Love of Country

By James Moore

“The West is the native home of hope.” (Wallace Stegner, author).

The Missouri River, coursing as it does, north to south, has, nonetheless, sufficient twists and turns to present its water body to a sunrise. More than the Mississippi, the Missouri’s track feels as if it is the decisive dividing line of America, one half of the country quickly risen in the East and spread west to meet the open plains that defied settlement, and even description. We were driving south out of Omaha in the quick and humming dark of the highway and we crossed the gentle Platte near its confluence with the turgid Missouri, carrying runoff from cornfields and farms to the north that had been blasted a few days earlier by summer storms.

The place we were looking for in the pre-dawn was along the eastern bank of the river. A gathering was expected, of horses, men and women, materiel, and an unforgotten moment of American history. When we arrived, the animals were stomping and sniffing the river, pointing their noses into a light breeze coming out of the West. Batteries were snapped onto the back of the bulky TV camera and we mixed into the crowd and asked people to talk to us about what felt, to me, like a touching and absurd endeavor. A few of them cried unabashedly while trying to describe their emotions concerning the unfolding expedition. Almost 120 years to the day since the first horse and rider took off in 1860 across the prairie with mail and newspapers, the Pony Express run was about to once more carry printed messages from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California.

No one hurried this morning, though, and conversation was almost imperceptible under the sound of rustling animals and the squeak of leather. The riders held the bridles of their horses and, nearly motionless, watched a rising sun throw orange light over their shoulders, across their boots, and down to the river. A young pastor, momentarily, had their attention with his speech amplified by a bullhorn, his words stark in the morning quiet, and his wonder suddenly freed to go beyond the notions of a deity. His plea was about enjoying the experience, crossing the continent rolling under the endless sky.

“We ask too many questions,” he said, his face broad and smiling. “Maybe we want to know too much. Perhaps we should wrap our arms around the mystery of being here. We are present in this moment, beside a great river, about to embark on an adventure almost as old as man. As you trust your animals on this journey, let’s trust each other. When you cross the river, concentrate on the warmth of the sun, wind in your face, the expanse of the country you are moving through, the horizon that has drawn this country ever westward. On this day, and all that we are privileged to live in that follow, let us dedicate ourselves to each moment so that we might know even better the sheer joy of just living.”

An unexpected moment of secular reverence caught the riders out, and they took a minute to reengage with their surroundings. Mounted, they were led up to the road bridge by a police car and went over the Missouri with morning traffic. Highway 36, the pavement upon which their horses trod, had crossed the great mid-section of America a half-century ahead of their departure. The road bed had originated in Mark Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, on the west bank of the mighty Mississippi. The author and American humorist, who lived during the 19 months of the Pony Expresses’ existence, called the business, “The swiftest and most gallant enterprise of the age.” Twain lamented the end of the 1966-mile horseback mail run, which came, inevitably, when telegraph wires had been strung to reach from New York to San Francisco.

A few dozen riders followed the old route of the Pony Express, tracing almost perfectly the Oregon Trail, which had filled St. Joseph with dreamers and devils beginning in the middle of the 19th century. I drove the car and the cameraman shot video through a rolled-down window as horses and riders fell back and let the lead pony trot on alone into the grasses of Northeast Kansas. Undeterred by the challenges of logistics that existed in the modern era, the National Pony Express Association had decided to commemorate a romantic history of the West by re-running the trails across the High Plains, up into the Rockies, and, ultimately, down to California. Drivers of the thundering 18-wheel trucks sharing the pavement with animals honked their approval as they passed, likely oblivious to the fact they were passing regularly over a route that had given up as much tragedy as hope.

We followed the lead horse and rider for the day and videotaped the exchanges that occurred in an historically accurate fashion every 10-15 miles. The rider approached, jumped off with the mailbag, grabbed a fresh mount, and raced on westward. I wanted to go with them up to where the Oregon Trail paralleled the Platte River and down to Julesburg, Colorado before the cold, hard climb to the Great Divide. The Pony Express seemed a uniquely American adventure and it flashed across the western landscape faster than the cattle drives out of Texas, which lasted just over two decades after the Civil War until made obsolete by the railroad.

The allure of the American West had pulled at me since I was a boy and while still a teenager I had hitchhiked and motorcycled the plains and mountains that had confronted emigrants envisioning bountiful farms in Oregon and California. I found old wagon wheel ruts on ranches, and down dirt roads there were graveyards with hand-carved headstones of children lost to yellow fever or smallpox or dysentery or indigenous tribes, horrified by the European settlers’ intrusions. I have loved my country for its aspirational values as much as I have despised and been confounded by its hypocrisies and contradictions. During the Civil War, we were dedicated to freeing Africans on the continent from slavery even as at the exact same time we were committing genocide of native tribes in the West under a rationalization known as Manifest Destiny.

I live now in a broken land where a broken man reigns over our narratives and tries to rewrite history. He has known nothing of struggle or the power of change and reconciliation. Ask him any question about the country whose economy he has been robbing and our learned morality he is sundering and he will struggle to speak a complete sentence. His attempts, however, to white-out the American story will only enhance the plot lines of those who were marginalized then and whose descendants still suffer in a land of plenty. Justice, we have to trust, will, eventually, be theirs. His footnote, I hope, will become a transitory example of how our grand experiment survived its greatest of failures.

I still wander the West on my motorcycle, counting thousands of miles every summer up the Great Basin, over the Rockies, along the Rio Grande, down to the desert floor, up the California coast; endlessly marveling at nature’s gifts to my country. The landscape west of the 100th Meridian still represents the unrealized potential of the U.S. and our aggregated abilities to do great things when inspired by a shared vision. We cannot undo our sins of transgression but we can resolve to not allow our fallen government to lead us into a dark future, which ignores the lessons of our past. When I roll the throttle up on my motorcycle and run across Western Nebraska or lean into a mountain curve I can almost sense the planet spinning beneath the tires, and I feel as hopeful and optimistic as those young Pony Express riders.

America is not yet lost.

 

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

 

James Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,” three other books on Bush and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as two novels, and a biography entitled, “Give Back the Light,” on a famed eye surgeon and inventor. Mr. Moore has been honored with an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his documentary work and is a former TV news correspondent who has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976.

He has been a retained on-air political analyst for MSNBC and has appeared on Morning Edition on National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, CBS Evening News, CNN, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, among numerous other programs. Mr. Moore’s written political and media analyses have been published at CNN, Boston Globe, L.A. Times, Guardian of London, Sunday Independent of London, Salon, Financial Times of London, Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets. He also appeared as an expert on presidential politics in the highest-grossing documentary film of all time, Fahrenheit 911, (not related to the film’s producer Michael Moore).

His other honors include the Dartmouth College National Media Award for Economic Understanding, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association, the Individual Broadcast Achievement Award from the Texas Headliners Foundation, and a Gold Medal for Script Writing from the Houston International Film Festival. He was frequently named best reporter in Texas by the AP, UPI, and the Houston Press Club. The film produced from his book “Bush’s Brain” premiered at The Cannes Film Festival prior to a successful 30-city theater run in the U.S.

Mr. Moore has reported on the major stories and historical events of our time, which have ranged from Iran-Contra to the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, the border immigration crisis, and other headlining events. His journalism has put him in Cuba, Central America, Mexico, Australia, Canada, the UK, and most of Europe, interviewing figures as diverse as Fidel Castro and Willie Nelson. He has been writing about Texas politics, culture, and history since 1975, and continues with political opinion pieces for CNN and regularly at his Substack newsletter: “Texas to the World.”

Keep Independent Journalism Alive – Support The AIMN

Dear Reader,

Since 2013, The Australian Independent Media Network has been a fearless voice for truth, giving public interest journalists a platform to hold power to account. From expert analysis on national and global events to uncovering issues that matter to you, we’re here because of your support.

Running an independent site isn’t cheap, and rising costs mean we need you now more than ever. Your donation – big or small – keeps our servers humming, our writers digging, and our stories free for all.

Join our community of truth-seekers. Donate via PayPal or credit card via the button below, or bank transfer [BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969] and help us keep shining a light.

With gratitude, The AIMN Team