The American West was a concept, not really a nation. It was a process, not a place. The native animal and human life from the Western world was displaced, replaced, and exterminated sixty million bison to create way for European bog animals, billions of passenger pigeons for nothing at all, and ninety percent of aboriginal indigenous Us citizens, out of a genuine population of probably a hundred million, by accident and design.

Late in the summer of 2013, I attempt to look for the Old Western, what it turned out, and what had replaced it. The quest for my own outrageous panorama would convert wheels of fortune right into a movable feast of Wagon Days.

And if this don’t get a fireplace started, your timber’s wet.