Breaking Clean
I rarely go back to the ranch where I was born or to the neigh-
boring land where I bore the fourth generation of a ranching
family. My people live where hardpan and sagebrush fiats give
way to the Missouri River Breaks， a country so harsh and wild
and distant that it must grow its own replacements， as it grows
its own food， or it will die. Hereford cattle grow slick and mean
foraging along the cutbanks for greasewood shoots and buffalo
grass. Town lies an hour or more north over gumbo roads. Our
town was Malta， population 2，500， county seat of Phillips
County， Montana， and the largest settlement for nearly one
hundred miles in any direction.
\"Get tough，\" my father snapped as I dragged my feet at the
edge of a two-acre potato field. He gave me a gunnysack and
started me down the rows pulling the tough fanweed that tow-
ered over the potato plants. I was learning then the necessary
lessons of weeds and seeds and blisters. My favorite story as a
child was of how I fainted in the garden when 1 was eight. My
mother had to pry my fingers from around the handle of the
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