Excerpt 1

A tiny wild horse struggled with all its might to free itself from the barbed-wire fence. Every time the filly tried to break away, that devil’s rope would clutch her silvery blue coat like it could pull it clean off her bones. Blood dripped from its bitty hooves and darkened the thirsty earth.

Nara searched the horizon for the band of wild mustangs that left their youngest to the cruelty of this fence. It seemed a shame, for the foal was a rare blue roan. The grass around the fence had been stomped and chewed to the ground surrounding the little filly. The band had lingered a little while before taking off. Nara jumped down from her cart and placed one hand on her rifle pack, then hung her head. She imagined the mama horse stood with her newborn until that last moment when the swishing tails and flying manes of her brethren began to disappear into the hills. Only then would she have abandoned her own. Self-preservation is a strong instinct.

A shot echoed in the valley, and a bullet grazed the metal fence with a spark. The little mustang spooked and twisted with violence to free itself from the barbed wire.

“Ivar! Don’t you dare!” Nara hollered.

Ivar pointed the barrel of his rifle to the sky and nudged up his hat, shaking his head as if she were a few eggs shy of a basket. With one keen eye on her callous neighbor, she rummaged around in the back of her cart for nippers, glad she’d been out mending posts. Cutting an animal away from a fence with just a Buck knife was a bloody mess. She jogged over rough ground to protect the mustang from the next bullet.

“Nara, what’re you gonna do? The band’s moved on.”

Of the many times she’d wrestled one of her calves from the devil’s rope, she’d always come away with a bruise or two. She stepped toward the mustang. “Shh . . . I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Its ears shot back in a show of strength, a velvety muzzle let out a high-pitched cry for its mama, tired little hooves stamped the ground. Blood matted its silky new coat. This little thing couldn’t be more than a month old.

“I know you’ve got spirit, girl. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

Ivar cocked his rifle from over the fence. “Let me shoot it. That mustang’s gonna kick the crap outta you.”

“Ivar Magnusson, you shoot this little filly and you’ll ride outta here with more holes in your butt than an anthill!”

Nara moved swiftly to pin the foal against the fence, but that wild horse wouldn’t be still. Bucking its all, the mustang swung its head around and popped Nara in the face, knocking her hat to the ground. “Shitfires,” she hissed, keeping ahold.

Ivar kept his rifle trained for the moment she couldn’t manage the mustang anymore, but quitting wasn’t her way. She trapped the horse with her shoulder. The nippers clenched the first barb so close to the foal’s skin, she gritted her teeth for the pain she’d inflict. The metal snapped, freeing the foal’s back half.

The horse bucked around and knocked Nara on her hind end. The second barb pulled on its tender skin, flesh bowing out.

She jumped up. “Damn you, Ivar! Are you gonna just sit there?”

With all her weight, she trapped the bloody foal against the fence before it ripped off half its hide. Nara’s stomach tightened as she strained to get the nippers around the second barb. Ivar jumped the fence that divided their properties and trapped the foal with a strength she would never possess.

“God’s green earth,” he swore under his breath.

Cold metal broke under her nippers, the foal’s front legs gave out, and it pitched forward to the ground. Nara grasped its four shaky legs and laid it on its good side. The fight had drained from its frightened eyes dried over from thirst, and it writhed around with less conviction. “Don’t give up, little girl.”

“Pretty cut up. Shooting it would be a kindness. She’s gonna end up chicken feed anyway, but before ’en she’ll eat your grass down.”

“She’ll heal up. Get me some rope.” She pointed with her jaw toward her cart.

He dusted himself off and went for the rope. “Nara, you are one peculiar woman. You oughta save your strength for your cattle.”

She searched the endless flat-topped buttes in the distance, looking for any speck of the mustangs, but the sun had begun to singe the hills in colors of fire, extinguishing itself like the embers of a hot cigarette. Nothing much moved north, either, except green grass flowing down the hills in waves. The wind held its breath for a moment and then gusted, throwing hair in her eyes, blurring the surrounding mountains.

Excerpt 2

The train slowly shaded over into darkness and conversation came in whispers, but even so, in a full train car there will always be a racket. People make noise. Charles laid his head on his jacket wedged against the window and put his hand over his ear. The car had gone completely dark, the windows black, except for the shadows of trees blurring by.

One by one, everyone nodded off. Their heads rolling about looking for comfort. Opal was turned away, so Charles couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not. The two ladies beside her rested their heads together, sleeping. Opal’s little hand reached over and pulled a pin out of one of the ladies’ hats and pocketed it without disturbing so much as a hair. Her face returned to the dark window.

The wheels had slowed to make a turn. The sounds softened. Shadows outside began to pass by a little slower. Charles tapped Patrick. His head had fallen back as he buzzed away with a young man’s snore. Charles poked his shoulder and whispered in his ear, “Patrick.”

Orange lashes flapped as the boy began to take in their surroundings. He grabbed his neck, rubbing it like he hadn’t slept on it right, then peered outside the window.

Charles whispered, “Listen. I don’t think anyone is gonna want us tomorrow.”

Patrick’s chest caved in as he released whatever hope he’d been holding on to. “I fear it, too.”

Charles learned early on you need someone to see what’s coming when your back is turned, and though the boy didn’t look like he could fight, he sure looked dependable enough. “We don’t have to go back to New York. There’s another way.”

Patrick leaned in and said low, “I know what yer thinkin’ but how will we eat? Where will we sleep?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve done it before. I’ll figure it out.”

Patrick sat back and looked straight ahead. Charles could see him mulling it over in his mind. “There’s still one stop left,” Patrick said.

“Do you honestly want to be taken in by those people? Besides, we’re not too far from being pushed out on our own. As soon as they have to pay us for our work, they’ll throw us out.”

Patrick breathed in real deep. Charles wasn’t going to let the boy think he had any other options. He’d be worked to death and have a broken back by the time he was eighteen.

“What about her?” Patrick said.

They both looked over at Opal, who watched them intently.

“Too small,” Charles said, trying to avoid her little dark blue eyes. “There’s one stop left, and she’ll be the only one. That’ll give her the best chance she’s got out here.”

Opal kept on watching him with an earnestness to her face now, making him feel guilty, but he felt in his heart he was right.

I read an article on CNN’s website back in 2008 about the orphan train. I became so fascinated by this littleknown adoption phenomena and decided it would make a riveting story. Since that time, I’ve been working on this project. When my father came to Texas for Christmas in 2010 and brought pictures of his parents’ old ranches in Montana and of him there as a boy, I was delighted by all the family history and decided to set my book in Montana.

My father gave me a reading list of books by the likes of Larry Watson and Ivan Doig, both seasoned Montana writers he favored. Much of the characters, their lives, their voices, and the songs in this book have been lifted from pages of my family’s history. My aunt Marilyn transcribed old lyrics from my grandpa Montana Bill’s songs and other songs that were passed around in his time in Montana. I spent some time in the Billings area at the Yellowstone Historical Society and Yellowstone Museum researching what ranches looked like in 1925, the terrain, the animals. I sniffed the air, took pictures of local flora, climbed inside an old steam train. Read oral histories from the folks who lived there, indigenous and settlers. In the book, the story about Jim’s brother being shot is sadly a true story.

The real passion to write about orphans must have come from my first “big girl job” as I often call it. I worked as a case manager for a Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) program in Los Angeles after the riots there in the ’90s. I had a caseload of youthful offenders, and it was my job to get them a job. Despite their circumstances, these young people were so open and reaching for the next rung on the ladder. They still had hope. Kids who’ve had to live by their wits on the streets will always have a special place in my heart.

It was often the case that predators of all kinds—wolves, coyotes, and grizzlies—were destroyed to protect stock without regard. Though I dramatize scenes of their destruction, it is not this author’s opinion that they should be destroyed. Today, we understand better that these creatures are a valuable part of our ecosystem and should be protected as sentient beings.

The wild horses in this book were based on the Pryor Mountain mustangs that roamed the hills in the southeastern part of Montana. With all our many resources, I’m ashamed to say that the American mustang is as much at risk of destruction today as it was in 1925. They live with terrifying helicopter roundups, separated from their bands, and live in crowded pens only to be destroyed or sold off. It’s no way for a majestic creature to live. Just as Patrick portrays in my book, these animals can be gentled, and adoption is real and viable for these horses and burros. If you want further information, I recommend these sources:

• Wild Horse Education
• Wild Horse and Burro Program - Adoption and Sales
• American Wild Horse Campaign
• Unbranded is a documentary film about four young men who adopt wild horses, gentle them, and then take them on an epic journey from the Mexican border to Canada to prove that mustangs are adoptable and viable animals.

The Children’s Aid Society as portrayed in my book is still an operating social welfare institution. The contracts and postings in my book are paraphrased but come directly from old posts and artifacts. The way I portrayed the adoption is consistent with the way the Society operated and how children were adopted out with a little flair here and there. Their work helping children, first started by Charles Loring Brace, is still alive today. If at any time in my book I seem to disparage this Society, it was only for fictional effect. On balance, I believe they saved so many young people from the streets, and that they have done and still do so much good in this world.

You can read the full history of the Society here.

See the Printable Readers Guide

1. What do you think the wild horses represent or symbolize in the book?
2. At spring roundup, Opal is in harm’s way and Charles steps in to protect her in the only way he knows how. When, if ever, is it okay to use violence as a form of punishment, protection, or justice?
3. Do you think Papa should have taken a stand against the people who slurred Patrick rather than encouraging him to hide his Irish lilt?
4. When Patrick prayed and made the sign of the cross against his chest, how different were the reactions of Mama and Papa Stewart to his Catholicism? Were they substantially different?
5. Charles protects Patrick from racist slurs at school by filling Billy’s mouth with dirt and holding it closed. This is progress for Charles, but if he were your son, would you correct him, and if so, how?
6. Charles and Patrick go about things very differently and have unlike dispositions. How does it inform the way they see and treat animals? Their horses?
7. Nara’s actions toward the kids are unmaternal at best. How does it contrast with her behavior toward the little horse caught on the fence? Did you think she’d ever make a good mother to the three orphans?
8. Were the children of this day and time better left in orphanages and asylums in New York or sent out on the train to the farms and ranches? Overall, do you think the orphan train was a better adoption program/ foster care system than we have today? How would you compare them?
9. Nara tells her father that she wants Jim, their Cheyenne ranch hand, to be foreman. Papa says, “Ain’t nobody gonna take orders from him.” Was the racism in his reply representative of 1925 and the reality of that time?
10. Did Nara’s unwillingness to admit that she was interested in Jim make you believe she was prejudiced?
11. Jim clearly tries to fit into the world beyond the reservation by how he dresses and cuts his hair, but ultimately, does it do him any good? If you were Jim, would you have gone back to the reservation?
12. If it’s the only way to raise livestock, do you think it’s okay to round up wild mustangs and use them for chicken feed to preserve forage for stock?
13. Consider Opal’s predicament at the end of the book and the decision made by Children’s Aid. If that happened today, what do you think the response would be from our social services?
14. How do you think the ranchers’ staunch individualism manifests itself in our culture and politics today? Why do you think it evolved in our rural areas?
15. How do you feel the landscapes of our world affect our social interactions with others? The way we interpret justice?
16. Do you think Mama Stewart was happy in her marital/family role? How does Nara’s attitude about women’s roles play into her mother’s happiness in the story?
17. How does Nara’s attitude toward right and wrong differ from Charles’s? How do these two views converge in the book?
18. If Charles had been raised from birth by the Stewarts, how would he differ from the young man they encountered?
19. At the end of the novel, was justice served by the trooper? By what measurement or process can we effect justice in our world?

40 Years’ Gatherin’s by Spike Van Cleve (1977)

Breaking Clean by Judy Blunt (2003)

Fourteen Cents & Seven Green Apples by Lee Rostad (1992)

Hard Twist: Western Ranch Women by Barbara Van Cleve (1995)

The Orphan Trains: Placing Out in America by Marilyn Irvin Holt (1992)

Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed by Stephen O’Connor (2001)

The Story of Five Montana Pioneer Families: Server, Getchell, Ross, Pokarney and Buzzetti, edited by Rickard A. Ross (2014)

Tracks of the Iron Horse by Ray Grensten (1984)

We Rode the Orphan Trains by Andrea Warren (2001)

When Montana and I Were Young by Margaret Bell (2002)