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Hindu Divide

backing packing over the Crazy Mountains, 1974, as told by my dad

The year before our youngest child graduated from high school, we were having a good summer.  Six refugees from Dixie moved along the ridge as we trudged eastward on our trek from Shields River to the Sweet Grass.  We were at 10,000 feet altitude and above timberline.  We were also above the cloud line.  The sky overhead was blue, but behind us, and below us, a storm was building.    

Black clouds caught on the tops of the forested mounds by the Porcupine Range Station. They climbed through the valley behind us rapidly growing in size. Then in a sudden fury, the storm boiled out of the lowlands and crossed the glaciers.  Lightning jabbed into the barren ridges.  The clouds which engulfed us became fire breathing dragons and chariots for the armies of Mars!  Explosions surrounded us and thunder echoed through narrow gorges.             

We huddled beside an outcropping cliff huddled together taking courage from one another as cold rain slapped our faces.  When the rain ceased, we shivered our way along the crest of the divide.  It was dark and misty.  Then, for an instant, the fog lifted.  From the cliffs below us, valleys branched off like fingers from a hand – Grace Crowell’s blue distances calling like a song.

Ten miles away, to the north, a tiny thread of a highway showed us the route to White Sulphur Springs.  Behind us, dark clouds still hovered over a quilt top of meadows and farmlands.  Southward, a narrow canyon wound into a valley.  Then we reached the end of the ridge and looked down into the headwaters of the Sweet Grass drainage.  A mountain lake came into view.  Campfire Lake, the forest map told us.  But I knew it more by another name.

That looks like Uncle Dick on the right, and my grandfather beside him.
I think this is my favorite new (old) picture!

“Hindu Lake,” Barney Brannin said.  “When you get there, just look at the jagged ridge around the lake and you’ll see why.  There’s a rock on the ridge that looks like an India Indian with a turban on his head.”

“One time,” he said, “two men from India came up the Yellowstone with a party of Englishmen.  These two got put off the boat, or else they left it somewhere between Greycliff and Livingston.  They saw the mountains on the north side of the river and headed for the peaks looking for gold.  Some say they found it.  One of the Hindus returned for supplies but met with foul play before he could get back to the mountains.  His companion, the prospector in the Crazy Mountains, is still on the ridges, waiting for his companion to come back.” 

If you look in the “Hindu” on right side of the V in the mountains.

We looked above the lake toward the southwest.  I caught a glimpse of the Hindu before the mist wiped him out.  Then the rain hit us again.  We were cold, wet and weary when we arrived at the edge of the water.  But there had been a moment that we would remember – a high moment measured by the heart and not by a clock.  We had found a place for seeing – a place for finding oneself. William Stidger put it this way:

“Each soul must seek some Sinai
some far flung mountain peak
where he may hear the thunders roll
and timeless voices speak.”  

Barney Brannin was right.  In this same range Plenty Coups sought wisdom to lead his people. Plenty Coups, Chief of the Crows, could have said it with us.  “Mountains are for visions.”  

My sisters and I at one of our camps. We were cold, wet, and loving every moment.
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Listening for God

an excerpt from a sermon preached on July 30, 2006

Today, my parents would have celebrated their 76th Wedding Anniversary. Sixteen years ago, after their return from celebrating their 60th, Mama came through the back door grinning from ear to ear. That was not my mother’s usual look, but on that particular day she beamed like a smitten teenage girl. She went on and on about what they saw, everything they did, and all their meals. I didn’t recall ever seeing her like that. Little did she know that they had celebrated their last anniversary together. In less than a month, her life was taken prematurely. 

Just a few days after their return from their trip, Daddy filled the pulpit for a pastor friend. His message was entitled “Listening for God.” The following is an excerpt from that message: 

“This week we celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary by going to Helen, GA.  Here’s a story I picked up about old times from those Georgia Blue Mountains” —

“On those mornings when the old wooden bridge would be covered by heavy frost, the sight of his bare footprints would make us hurt all over. He would cross the bridge first, then we would cross. The cold prints of his bare feet would appear as though they had been burned into the planks of the old wooden bridge. The girl would carefully scrape away all signs of his bare footprints with her shiny, expensive little shoes, as if that would make his feet warmer, but when we got to school his feet would still be blue from the cold. I never knew him to own or wear a pair of shoes.

She was the prettiest girl in the whole valley and her father owned one of the largest and finest farms. His family lived back in the mountains, and his father sold moonshine whisky.  He believed that was the reason he had built the wall between the girls and himself.  It was an invisible wall, and Grandma said that was the hardest kind to get rid of.  It was as if he were doing penance for the wrongs of his father by his own suffering.

The war came on. The boy enlisted, and we never saw him gain.  It was the girl’s mother who told Grandma about them seeing the boy for the last time. They had been in Atlanta and were on Peachtree Street.  Everybody stopped so a company of soldiers could march by. Somebody in the crowd said they were going overseas to fight in the war. At their front was a big strapping first sergeant, who except of his uniform and his fine army shoes looked like the barefoot boy from the mountains.

When they reached the girls and her mother, the first sergeant ordered the soldiers to halt.  There they stood, not 10 feet apart, and when he turned and looked into her eyes, the invisible wall came tumbling down with a roar like thunder that must have been heard way back to the valley.  With all those people looking on and hearing what he said, the mountain boy, who had never spoken one word to the girl in all his life, said the three words she most wanted to hear.

He only had a one-way ticket to the hell of France, and she would never see him again. She came back to the valley.  Grandma told us that you would see her come out of the house in the evenings and walk down the road as far as the old wooden bridge. There she would stand for a while, staring at the worn planks as if she hoped to see those bare frosty footprints, even in the hot summertime.”

Now, both of my parents are gone. When I visit the prairies of my mother’s youth or walk in the mountains of my father’s younger days, even then I look for their footsteps. Though I can no longer see their footprints, I often think I hear their faint voices in the wind.

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Eyes of the Storm

The Montana sky over the small town of Melstone grew dark as green clouds boiled over the prairies along the Musselshell River. Impregnated clouds unleased balls of hail as the storm swept through the countryside. The Knapp’s grain crop was completely destroyed but even that did not dampen their spirits for their firstborn baby girl made her appearance. That was July 18, 1927, and the newborn was my Mama. 

Her eyes were like green hail clouds, and just like the gathering storm, sometimes my mom was a force to be reckoned with. She was a strict no-nonsense mama who had expectations for her kids and grandkids. Sometimes she was even a bit scary. Those cloudy green eyes could burn a hole right through you and peel back every layer to expose what lay beneath. She held the utmost of values and encouraged others to attain the same heights.

This girl from the prairie came from a long line of survivors, those who traversed across the country and forged new trails that opened the west. At a young age during a time of drought, Mama and her sister saw the countryside from the back of a covered wagon as they made their way from Montana to Idaho in search of good grass and relief from the dry barren land. The family later moved back to Montana where she and her sister attended prairie schools. When she graduated and received her teaching certificate, she taught in a one-room schoolhouse on the prairies of Montana. 

Covered wagons made the trip from Montana to Idaho

Though she loved the prairies, she had a greater love for her little Man of the Mountains and made the Crazy Mountain wilderness her home for a time. Living in the heart of the mountains was no small feat. With harsh winters and few necessities, Mama made a home for her husband and their Montana born children. Encouraging her husband “Buck” to follow God’s call into the ministry, they gathered up their family for the trek South. They added another child, their “Georgia peach,” to their collection of kids and there, she finished her days.

winter in the mountains

Mama was an industrious lady. She made most of our clothes and excelled as a seamstress. She was an artist, calligrapher, homemaker, quilter, made her own bread, canned her own produce, and managed the household. Her home was always a place of open hospitality. Idleness was not an option in her home and any spare time was used in her love of reading. 

Had Mama lived, she would be 95 years old today. Her journey had been a long one from the Montana prairies to the wilderness to the deep South. She lived those years well. Though her life ended abruptly sixteen years ago, I can still see those cloudy green eyes of a storm. Her love of her family and her giving spirit continue to rise over us and bathe us with memories of a gracious lady.

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The Last Drive

We pulled into the driveway and parked the dusty four-wheelers. I pried my fingers loose from the handlebars and sat for a few minutes before throwing one leg over the seat and slowly sliding off. It had been a 10 ½ hour day trailing cattle to summer pastures. Two more days of trailing and that part of the herd was settled for a while. When we reached the end of the last drive, though I had offered little, I wore a look of satisfaction while completely and contentedly exhausted. I think I even walked a bit bowlegged just like the time I helped drive cattle over the mountains on horseback with my cousin, her crew, and my sister. 

Somewhere along the ride back home the last day on the trail, a thought came to mind, and with the thought was a sense of renewed wonder and respect for my ancestors. Many years ago, they went on a long goat drive. The end of May 1895, the Brannin family left Sapillo Creek, New Mexico and began the long trek by wagons and horseback to Marysville, Montana. Just going that distance of about 1400 miles (by today’s road) was quite a task for the Brannin family and others who traveled with them, but they also trailed a herd of 900 angora goats, 360 horses, and 90 burros. They treasured joys of the journey as they tucked away memories of their time together and made lifelong friends. They also faced many challenges and disappointments along the way, but what others considered obstacles merely spurred them on. 

Brannin descendants in 2012 at Lee’s Ferry where the Brannin family crossed in summer of 1895 on their trek from New Mexico to Montana.

Can you imagine seeing that exodus come your way and passing by? Four covered wagons drawn by horse teams and a mule drawn spring wagon driven by one of the girls followed behind the Brannin “boys” driving the goats, horses, and burros that scattered across the landscape. Any of those alone would have been fascinating to see, but all together must have made quite a picture. I can almost hear the sounds of hooves and the bleats, neighs, and brays of the animals. I can almost see dust rolling behind the company as they pass through deserts and prairies and hear echoes from canyon walls as they descend into valleys and climb steep mountain passes.

Over one year after their departure, the Brannin clan arrived at their Montana destination, but even that wasn’t the end. Years later, wide-eyed children sat in silent awe as family gathered around the table or sat in front of the stone fireplace in the Brannin Ranch lodge and listened to firsthand stories of the historic drive north. The legacy continues to be passed on to later generations as family history is repeated in oral tales and written memories of those long gone.

As I walked away from the four-wheeled steed, a light breeze tugged at my memories, and the stories I’ve heard so many times seemed a bit more real. My step became a bit lighter. I shook the dust from my hat. It had been a good day!