You Can Always Start Over

#109 - He wanted to reenlist but was told, “Go home, you served your time. Let some time pass.” The doctors knew Alex’s turmoil inside. His platoon had been hit hard.

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For you who remember “William” - pt 1, pt 2. He is no longer there. 

                   You Can Always Start Over 

Alexander Loughty was going home. Physically whole. As to his mind, time would tell.  

Some were going home with their minds broken, or limbs missing. Some were going home in a box. Some were now part of the earth they died on. Some just disappeared. 

How did he get through unscathed? Why? It wasn’t fair to him, he thought, all the while knowing there is no fair. To be alive and well and going home to family, when others, men and women with bright futures ahead of them were gone and broken leaving grievous holes in their family's lives. Alex felt angry and guilty. 

He wanted to reenlist but was told, “Go home, you served your time. Let some time pass.” The doctors knew Alex’s turmoil inside. His platoon had been hit hard.  

Home was Hamilton, Montana, nestled snugly in the Bitterroot Valley that cuts through the mountains bearing the same name.  

Family and friends, and his girlfriend, Sheila, met him at the bus stop. He was home. His father said, “You can always start over.” 

He was overjoyed that Sheila had waited for him as he had left in a rush of patriotic fervor. She feared he wouldn’t come home. There were times when he doubted he would. 

Days before Thanksgiving, the snow had already fallen, and winter had set in. It was colder than he remembered, but Alex relished it. It was wonderful, a counter to the heat he had been deployed in.  

Christmas and New Year’s and the weeks dragged by. The long winter of his discontent turned into the blossoming of Spring. His desire to reenlist and right some perceived wrong faded as the days grew longer. 

Now in his mid-twenties, he had only a year and a half left to finish his college degree in meteorology up in Missoula. If he buckled down. 

He liked the science of weather, but it was a competitive market. He’d probably have to leave home for a job, and now he had no interest in it. Still, it was a degree. 

He enjoyed his minor, philosophy and religion. No jobs there but for academia. He didn’t care for that.  

And now, he had lost his curiosity for such thought.  

All philosophy and religion and the cultures they were wrapped in paled before him when underground clearing dark booby-trapped tunnels.  

Like those in a foxhole in a fire fight, there was only One God they prayed to then, that they might see the light of another day. Everyone prayed. Some prayers were answered. 

Alex found the answer to what he was seeking. So simple, it seemed. It was family. 

Alex’s only philosophy now was to find the way that best gets him along with his fellow man, and with himself. The first part was easier than the second.  

“I won’t leave these mountains again,” he thought. But what to do?? 

He chose to forego college, at least for the time being. Walls were insufferable. 

He knew his way around horses and cattle. He could hire out for ranch work. He had helped at cattle drives for local ranchers when he could. Summer work was plentiful. But anything more than that was like being married to it. It was hard work, and sometimes around the clock. The livestock came first. Always. 

It was a cool, fun job, but he knew he was “more hat than cowboy.” Maybe if he had his own land and stock, he would think differently about it.  

Alex’s search for work expanded. An opportunity presented itself up in Lolo that appealed to him.  

The equipment supply store there serves as the place to get all things necessary for farm and ranch. They had a bulletin board set up for the locals to advertise used equipment for sale and jobs available. 

The Purple Mountains Bison ranch was looking for a caretaker for an apple orchard. Alex called the number listed and made an appointment with the owner to meet him at the Lolo Hot Springs, about 25 miles west on Highway 12 near the Idaho Montana state line. 

Alex met Owen Wellings, the owner of the ranch, and followed him down a few miles of dirt road, under the entry crossbar of his ranch, past Owen’s family home, and through most of the property’s 7000 acres. Snow had yet to melt from under shadows and in deeper gulches. 

Buffalo (Alex kept calling them buffalo even though bison is the preferred name nowadays) in groups of varying numbers, were fenced in pastures along the way. Owen said they kept the herd to around two hundred. 

There was plenty of room for the buffalo and for the growing of their own alfalfa for winter feed. They also sold the hay. 

They were breeding the best of them for their own stock and for selling to other ranchers and culling the rest to sell the meat provided. Some of the hides also made their way to market.  

In the far corner of one of the pastures, was a fenced off ten-acre plot with about an acre of apple trees.   

“Right at a hundred and fifty trees,” Owen said. It hadn’t been tended for a few years. They wanted to get it going again, with plans to plant the remaining acres. The trees were still producing. Buffalo like apples also, a surprise to Alex. 

For now, the work would involve a lot of brush clearing and pruning. It would take some time to get the orchard up to snuff. He would have the help of a couple of other workers. 

The job would also include helping work the buffalo as needed. 

Near the creek running through a stand of aspen and cottonwood and standing in the sun, was a two-room cabin on an elevated rise. The house came with the job. As did a modest salary.  

Owen asked if he was married. Alex said, “Not yet.” 

The house had a land line telephone. There was no cell service out there, yet. A Starlink connection would soon be set up. Until then, the lobby of the hot springs had the only wi-fi around. 

Nearby, a work shed held all the tools he would need and an ATV and a front loader tractor. 

He and Owen got along well. It was clear Owen liked Alex.  

Alex was sold. He took the job. He called home, and Sheila, with the news. 

Then he took the ATV and a chainsaw and went through the orchard putting together a game plan. He would be spending a lot of time studying up on apple orchards. 

Home was about an hour and a half away. Alex saw Sheila that evening and asked her to marry him.  

She said, “Yes!” 

His father had said, “You can always start over.” 

Thank you for reading Before I Forget . . !     

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Photo by Me - Ceramic sculpture by Pina Christiani, El Salvador, c. 1977-78. 

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