Waitsburg Finds Us in Small Texas Town

SATTLER, Texas - It is conceivable that we could have been further from Waitsburg that day, say, in the far coves of coastal Maine or the swamps of Florida. But as it was, we were very far from the Touchet Valley - nearly five hours by plane and at a distance that would taken us some four days to drive if we'd gone by car - in a tiny town north of San Antonio, Texas.

We, that's to say Karen, Niko and I, had come down during mid-winter break to see my oldest son, Rainier, who moved here several months ago after first fol­lowing a girlfriend and then finding a steady job in Fred­ricksburg a big hour northwest of

San Antonio.

On a bright windy afternoon be­fore meeting him for dinner after his shift as a manager in training at the Fredricks­burg Subway, we ventured into the country around Canyon Lake between San Antonio and Austin.

It was here that I stum­bled on this serendipitous and welcome reminder of home, completely out of the blue, yet more than fitting given the cowboy roots that surrounded us all week in the hill country.

After breaking up with his girlfriend (they're still pals), Rainier moved into a one bedroom apartment with two other studs and needed some bedding for his new place, so on our way to see him, we were on the prowl for a place to buy a comforter and some towels.

As we drove our tiny rental car on the winding ranch road hugging Canyon Lake through the land of yucca and Texas live oak, we rolled into a lick of a town called Sattler. The lit­tle speck in the dry studded country is about as old as Waitsburg, though by 1990 its population was still only 30. With the development of recreation at Canyon Lake, it's probably bigger now but no larger than Starbuck or Dixie, with negligible com­merce.

It did have one busi­ness feature that immedi­ately caught my eye: a thrift store. Think bedding. Think cheap. It didn't take long to find what Rainier needed. After five minutes, I was in line (yes, believe it or not, there were two customers in front of me) with a cover, two pillows and four towels. Since I had to wait for the sweet but slow cash reg­ister matron to ring up the other patrons, I wandered off into the section with the used books. I couldn't resist seeing what they had and I'd been hoping to find some used history books on Texas.

I checked the shelves and found little of interest. I don't read Danielle Steele and I already devoured "Memoirs of a Geisha", which I was surprised to find there at all. I was just about to return to the front counter when I noticed a plastic bin of pulp that must have just come in and saw a large pocket book with horses on the cover. The picture was attractive: mus­tangs running in silhouette against a bright evening sun shining through a cluster of pine trees.

Having taken a renewed interest in riding recently and seizing any excuse to swing into a saddle, the cov­er grabbed me right away. The title was "All Roads Lead Me Back To You," a novel by Kennedy Foster. It got even more interesting when I looked at the back:

"When a saddled but rid­erless quarter horse turns up on Alice Andison's Stand­fast ranch during a harsh Washington blizzard, Al­ice knows the lost rider's chances for survival are slim."

Wait, "Washington bliz­zard?" Surely that was no reference to the nation's capital, frigid and trouble­some as bipartisan politics might be.

My eyes dropped down to the author's note: "Ken­nedy Foster lives in the Palouse Country of Wash­ington with her husband, several cats and not nearly enough horses. This is her first novel."

Another double take. I had never heard of this book, which surely must be one of the few about south­east Washington. What were the odds that I would find something like that here in (with all due respect to the fine people of Sattler) the middle of nowhere?

I opened a random page in the 332-page novel and stared right at a reference to Waitsburg:

"The next day they drove to Waitsburg and took High­way 12 down the valley sixteen miles into Walla Walla. Alice had a list of supplies to buy and errands to run. Domingo had little money and some projects of his own. The twentieth of March and a soft, soft day of rain. In the truck, silence and the rip of tires through the wet; on the hills, an emerald plush of win­ter wheat alternated with smoothly curving bands of blue-brown fallow."

Bingo. I was home. Kar­en had wandered up behind me, curious what could possibly hold my attention for so long. I showed her the book, all excited. She recognized it right away, having seen it in bookstores a few years ago. But she was equally struck by the coincidence of finding it so far from our doorstep.

Needless to say I added it to my cart for a mere tat­tered greenback and off we went.

To be continued next week: The story of Alice and Domingo.