Ghost Horses

The particular place that inspired this piece is a breathtakingly beautiful valley not far from where I live in south central Montana.

While riding that valley one spring day, we stopped on the crest of a hill to take in the view before us. A friend of mine, who is fourth generation on this land, pointed to a butte in the distance and said, "That's Stormit Butte where Old Man Stormit used to sit and watch his horses graze in the valley. On dark stormy nights he still rides, gatherin' his horses by lantern light." She turned and rode over the hill as if she had simply pointed out the spot where the sun rises over the Big Horns.

I was instantly captivated by the story of this old horseman, who even in death, they say, could not leave this land. History did not record when he came into the country or from where he came. It does eulogize him as a loner, who gazed through fierce eyes that looked right through a man even in the dark. He lived in a shack somewhere in the draw above Cherry Springs, not far from the butte. He spent his days watching over his horses, and on stormy nights, he was out there riding herd. When he died in 1898, they wrapped him in soogans and buried him up on his butte. No funeral, no words, just the moaning of the wind.

Many times over the last 100 years reputable locals living in the valley claim to have seen the swaying light of the old man¹s lantern in the darkness of the butte, and heard the thunder of his Ghost Horses on the winds of a gathering storm.
 

Steve Miller