Ron Rude | Wild Horses Running

Published: May 29, 2008

Richard Beller grew up on the Flathead Reservation, the son of independent, sharp-shooting, bronc-busting parents, who captured some of the last wild horses that still roamed the range in the 1930s.

His tale, told here by retired English teacher Ron Rude, speaks to an era and people as rough and untamed as the landscape they once galloped across — a world outlined by the Mission Mountains, the Bison Range, the Flathead River and the Ninemile drainage. “Family secrets and Pa’s nipping and both parents’ wanderlust and all three Bellers’ fascination with horses both wild and domestic filled in the spaces within those outlines,” writes Rude.

Beller has lived “well past his nine lives,” from a premature birth, to encounters with rattlesnakes, crazy horses and marauding bears, to surviving glider drops, artillery barrages and enemy capture during World War II. Rude’s self-described “fictional biographical historical” portrait of Beller is punctuated with black and white photographs from the family’s collection.

The author, who lives in Plains, has also written The Backyard Horseman and Waiting for Otto.

— Kristi Niemeyer