WATFORD CITY, N.D. — “Summer is over!” my dad called to me from on top of his sorrel mare. I was dressed from head to toe in my fall gather clothing — long underwear, jeans, chaps, sweater, vest, coat, neckerchief, gloves and a wool cap — because this is the outfit you wear when it’s early fall and it’s early in the morning and the wind is working to blow you off at 50 miles per hour.

I was riding beside him as we pushed our cows from the flat up through a rough draw next to a big, steep butte we call “Perkin’s Peak,” likely named after a family who once owned the land whose last name was Perkins, but I guess I never really asked.

Once, when I was a kid, we were moving cows in this exact spot, at this exact time of year, and neighbor Kelly was alone during his “bull whip” phase. Kelly li

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