove #AbsarokaGin #JHStillworks #JacksonHole #Wyoming #jhdreaming #ThatsWY #PureWyoming #LoveWyoming #DrinkLocal #SoloStove (at Jackson, Wyoming) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnGE1LTPL8S/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Mountain Light, breaking through the storm

(c) riverwindphotography, February 2024

The mountains were already capped with a light, fresh dusting of snow this weekend. Fall is definitely here. <3

Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness from the Suce Creek Trail.

📸 Wilderness Times

Absaroka Mountains, Wyoming, USA

Shaman’s Ceremonial Drum with Ravens, (ca 1850) Absaroka.

George Beaver (Chahiksichahiks (Pawnee))

DRUM, 1890

Rawhide, wood, blue, pigments, iron nails, tacks, pigments

Overall: 3 1/2 × 18 in. (8.9 × 45.7 cm)

Gift of Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw

Photograph by John Bigelow Taylor, NYC

Fenimore Art Museum

Map of the proposed state of Absaroka, 1939

The late 1930s Absaroka secessionist campaign resulted from perceptions in the area that New Deal aid was excluding rural farmers and ranchers.

Jamie Fitzel

The Absarokas

Yellowstone, Wyoming

August moonrise over the Absaroka Range

8/23

Photo Credit: Michael Friberg

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WOLVES OF HEAVEN

It had been very hot for three weeks so I worked well into a cool night when at three a.m. a big thunderstorm hit. I went out in the yard naked and sat at the picnic table for a rain bath careful about the rattlesnake on the sidewalk. The sky drowned the mosquitoes feeding on me. The lightning was relentless and lit up the valley so I could see the ghosts who had me ill this past year. Then I was part of a battle from two hundred years ago when the Cheyenne from the east attacked the Absaroka, the Crow, in this valley. A group of the Cheyenne were massaum, the wolves of heaven, warriors who painted themselves solid yellow. One on a black horse stopped at our gate but decided not to kill me. I want to be a yellow wolf of heaven. They disappeared into the lightning.

DEAD MAN'S FLOAT, Copper Canyon Press, 2016. JIM HARRISON: COMPLETE POEMS, Copper Canyon Press, 2021

Jim Harrison author page

Absaroka Mountains

The Crow are also called the Apsáalooke, Absaroka, and Apsaroke. Their name was given them by the Hidatsa, and meant  “people [or children] of the large-beaked bird.” Historically, they lived in the Yellowstone River Valley. A Siouan tribe, they once were part of the Hidatsa, living around the headwaters of the upper Mississippi River in northern Minnesota and  Wisconsin. Later, the Crow moved to the Devil’s Lake region of North Dakota, before splitting with the Hidatsa and moving westward.  Settling in Montana, the tribe split once again into two divisions, called the Mountain Crow and the River Crow. They were first encountered by two Frenchmen in 1743 near the present-day town of Hardin, Montana. When the Lewis and Clark expedition came upon them in 1804, they estimated some 350 lodges with about 3,500 members.

Spring thaw along the Elk Fork

(c) riverwindphotography

This is a fine mess we're in Pt. 2 (Henry Standing Bear x Reader)

•• I hope there's at least one person out there enjoying this story! Find Part one here! Thanks! ••

He turned off all the lights in the bar, except for a rotating Rainier Beer sign, leaving the place just lit enough for the three of you to see. If you tried looking in through the windows though…you’d have no luck. Henry installed Rain Glass windows to keep the atmosphere of the bar quiet. Especially if a brawl broke out outside. That way it wasn’t his problem. When the sun hit the windows just right it made such a beautiful pattern across the dining area.

“Justin, come out with your hands up.” Walt’s voice boomed. The Absaroka County Sheriff didn’t get to use that MegaPhone of his much. You supposed that was a good thing. “If you come out right now I can talk with the DA about taking the death penalty off the table.” The phone started to ring. “That’s me. Pick it up and we’ll talk.”

“Sheriff Longmire,” Justin put the receiver to his ear. “A pleasure. Let me tell you how this is going to work.” He pulled up a bar stool and made himself comfortable. “First, you’re gonna get me an ambulance to the hospital. No replacing EMTs with any police officers. After that, you get me a helicopter to fly out of there, and maybe I won’t kill these two.” He chuckled. “Unlike that security guard at the bank. You know he got a round-off on me?” He took a deep breath. “Hurts like you wouldn’t believe.” Walt could believe it. He’d been shot before, more than once. “You go ahead and work on that then.” He put the phone down. “Let’s see if he makes me kill you two or not.”

Justin smirked before looking over. His eyes met yours and you felt a pit in your stomach. You found yourself leaning into Henry’s side more. “How about we have a little fun, sweetheart? I won’t be as rough as usual.” He rounded the bar and Henry jumped up, stepping forward and putting himself between you and Justin.

“You touch her, you will die where you stand.” Justin blinked, surprised by Henry’s outburst. Then he smiled again.

“Ah, she must be your honey, huh? Well, you’ll find it, Mister, that I do what I want.” He went to brush past Henry, but Henry wasn’t going to let that happen. He gave him a sucker punch right to his bullet wound. The noise that came from him didn’t sound human as he stepped back but managed to stay on his feet. The gun dropped from his hand. Henry went for another punch and was able to force him back against a table, sending chairs you’d put up earlier to the ground at their feet. Justin tripped backward on a chair and landed hard on his shoulder. Your eyes went for the gun and back to Justin. He started to try and stand while you found yourself rising to your feet and heading for the gun. He saw what you were doing and dove for the gun too, both your hands wrapping around either end of it. You didn’t know what to do as you and he started to fight for it, hands going over hands, not paying attention to where it was pointed, or if anyone’s finger was on the trigger-

BAM!

It was like lightning had struck your hand as you screamed, dropping the gun and pulling your hand back from where it had been around the barrel. You hissed at the pain before reeling back.

“(Y/n)!” Henry sounded like he was almost a mile away with how fast your blood was roaring through your ears. “(Y/n)!” You jump as you get turned around. Henry looked you up and down. “Were you shot? Does it hurt anywhere?” You tried to take a deep breath so you could answer him, but your lungs wouldn’t cooperate. They felt heavy and it was as if they’d sunk deeper into your chest. You brought up your hand and he sighed, leaning back on his knees. He looked behind you and you went to turn before he grabbed your wrist and kept your gaze forward. “He is dead. You do not need to see that.”

“I’ve got some burn cream back at the station if you and (Y/n) are up for a ride.” You jumped again. When had Walt gotten in here? Was it when you were fighting for the gun? Henry looked back at you.

“Are you up for that?” You flexed your hand and hissed before attempting another deep breath. This time, your body cooperated.

“Yeah.” You stated, and you could see Henry’s shoulders physically relax.

He stood up and offered you his hand. He smiled and you felt the blush return to your face.

“This is a fine mess we are in.” There was no doubt about that.

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