The Wind Books Website

Devils Tower -- Monument for Works of Significance

By Gaydell Collier

In the early 1990’s, Linda M. Hasselstrom, Nancy Curtis, and I began discussing how we could counter some of the myths about the West-- especially about Western women-- that we kept reading in magazines and books. Most of these were written by transient two-week authorities-- “bungee-jump journalists,” Nancy called them. The stories didn’t have much connection with the sturdy High Plains women we knew, women whose down-to-earth relationship with the land made them both tougher and more tender than any off-the-cuff characterizations we’d seen.

We wondered how we could get these women to tell their own stories. One rancher started to tell us about her husband and stopped in surprise when we protested. “You want my story? I didn’t know anyone cared.”

Yes, we cared very much. The result of these discussions, 2,000 manuscripts submitted by over 600 plainswomen, and years of selecting and editing, was Leaning Into the Wind, an anthology of women’s voices telling the real story of their lives. Published by Boston’s Houghton Mifflin, the book came out in June, 1997. The Denver Post praised, “205 voices that will knock your heart out.”

It’s customary to launch a new book with a “publication party”-- an event engineered to spark sales by generating lots of publicity with prominent people saying wonderful things-- generally held with fanfare, fancy dress, and champagne in a big city such as New York or Boston.

This picture, though, didn’t fit the women whose work we were about to showcase. Don high heels and pay for a trip to New York City? Not likely. Linda wrote in the introduction to Leaning, “Sweat-stained, these women wear plains mud on their shoes and under their fingernails. They have scars to prove they belong, that they’ve dug beneath thin topsoil.”

Deb Liggett, then Superintendent of Devils Tower and a member of the Bearlodge Writers of Sundance, Wyoming, heard some of these discussions. “Why not hold the party at the Tower,” she suggested. “I’ll invite the publishers.” Preposterous? Maybe, but we jumped at the idea. This party was to celebrate High Plains women, and Devils Tower was almost dead center in the heart of their territory. What could be more appropriate? Deb and her employees went to work to organize a magnificent one-of-a-kind event. But would these independent women come?

Quoting Linda again: “On the day of the celebration, we waited nervously at the foot of Devils Tower. As contributors arrived, we handed each a complimentary copy. A gray-haired woman in a red Western suit and riding boots stood a little taller as she said, “It’s a real book! I thought it would be mimeographed or something!”

“Men leaned on pickups in the parking lot; a father and his children watched deer in the meadow; grandmothers played with babies. At picnic tables in the shade, the contributors read, talked, and signed books. More stories prompted ‘laughter as we heaped our plates’ with a meal provided by the Crook County Cattlewomen. . . .

“Since we were in Wyoming, the wind was blowing; we duct-taped a box of tissues to the podium [set up in the picnic shelter], and many women used it as they read and told stories in strong or halting voices. A guitarist sang during intermissions, while the audience limbered up and collected autographs. The reading lasted seven hours, but no one complained. . . .

“Part of the story of the book’s creation ended that day, but our lives had become entwined with those of our contributors and readers. Many of us keep in contact, weaving more narratives from the connections we formed, or strengthened, at Devils Tower. Contributors come to read with us everywhere we go; they write books and encourage other women in community efforts. Leaning, they say, validates their struggles, encourages them to defend their beliefs. Readers elsewhere realize that these Western women have opinions that must be considered in decisions about the West.”

All this was good, but it took me years to understand how truly appropriate it was to hold that party at Devils Tower. In those intervening years, we created another anthology-- Woven on the Wind, in which women wrote about their friendships. A third collection, Crazy Woman Creek (the above quote by Linda comes from this), will be out in May 2004. In this work, women consider how they can shape and sustain community.

Today, September 16, 2003, I have just finished a tour of the Tower in the company of other Bearlodge Writers, led by Park Ranger Trent Redfield (also a member of the group). Even though I’ve walked around the Tower many times, our mission today is to glean a deeper understanding of its significance and to help kick off the new StoryBox program by writing what Devils Tower means to us. We’re sitting in the picnic shelter where six years and three months ago, that seven-hour reading took place. The wind is still blowing, the thunder still rumbling in the distance, but today it’s raining and the threat of winter chills our fingers. I’ve learned more about the Tower’s formation-- how millions of years ago this igneous intrusion of phonolite porphyry (an unusual compound found only here and in isolated spots in Montana and west Africa) developed over a mile deep in the ground; how the heat and pressures of millennia formed it into a block of hexagonal columns so tight and hard that it doesn’t erode enough even to measure; how, through time, wind and water erosion have cleared away the surrounding landscape to leave this graceful upsweep of stone pointing to the stars.

At last I begin to understand. At last I see that Devils Tower was somehow essential to that first anthology. We didn’t know then if the women would come or if their stories would emerge and reach out to the world. But right here in this picnic shelter that afternoon, looking up at the Tower, we finally knew that yes, it would be-- was-- a success. These Western women, bringing husbands and families with them, came together to tell their stories. They listened to each other and shared their deepest thoughts and spiritual insights, just as we writers-- men and women-- are doing today. Just as anyone looking up at the Tower can draw strength and blessing from its beauty, permanence, and peace.
Now I understand how these women’s voices, buried for so long underground, were shaped by the heat of their emotions and the pressures surrounding them. I see that as the oppression of misconception, prejudice, and indifference is wearing away-- being scraped away-- these voices finally stand revealed and shining. These women, these stories, stand tall, each distinct and individual, yet fitting together with others to form a whole-- like Devils Tower itself, a solid monument of significance and grace.