The Legend of Colton H. Bryant - Tapa blanda

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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. She is the author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, a national bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of 2002, and a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award, and Scribbling the Cat, winner of the 2005 Ulysses Award for Art of Reportage. Fuller lives in Wyoming with her husband and children.

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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