when she met Jennifer Colt,

she was just a girl...

When The Cowgirl finally made her way to 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown) ™ she remembered someone she had met before:

“whois this first memory of?
Jennifer. Jennifer Colt.”

The Cowgirl thought to herself, dreaming… when she was just a girl, a memory from childhood she carried along The Way. Always. Older than it seems to be inside.
She met Jennifer Colt inn her dreams, before she was born, before she could speak.

Now she stood here, silently, in the Low Hill Country at the edge of 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown). She kept quiet, knowing she was in a place, not her own, but sumwheres she belonged.

What do we know of “Jennifer Colt?”
Ghosttopia, the 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown) tome for wanderroring spirits says she is:

Born: 1850
Died: Unknown? 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown)
Known for: Sharpshooting
Relations: Jörg Adalberht N'Moraino and Charles Bramble
First Appearance: 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown) Spirit Simulator, the Glitch Art Game environment by jonCates and Evan Meaney (2020)

Jennifer Colt was born and raised on the traditional homelands of The People who the settlers would later call by the name of a river.

Jennifer Colt kept as much as she could close to the bone.

The River flows.

She reflected on the streams and meadows, the mountains, the pasts, presents, and futures.

#TRUTH: "Native American culture is a living, breathing entity. It is a tapestry of tradition and values passed on from generation to generation." — The Tradition of the Powwow by Native Hope @ProjNativeHope (2017)

#TRUTH: As Lucas Brown Eyes has stated: taking Indigenous stories is resource extraction motivated by settler colonial imperialist theft of land and lives.

Jennifer Colt did not directly know The People who have kinship with this place, on the lands stolen by Captain Jack Sheppard and his business partner General Silverror, when they stole these lands on which the 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown) was built. She had traveled to 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown) with her Mother and Father. They now lived just outside of town, in the Low Hill Country.

They had fled The War when she was just a girl. The settlers who invaded and occupied the lands later called the wars by their name for her people, as if The People had caused the wars. She knew full well the violence that she and her family had fled, all that they had survived, all the death and destruction, and don’t forget the chaos, was created by those settlers, the invaders who stole the land and tore it until it was bleeding, needing to be run from…"O'zvutsi'yőhë, Quarreling river' (ēvi' hyöět, she scolds,' + ohē'). A tributary of the Arkansas between the Huerfano and the Purgatory in Colorado." — Cheyenne Stream Names by GB Grinnell (1906) What does it mean, she wondered, to be named after water, after the facts, by strangers? Strangers who never lived her lives… Those strangers lost, looking back, adrift, floating away from place and time. Names flow through them, water, through their fingers, as they reach into the rivers, grasping for a truth. Glitter stars reflection remembering distant stars. Alive, remembering, the waters. She crossed over the bridge thinking of this... that Arnold M. Withers (an archaeologist who taught at University of Denver) applied the name “Apishapa” to the culture in 1954. Withers took the name from the Apishapa River.

#TRUTH: "We’re living through an active genocide." — Bree Newsome Bass @BreeNewsome (2020)

#TRUTH: Odilia Romero, co-founder and executive director of Indigenous Communities in Leadership (CIELO), explains that Indigenous cultures, languages, traditions, and worldviews die with the death of community members, especially elders who carry these knowledges with them in their stories and life experiences.

Jennifer Colt’s Mother grew older as they traveled, twice her age, five times her age, and more... She became her Grandmother, and her Great Grandmother. As she aged, she spoke in languages that Jennifer had increasingly distant memories of. By the time they got to the Low Hill Country nearby to the 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown), Jennifer’s Mother, was now her Great Grandmother. She spoke a language that was familiar to Jennifer’s heart but not decipherable by her or her Father’s ear.

The War. So many now. They had fled The War, Mother, Father and her, eventually making their way out here, where they would live as best they could. Best they could. Try to have some peace. Some quiet nights. Beautiful days. Sunsets. Sunrises. The hills. In this low hill country.

Father and Mother would stay out of town at the house. Mother, now speaking her new old language. Father, loving them, but he was undoubtedly lonelier now. At least they had gotten away from The War.

Jennifer would go into town for long stretches. Didn’t have the heart to move out. She had steady work at The Livery Stables for Jörg Adalberht N'Moraino whom she adored in that faraway way. He brought her in, to work at the stables, introducing her to the horses, one by one, speaking Spanish to the horses who ate apples out of his hands. Later Jennifer would tell him that she understood every word and little nuance in his lengua materna, that she had grown up speaking his language, among many others. They would continue to always speak Spanish to the horses. The horses replied distinctly, nodding and nustling their heads together and into the open hands of Jennifer and Jörg.

Jörg saw how much she loved the horses. Her way with the horses was quick and careful, never crass, always listening to them and speaking to them low in what sounded like Spanish but would sometimes edge away into other languages that Jörg didn’t know, couldn’t recognize or follow the flow of. The horses would watch her more intensely then, listening and replying, moving in patterns that she welcomed them into. In the past Jörg had thought that he had charmed the horses with his songs, playing his guitar and singing his songs to them. Now, watching them with Jennifer, he saw that they had charmed him. And that they trusted Jennifer in a different way. When he asked her to help to run the stagecoach line (that Jörg had also founded), she quickly said “Why yes, of course”, smiling, her eyes with their lavender sparkle, purple crystals, wild plums.

She loved the long days at The Livery Stables and the long rides out of town on each horse when she took time with them individually, and with the group when they went out on the stagecoach runs. She would always swing by the house to see Mother and Father, now Great Great Grandmother and Father. She brought them the harder to find items that she could wrangle up in town. When she was out on stagecoach runs to the different towns along the line (Purgatory, Perdition, Abaddon, The Mission of Forgiveness, Prudence, Revelation and Baptism Falls), she always kept her eye out for special items to pack away for them. And when the stage was headed back to 鬼鎮 (Ghosttown), she would steer Charles back around to her family’s place, checking in on them, and delivering what she had set aside for them each time.

Jennifer rode the stagecoach alongside Charles Bramble, who drove Maybellene. (Charles had named the stagecoach affectionately and immediately, while Jörg patted the brightly painted and polished wooden side of the coach). Charles gave names out like candy, all his own hand-crafted candy made especially for him, no matter if no one else was interested. Charles insisted on calling her ‘Jenny’. She hated this of course, but Jennifer knew she felt a certain kind of easy comfort with Charles Bramble so she let it slide. He made her feel a bit like her Father made her feel. Like they understood each other, even when they clearly didn’t. On those long stagecoach runs, Charles driving the horses, Jennifer always ready, her presence calming the horses who she had trained, both she and Charles riding along ontop of Maybellene, Charles singing, Jennifer smiling at the details…

"Barite: In clear, yellow, tabular crystals in the Tenth Legion Mine at Empire ; colorless crystals in the Terrible at Georgetown, while near Canon City, transparent crystals are found in the arenaceous shales of that region. Crystals occur in the limestones near Fair Play, and are found with fine terminations on the Apishapa River." — History of Clear Creek and Boulder valleys, Colorado by O.L. Baskin & Co (1880)

"...in the vicinity of water—seeps, springs, streams, ponds, marshes. Hackberry, black walnut, mesquite, and cottonwood are characteristic of the draws, whereas wild plum, piñon-pine, and

juniper favor the protected, steep reentrant canyons" — Archaeological Landscapes on the High Plains by Laura L. Scheiber and Bonnie J. Clark (2009)

#TRUTH: Odilia Romero is the author of the book Diža’ No’ole, which "features twenty-one undocumented Indigenous women, from Mexico and Guatemala (Zapotecas, from the Sierra Norte, the Valley of Oaxaca, and Veracruz, Mixes and Chinantecas from the Sierra Norte, Kʼiche, Mams, and Qʼanjobʼal), all of whom maintain close ties to their heritage through their ancestral languages—these women are part of the many generations who have kept their languages alive despite hundreds of years of suppression and erasure." https://mycielo.org/product/diza-no-ole/

#TRUTH: "Imagine your own stories and don’t be denied.” — @HalleBerry (2020)

Spanish, and English, she knows the languages of the invaders, the occupiers, the empires and individuals who came with their violence, the brutality of their ideals, their dreams of extorting, exploiting, and extracting all that they could, their logics of oppression. She spoke their languages to them.

She speaks her truth in languages of her ancestors. In her heart, she knows.

Jennifer Colt wore the clothes of a cowboy, a cowgirl, a settler. She moved in and through their worlds, translating between them in languages and customs. She made every effort that she could to not let them see her struggle, the struggle of passing and succeeding in passing among them. She held her family close and inside, kept the patterns and feelings, the feel of the fabrics, as they are woven, into her heart and mind.

“In each portrait, the women wear hand-embroidered clothing from their pueblo, each garment a connection to their community, family, and friends. The imagery and colors used in their garments are not simply aesthetic; they are based on the lived experience and history of each pueblo. The textiles also have a historical context; many of the fabrics used to make traditional clothing were demanded as tribute by the Spanish. To this day, Indigenous communities continue their struggle over ownership of these textiles. Traditional designs are often appropriated and mass-produced without the community’s consent, and the intellectual property rights of these designs are still in dispute.” — The Indigenous Communities in Leadership (CIELO) description of Odilia Romero’s book, Diža’ No’ole.

Jennifer Colt had also always already been of many worlds. More than two. Both. And. Ready to ride.

Remembering The River and the homes. As a child, stone circles, flat sandstone rock walls curving around, monoliths and passages, underground. Moonlight. Stars. A path.

When folks asked her how she got good with horses she would simply say she was "born on a horse and raised in a saddle!" Jörg would laugh loud and sincere, as if he himself was onstage, knowing the quote, and the source that Jennifer quoted from. “Sounds familiar…” some would say, “Haven’t I heard that in a movie somewheres?” By that time Jennifer would be off in a different direction, because, as she was also fond of saying: "Never a day goes by without any trouble of some kind rolling into town."

Jennifer Colt (as drawn by Isel Badillo) and Charles Bramble (as drawn by Isabella Maria) at Jörg Adalberht N'Moraino's Livery Stables.

Concepts and characters created by jonCates.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living or dead, events, or entities are purely coincidental.

© systemsApproach (2023)