A Kept Woman

Years ago when I applied for a job with the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming, I wrote a cover letter that focused on all the things I knew I could do alone in a remote environment: haul, ride and pack horses; build and fix a fence; operate heavy equipment; run vegetative surveys; find my way around the backcountry wilderness. The office manager who was coaching me lifted an eyebrow and said, ‘But Laura, they don’t really want to know all the things you can do by yourself. They want to know that you can work with others. That you can be a team player.’

The concept had never occurred to me. I thought that the ultimate accomplishment was to be able to ‘do it by myself’.

Most of my life I’ve scrambled to do just that. At twenty-three, I moved to Wyoming and for three years herded a band of a thousand sheep out on its northern high-desert ranges, six months at a stretch. There were no hot showers, and it was long before the days of cellphones and the Internet. Surrounded by miles of sagebrush and days defined by weather, I packed a rifle, read books and cared for the dogs and horse that became my family. I was a young woman in a male world of eccentrics, alcoholics and hermits. I didn’t complain; I loved it. I chose it.