Frederic Remington: The Ghost Dance of 1889–1891,
depicting the Oglala at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, (1890)

"…May the GhostCow continue bellowing."

As The Muse and I have traveled on this epic toodle, we have been noticing the various states of this still tenuous union. We have found unsettling realities prominently displayed alongside the various myths of our American past. We were much more optimistic a hundred years ago, even more so a hundred and fifty. We built to dreams rather than to spec, and though the bulk of those dreams ultimately crashed and burned, we seem to have learned little from those experiences, other than to venerate our ancestors. We don't believe for a second that we might be capable of epic undertakings, as they did. We don't believe that the majority can succeed, and we hold this belief to be self-evident. We try hard to keep the playing field anything but level just as if our children and grandchildren posed an existential threat to us and our once-hallowed way of life.

Kellogg, Idaho, is the home of the Bunker Hill Mine. It has overseen the largest silver strike in American history, pulling more ore from this unpromising soil than did the famed Comstock Lode in Nevada. The surrounding town looks abandoned, with few modern amenities. Homes appear almost derelict. City Hall is housed in what appears to be an abandoned barracks building. The town seems surrounded by a century of mine tailings, and so it probably should be listed as a Superfund site. Wherever that wealth went, it was not anywhere near there, where it started and where men parted with their lives to extract it from hard mountains. Idaho might be the wealthiest state in the nation, but it isn't. It ranks nearer the middle, and so it's filled with people who have forgotten this nation's founding principles. They have learned firsthand how we were never a citizenry of equals. This betrayal shows in every MAGA Country banner and derelict home.

When we were roaming in Wyoming's Bighorn high country, we happened upon a most unusual range cow. When I first spotted it, it scared me because its face seemed as though it had been painted to resemble that of a Ghost Dancer, with Kabuki white features. A small retinue of yearlings followed her around. I immediately labeled this animal GhostCow because she seemed more like an apparition than a physical presence. Further, she was vocal. It seemed to me that she was really pissed about something and was uninterested in staying very quiet about her feelings. She produced more than Moos, and she incited other range cattle to join her, creating a genuine cacophony around me. The Muse and I were visiting a sacred native site, so this perturbation seemed significant. I might not believe in much, but I believe in ghosts. That GhostCow was a visitation.

What was that GhostCow getting on about? There's no way for anybody to know, for cows maintain a separate sense we cannot access, but it seemed to me that she was demonstrating something with her antics. She seemed intolerant of the way things seemed to be for her in those minutes. She didn't seem at all petulant, but she sure seemed insistent, like that actor who proclaimed from a New York City rooftop that he was mad as Hell and not going to take it anymore. He was voicing his dissent as well as his recognition. He was reporting what he was witnessing, and responding. He would no longer remain silent in the face of the continuing insults.

We return home with a GhostCow haunting us. Something has been bothering us, too, for the longest time. Maybe we haven't been quite as vocal about the situation as the GhostCow has been. Maybe that's changing.

Traveling broadens perspective. It brings some things into very sharp focus. It renders complacency intolerable. It makes home seem much more attractive than it had grown to feel before leaving. I acknowledge upon returning that I have been uncommonly lucky. Had I been born in almost any other place or time, the life I've led could not have been possible, and it was only barely possible, anyway. I was denied opportunities in my time, but I managed to overcome the barriers. I was once a second-class citizen, reviled for what I seemed to represent but didn't. I learned long ago that we are a deeply racist and misogynistic nation and that Christianity here often directly translates into justifying deep prejudice. The haves despise the have-nots, and the have-nots will gleefully resort to self-destruction to get even.

This was always an aspiring place, with aspirations manifest into destiny for a while. Those destinies lasted only until severely tested, at which point they almost inevitably failed. The following generation was generally moved to pick up the pieces with remarkably similar results. Aspiration might prove eternal, though its realization rarely does. We are temporary inhabitants of an equally temporary planet. It astounds me that we cannot seem to get along with each other better. Every act of aggression has ultimately proven to be against ourselves. Every degradation of others has ultimately degraded ourselves. There never was salvation in any form other than promised. Delivery always utterly depended upon whatever you personally believed in. Such belief was never falsifiable and was always, therefore, eternal. May the GhostCow continue bellowing.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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