Home and Cattle Saved, but Pasture Turned to Dust in the Wind

He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back. He thought they was old friends. But he noted now that they were not old friends. He did not know this one. This one was a stranger, come to make amends for all the impostors, and to make it stick.

John Berryman

“Dream Song 45”

Pat Wilson, on a borrowed motorcycle, felt like he was riding into Hell as he raced to save his cattle from a prairie wildfire sparked by a passing train.

“We’d had no moisture; everything was bone dry. The fire was moving incredibly fast. Ancient cedar trees were literally blowing up. It got up into the Missouri Breaks and went wild, totally out of control. The flames were roaring 30, 40 feet into the air. A wall of fire was moving at 40 miles an hour,” Wilson recalled.

“I arrived in time to see the fire break out of the Badlands and just explode into country that was as dry as tissue paper. All it needed was a spark; what we got was a conflagration. It was incredible, awesome!”

Wilson, 40, is the grandson of the widow who homesteaded this land in 1899 with five children under 12. Like his grandmother, he is stubborn and determined.

Creases of Concern

He’s got callouses, a face burnished by the sun and the creased brow of a man trying to support a family off the land in a time of drought.

But Wilson is also a dreamer and a poet, a scholar who is just half a dissertation away from a Ph.D. in American literature from Syracuse University.

On that dreadful day, with the smoke and fire blotting out his vision and the bawling of terrified cattle ringing in his ears, Wilson remembered lines from “Dream Song 45” by John Berryman, the poet he featured in his doctoral paper.

“Funny things happen to you when you are part of a disaster. Thoughts drift by in your head, you think of things you’d never think of in a million years of normal living,” Wilson said. “All I could think of was that I was staring at ruin, and ruin was staring back at me, and it was all over.”

With his wife, Connie, and two of his three children away from the ranch on that Friday, June 10, Wilson tried to save his cows first.

“They were starting to come down from the Breaks, away from the fire,” he said. “I ran them into the creek and got them headed toward the house. The smoke was so black and thick I couldn’t see anything. My lungs were full of it. I got a terrible stomach ache and got sick.”

Blinded by Smoke

Wilson, making split-second decisions to save his own life, abandoned the motorcycle because he couldn’t see to steer it. Feeling his way on foot, he found a road and hitched a ride to the house to rescue some valuables. He wanted to help fellow ranchers and volunteer firefighters from 100 miles around plow and bulldoze fire lines.

“When I got to the house there was pandemonium,” Wilson said. “Neighbors were throwing everything they could grab into their pickups and moving us out.

“Connie got here in the middle of it, and I turned her around and got her and the kids out again. The fire was coming right down the creek.”

Wilson tried to reach his neighbors, Ralph and Mary Jane Crisman, a mile to the east, “but the bridge was burning and all we could do was sit there and watch the house go up, so we turned around and left.”

“The real tragedy was Ralph and Mary Jane,” who are honorary grandparents of Wilson’s 6-year-old twins, he said. “The only time I wanted to cry was when I saw Ralph’s evergreen tree burn up. It was an emblem of how precious life is out here, how much perseverance it takes to grow a tree in eastern Montana.”

For three days, Wilson and fellow firefighters worked against the blaze. Twice they thought they had it out; twice it flared up again. Finally, it was over.

Scorched Pastures

The Wilson home was saved, but blackened pasture and charred, dead trees surrounded it on three sides.

Nearly all their cattle survived, but 5,000 of the 6,100 acres needed to feed them had been scorched, and the soil was blowing away.

“I’d had just enough grass and water to get me to winter in a real dry year,” said Wilson. “Under normal weather conditions, the fire wouldn’t have burned as hot or as fast. With the drought, it went crazy.”

Burlington Northern Railroad, acting as claims agent for Amtrak, whose train sparked the fire, dispatched men to help to control the blaze. The railroad also shipped in hay to feed the cattle while railroad crews erected emergency fences.

On an average of three hours’ sleep a night, Wilson worked the phone, trying to find pasture for his herd. Then, 10 days after the fire, he shipped all but three of his 300 cows to a ranch in North Dakota.

“I think it will be OK. The grass seems good and the rancher said he’d take care of them until I can decide what to do this fall,” Wilson said. “So far, I’m about $7,000 out of pocket for grazing land, trucking, brand inspection and the vet bill. I’ve been encouraged by (Burlington Northern’s) short-term response, but for the long haul, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Settlement Pending

John Jacobsen, of Amtrak in Washington, said there is no deadline for settling such a claim. “It will depend on how complicated it is,” he said.

Wilson agonizes over the damage to his land.

“The soil conservation service is advising that these pastures shouldn’t be grazed next year, either,” Wilson said. “I have no hay, no fences, and now no cattle. For the first time since 1899 there are no Wilson cows on this land, and it feels real funny, like I don’t know what to do with myself.”

In his living room, with the drapes pulled to keep out the afternoon sun, Wilson paced and wondered aloud what he should do next.

“I’m going to put this whole place back together--corral work, irrigation, cleaning, working in the shop. That’s the stuff you usually do during a rainy day, but we haven’t had any of those lately.

“I don’t think my sense of loss has kicked in yet, but it will. I think I can hang on. I hope I can--but this drought has got to end or we’re all finished.”