Tracking DM&E's big dream: Chapter 4

It's late on a Wednesday afternoon, and a hired hand walks out the door of a small house next to a larger one that is the headquarters for the 80,000-acre Keeline ranch, just south of the Gordon place.

You cannot tell where one ranch starts and another one

Cattle graze on land along the Cheyenne River in western South Dakota. Forage for cattle is so sparse on the dry plains of Wyoming and South Dakota that it can support only one cow for every 50 acres

ends in this part of the country. There are no plow furrows or crop lines or wind rows. Many ranchers run their cattle on shared grazing land or on property leased from the federal government. So animals carry identifying brands, put there with a red-hot poker when they're young.

Keeline's home, like those of most ranchers in this part of the country, is set away from the highway at least a quarter-mile. There's a pickup and a livestock trailer in the front yard.

"I'm looking for Jimmy Keeline," I say to the worker, who is dressed in the standard late-fall ranchers' uniform of denim jeans and jacket, western boots and shirt, felt cowboy hat, and a silk scarf that doubles as a dust mask on windy days.

"He's in the house," the worker says. "Bang on the door real hard, though. He was sleeping in the front room when I was over there a few minutes ago."

Keeline, one of Weston County's most prominent ranchers, yawns and rubs his eyes and stubbly beard as he rises and tells me to come in. He then eases back down in the reclining chair he'd been napping in. A tall, beefy man with short, hat-battered brown hair, Keeline bears a strong resemblance to actor Billy Bob Thornton.

Like most ranchers in these parts, he speaks with the coarse frankness of a man who's been his own boss most of his adult life.

The DM&E project stands to nip a corner of Keeline's ranch, which has been in his family since the clan moved here from Iowa and bought out some homesteaders in 1882.

Like the Gordons, Keeline has contributed money to the anti-railroad Mid-States Coalition for Progress. But he's less strident in his views toward the DM&E and its president than some of his neighbors.

"I don't hate Kevin Schieffer," Keeline says, gazing out the picture window of his living room, as if searching for inspiration. "I just think he's got the world's worst job."

Keeline, who grazes about 1,000 head of red angus cattle, believes some of his neighbors are getting all worked up about nothing. "I just don't think this thing is ever going to happen," he says. "Have you looked at the land around here?" he asks, referring to the rough, undulating terrain. "And they're going to build new tracks?"

Keeline figures the coal in the basin would peter out soon after the new line could be built, although geologists and energy experts dispute that.

"I think ol' Schieffer had him one heck of a good idea," he says. "I just think it's 20 years late."