The Continued Saga of the Shadows of Sawtooth Ridge: Dakota Dean's Story

By Bernie McAuley

Many stories regarding the Larry Becker Family in The Shadows of the Sawtooth Ridge exist. This is Dakota Dean's story before she became Larry Becker's wife and the mother of his two children. It is the story of a teenager who fell in love with a young cowboy only to choose another way because he was not

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadersMagnet LLC
• Release date: Sep 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890912367

Bernie McAuley

Bernie spent summers growing up on his grandfather's 14,000-acre ranch in Eastern Montana. Leaving the ranch before entering the Army, he spent a couple of summers working in Glacier National Park. He began his airline career in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota with Northwest Airlines after being discharged. He was transferred back to Great Falls, Montana where he could be found hunting, fishing and team roping in The Shadows of Sawtooth Ridge and in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in his spare time. Transferring to Seattle, Washington he assumed a position in operations. He became familiar with flight crews and worked MAC (Military Air Charter) flights arriving and departing to Vietnam. Retiring from the airlines after 38 years, he became a staff member of the Griffin School District near Olympia, Washington three months later. He now lives overlooking Puget Sound in Lacey, Washington. Never far from his mind are memories of ranching and the beauty of Montana, and he is still wondering where those contrails in the sky are going.

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The Continued Saga of the Shadows of Sawtooth Ridge: Dakota Dean’s Story

Copyright © 2023 by Bernie McAuley

Published in the United States of America

ISBN Paperback: 979-8-89091-235-0

ISBN eBook: 979-8-89091-236-7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of ReadersMagnet, LLC.

ReadersMagnet, LLC

10620 Treena Street, Suite 230 | San Diego, California, 92131 USA

1.619. 354. 2643 | www.readersmagnet.com

Book design copyright © 2023 by ReadersMagnet, LLC. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Rachel Firkins

Interior design by Daniel Lopez

Contents

Acknowledgments

Love At First Sight

High School Rodeo

College

Spring Break

Graduation/Vietnam

My Graduation 

Yearning To Return Home

My Own Ranch

It Was Time

Life’s Disappointments

Pow

The Ranch And Eve’s Visit

Eve’s Passing And Larry’s Return

Harvesting/Branding

Ptsd

Holidays

A New Year

Reserve Duty/Seattle Private Time

Wedding/Honeymoon

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks, first to my wife Linda McAuley, who, although she has Alzheimer’s, has the patience to listen each day as I read my stories to her, to Steve Lawrence who has become a good friend and who edited Joni’s Story and now Dakota Dean’s Story, to Ralph Ghazal for his photos taken at the Blackfoot Indian Powwow last year, which were used as the cover painting and throughout this book, and to Rachel Firkins who has designed and painted each cover for me. These are good friends who have offered to help make this book.

This story is non-fiction. Augusta, Montana, is a beautiful small town on the Eastern Front of the Rockies, with the Sawtooth Ridge fronting the mountains. The Becker family is part of my imagination, but many ideas for this story and the Becker family come from my thirty-eight years with the airlines and my own experiences. I hope you enjoy The Continued Saga of the Shadows of Sawtooth Ridge.

1

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

I can still remember the first time I met Larry Becker. My father woke me up while it was still dark on a chilly fall Saturday morning. The days were getting shorter, with the cottonwood trees turning their many fall colors. He had several clients around the Midwest for whom who he purchased cattle for their feed lots. These cattle came from many Montana ranches.

 Besides buying cattle, we raised purebred quarter horses. It was a good business. My sister and I showed, and were just beginning to ride high school rodeo. Our family name in both industries became legends in Montana over the years. Our parents tagged along, attending and riding in many local rodeos with us.

This morning we were going to a ranch near Augusta, Montana, beneath the Eastern Front of the Rockies. Our ranch was in the Sun River Valley near the Rocky Mountains. It was just my father and I making the journey. Traveling through Augusta and then somewhat north on a well-traveled gravel road, my father pointed out the ranch as we passed the home place with its vast log home and windows opening up to the mountains. I was amazed at how large it seemed. Upon reaching their summer pasture, the family was bringing the cattle into the corrals. A veterinarian was setting up his tools of the trade at the end of a cattle chute. His job was pregnancy testing and giving the cattle their yearly shots. The morning air was dust filled, and a cold wind blew off the Sawtooth Range. It was quite a show, one I’d seen several times helping my father. The actors were different, but the scene was always the same. First, an older gentleman and the older boy started to operate the gates. Then, the younger boy started cutting the mother cows from the herd and pushing them through the gates. I’d never seen a rider that was so in sync with his horse. Together they reminded me of a dance. When it was over, the cattle had been separated. The cowboy came over to where I was standing and tied his horse to one of the posts. He removed the bridle and loosened the saddle making sure the horse had water and feed to keep him busy.

I walked over to him and complimented him on his expert riding skills. He tipped his cap and said, Thank you, moving off to help the rest of the crew that was beginning to doctor the mother cows. Even though he acted shy around me, that was when I met and fell in love with Larry Becker.

When all the action stopped for lunch, I was able to have a little conversation with him. He was a year older than me and was wearing a championship roping buckle from the National High School Rodeo Finals. It was Larry’s last year in high school and he would compete in rodeo one more year. Since it was a small school, he also participated in basketball, track, football and baseball.

Then it was time to return to the work at hand. My father put me to work weighing the cattle being shipped that afternoon.

2

High School Rodeo

We competed in high school rodeo with different schools the following summer. My sister, Cheyenne, and I were running the barrels and did breakaway roping. It would be Larry’s third summer in high school rodeo. He participated in calf roping and bulldogging. Like many parents, ours came with us. Larry was there by himself. There was a dance and dinner on the first night of the event. The live band started to play during dinner. Parents and many of the rodeo participants began to dance. Some of the boys were brave enough to ask us girls to dance. It seemed Larry was not around, but then I saw him dancing with a sharp-looking girl. He seemed to move around with different girls. It wasn’t just good-looking ones, but also others that didn’t stand out. I decided to sit out a few dances since one of the boys I was dancing with was getting a little too serious. I looked over from our side of the dance floor and saw Larry standing with a group of guys. Then he was making his way over to me. He held out his hand and asked me to dance. My heart was jumping all over the place. To my surprise, he was a great dancer. It was a night I did not want to end, but I did not want to scare him off either. I asked him while we were dancing, Why didn’t you pick one girl and just dance with her?

He smiled and remarked, Many girls here do not get to dance and are never asked. Yet, they all have something to offer. So why not make them happy and learn about them simultaneously?

I felt it would only be for one dance or maybe two, but we danced the rest of the evening. It was just one more memory I would never forget. Once again, Larry made me feel like I was the only one. Then the band played the last song, and he escorted Cheyenne and me to our parents’ camper, where we said our goodnights. Only the top three participants in each event moved on to the National High School Finals that year. Larry was the number one in roping and bulldogging. I was the number one-barrel racer, and Cheyenne also made the cut. My father, knowing Larry’s grandfather very well, went over to congratulate Larry on his standings. He remarked when he returned, If I had a son, that young man would be it. I really like him.

There were no parents with Larry again at the Nationals. This time he had two horses along with him. He had built a homemade canopy on the back of his pickup. I found out that he was well known at the Nationals and people always acknowledged him whenever they saw him. He ate his meals at the local concessions and slept in the back of his truck. One morning my parents decided to invite Larry to have breakfast with us. So the four of us stopped by his camp and asked him to join us. Another good-looking girl was sitting in a chair next to him. Her trailer was also sitting next to his. I’d never seen her before, noticing that the license plate was from Minnesota. It left me wondering how they even knew each other. Larry led us into the concession building and from the back part of the room we all could hear a person yelling, Larry and Pat. They led us to a table where we were all seated and instead of sitting next to Larry, Pat sat next to me. You like Larry, don’t you? she inquired mid-meal.  When she asked the question, my orange juice almost went down the wrong way. How did you know? I asked.

I noticed it when you came to our camp this morning and saw me sitting beside him.

She informed me that she and Larry had been friends for a few years. Through her own friends, she had heard that a large ranch out in Montana needed some summer kitchen help. So she applied and was hired to help Larry’s grandmother for the summer. The reason Larry and I get along so well is that we both have goals. Mine is becoming a nurse. He wants to become a military pilot. Those goals take time and taking on extra baggage, so to speak, can be disastrous. So if you can wait for another ten years, Larry is your guy, but he has had no desire to get serious with any girl for some time. I thought about what Pat had said as we participated in the day’s rodeo activities. Although Larry and Pat were in different events, I noticed they seemed to help each other when needed.

At the evening’s dinner and dance, they mixed and danced with others and sometimes with each other. Larry even came over and asked me to dance. I felt like it was heaven when we continued to dance together instead of him moving on to another girl. We spent the majority of the evening dancing and talking with each other. It would be the last rodeo we both participated in until I entered college.

3

College

When fall came, Cheyenne and I made sure to join our father at Larry’s grandparents’ ranch. Our father had again contracted to buy their calves. Again, I felt Larry would be home from college to help the family since it was a weekend. This time both Cheyenne and I spent more time with Larry. Lunch was longer than it was the last time and we had more time to talk. He was enjoying college and had a rodeo scholarship which was for two years. His grades had to stay at a certain level for him to keep it. I was working for the same scholarship. We discussed Pat and nursing school, plus other high school rodeo kids we both knew. Then just as soon as it started, it was over. I noticed his horse was not here with him today, and neither was his old pickup that had made the rounds. I asked about them, and he commented that he left them in Bozeman. I didn’t realize at the time how long it would be until we really talked again.

Cheyenne and I made it to the National High School Rodeo Finals the following summer. We heard that Larry had made it to the National Intercollegiate Finals. I started dating a guy named Tom who was a saddle bronc rider. He was also from a Montana ranching family. He was starting college in the fall. My parents were not too happy after meeting him at the Nationals High School Rodeo Finals dinner on the first night. The following fall when I entered college, Tom and I picked up where we left off at the Finals, enjoying life in the fast lane. College weekends became party time with Tom’s rodeo friends. It was always something to celebrate with bonfires, homecoming and football games. Tom and I never missed a chance to enjoy ourselves. I guess Larry was following a different path since I rarely saw him except at the rodeo team practice a couple of times a week. Once in a while, our paths would cross, and we’d occasionally share small talk about our respective events. Tom and a few of our friends started making snarky comments about Larry. It was about his horse not being a pedigree but an ordinary ranch horse; that real men were bronc and bull riders, not ropers and bulldoggers; that his horse trailer was homemade and his pickup was a hand-me-down from his grandfather.

No one could even come close to matching him in calf roping and bulldogging. His bulldogging state high school record still stands twenty years later. As a freshman, he had already made himself a name in the college rodeo circles. His two horses were the best trained horses among most of the students. When he wore his National Intercollegiate Grand Champion buckle, we all knew he had earned it. Looking back on my own social life in high school and college, I wanted to be with the most popular group that stood out the most. When associating with Larry, there were no parties, groups or excitement. Tom, although jealous most of the time, offering all the excitement I felt I needed. My parents did notice that my studies were starting to suffer in the first quarter of college. Like Larry, I was attending school on a rodeo scholarship. Although Tom was upset, I started the winter quarter by spending much more time in the library and finding places I