Thunder Butte

The Old Line Shack on Thunder Butte Creek

Git go`n Lindy!
Reins slap Lindy on the flank.
It`s been a long time Ole Buddy, we
gotta git home.

This ole man has been gone about
70 years and he`s go`n home.
Where`s home? It`s just a line shack
about ten mile from Thunder Butte
down on Thunder Butte Creek.

What`s a line shack, Dad?

Oh, it`s just a little frame house down
on the creek. I grew up there, then
when I went away to high school, the
ranchers in the area just moved in and
took it over for the cowboys to bunk in
when doing roundup and scout`n strays.

What`s so important about it now? Why '
go back to an old line shack?

Git up, Lindy. Well, son, you know how
important were some of those great days
in your life, the day you graduated from
college, that day you got your MA down
in Texas? Well, when Tony Roach and I
found that pool full of wild fish, that was
the same kind of day for me. Tony told me
they were wild fish and I filled my pockets
full of them and took them home and my
Mother found me emptying all those pollywogs
out on the floor. That was graduation day
for me. Boy did I get a whupp`n. Yup, that
was the day I became a man.

What else do you remember about that old
shack, Dad?

Whoa. That`s a long story son. Got a few
days to listen?

--John Crowley

Dave Doan sent in this brief video clip of Thunder Butte. Much appreciated!



And, while we're on the topic of pictures from around Thunder Butte, here's one from 1918 or earlier:




Here's another view of Thunder Butte shot by Mike Welfl on July 20, 1980,as posted on flickr.com:



And, here's an amazing December sunset over Thunder Butte from Christian Begeman, as published on his blog. South Dakota Magazine also named this their photo of the month in their January 2012 newsletter:



Editor's Note: One of the photos and the video appears here by permission of Dave Doan. The photo of Thunder Butte circa 1918 or earlier is a scanned image from a turn of the last century and copyright expired publication. The other photos are not copied, but are merely clickable links to the photos as published by the original photographers elsewhere on the internet.

Dang. With Christmas time, visitors and other great things happening, I just plumb forgot the old line shack.

The last time I was down by the crick, where the old line shack is, there was a teen age girl chop`n firewood for the cook stove, an old dog with three legs lay`n by a horse that was tied to the front porch. Of course there was me, sitt`n my sorrel pacer and roll`n a smoke with the make`ns.

I was go`n inside, but I don`t know them folks and they sure don`t know me. I just looked around the yard where I used to play when just a wee kid. The old snapp`n turtle that almost got me when I thought it was a mountain lion. The old dog reminded me of the one we had, got caught in a trap one winter and he gnawed his leg off to get out. We pampered him for a while, but he didn`t need no help, he was just fine.

Look`n out across the yard reminded me of the Christmas tree that used to grow on the far cutbank. My Mother used to see it from her kitchen window `til one day, just before Christmas my brother came drag`n it home behind his horse and put it up in the front room.

That was in the old days, when the shack was home.

We used to hold the spring round up out there in the corrals. Cowboys used to rope and ride with their .44 by their side. Actually it was more than likely just a .22. The West had already been won and the gun was just used for shoot`n rattle snakes.

But, it was fun times. Big bon fire with some cowpuncher smoke`n up a bunch of Mountain Oysters. Some other Honyokker strum`n an old beat up guitar. Bawlin calves be`n stripped of their masculinity, herds of cattle be`n drove in and out to the tune of yell`n, git-hah!

Old Fred, the neighboring rancher who teased me unmercifully, sitt`n on a stump by the camp fire. He slapped his leg when he told a great joke, slapp`n the pocket full of stick matches he always carried. How I rolled on the ground in a fit of laughter when I saw him erupt in a mass of flames, runn`n for the crick to jump in and put out the fire.

You might say, "those were the days", but you would be wrong. Them ghosts of the days and nights, old memories kinda brand a place in the mind where it flares up now and then and them ghosts come march`n `cross the pasture by the old line shack.

--John Crowley