I've had the 10,000 Maniac's song, Gold Rush Brides stuck in my head all morning and I tried to paint what was going on in my head... kinda bleh tried to show light sources this time and failed... yay for trying something different though. There's an intro to this... but I can find it and I'm too lazy to do it on my own right now. Natalie Merchant writes such beautiful lyrics.

Follow the typical signs, the hand-painted lines
Down prairie roads
Pass the lone church spire, pass the talking wire
From where to who knows

There's no way to divide the beauty of the sky
From the wild western plains
Where a man could drift, in legendary myth
By roaming over spaces

The land was free, and the price was right

Dakota on the wall is a white-robed woman
Broad yet maidenly
Such power in her hand
As she hails the wagon man's family
I see Indians that crawl
Through this mural that recalls our history

Who were the homestead wives?
Who were the gold rush brides?
Does anybody know?
Do their works survive their yellow fever lives
In the pages they wrote

The land was free, yet it cost their lives

In miner's lust for gold
A family's house was bought and sold, piece by piece
A widow staked her claim on a dollar and his name
So painfully
In letters mailed back home her Eastern sisters
They would moan as they would read
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief

Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief