Bitterroot
August Newsletter
Even only up to mid-thigh, the Bitterroot river pushed me so hard I could barely stand. I had to plant my feet like a sumo wrestler in the toe-bruising cobbles just to stay upright. When I got down on my belly and swam, it took all my strength to stay in one place, and not get swept down to Missoula.
My kids like Missoula. They ran into the river’s powerful channel, flopped down, and let themselves be sluiced towards me. I dug my feet into the rocks and held out my arms to catch them. My flipflop broke. Nobody made it to Missoula. We had a great time.
It was Pavlina’s decision to turn left rather than right coming out of Chief Looking Glass and head towards my grandpa’s old farm. Before he died eleven years ago, he sold that property so he could leave his children equal shares of inheritance. I’d spent every summer at that farm growing up, I was married there, and I had some vague intention of buying it back and passing it on to Maggie and Ellie. I was eager to see it.
There was construction equipment at the turn-off to Sweeney Creek Loop, and stacked trunks of felled pines. The road had been newly paved and what used to be driveways now had street signs on them. I tried to point out the log house where my friend Ryan used to live, but couldn’t find it. Was it still ahead? No, because there was Grandpa Ray’s driveway. It was a street, now, too. Mountain Park Road.
They’d cut down the ponderosa pines that he’d planted. There was a new house between his and the road, and another where the garden had been, ugly, and far too large for its tiny plot.
“No,” I said, “this is it.”
“That is the house,” said Pavlina. “There’s the garage.”
They’d painted it white. It should be dusty blue.
“Should I turn around?”
“No. Keep going,” I told her.
A paved road snaked through the back yard and bridged the creek.
“I used to build dams here,” I said, numbly. “In the winter I came out here and broke ice.”
Raspberries, aspens, and pines had spread out from the creek after Grandpa stopped keeping cows. Now, the trees had only been preserved as little strips to either side of the bridge. As if the housing developers had missed a spot while shaving. There was nothing here worth buying back.
Pavlina turned us around. “I’m sorry, Dan.”
I don’t remember whether my daughters asked “why did they ruin the farm?” or if they were paying attention at all, but I needed to explain things to myself.
“It had to happen,” I said as we drove back down Sweeney Creek. On the other side of the road, the woods and pasture were still there. “When Grandpa Ray built that house, he made it to be a place to sleep and eat when he wasn’t outside, working. Now your grandma and grandpa’s house is a place where they spend most of their time and store most of their stuff.”
Pavlina snorted.
“We live different lives from both of them,” I said. “We work out of our apartment in a city, and take walks in parks. For you girls, houses will be something else again.”
Maggie and Ellie didn’t build damns in creeks, but they swam in the river, didn’t they. They baked desserts and played with neighbor kids and rode on the Carousel over and over again. My mom, who grew up in this valley, says that anyone who bathes in the Bitterroot is destined to come back and bathe again.
In other news…whew. There’s a lot of other news. I’ll give you the run-down.
Sharp Eye, the post-apocalyptic “daylight noir” comic I wrote, is finishing its campaign. 200% funded and it’s gonna be so pretty.
For a peak into the cultures and conflicts we’ve built into Sharp Eye, read our interview with AIPT
You still have time to guarantee your copy of the full, finished comic and back Sharp Eye.
Wealthgiver! We’re only a month away from the launch of Wealthgiver I: Darkness. This novella will comprise the first third of Wealthgiver, with all the cave-fights and language lessons. Note: I’ll be removing these chapters from Substack and Patreon before launch. If you want them in permanent form, pre-order Wealthgiver I now.
Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen is for sale on Amazon and Audible now, and is serialized for my patrons on Patreon. I am, however, going to take this serialization off Substack.
Substack and Patreon changes
Yes, after hours of staring at tables of open rates and a great deal of literal soul-searching, I’ve decided to specialize my channels: Substack for nonfiction, Patreon for fiction, and online stores for my library.
If you want newsletters and book reviews, go to my Substack.
If you want novel serializations, short stories, and making-of posts, go to my Patreon.
And if you want my complete books, go to stores like Amazon.
More details next week.
And I read some books in August:
Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger - For someone like me who had a useless set of high school history classes, this is an indispensable overview of 20th-century international politics. I finally learned what “Balance of Power” and “realpolitik” mean, and I got the best (in all senses) characterization of America’s view of itself. As President Truman told Kissinger: “We utterly defeated our enemies and then we made them friends. Only America could do that.”
- This third book in the Pangaea trilogy comprises a siege, battle, manhunt, peoples’ revolution, and dark ritual. It’s honestly a bit much. I took this book on a long flight, but I had to put it down and switch to something else because I needed a break from all the epic action. The ending was sweet, though.The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Matt Dinniman - Dude, what if the world was like a video game? It wastes your time, turns you against your friends, and commoditizes your life for the benefit of vast, cold organizations with no sympathy for you. You don’t “win” a game like that; you beat the people the who made it. Anyway, it’s funny how such a frenetic, violent book can feel so comfortable. I watched Carl and Donut open boxes and sighed with satisfaction.
Swim Among the People by Karl Gallagher - A lesser author would have put the battle at the end of the book and the good guys would have won. Instead, it’s the opposite. Spoilers. We spend the whole book dealing with the enemy’s re-occupation. It’s brutal and terrible in
’s classic, detached style.Welcome to the Orthodox Church by Frederica Mathewes-Green - I found out about this book through the substack of the author,
. As an American living in Bulgaria, I’ve found the Orthodox church difficult to penetrate. You stand in a painted box while an old man chants incomprehensibly, sometimes with choral accompaniment. Candles are plentiful, but I’d like to know what’s going on. Mathewes-Green’s book is two steps in that direction: Orthodox practice is a way (even, a Way) to get closer to God. Just get into it and start. As an aside, I can’t help but think this book would make an excellent frame for a novel. Behind the Iconostasis: A Father John Mystery.
See you next month
It's always painful seeing part of your history ripped up. I sympathize.
I also have to agree on the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Great stuff.