The Stock Trail

was ranching and branding and moving
500 colored cow-calf cattle pairs 85 miles into the
Little Bighorn Mts: up at five to fried coffee and eggs
(100º middays 50º midnights) on
a horse named Friendly in long-sleeve, light-slick
cotton shirts & blue jeans amid rusty grass and
American snakes and rocks that have seen all the
stars for 35 million years.

Brant Connors is 22 years old. He lives and writes in Lake City.