The End Of The Line
The end of the line arrived with a silvery jolt. For a few days the grim faces of five oilmen rolled across the hungry currents of the news cycle. The networks grabbed footage from a stream which originated in the dining room of an elegant hacienda in northern Mexico....
What Teddy Roosevelt Wrote In 1916
What Teddy Roosevelt wrote in 1916 reminds us of the essence of conservation. In his book A Book Lover's Holiday in the Open, he made clear his position on balancing present and future appetites. “If in a given community unchecked popular rule means unlimited waste...
The Big Lie
The big lie was something they all knew about. How it was put together and why. The way the big lie started off followed a reliable formula, little lies bundled up together, which to the casual observer were unconnected. On reflection, they conjured up strands of a...
Oilman #5
Oilman #5 liked to read about where you could live like a king in a foreign country. He loved America and loved energy independence. But there was also the shame and embarrassment he felt for the anti-fracking turn his life had been forced to take. He felt he could...
Oilman #4
Oilman #4 figured there wasn’t much difference between a sheep in wolf’s clothing and a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So he tried to land a job as a lobbyist. At first, he knocked on the doors of the better funded environmental organizations. He positioned himself as...
Oilman #3
Oilman #3 told his wife the two of them would be running a Korean BBQ franchise. She wasn’t thrilled with the plan. Asian food wasn’t to her liking and neither was the shabby franchisor who flew in with a three-ring binder and told them what to do.
Oilman #2
Oilman #2 weighed his career options with considerable care and decided to follow the call to become a man of the cloth. The transition felt natural. After more than one investor presentation, he had been complemented on his persuasive skills. Why not establish a...
Oilman #1
Oilman #1 lost all his money paying lawyers. Then he took a job selling Cadillacs, quickly decided he knew more about the car business than the men he worked for and quit. He put together a line of white label skin moisturizing products and put them up on Amazon,...
Columbus Delano
Columbus Delano covered a lot of ground. Banker, lawyer, congressman from Ohio, his ancestors came over on the Mayflower. After the Civil War, Manifest Destiny still roaring after thirty years, he was appointed Secretary of the Interior. In 1871, when the federal...
The Crack In The Sky
The crack in the sky was ragged on top, smooth on the bottom, and full of the same kind of bronze you could see in Golden Yarrow. She knew it wouldn’t last long and as the sun rose up into the clouds the crack would fade into the same gray that filled the rest of the...
Fishtail, Montana
Fishtail, Montana had a knack for tackling thorny issues. This could have drawn global admiration had anyone bothered to pay attention. The problem plaguing Caroline and her cohorts was the fate of the five oilmen. Number six, he was off the board now, hauled away by...
Encampment, Wyoming
Encampment, Wyoming wondered how myths of the American West held up so well when everything else seemed to keep breaking down. So much held sacred for so long, a bunch torn to shreds, tossed into the wind by careless people. Just because a story was a myth didn’t...
Custer County, Montana
Custer County, Montana once again balanced its budget and retired a few shadowy municipal bonds. Gloomy auditors were sent packing, morbid men with shoes always in need of a proper shine. Nobody in the county saw the spectacle down south. Nobody heard the crash of...
Queets, Washington
Queets, Washington couldn’t remember if she had a vaguely Nordic look with a pronounced sneer or a pronounced Nordic look with a vague sneer. The young men lounging in the warmth of the convenience store had never seen anyone like her. Maybe down in Hollywood but not...
Rosette, Utah
Rosette, Utah settled for a tie. They all blamed a savage hailstorm conjured by the furies and shoved into town by colliding forces out over the Pacific. They agreed things would turn out different next time. All they needed was an opportunity. In Grossmont...
Bitter Creek, Wyoming
Bitter Creek, Wyoming had been stuck on the sidelines for more than fifty years, cruelly refused admittance to the only ceremony that mattered. Down in Mexico, the five oilmen held captive by the cartel were told that in a few days, they would be reunited with their...
Hayden, Colorado
Hayden, Colorado grasped at a vague sense of privilege, a regal birthright passed down from pious pioneers. On the outskirts of Los Angeles, in a suddenly festive house in the Santa Monica Mountains, five fugitives watched a live stream of five men sitting at a dining...
Delhi, Colorado
Delhi, Colorado was where the slow stream used to run so hard in late spring all the gold along its banks was swept downstream. It wound up in the commune where the more spiritual showgirls from Reno retired. When the showgirls hiked down to the stream to pan for...
