Honorable Mention
“Fall and winter is my favorite time of the year because it’s when Wyoming feels more like home. In the fall it feels like it’s just me, my horses, and the Wyoming fresh air.”
A Cowgirl’s Quest to Keep the West Wild
Avery Lewis
Age 16
Basin, Wyoming
Fiction
As I open the front porch door, a crisp fall breeze hits me. I tighten up my wild rag and pull on my hood, then head to my old 2017 Chevy truck, with a rusted tailgate that doesn’t close anymore, to go feed and check my cows. I turn the radio dial to 100.3—it’s been my favorite radio station since I was a kid. I will admit it does make me a little sad to hear more pop than actual country on the station. The radio host pops on. “Good morning, folks. It’s November 3rd 2030 and it is a beautiful autumn morning here in northern central Wyoming.” My truck beats down a narrow dirt road as I watch my two dogs, Tucker the border collie and Dally the Australian shepherd, jog in front of me. I make my first stop at the boarding corrals, where I have separate pens for horses I’m training for clients or boarding for the winter. I open another bale and toss some hay into their feeders and make sure their waters aren’t frozen and don‘t show any signs of frost. I hop back into my pickup and head out to check my cows. I check to make sure the spring is still clear and the feeder is full. I make a mental note to watch a few cows for symptoms of disease. I move on to my horse corrals, where I then feed them and clean their corrals. After I load the dogs up, I head into town.
The town of Tensleep used to be a quiet place full of cowboys and cowgirls. Over the years the tourists brought more and more businesses to the once small mountain town. Tensleep has at least doubled in size since I was little. Tourists were in awe of the town’s natural beauty so they all looked to move there. The new businesses as well as the new people have helped the town afford new structures, like the new Tensleep school. It was a bittersweet moment watching the school crumble to the ground but also promising a good educational environment for the upcoming students. I am assistant coach of the Tensleep High School rodeo and I love watching kids become involved with the dying sport that raised me. While my ranching business has me in contact with all sorts of ranchers and farmers, I still do my best to interact with the newcomers. Not everyone was accepting of all the city folk moving in and I will admit it took me some time as well. I am pretty well known throughout the town by my horse businesses. People with problem horses, colts that need training, or need a place to hold their horses during the winter all come to me. Although the wild horse population has been growing at a rapid rate the lands can’t be maintained, so the state encourages people to adopt them and when they take care of them and train them over the course of two years, they get paid $2,000. I have trained many wild horses and sold them to ranchers and trail riders who all end up loving them. I also have had a lot more come to my business to train then I used to get in the past. I also have taught quite a few kids how to ride and have had some intern for me. In the summertime I guide horseback rides and fly fishing trips. I love my job because you get to meet so many people and show them the wonders of our state. I have trained and sold many horses and have found good homes for all of them. I have been all over the state for rodeos as well as training horses for people. My reputation is a good honest one, so I have many clients that trust me and tell their friends and family about my business.
My hometown, Basin, Wyoming, used to be a small town where everyone knew everyone but eventually I began to feel crowded. My family has hundreds of acres up on the Bighorn, where I spend most of my time to escape the heat as well as some of the people. Tensleep was a good town for my career as it is close to my family’s land. Even with the new road from Hyattville to Deer Haven, there aren’t as many people up there. However, the new road through our property has caused problems of trespassing, stealing, or littering. Which always made me feel sad because people had no respect for the wilderness or our property which they need to have if they want to keep Wyoming the special state it is. When I was little my family thinned out the pine trees because there were so many and they didn’t have room to grow. Now the trees have at least doubled in size providing homes and grass for the wildlife. In 2025, the BLM finally found a chemical they could spray to help kill and stop the spread of the pine beetles. Years before, pine beetles had been decimating forest by infecting the trees causing them to die, these dead trees were very hazardous for wildfires. The beetle spray was a huge success for the BLM, Wyoming Game and Fish, as well as landowners of mountain and pine tree property.
As I drive into Tensleep, I pass by the campground and horse hotel. Then new owners have added in about ten more corrals. The place may steal a little business but usually hunters and people there for the famous Tensleep Rodeo are the only ones that occupy it. I stop at the Tensleep saloon and admire how they never really change much—the place has been the same since as long as I can remember. The place does a good job at matching Tensleep’s aura, quiet and western. There have been other businesses that have tried to take off, but Tensleep’s atmosphere was just not for them. After getting my breakfast I go fill up on gas. The current price is $7.49 per gallon, it’s gone down. The state of Wyoming is one of the few states that still collects and uses gas, most places now use biofuel or electric cars. I haven’t made the switch because my truck is working just fine and I’m too stubborn to go buy a new one. I don’t think the biofuel and electric trucks have the power to pull trailer loads of horses and cows compared to the older gas and diesel trucks. Because many people have made the switch, there are not as many people using gas and the price has started to go down, but that depends on if Wyoming keeps making it. Tensleep has an old gas station where they sell gas and diesel, but it is only used by the other farmers and ranchers who refuse to accept the new vehicles. The bigger gas station down the road has biodiesel fuel pumps and charging stations for electric cars. In the summer many tourists driving through stop there to get their fuel or recharge so that the gas station gets lots of business.
Luckily people only live below the mountains and people haven’t started to move up any farther, which I hope they don’t. In my opinion the Bighorns deserve to stay wild and not be inhabited by the constant growth of the human race. Luckily the state of Wyoming has been amazing at keeping people from polluting our ecosystem and keeping a certain amount of space for our wildlife. With all the space, more wind turbines have been added as well as solar panels. I thought the solar panels were a great way to use up some of the endless badlands Wyoming seems to own. There are sections where they have solar panels out in the grasslands absorbing the sun and turning it into electricity. Most of these sections are miles away from towns so people don’t have the desire to go out and visit them. The state has done a good job on still preserving the land for the wildlife out there as well.
After I arrive back home, I saddle up three horses and start lunging the fourth. Every day I try to ride and train a minimum of 15 horses, both the ones I’m training for myself so I can use them to guide on in the summer and the ones I train for other people. In the late fall things start to slow down for me. I don’t have any trips to guide, there aren’t many rodeos around, and I don’t have to work cows on the mountain. So in the fall I mainly train my horses, work on projects, and hunt when I get the chance. I archery hunt as there are too many rifle hunters and once rifle season opens the animals get smart and go nocturnal. Archery hunting allows me to work for the animal and is so much more rewarding if I succeed. I was blessed this year to get my first bull elk with my bow. I also am a waterfowl hunter who was raised in a goose field with my dad, who has been operating a successful goose hunting and duck hunting business for 28 years. In the winter he gets completely booked up and when he has a surplus of hunters I come out and help guide. Fortunately the number of geese migrating through Wyoming in the winter has at least doubled and the Game and Fish upped the limit from 5 geese per person to 7. Guiding out-of-staters who have either never come before or who have and absolutely loved it, is a challenge but is also very rewarding. About 10 years ago when me and my dad would go fly fishing, we would fish small creeks up in the Bighorns. Back then there were many trout but they were all small and got pretty used to people fishing them so they got smart. Two years ago a company bought out the Tensleep fish hatcheries. They stopped killing off brookies or other fish that got too populated and instead figured out how to manage their populations. They bred the fish so they were bigger and they planted trees alongside the creeks. This deterred many people who liked to catch a bunch of fish and keep them. But it made the fishing so much better for catch-and-release fishermen, like me and my dad.
I saddle up a dun 2-year-old colt who is pushing 15 hands, which is surprisingly big for a 2-year-old. He’s gentle as a dog on the ground but completely flips out once you mount him. I’ve been working with him for about two weeks. I pull his nose around to where it is close to my leg then pull myself on in one fluid motion. I sit there for a few seconds and hold my nightlatch in my right hand and the halter rope in my left. I click my tongue to urge him forward, he takes three steps in a circle before he blows up. The colt lurches forward planting his front feet deep and kicking up the hind. He bucks in a complete circle before he gives to the pressure and bends his neck, touching his nose to my knee. I stroke him then click my tongue again and this time he just walks in a circle. I ride him for another 15 minutes, and when we end on a good note, I loosen the cinch and lead him back to the pen.
I then saddle up my barrel horse, ponying a 1-year-old filly and go out on a ride in the badlands. I ride up on top of a hill where I can see the town of Tensleep and part of Hyattville. I’m still getting used to the new highway that now connects the two. It used to be a washboard dirt road but with all the tourists the state decided to pave it. Fall and winter is my favorite time of the year because it’s when Wyoming feels more like home. In the fall it feels like it’s just me, my horses, and the Wyoming fresh air. In the summer there is the constant traffic of tourists venturing west and the sun baking down on your back. I trot along on a couple of pronghorn trails and catch sight of a small herd ahead of me, I stop and watch them for a few minutes. The expanding roads and traffic have pushed them farther into the hills, so you have to work harder to find them. As the sun begins to dim, I ride off back down to the corrals to check on the cows to make sure they haven’t escaped or broken anything. As I head back, I ride past an old junk pile, full of old bed springs, TVs, couches, and skeletons of old rusted cars. When I was young, people used to take their trash out into the badlands rather than pay to take it to the dump. Nowadays if you are caught trash dumping you can be fined $25,000. The state of Wyoming is trying their best to keep the ecosystem wild and free of human products.
I go check on the cows and feed them for the night. I hear a low buzz and a low whistle, the daily electric train comes rolling past my pasture. As I listen to the hum of the fading train, I see a red truck and white trailer head to my place. The Tesla Explorer parks in my yard and out jumps a newer generation cowboy. I tip my hat to him and say good afternoon. After explaining that he bought a draft colt from the local sale barn and he is wanting me to train it, I open up the back of the shiny trailer and see a wide eyed colt staring back at me. After running him into a corral, I grab my halter and rope and get to work. I rope the bay stud around his neck and pull the rope until he faces me then give him slack. It takes me about an hour for him to stop spooking and trust me enough so I can pet him. Once I halter him, I tie him to an inner tube on my fence, an older technique that is way more beneficial than modern day ones. Once he learns to give to the pressure, I lead him around then call it a day.
Inside my house the motion sensor lights flick on, and the automatic fireplace lights itself. I walk into my living room and turn on my TV to the WYOlife channel. WYOlife is a documentary-like news channel that updates residents about the current natural disasters, wildlife action, and ecosystem progress in Wyoming. The channel talks about the solar panels in the badlands and how the new source of energy has been boosting the electric cars purchased in Wyoming. The channel also mentions the increasing number of deer and elk becoming nocturnal during hunting season, which I have been noticing the last three years when I was out scouting and hunting for deer. This makes me think to go look out at the winter wheat field across the river that’s by my house. I stand up and grab my binoculars and head out onto my deck. I glass the field and see three turkeys, two hens and one tom, then I see five whitetails grazing on the green. I watch a 3-pointer challenge a 4-pointer for the three remaining does. Late November is usually the prime of the rut but there are always a few early birds that begin before then. I’m happy that not all deer are completely nocturnal as watching the wildlife has always been a hobby of mine. I look out, seeing the river rushing beneath me, the geese locking up on the river for the night, the deer and turkeys out grazing, and a sliver of the moon peeking out from behind the Bighorn Mountains. I breathe in a deep breath of the cool mountain air and I am so glad I am blessed to live in Wyoming.