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"Mercer Country is plains, flat as a tabletop on its western edge and riven with gullies, ravines, and low rocky hills to the east because of the work the Knife River has done over the centuries. The only trees that grow in that part of the country, aside from a few cottonwoods along the riverbank, have been planted by farmers and town dwellers, and they haven't planted many. If the land had its way, nothing would grow taller than sagebrush or buffalo grass: |
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He was as tall and well built as my father, but with an athletic grace my father lacked. He had been a star athlete in high school and college, and he was a genuine war hero, complete with decorations and commendations. |
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Out of town I could simply be, I could feel my self firm and calm and unmalleable as I could not when I was in school or in any of the usual human communities that seemed to weaken or scatter me. I could sit for an hour in the rocks above the Knife River, asking for no more recourse than that water's monotonous gabble. |
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"Looking in the dead bird's eye, I realized that these strange unthought of connections -- sex and death, lust and violence, desire and degradation--are there, there, deep in even a good heart's chambers. |
