Welcome to Litsy!

Writer Lisa Jones went to Wyoming for a four-day magazine assignment. She was committed to a long-term relationship, building a career and searching for something she could not name. At a dusty corral on the Wind River Indian Reservation, she met Stanford Addison, a Northern Arapaho who seemed to transform everything around him. He gentled horses rather than breaking them. It was said he could heal people of everything from cancer to bipolar disorder. He did all this from a wheelchair; he had been a quadriplegic for more than twenty years. As Lisa returned to the ranch time and time again, Stanford slowly revealed his story. He’d spent his teenage years busting broncos, seducing girls and dealing drugs. At twenty, he left the house for another night of partying. By morning, a violent accident had robbed him of his physical prowess and in its place left unwelcome spiritual powers – an exchange so shocking that Stanford spent several years trying to kill himself. Eventually he surrendered to his new life and mysterious gifts. Lisa was a frequent visitor to Stanford’s place over the years, the reservation and its people worked on her, exposing and healing the places where she too was broken. This is her story, intertwined with Stanford’s, and it explores powerful spirits, material poverty, spiritual wealth, friendship, violence, confusion, death, and above all else, love.