The pilot or the engineer?
The path I seem to take is as straight as a gravel road in the Rockies and as clear as driving it with the sun setting in your eyes.
I turned his offer down for the second time.
“Yeah, well…” he looked over his shoulder at the land behind him.
The sky started spitting snow over the pasture.
“Ya hungry?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I said
“Listo, vamos!” He said in Memphis tuned spanish.
The conversation meandered along the 12 mile stretch of gravel leading to the Oxen Yoke. We drifted between scenes with no boundaries, like the movie Waking Life — from working in some of the wildest, most remote locations on some of the oldest structures in the country, to building stone camps from raw materials on a piece of property along the Grand Canyon, or converting spanish galleons into horse stables and lodging on the coast of Mexico — this is what days could be if I stuck with the ranches.
I lucked out when he hired me for the winter caretaking gig a few months earlier. It was late November and I just returned to Saint Louis after 3 months of driving around the West, camping in my truck, riding skateparks and to my surprise, deciding not to take any of the opportunities I had to stay out there. I was out of money and figuring out what I was going to do about it when I came across an Instagram story.
The story was posted by the founder of a small brand I followed. Her dad was in need of a caretaker for a ranch in western Montana, and if anyone had any art/projects they wanted to work on over the winter, was handy, could handle a rough winter in isolation, this could be a cool opportunity.
“I’m your guy.” I responded right away.
After a couple phone calls to make sure I could do things like swap out a breaker, fix leaky plumbing, replace a water heater, patch a roof and handle being alone for a winter without turning into Jack Torrence I headed to the Little Belts.
Inside the Lewis and Clark National Forest
Chop wood, day 1.
Gas leak
Ignition
Nice try.
The farm up north
“You’re a pilot. I’m an engineer. I want to know how a plane works so I can make one. You want to fly the thing.” said Jaye.
“I want both.” I said, taking his point with a nod to the limits of the metaphor.
Winter went well and now the offer was ‘Head of Construction.’ He came up with a pretty sweet pitch, but I had already stayed longer than planned, and in spring, I was out.
“Won’t you just go check it out before you say no?” He asked.
I agreed and he flew Heather out so we could take a week or two to drive to the southern border visiting friends and skateparks on the way.
I would, eventually, say no, but not yet.
