Distinctly Montana Magazine

Literary Lode Department The Gustafson Brand Horses They Rode by Sid Gustafson Published by Riverbend Publishing, was declared the High Plains Book of the Year in 2007. In events preceding this excerpt from the chapter called "Lineman," horse trainer Wendel Ingraham had to leave behind his beloved five-year-old daughter after his marriage sours. While working on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation where he grew up, he confronts his past with the help of some colorful characters. After this excerpt takes place he will endeavor to rebuild a future with his daughter. The book culminates in a thrilling cross-country horse race along the Rocky Mountain Front. The Trickster By Wylie Gustafson [For Owen: The Gentle One] Cross Three, the Gustafson ranch brand The Gustafson brothers are each talented in their special ways — Wylie as a singer and Sid as a veterinarian — but also popular writers. Here we thought it would be fun to show them off together on the page. This year's Dodge Super Bowl ad "God Made a Farmer" narrated by Paul Harvey shows the Gustafson family praying at their Browning ranch dinner table, as well as other cameos of Montana's northcentral farmers and ranchers. See the Super Bowl ad: From a distance I watched the coyote quickly trot away, head held high and proud, with the limp guinea hen dangling from his clenched jaws. Another casualty boldly requisitioned from my neighbor's old chicken coop. I was fixated in amazement at this brazen daylight raid. The Native Peoples call the clever opportunist of the plains "The Trickster." I wheeled toward the house and anxiously snatched my old 30-06 out of the back porch closet. I inherited the well-worn rifle from my father, along with a heavy genetic stamp of hunter-gatherer instinct. I snapped forward the bolt action, feeling energized by the melodic sound of metal against metal as the cartridge slipped into the chamber. The ghosts of childhood hunting excursions came dancing to life in the back of my mind. I stumbled outside into the unforgiving January air that nipped at my hands and face, realizing that I had forgotten my gloves in the excitement of a quickly passing opportunity. I threw a leg over the torn seat of the ATV and revved the engine, the big gun slung over my right shoulder. Her name was Lucy. And I the great white hunter now was hurtling forward to extract revenge on behalf of my wife's favorite feline that disappeared six months prior. Lucy was our precious little housemate whose bones now littered the bottom of a den somewhere in the rolling hills of the Palouse. DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL 24 www.distinctlymontana.com/wylie133 D I ST I NCT LY M ONTANA • SU M M E R 2013

• Cover