An ad infinitum judgment of isolation is pinned to the town by the immutable saw-toothed ridges of the Absaroka and Beartooth Mountain ranges. As I step outside the truck to see the town from the proper height, the eclipse from a large tree envelops me in its satiny cold field.  A puff of wind pushes strands of hair into chapstick. Clawing to locate and extract them, I step from the shadow into the light. Cars stowed on concrete porches, lower story windows boarded against a late afternoon sky alternating between aureate October lightness and winter gloom shedding snow like a strip tease, make for an ambiguous sense of place.

Lamps in upper story windows toss beacons of welcome. But the one sound – sips and sighs of intact blankets of smoke hanging above each chimney as they’re forced to separate and dissipate, arrests any notion of coziness. Make no mistake, winter here is serious and it’ll not stand for an outsider’s romanticized projection of it upon a town it’s preparing to overtake. It stamps the ground with a suffocating updraft; a demand for respect.

No faces have shown themselves and as I begin in earnest to discover one, I wonder if the 2^nd coming hasn’t occurred during my drive from Cody, Wyoming leaving me the only hapless soul in town. There is but one road into Cooke City, Montana from the outside world.  The wildness of Yellowstone’s Super Caldera lies on the other side. This is the end of the road. As I glance over a shoulder to see my exit darkening, I feel simultaneously favored and cursed by the chimerical scene before me.

Cooke City, Montana

I consider the effort to clamor into the Cooke City General Store for food (do boarded windows have adequate finger/footholds?) and try to imagine the eventuality of being eye level with 2^nd story windows, elevated there by a platform of snow. Like lying on your back, head dangling from the edge of a bed while pretending the floor is the ceiling, the ceiling the floor, it’s a strangely appealing, altered perspective.

Cooke City, Montana has done with its remote birthright what it could. First mining, then Yellowstone National Park. Originally named Shoo-Fly, the mining town was renamed in 1880 in an attempt to flatter a Northern Pacific Railroad executive into putting a stop there. Coming over BearTooth Pass at 10,974 feet on Highway 212 out of Red Lodge, Montana or Dead Indian Pass, 8,066 feet on the Chief Joseph Highway out of Cody with views of the Absaroka’s Pilot and Index Peaks (11,708 & 11,313 feet)  should have given the townspeople clues as to the outcome of their flattery – no way, no how. In 1877 this country helped hide the Nez Perce Chief Joseph and his 800 or so band of hold-outs from General Howard’s 2,000 strong Cavalry for three months. Railroads don’t go where outnumbered bands of undersupplied men on horseback can elude a United States army for months.

Cooke City has a year-round population approximating 100. Three hundred cavort on the one paved street in the summer months of July and August. Even though it’s considered Yellowstone’s Northeast entrance gateway community, Silver Gate, a few miles past Cooke City, actually claims the ranger station.

Take note, if you’ve not entered the Park through this least-traveled entrance, you’re missing a lot more than a momentary gut-check about the 2^nd coming. This small community and the drive to get there, epitomize Yellowstone’s wildness.

Snow poles stand alert and ready.

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NOT the big one.

Upon boarding the plane we discover our window seat on the Chinese tin can we’d elbowed and leaned our way into, taken. My son and I are 3 weeks into a backpacking trip of rural China, weariness having degenerated into truculence  at the point in the last train station when I landed on my backpack during the trample that commenced when the conductor began taking tickets for reserved seats. Being an upside down turtle didn’t leave me warm and fuzzy.  In Mandarin my son boots the man out and we reseat – John at the window, me in the middle, the Chinese gentleman on the aisle.  I’m proud my son’s Mandarin instructors hadn’t neglected to teach words that facilitate ideas other than pleasantries and how to order food.  At the mercy of a nation that’s yet to grasp the concept of waiting in line for your turn, the ability to defend oneself is a critical life skill.  As the plane careens down the runway, the man strains to see out. Moments into the flight I’m sharing half my seat so he can have a better view. Flight attendants bring food and for the first time, overcoming the desire to shove back, I take notice.

Western China

Western China

He doesn’t lower the tray, he’s fumbling with everything, clearly uncomfortable; out of sorts even. One glance at my unwrapping a plastic fork and he quickly shoves the entire meal into a tiny cloth knapsack under his seat.  So wanting to lean over and tell him “that’s going to leak all over your stuff”, instead “this is his first flight” spews from my mouth as my head spins toward my son. John’s face registers and we communicate over the roar of the engines. Leaning over me John begins speaking Mandarin. The gentleman’s face lights up indicating he understands we want him to have the window seat. He grabs the knapsack and begins to clamor over me. Laughing, John gently pushes and signals for him to step into the aisle so we can all stand and reverse our seating order. There’s a stir behind us. I catch snippets of people in various English accents saying nice things, surprise in their voices.  The Chinese passengers must have been shocked speechless. Reseated after John unsuccessfully attempts to communicate a joke about musical chairs, the man reaches into the cloth knapsack and pulls out a bundle of flat, amber sticks, offering the entire bundle to us. Convincing him no gift is necessary he shoves one at me. I plop it into my mouth lollipop-like. He snatches it out and over our laughter gets the point across to John that it’s meant to be boiled, maybe tea?

The flight ends. The stampede commences and we get separated but not before I see the gentleman is traveling only with the tiny, crude knapsack, the bundle of sticks projecting out the top. On the tarmac John whispers “he’d never seen Western flatware; he didn’t know what to do with it – that’s why he didn’t eat.” I’m so moved by this man I begin looking for him.  We rush to his side in the small terminal. He’s surprised to see us, as if there was no connection to our being on the plane with him and our being here now. He wastes no time however, and begins the attempt to communicate something.  John struggles to reciprocate the conversation and before I know it our last image is of his back walking into the night towards the taxi stand. He disappeared and we never knew why he was on the first flight of his life with not even a change of clothing. Had there been a death in his family? Was someone in the city ill?  Was he here for a job interview?

As we walk to our backpacks in luggage claim, I ask John what was said.  “I think he was trying to thank us by extending an invitation to his room, his hotel room, the place he’s staying, but I wasn’t sure”.  Being two unescorted foreigners on very foreign soil unsure of where we were spending the night, we likely would have still declined even if the offer had been fully understood.

I’ve never forgotten this man. He invariably comes to mind when the political articles hammer China on some new grievous shortcoming. That rural Chinese man’s human drama that day reminds me we’re talking about people with stories of tragedy and celebration and the firsts that can accompany those events.  And he reminds me of an important human-to-human rule of engagement.  I commemorated him in my journal with this entry. “In the span of only a day I’ve gone from complaining of the woeful lack of kindnesses during this trip to the slap-me-in-the-face reminder that the best kindnesses ARE THOSE YOU EXTEND TO OTHERS.” – Personal Journal Entry, April 20, 2008

Journal entry & the tea bark

Is it possible to go and return without photographic regrets?  Not for me.  On the China trip I came back to see I’d captured my son and I in China, the Chinese in China, but rarely the two together.  This is one I cherish.  My son has a few as well, but I can’t find them.

Uigher Lady at her home in Kashi's Old Town