Colton H Bryant grew up in Wyoming and never once wanted to leave it. Wyoming - wild, open and heartsearingly beautiful - loved him and he loved it back. Two things helped Colton get through school and the neighbourhood gang who chased after him on his bike yelling 'retard': his best friend Jake and his favourite mantra 'Mind over matter' - which meant to him - if you don't mind, it doesn't matter. Colton and Jake grew up wanting nothing more than the freedom to sleep under the great Wyoming night sky and to be just like Jake's dad, Bill, a strong, gentle man of few words who rode rodeo like nobody's business. Colton started work as a driller on a rig, despite his young wife begging him to quit. But Colton's dad worked on the rig and his dad before him and Colton claimed it was in his blood. Colton died young and he died on the rig - falling to his death because the oil company neglected to spend $2,000 on safety rails. His family received no compensation. The strong, sad story of Colton H Bryant's life could not be told without the telling of the land that grew him, where there are still such things as cowboys roaming the plains, where it is relationships that get you through and where a simple, soulful and just man named Colton H Bryant lived and died.
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Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969 and in 1972 she moved with her family to a farm in Rhodesia. After that country’s civil war in 1981, the Fullers moved first to Malawi, then to Zambia. Fuller received a B.A. from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. Her first book, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, was a national bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of 2002, and a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award. Her second book, Scribbling the Cat, was voted one of the top ten Best Nonfiction of 2004 by the Detroit Free Press, and one of the most best books of 2004 by the Rocky Mountain News and it won the 200 Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage.
Praise for Alexandra Fuller’s The Legend of Colton H. Bryant
“Incantatory.”
—Carolyn See, The Washington Post
“African-bred Alexandra Fuller has a feel for wildness—of a country or of a man. With the breathtaking bravado of a western windstorm, Fuller charges straight inside the mind of an American innocent, a restless cowboy with cornflower blue eyes. . . . Set this real-life hero within a landscape of oil rigs in a culture of corporate greed, and you have The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, a loving, raging portrait of the untamed but endangered American West.”
—Cathleen Medwick, O, The Oprah Magazine
“[The Legend of Colton H. Bryant]—set in [Fuller’s] new home, the high plains of Wyoming—hangs so faultlessly on its high-altitude, big-sky, oil-drilling bones that it seems not so much to have been written as uncovered by the wind and weather of the American north-west.”
—The Economist
“Fuller creates an iconic cowboy from his friends’ and family’s memories. Her writing is poetry.”
—Sarah Peasley, Rocky Mountain News
“A latter day Silkwood, quiet and understated, beautifully written, speaking volume about the priorities of the age.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A gentle, understated book that effectively muckrakes at the same time it portrays a living and dying symbol of the oil rigs.”
—Dennis Lythgoe, Deseret News
“Moving . . . By the time Bryant meets his demise, you may just find yourself fighting tears.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A poignant portrait of an extraordinary ordinary roughneck . . . Fuller nails dialogue and the disdain for self pity endemic in the West.”
—Johanna Love, Jackson Hole News & Guide
“Extraordinary . . . I still feel heartsick a few weeks after finishing it. . . . How can you read this tender, troubling book and go out and fill your car with gas, and not care about the men who risk their lives to provide that energy?”
—Jenny Shank, New West
“Fuller’s deeply moving celebration of Colton’s life is bursting with humor, love, and tragedy, like all that is best in life, and without ever having met him, you won’t soon forget Colton H. Bryant.”
—Ian Chipman, Booklist (starred review)
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE LEGEND OF COLTON H. BRYANT
Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969. In 1972, she moved with her family to a farm in southern Africa. She lived in Africa until her mid-twenties. In 1994, she moved to Wyoming with her husband. They have three children.
ALSO BY ALEXANDRA FULLER
Scribbling the Cat:
Travels with an African Soldier
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight:
An African Childhood
Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
Table of Contents
Praise for Alexandra Fuller’s The Legend of Colton H. Bryant
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
FEED JAKE
Cast of Characters
PART ONE
A WESTERN
COLTON AND THE KMART COWBOYS
PRESTON AND COLTON, HUNTING
BILL’S PHILOSOPHY OF HORSE BREAKING
BILL AND COLTON
IN THE BEGINNING
CATTLE DRIVE
GOOSE HUNTING WITH JAKE, COLTON, AND CODY
JAKE
JAKE
JAKE AND COLTON
RUNNING FREE
BILL’S PHILOSOPHY OF HUNTING
LOOKING FOR COCOA
FIREWOOD
COCOA
GRADUATION
BULL RIDING
PARADISE ROAD
DRILLING ON THE RIGS
ANATOMY OF AN OIL PATCH
FLOW TESTING
THE ASTRO LOUNGE
TRAIN STOPPING
COLTON AND CHASE
KAYLEE’S PHILOSOPHY OF DRUGS
FIREWORKS
DRIVING ALL DAY
PATTERSON-UTI DRILLING
DRIVING ALL DAY AND NIGHT
MARRIED
DRILLING
THANKSGIVING
A SERIOUS LIFE
MARRIAGE AND ROUGHNECKING
THE DEATH OF LEROY FRIED
DAKOTA JUSTUS BRYANT
COLTON QUITS
COLTON WORKS IN EVANSTON
MINUS THIRTY-FIVE
PART TWO
THE DAY BEFORE VALENTINE’S DAY
CUMBERLAND CEMETERY
VALENTINE’S EVENING
FREE FALL
JAKE DRIVING ALL DAY
PATTERSON-UTI DRILLING
TOUGH ANGEL
RAINBOW
A MILLION-DOLLAR PERSONALITY
EVANSTON CEMETERY
COLT
JAKE AND COLTON
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
For Dakota and Nathanial
Because of C.H.B.
From Justice to Forgiveness
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