Lone Bull

About Lone Bull

The Heart River cuts through Dickinson under a fringe of cottonwoods, the one line of trees for miles in a country that is otherwise wheat stubble and grazing land running out toward the buttes. Lone Bull clears the driveways and approaches along that river bottom and the streets that climb back up onto the flat where most of the town sits, working the low ground first since it holds snow the wind can't reach as easily as the open flat above it. Stark County winters swing hard between calm, bitterly cold mornings and days when blowing snow erases the horizon entirely, and a driveway cleared at dawn is as much a bet on the next few hours as it is a finished job. When it holds — when a lane stays open through a whole working day — that is the small, hard-won return this country offers, and it rarely offers the same return twice in one week.