This is called ‘Big Sky Country’ and it’s true! It’s as if you can see forever! We could see Dillon at the same time we saw the 10 miles to Dillon sign. And the world just went on from there!
This is ‘cowboy’ country and there is so much history reaching back from this place. We went into the Beaverhead County Museum. Actually it was closed but the curator caught us peeking in the window and invited us in. Wonderful artifacts everywhere. There was an old rusted iron strongbox sitting on the floor with a bullet hole in it. I bent down and read the card. It seems this chest WAS full of gold one day long ago, in 1888. The stagecoach driver stopped to rest his horses and out of nowhere up rode a band of outlaws. The driver reached for his gun and they shot him. There was a woman passenger they took her and the chest of gold and rode off. Eventually they let the woman go. The chest was found in 1922, buried and empty.
I reached out and touched the bullet hole and wondered. What was it like that day? The shouts, the gunshots, the horses milling about, the terror the woman must have felt. This isn’t fiction. That morning the sun rose and real people bled and wept.
The have an enormous stuffed bear, not the shadow you’d want to see blocking out your sunlight!
