John Holt’s writings make the stark beauty of wilderness lands seem as real as if you’re standing there on a high plateau with him. His characters are sunburnt, wind-blistered real. The harsh reality of living off the land offers a pleasure all its own. And death is always a integral part of Holt’s landscape. - Nick Teranzi, Online Critics Corner Jack Graves lived off the land, hunting and fishing and making his own way in this harsh, dry country that lay well away from cities. Free. Lonesome. No rules. But then his solitude is interrupted. Dark Star helicopters hovering over Mad Woman Gulch. Fires. Dead men. What was happening to his beloved Montana wilderness? Coal mining, that was nature’s enemy. Meanwhile, Dark Star went about the business of punching the line through, hopefully before the winter weather, ugly storms screaming down from the arctic, closed in sometime in November. Piles of steel railroad ties, miles of heavy steel track, powerful graders, earth hauling rigs the size of houses, lots of explosives, track-laying machinery, D-11s, all of this stuff began accumulating in the company’s yard. Would his life ever be the same?