Broken and Gelded

One line from Conrad Richter’s Sea of Grass remains in my memory: “That lusty pioneer blood is tamed now, broken and gelded like the wild horse and the frontier settlement.” 

I was reminded of it while researching a Western character who just happened to be a woman in Shields, North Dakota where she and husband Ott Black lived at one time. On the day the first Milwaukee train arrived in town, it was obvious the country wasn’t yet tamed, broken, and gelded. The train had to stop so the gates could be opened and closed where the railroad went through Charley McLaughlin’s pasture.

This town and area were bicultural. The Standing Rock reservation was close by, as was my wife’s childhood farm home. She tells about being in Shields with the family one Saturday night while they went shopping and she grabbed onto an Indian lady’s red coat thinking it was her mother’s. She doesn’t remember how long she tagged along with her but got scared when she found out.