Read from Chapter One, "Pronghorns on the Powder" from In Trace of TR: A Montana Hunter's Journey by Dan Aadland:

"“Hold on, horses,” she cried, but, of course, they couldn’t hear her and in any case they lacked the tools to comply. I had been aiming the Dodge down the two-track, squinting through a windshield not yet wet enough to let the wipers mop up streaks of Powder River dust, the big gooseneck trailer bouncing behind us. We were doing our best to keep up with our hosts’ pickup, trying to beat the rain that would turn this Jeep trail into the sort of gumbo that converts a macho four-wheel-drive vehicle into nothing more effective than a child’s tricycle.

It was when the road dropped into a deep coulee that Emily shouted her warning to the horses. Our friends ahead slowed as if to consider whether the pelting rain had yet done its work, then accelerated into the coulee and blew up the other side. I brought our considerably heavier rig to a near stop, watched to make sure the vehicle ahead made it up the grade, then kicked the diesel down a gear and plunged. Trying to strike a balance between safe speed and enough momentum to help the slipping tires, I jockeyed the rig through the bottom, downshifted one more time, and poured on the coal. We cleared the rise with a sigh.

Ahead was our host’s “Cow Camp” marked by a windmill that looked friendly in the gathering dusk. Rarely used for sorting cattle, the complex consisted of several low sheds, an adobe homesteader’s cabin, and a series of neat, grassed-over corrals. A large fenced holding area would be the perfect camp for us, allowing our young geldings Scooter and Partner to graze freely without hobbles and to enjoy a stock tank full of clear water supplied by the windmill’s quiet pulse.

Our hosts helped us through the steel gate into the fenced area and then said their good-byes. I backed the pickup and trailer into a north-south position to shield our new camp from the west wind and the driving rain. We watched the taillights of the ranch owner’s pickup disappear, felt the soil under our rubber boots turn to gumbo, and knew that we’d be here until it dried. We were what eastern Montana ranchers call “mudded in.”

I was soaked long before I’d completed our little camp, but the gas lantern was cheering, as was the wood smoke from the fire Emily constructed in the cast iron stove. We’d be sleeping in the nosecone of our gooseneck trailer. As the ground mushed we grew increasingly glad we’d abandoned the idea of our range tent. The weather forecast had suggested just this sort of scenario. Our sleeping area wouldn’t be of the luxurious sort provided by horse trailers with built-in living quarters, but the oversized tack room of our gooseneck trailer, with woodstove installed, would certainly beat a tent in the mud.

Before long I had a tarp winged out from the trailer, a blue plastic lean-to, and under it a table and a propane cook stove steaming raindrops in the frying pan. Emily took over. Soon Polish dogs sizzled and the camp was home, the rain a mere inconvenience, the mud that would hold us away from highways and pavement now a friendly thought. No cell phone service, no television, no babble on political talk shows—this was hunting.

By the time we fi nished wolfing our hotdogs, the rain had stopped. We unfolded canvas stools, killed the lantern, and ventured from beneath the tarp, enveloped by a darkness total and, in its way, delicious. The blackness, undiluted by vapor lights, headlights, or neon signs, shielded us briefly from the vastness of the eastern Montana plains. It’s a rare treat to be able to enjoy total darkness outdoors.

But what followed was even better. First, there were two cups of strong coffee, then bourbon and Coke mixed in paper cups. Just about the time my uncontrollable shivering from wet clothing subsided, the sky broke open, and the clouds, parting, let loose the Milky Way. Even without help from a moon still blanketed by clouds, the starlight, unpolluted by human light, made visible the low hills and buttes surrounding us. As if on a director’s cue, coyote calls cracked the silence. We were in camp, and it was good."

Dan Aadland is a rancher, writer, and retired teacher who breeds horses in Absarokee, Montana. His books include The Best of All Seasons: Fifty Years as a Montana Hunter (Nebraska 2007) and Sketches from the Ranch: A Montana Memoir, available in a Bison Books edition.

To read a longer excerpt or to purchase In Trace of TR, visit http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/In-Trace-of-TR,674202.aspx.