October 16
I stood on top of the camper north of Thunder Basin National Grassland and watched them pass in their disorderly herd. There were about 400 bison. They moved up WY 59 on the other side of an eight foot fence, plodding en masse across the short tawny grass that covered the range as far as I could see. Not a tree disrupted it. The stubbled carpet ran up truncated 60-foot buttes that interspersed the plain. The carpet wore thin at the tops and the red Triassic soil of the buttes showed through. The sky was colossal, a cloud-streaked lid set atop the diminutive earth. Taken as individuals the bison lumbered, but seen as a whole the herd moved with the deliberate inexorability of an outsized amoeba, sliming its way across the plains.
In the old days they say bison filled the plains to overflowing, their brown bodies rumbling and rippling across the earth so that the arid expanse became a living sea of bison, red-eyed from dust, each beast moving with the bellowing bedlam around them like Los Angeles traffic times one thousand minus the law. They say the earth shook. Frenzied by their numbers the bison did not walk as they do now but stampeded. They stampeded over anything they encountered. Bleached bones, fallen comrades, fallen cowboys, all churned to dust and blood. I try to imagine it. Millions of bison, teeming like ants, pouring out of one horizon and sweeping toward the other. I see them coming, snorting, steaming, pounding the earth with their footfalls. The leaders swerve to avoid Squatter but the followers cannot turn and some ram against the grille, thumping the truck as flesh pounds against steel. I am knocked to all fours. I can smell the acrid dust, the sweat and the saliva of the animals. Bison swarm by Squatter’s sides, tearing off the rearview mirrors and jolting the truck as they pass. The quarterpanels crumple in the incessant collisions. Inside the cab Chap barks as bodies thunder by. The dust rises until I can scarcely see. My eyes burn. I cover my face and lay flat. The thunder rumbles. Squatter shakes. Chap ceases barking and I imagine him crouched in the floorboard under the glovebox, scared and hoarse. I cower until it is over. When the rumbling has passed I look up to see a plain churned to red, strewn with scat, dotted by a few limping animals and some lumps of flesh that lie still. Desolation at life’s hands. The scene reeks of overturned earth, sweat and blood.
It is a sight I will never see. For when multiplied to historic proportions, the bison is incompatible with the barbed wire fence. Today man is the dominant species in the plains, and man has made his choice. Having taken the land mankind cannot relinquish it. Maybe after man has fallen from prosperity the bison will return to rule the plains and thunder across the regions we once termed Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska. I wish I could see it.
I wonder what will happen after mankind struggles, gasps and fades from existence. Will bison recover? Or will the earth be altered drastically enough that mammals no longer flourish and other classes rise to fill the vacuum? How will the earth look? How will it feel? Smell? Man must perish, and will. Our time on earth has been fleeting beyond comprehension and yet we have altered the globe tremendously. In geologic time our trajectory is not sustainable, no matter how many Kyoto Protocols we may sign, or refuse to sign. No organism lasts forever. The Permian extinction claimed 98% of all life forms, the K-T extinction took 94%. Mass extinctions are not only possible but inevitable, a simple fact of life on Earth. One day the sun will rise and Homo sapiens will not be around to rise with it. That is simply true.
It is such an arresting thought that I miss a foothold climbing down from the camper and tumble onto the asphalt below. I land on my side and roll over. I sit up and spit, which is what a man does if he is disgusted with himself but not hurt. Chap jumps from the truck, where I had told him to stay – a command he usually obeys – and climbs into my lap. I tell him I am okay and scratch his head. Chap winds the bison. He cocks his ears and wrinkles his nose. This is only the second herd of bison Chap has encountered. I clip on his leash and we cross the road and approach the fence.
Most of the herd has ambled by, but one bison lags behind. He walks near the fence. As Chap and I reach the fence he shies away. Despite his bulk the bison’s eyes are on the sides of his head. Chap and I have eyes in the front. Unambiguous sign of a predator. As he quarters away the bison turns his shaggy head to have one last look at us. He does not change course. Destruction comes only with numbers.
In the old days they say bison filled the plains to overflowing, their brown bodies rumbling and rippling across the earth so that the arid expanse became a living sea of bison, red-eyed from dust, each beast moving with the bellowing bedlam around them like Los Angeles traffic times one thousand minus the law. They say the earth shook. Frenzied by their numbers the bison did not walk as they do now but stampeded. They stampeded over anything they encountered. Bleached bones, fallen comrades, fallen cowboys, all churned to dust and blood. I try to imagine it. Millions of bison, teeming like ants, pouring out of one horizon and sweeping toward the other. I see them coming, snorting, steaming, pounding the earth with their footfalls. The leaders swerve to avoid Squatter but the followers cannot turn and some ram against the grille, thumping the truck as flesh pounds against steel. I am knocked to all fours. I can smell the acrid dust, the sweat and the saliva of the animals. Bison swarm by Squatter’s sides, tearing off the rearview mirrors and jolting the truck as they pass. The quarterpanels crumple in the incessant collisions. Inside the cab Chap barks as bodies thunder by. The dust rises until I can scarcely see. My eyes burn. I cover my face and lay flat. The thunder rumbles. Squatter shakes. Chap ceases barking and I imagine him crouched in the floorboard under the glovebox, scared and hoarse. I cower until it is over. When the rumbling has passed I look up to see a plain churned to red, strewn with scat, dotted by a few limping animals and some lumps of flesh that lie still. Desolation at life’s hands. The scene reeks of overturned earth, sweat and blood.
It is a sight I will never see. For when multiplied to historic proportions, the bison is incompatible with the barbed wire fence. Today man is the dominant species in the plains, and man has made his choice. Having taken the land mankind cannot relinquish it. Maybe after man has fallen from prosperity the bison will return to rule the plains and thunder across the regions we once termed Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska. I wish I could see it.
I wonder what will happen after mankind struggles, gasps and fades from existence. Will bison recover? Or will the earth be altered drastically enough that mammals no longer flourish and other classes rise to fill the vacuum? How will the earth look? How will it feel? Smell? Man must perish, and will. Our time on earth has been fleeting beyond comprehension and yet we have altered the globe tremendously. In geologic time our trajectory is not sustainable, no matter how many Kyoto Protocols we may sign, or refuse to sign. No organism lasts forever. The Permian extinction claimed 98% of all life forms, the K-T extinction took 94%. Mass extinctions are not only possible but inevitable, a simple fact of life on Earth. One day the sun will rise and Homo sapiens will not be around to rise with it. That is simply true.
It is such an arresting thought that I miss a foothold climbing down from the camper and tumble onto the asphalt below. I land on my side and roll over. I sit up and spit, which is what a man does if he is disgusted with himself but not hurt. Chap jumps from the truck, where I had told him to stay – a command he usually obeys – and climbs into my lap. I tell him I am okay and scratch his head. Chap winds the bison. He cocks his ears and wrinkles his nose. This is only the second herd of bison Chap has encountered. I clip on his leash and we cross the road and approach the fence.
Most of the herd has ambled by, but one bison lags behind. He walks near the fence. As Chap and I reach the fence he shies away. Despite his bulk the bison’s eyes are on the sides of his head. Chap and I have eyes in the front. Unambiguous sign of a predator. As he quarters away the bison turns his shaggy head to have one last look at us. He does not change course. Destruction comes only with numbers.
posted by Jeb Butler at 11:47 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home