Teddy Roosterbelt and the Ruff Riders
- Oscar the Pooch
- 15 hours ago
- 8 min read
I watched Devil’s Tower shrinking back into imagination through the back window as the Witch guided Wagon to South Dogkota.
“What do you suppose South Dogkota’s like?” I asked as the Witch welcomed us across the border.
“I have no idea,” Mom said. “All I know is that hardly anyone lives here and that there are badlands.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Well no wonder. I don’t want to live on bad lands either. What’s so bad about them?”
“Beats me.”
Something caught the magnet in Mom’s eyes and pulled her toward the front window. On the other side, the ground rose so suddenly that it looked like a tail wagging at the sky.
I tried to smell what I was seeing, decorating the window with nose smears. “It looks like a painting on a teapot. Are we in China?”
“Not China,” she corrected, “these are the Black Hills. I didn’t expect them to be so… rugged.”
I double checked. Mom’s supposed to be the color expert, but black was one I knew. “They’re not black, they’re white.” It wasn’t just the hills, either. All of South Dogkota was covered in white dirt. “Why didn’t you tell me it would be like this?”
“I thought this whole state was prairie,” Mom gushed in the dazzled voice that sometimes escapes when Nature gets the better of her. “Now we just have to figure out where the trails are.”
