Badluck Way Quotes

“When I returned, she held out her hand to show me an elk vertebra as white as ivory. She said: “There are so many bones here. You just don’t see them until you sit still.”
― Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West

“The endless sky was blue, and everywhere grass was rising from the dead. All of it augured a bright future.”
― Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West

“Afterward, we drove out of the high country, gassed up the truck, and headed to West Yellowstone through an awful snowstorm. The flakes were so thick in the headlights that the yellow line clocked in and out of view. In other circumstances it would have seemed like pretty nervy driving. In the rescued pickup, which we had taken as a sort of trophy, the weather was just smoother reminder of our success and competence. We ate pizza and drank beer in West Yellowstone, ands Jeremy picked up the tab on the company credit card. He called it overtime, but the meal felt more like tribute paid from the people who owned the land on paper to those who bought it daily with measures of skill and sweat”
― Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West

“The interests of cows, wolves, and elk would collide with the desires of millionaires. When they did, our stewardship of the land would suffer. I felt my job, life, and purpose on the ranch sliding into obsolescence. And so I decided to leave.”
― Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West

“They’re not ready to understand that the land is a palimpsest, overwritten countless times with jumbled but decipherable script. Tracks in the dust, broken barbwire, the shifting wind, and the swirl of magpies and other scavenger birds as they rise from the dark timber—all these things carry meaning. With the right sort of attention, the land tells any story a person could want to hear. But”
― Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West

“It occurred to me that I had achieved a rare thing: I was living at the center of my heart’s geography. And I knew it.”
― Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West

“Simply put, the idea was to integrate ranching into a functional, natural ecosystem.”
― Bryce Andrews, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West