by Pam Houston
And one more thing about Mike Blakeman: four years before we met, he wrote the paragraph that, three years before we met, I copied from the USDA Forest Service website to serve as the epigraph for “Diary of a Fire.” In that odd way that the story writes a life at the same time the life is writing the story, he was in my book years before he was in my life.
Livie leans in for a pet, while William stands in the driveway at attention. They are trying to talk me into a walk down to the river before my writing day begins, and I can find no reason not to oblige. After a quarter century, I’m starting to learn what farmers like Rick Davie know. When you give yourself wholly to a piece of ground, its goodness enters your bloodstream like an infusion. You will never be alone in the same way again, and never quite dislocated. Your heart will grow down into and back out of that ground like a tree.
After my father broke my femur, I thought he might kill me every single day. Because of that, I got pretty good at compartmentalizing my fear for the future and only being in my body part of the time. But I’ve had a lot of therapy since then and now I’m ready to be whole. I will never know all the abuses my father suffered that made him need to hurt me, but for the rest of my own life, I want to live simultaneously inside the wonder and the grief without having to diminish one to accommodate the other. I want to be honest with myself about our condition, but also to love the damaged world and do what I can to help it thrive. In December 2018, I signed the papers to put this ranch in an environmental land trust. Maybe before too long, I’ll get those smooth and safe white fences put up.
Where there is life, there is hope, a veterinarian I loved for the way he loved my dog once told me. By which he meant, as long as we are living, there is always time to expand the story.
My mother always told me, I don’t even want to see you until dinner. And with those words she freed me to go out and love the earth.
Acknowledgments
Sections of these essays, or in a few cases, the entire essay, have appeared in modified form in other publications as follows:
“Some Kind of Calling,” in the fortieth-anniversary issue of Outside, edited by Alex Heard.
About three paragraphs of the essay “The Tinnitus of Truth Telling,” in an essay entitled “Ebeneezer Laughs Back,” in the anthology Double Bind: Women on Ambition, edited by Robin Romm; “Ebeneezer Laughs Back” also appeared in Elle.
Approximately one-quarter of the essay “The Season of Hunkering Down,” under the title “Let It Snow,” in Sunset, edited by Nino Padova.
“Mother’s Day Storm,” under the title “What Has Irony Done for Us Lately,” in the “Political Landscapes” issue of About Place Journal, edited by Taylor Brorby; the “Fenton” section of that same essay in The Dharma of Dogs, edited by Leslie Brown.
“A Kind of Quiet Most People Have Forgotten,” in the anthology Shades of Blue, edited by Amy Ferris.
“The Sound of Horse Teeth on Hay,” in High Desert Journal, edited by Joe Wilkins.
“Ranch Almanac: Donkey Chasing,” in Catamaran, edited by Elizabeth McKensie.
Approximately half of the essay “Kindness,” under the title “Every Decent Thing About Myself,” in the anthology A Matter of Being, edited by Annie Liontas.
Thanks
This book, more than any other I have written, took a village. I am so very grateful for every one of you, I haven’t even caught up to how grateful I am yet:
Emma Bogdonoff, who, in the final days and weeks of editing, was my true collaborator. No one has ever cared about a book they did not write more.
Maggie Pahos, Becky Mandelbaum, Dustin Shattuck, Greg Glazner, Cynthia Newberry Martin, Mike Blakeman, Melanie Simonich, Kyle Piatkoski and Tami Anderson, who read or listened to all of this book in various stages and gave invaluable feedback and fact-checking.
Liz Darhansoff for her sharp eye and her passion, and Michele Mortimer, who gave me the single best set of edits I have ever received.
Alane Mason and Ashley Patrick for their good and steady editorial advice and their work within W. W. Norton on my behalf.
Trent Duffy, for his thoughtful and exacting copy editing.
Tom Payne and Carl Vavak for agreeing to be interviewed.
Johanna Gray and Jan Jacobs at the Creede Historical Society for help with research.
All my writer sisters and brothers, but Samantha Dunn, Lidia Yuknavitch and Taylor Brorby in particular, who would not let me give up on myself or this book.
My students, from whom I learn more and more with every passing year.
Doc Howard, Brent Woodward, RJ Mann, Rick Davie, Connie Stobbe, Jeff Larson, Sam Arnold, Dale Pizel, John Stynchula and again, Mike Blakeman, for coming when I called.
Dona Blair Smith, for selling me the ranch for 5 percent down and a copy of Cowboys Are My Weakness, and for carrying the note, and for believing I would find a way to pay it.
also by Pam Houston
A Little More About Me
Contents May Have Shifted
Sight Hound
Waltzing the Cat
Cowboys Are My Weakness
Copyright © 2019 by Pam Houston
All rights reserved
First Edition
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Houston, Pam, author.
Title: Deep Creek : finding hope in the high country / Pam Houston.
Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2019]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018037969 | ISBN 9780393241020 (hardcover)
Classification: LCC PS3558.O8725 A6 2019 | DDC 814/.54—dc23
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