Kief to Carrington, North Dakota by Carol Wallwork

(first posted online 2009)

                                      Near Kief, North Dakota           by Carol Wallwork September 2006

Left Dan & Marian’s Kief, North Dakota farm early Sunday morning, heading home to Virginia, driving southeast toward interstate expediency.  But first, the good roads.

Spooked a clutch of juvenile pheasants zig-zagging out of the ditch until their momma glided in, giving direction.  Then this church.  It’s elegantly simple, with finely balanced Lancet windows.  A stately icon of past settlement--of faith, enterprise and now quiet.  A kind of quiet , broken by pheasant cackle, grouse wings, fox yips and moonlit coyote howls.  Soon, the flurry of dusty pickups will thump on gravel, punctuated by deer-season thunder.

Stopped for Daryle Beckley’s long-horned cattle drive on Highway 200 near the outskirts of Carrington.  Cowboys sipping coffee, teenagers colas, both eating kuchen and venison sausages.  It’s windy but not too cold.  If only I could slip out of our Toyota van and alight on one of their horses, riding to a place far different from our near-Beltway life.