RIDING THE HIGH COUNTRYby Julia Robb Thefirst time I...

RIDING THE HIGH COUNTRYby Julia Robb [image error]
 Thefirst time I saw Colum McNeal, he was standing on a hill in the DavisMountains, in far West Texas, about 120 miles from the Mexican border.    I was sitting in my livingroom, here in Marshall, drinking coffee.      Youmight call it a waking dream.      Atfirst, I didn't know his name-that came later-but I saw his red hair burning inthe sun and had to know why he swept the valley below with restless green eyes.     That's howall my novels begin, with a vision of somebody I have never seen, doingsomething I don't understand.      Then thequestions begin and the questions create the story.      It was alot easier to understand where Colum was, physically, than what he was doing becauseI know that part of Texas.    The Davis Mountains arenot really mountains, but a series of green hills.      The highestpeaks rise 8,300-odd feet, squatty in comparison to the Rockies.     It's strangecountry. Lush grama grass fattens cattle, but it grows around piles of rocksand surrounds desert plants like prickleypear and ocotillo.      Pinyonand ponderosa pine cover the upper slopes.     I had agood time writing Colum's story—eventually titled "Scalp Mountain" (now on saleas an ebook, at Amazon).     Readers askme why I wrote this historical novel and I tell them about seeing Colum.     Myanswer is a little misleading.      I wrote"Scalp Mountain" because the frontier and its moral complications grip me likea head-on train wreck.      There'smore.     I'm notcomfortable with our noisy, entertainment-centered, celebrity-driven, American culture.     Writingis a form of withdrawal.     But,really, the 19th Century was a lot tougher than the 21st.     Deadchildren were a life-long emotional burden for families, especially mothers.     One outof five children died before they were five years old; almost all families lostat least one  baby, or child, and somelost every child they had.     AbrahamLincoln and his wife Mary lost two children before the president was shot-Eddie,3, and Willie, 13.     Mary'sgrief further unbalanced her already precarious emotions. Mr. Lincoln closedhimself in Willie's room once a week and stayed for hours.     Tad diedat 18, several years after the president was assassinated.      Itwasn't just children.      Averagelife expectancy in the 19th Century was about 48-years-old (and alot less for young women, who often died in childbirth).     Diseasetook its toll, but men and women were also maimed in accidents; everything fromrunaway buggies to mules expressing their displeasure with a kick to thenearest head.       Cutting wood was a daily chore and if an axslipped and cut a leg or foot, the victim often died from blood poisoning.      Labor saving devises (like washing machinesand running water) did not exist.     Women's washdaysincluded three tubs of water they had to haul from the well or the creek, theyhad to boil the clothes, slap them around the soapy tub with sticks and hangthem on a line.     It tookall day.      Physicallabor; aching backs.      Toothache tortured almost everybody. Cavities relentlesslydecayed most peoples' teeth and pain meds (even aspirin) were a distant dream.     Althoughsome assume the frontier was romantic, the opposite is true.      Tens ofthousands of Americans, red and white, died in the Indian Wars, which raged for400 years, from Jamestown through Wounded Knee.     Farms,ranches, mail carriers, stagecoaches, soldiers, surveyors, even wholesettlements, were attacked, tortured and butchered.      Womenand kids were kidnapped and never seen again.     U.S.Cavalry surprised sleeping Indian villages, especially on the plains andespecially in winter. Then troopers destroyed the stored food, burned thelodges and buffalo robes, shot the horses.      Tribalpeople died of starvation. Babies froze to death in their mothers' arms.     White womencaptives were raped to death, or brutalized beyond what I want to describe inthis space.      Still,the high country of my imagination lures me.      And Idon't really have to live there, do I?     The pastis safe because it's over.     Godbless all readers, whether they read my novel or somebody else's book.     You givewriters an excuse to dream.