Dark Cloud Over the Ochocos
by Susie Applegate A few years back, a dark cloud settled over Wilbur County, and it just hung there as though it were permanently anchored to the Ochocos. The storm had been gathering for years, and some said it originated on the trail out west from Missouri and was well established even before little Germaine Van Bibber was buried a century and a half ago on the bank of Tamarack Creek. Why did this particular group of families decide to stay on here, rather than follow Mr. Meek over the Cascades to the Willamette Valley? No one can say, except that lives get entangled. Sometimes they get entangled through love and desire, sometimes through jealousy or hatred or common interest. Sometimes the vines go so deep in the thicket that no one remembers the ground from which they spring. And then there are those who become so tired of the journey,…