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Road Tales: Where the Buffalo Roam

aa_buffalow.jpg
Proof — Dateline: Moab, Utah Taken at Site

He’d hunted big game for years all over the United States. Hunting was a way of life to him. But, in all those years, he’d never shot a buffalo. He’d put his name in for the lottery that gave out yearly licenses to shoot buffalo, but year after year the winning number had eluded him. As he failed, again and again, his need to add a buffalo, an American bison, to his life bag grew to obsessive proportions. Finally, he could stand it no longer. He determined that he would buy a couple of young buffalo, raise them, and then shoot them. It seemed like a plan.

When the buffalo purchase was completed the question arose about where these buffalo were to be raised. He wasn’t a rich man and the cost to two baby buffalo maxed out his credit cards. The only viable option was to raise them on his front lawn in Moab, Utah. Accordingly, the buffalo were delivered and put out to pasture, or “out to lawn” as the case may be.

Besides grass the lawn also contained, courtesy of his kids, a couple of soccer balls. Shortly after the buffalo became his lawn ornaments, he was out walking among them when one of them discovered a soccer ball and butted it over to him with its nose. Without thinking he kicked it back towards the other buffalo, who passed it to the first buffalo who butted it back to him. An hour or so of passing and kicking the soccer ball between man and buffalo ensued.

When he went out on his lawn the next morning, they were waiting for him. One seemed to be playing midlawn while the other hung back by the water trough which had become some sort of goal. The forward buffalo butted the ball towards him. Without thinking he returned the kick over the head of the forward. No good. With a speed belying its bulk, the defensive buffalo moved quickly and butted it through his legs to the porch. When it bounced off the barbecue, they seemed to do a brief victory prance. The game was afoot.

Day after day, week after week, the strange lawn ritual with the soccer ball went on and on. In truth, he had long since pulled far ahead of the buffalo in goals, but what do buffalo know about keeping score?

In time, however, the hunting season came around. He looked out of his house on the first morning and saw the buffalo waiting for him, the soccer ball in front of the forward, the defensive buffalo pacing slowly back and forth by the water trough. It came to him then that he could never shoot them. It would spoil the season — and the soccer season, in the deserts of Utah, is never really over.

On a hot afternoon soon after, he looked out his window and discovered, much to his delight and his neighbors’ shock, that the two buffalo on his lawn were indeed male and female.

Now it is two years later and he has four buffalo on his lawn. He doesn’t hunt anything anymore. Says he’s lost the taste for it. His old hunting buddies come by every so often and razz him about the buffalo.

“You started with two and couldn’t shoot them,” one said. “Now you got four, and next year you’re gonna have five. What are you going to do then?”

He went to his garage and came back with a basketball.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • David Zincavage November 30, 2020, 8:06 AM

    Good story, EXCEPT….. No hunter thinks that it would be Hunting to buy, and raise, and then shoot some game animal. That isn’t Hunting, it’s farming. I would assume the protagonist simply wanted to eat buffalo.

  • Anne November 30, 2020, 8:19 AM

    Nice Punt G–very nice !
    Good to see you getting up off the bench!!

    🙂

  • Nori November 30, 2020, 10:31 AM

    Great story. Moab has a fair share of townsfolk as colorful as their spectacular surroundings.
    I’d PAY to see his buffalo basketball team.

  • James ONeil November 30, 2020, 11:13 AM

    Not a loud guffaw but I definitely chuckled at the end.

  • Sam Carlsson November 30, 2020, 5:14 PM

    God bless you, Gerard! Such joy to read your inspired offerings.
    In this vein, might i suggest “The Way I Heard it” by Mike Rowe? It’s a podcast he does. Remember his ‘Dirty Jobs’ series on TV? Well he’s morphed that into his foundation Rowe Works (or somesuch) which generates millions of dollars in scholarships for young people wanting to learn trades.
    Seems to me that you two are soul brothers.

  • MarkInKansas November 30, 2020, 7:32 PM

    The great stories are always wonderful to see again. I smiled when I first read it a few years ago. I smile again. Thank you Mr. Vanderleun.

  • Sam L. December 1, 2020, 9:36 AM

    Buffalo Soccer: That was an UPPER. Great story!

  • Jack December 1, 2020, 1:14 PM

    I have never ‘hunted’ buffalo or the American Bison as it’s known but I certainly have pined all of my life to hunt Cape Buffalo in Africa. Sadly, things never worked out for me on that one.

    But, I have seen the America Bison…buffalo….up close and I’ll tell you here and now they are huge and they will happily charge and kill you if they can. They are nasty tempered and they are quick.

    Modern hunters wag out with a ‘guide’ and shoot them with big bore cartridges, then pose beside them, sometimes wearing traditional early American Western styled garb…beaver hat, fringed jacket, knee high moccasins…the whole weird dress up thing….acting as if they’ve actually accomplished a great feat.

    I wonder if it ever occurs to these silly, dashing nimrods that the American Indian killed them regularly and by the thousands from the back of a galloping half wild mustang ponies running at break neck speeds across uneven ground, with short bows that might draw 45 – 50 pounds and with arrows that were painstakingly made, tipped with flint points.

  • Boat Guy December 3, 2020, 8:51 PM

    The Indians also used to run whole herds over cliffs.

    For four years we had “relations” with bison; my brother ran a herd of over a hundred in that time. Hay prices put paid to that.
    They are amazing animals “50 million years of successful evolution”; their only successful predator is homo sapiens.

    Yes, they will kill you. The first year my brother ran them two ranchers in our state were killed by their own animals; yeah they were “victims” of natural selection and their own hubris.

    • Anonymous December 1, 2021, 4:09 AM

      I was informed of a buffalo jump but not made privy to seeing it- described as a large pile of bones. Another time our party was shown a “tipi ring”, a circle of stones that held the tent’s hem to the ground. This after a fire burned the grass down and exposed it.

      • gwbnyc December 1, 2021, 4:10 AM

        ^above^

        • Jack December 1, 2021, 7:45 AM

          I worked as a Petroleum Landman for over 40 years and I spent a couple of years in Denver as a corporate guy, getting prospects in the Rockies, usually Wyoming and Montana, ready to drill. Geologists and geophysicists prospect the sub-surface and select a prospect area and landmen would purchase oil and gas leases for exploration of the area but prior to any surface operations company landmen would meet with BIA or BLM reps and conduct physical surface inspections.

          In a number of instances our drill sites would be located upon 0r close to ancient village sites with dozens of teepee rings and other archeological evidence or Native American habitation and it was guaranteed that no physical operations could be conducted anywhere near those areas. The preservation of those sites is so intense and strict that it’s illegal to pick up and remove anything including old arrow heads or flint chips, etc.

          That kind of discovery always pissed off the scientists who then had to move locations to other non-evidential areas. And, of course, those bastards would blame the Land Department.

  • Bear Claw Chris Lapp December 4, 2020, 7:59 AM

    Boat Guy knows his history. Mom was a docent at the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center after they opened. It was my daycare center 2 or 3 days a week. Those ha ha old women kept an eye on me. Never once did I do anything destructive they let me roam free. I will never forget that.

  • Mike Austin November 30, 2021, 8:23 AM

    Something is a bit strange about animals: They seem to have a path to the Divine that man cannot understand, a path God put there for some reason all His own. Strange tales of beasts and men have appeared for millennia; they still appear today. Read of Alexander and Bucephalus for one, of Saint Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio for another, and of Balaam’s Ass for yet another. And there are thousands more. A man with a stunted imagination will say silly things about beasts: that they have no imagination; that they have no souls; that they do not possess memory worthy of the name; that they cannot love; that they have no real intelligence; that they cannot really understand; that they have no true emotions; that they know only instinct. What sort of God would make creatures like that? Short answer: He did not.

    Animals were created before God created man. As such they are older than we are. They have known God longer. They know a part of Him that we do not. They were not made imago dei, but what of it? Neither were the Angels. When God created beasts He gave full reign to his infinite imagination. When God created men he made them all the same: the same physical traits, the same nature, the same capacity to love or to choose not to love. How astoundingly varied is the world of beasts! Millions and millions of all kinds—and we discover new ones all the time. Imagine a world without animals. How dry and empty it would be. Would any man choose to live in such a desolation?

    My guess is that those buffalos were poking fun at—just a bit and in their own way—the man. They were as much playing with him as with the soccer ball.

    Here is a relative of Balaam’s Ass. After watching this tell me again about animals.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZiZXCyy1Fc

  • Dirk November 30, 2021, 8:28 AM

    Awesome tale!. Having crossed that bridge myself. Use to purchase drop calves from livestock auctions, hand raise them. In no time these cows were my pets, my friends, my companions on lazy afternoons.

    I’ve read and been told that animals do not have emotions…. Logic…..reason. BS, I’ve seen all three in different breeds of animals. Most folks just don’t take the time to recognize what’s taking place.

    Example,,,,,,Recently I came upon a down cow, hit by a car, all her Cow Pals,,, were around her braying nudging her, a group effort was made to stand her up. She knew she wouldn’t make it, the other cows also sensed she was dying. The cow was mangled badly.

    I didn’t want to put her down, yet couldn’t take it, she was suffering terribly. One 9mm and she was no longer flailing, I stepped back, and with tears in my eyes watched as her friends cried for her now gone sole, to go wherever it is cows go.

    After twenty minutes, we left, later that day as we transited thru the little valley, I observed the cows, all bedded down around their lost mate. Circled, as if protecting their friend.

    Witnessed this often here, scientists tell us dumb shit like cows are stupid, I’ve been convinced it’s a strategy , who knows. I just know that I’ve witnessed especially cattle surrounding and protection their friends, when down hurt. I’ve just witnessed far to many times, as the other cows circle their friend and bray, “ cry” for their friend.

    Back to my drop calve story, I could not have slaughtered em if I had too, these animals had become my friends, everyday at dark, gave me great joy to chase them, be chased by them. A simple sort of fun, understanding. Of how we ALL share this place we call home. End of the day, I’d rather be surrounded by those animals, then humans. I’m comfortable in that setting.

    Dirk

  • Jack Lawson November 30, 2021, 9:16 AM

    Great story of someone who has come to their senses! Shoot to kill animals to feed you and your family… okay. But shooting an animal to fill in the pieces of a personal species puzzle collection or to fill a hole in yourself that lacks worth… I don’t agree with.

    The last animal I shot was an elephant in Africa. Actually, I was one of two gunners on a truck that shot it. The Africans came running into our camp in terror, men and women… babies and children in tow. The rutting had started and one of the males forced out of the merriment or not having any sex went bonkers and started tearing a village apart. We jumped in a Unimog and roared over to see this huge male standing looking at us with intent to charge. He was definitely pissed off… shrieking and throwing his trunk around.

    Me and the other guy were told by our Color Sergeant sitting in the Unimog to waste the elephant. We did. I can still picture one of the tracer rounds hitting the skull and veering off, deflected by the thick skull. Three villages harvested that creature and the meat probably fed them for a month after picking out all the rounds.

    It still bothers me that I was part of killing such a majestic animal. But its spirit can rest knowing it sustained a bunch of people… not that it probably would care. It definitely would have hurt some of the Africans if we hadn’t killed it.

    Jack Lawson
    Associate Member, Sully H. deFontaine Special Forces Association Chapter 51, Las Vegas, Nevada
    Author of “The Slaver’s Wheel”, “A Failure of Civility,” “And We Hide From The Devil,” “Civil Defense Manual” and “In Defense.”

    “I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of God. I have seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What God desires is here… (he points to his head)… and here (he points to his heart)… and what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man… or not.” – Quote of David Thewlis as Hospitaller The Jerusalem Crusader from the movie “The Kingdom of Heaven”

    • Mike Austin November 30, 2021, 11:07 AM

      Reading your story, I was reminded of the tales of Jim Corbett that I had read long ago. As a small boy therefore I wanted to grow up to be a tiger hunter in India. Maybe Corbett was one of the reasons I spent so much of my adult life in jungles.

      • Jack Lawson November 30, 2021, 12:24 PM

        Jungles.!?

        You’re a better man than me Mr. Mike… too many snakes and creepy crawlies there.

        Jack Lawson
        Associate Member, Sully H. deFontaine Special Forces Association Chapter 51, Las Vegas, Nevada
        Author of “The Slaver’s Wheel”, “A Failure of Civility,” “And We Hide From The Devil,” “Civil Defense Manual” and “In Defense.”

        “When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” – C.S. Lewis

        • Dirk November 30, 2021, 3:40 PM

          Snakes, NOTHING will ever freak you out like a six ft tall momma cobra, hooded and hissing,,, like a cat ,swaying back and forth.

          Sheesh, hair on my necks tingling, just talking about it.

          No thanks. In I think 1978/ 79 ish I attended a class in Subic bay titled, JEST, I had zero business there, perhaps the only sailor to attend in dungarees, and boondockers.

          Dirk

          • Jack December 1, 2021, 8:03 AM

            Speaking of snakes and Jim Corbett, Jim wrote of a personal superstition that he experienced. He said that usually, before initiating a hunt for a man eating cat, he would kill a poisonous snake….a hamadryad which is a local name for a King Cobra.

            He tells of an incident where he saw a very large Cobra drinking from a pool and while the snake was drinking Corbett picked up a rock, threw it at the snake and plastered him and in response the cobra immediately came directly for him. Corbett killed it with a rifle, I think, and his hunt was an eventual success.

  • Anne November 30, 2021, 10:03 AM

    My little blue collar marmalade cat chose to live with us. “Ok, ok. you can let him to feed him–just don’t let him touch anything!” were DH’s first words when seeing the grease covered rag walking in off of a Queen Anne alleyway in Seattle. He lived with us for 15 years. I have many stories about him that would convince you he was a real communicator. I no longer waste my time wondering if, or what they understand. I have accepted that they understand it all–every emotion in the human condition, they comprehend. I truly believe they are a gift that God sends to us to help keep our human heart on the best side of our human nature. No questions.

  • ghostsniper November 30, 2021, 1:36 PM

    Just this morning I was doing some rudimentary figuring and found out over the past 7 years and 2 months I have given my mutt Shannon over 25,000 cookies. That’s a lot. I had no idea. Funny how habits work, start off slow and next thing you know it’s over the top.

    The cookies are really large breed Iam’s dog food. Brown, about 5/8″ in diameter and my left britches pocket always has a bunch of them in there. In the winter they are in my left down vest pocket that I wear constantly.

    From the very first day we got Shannon when she was but a pup a few months old she has learned that I always have a cookie for her and sometimes she must earn them. This is how she has learned to take care of “business” like a machine. A friend came by one time when she was in the process of doing business and said it was the damnedest thing he ever seen. Shannon has her own private yard that is fenced in and it is only for doing business and it is cleaned daily. After breakfast each day she launches to her yard and does business one and immediately races to me for her reward, for which she jumps real high at full speed and she gets her cookie. She gobbles it down then relaunches back to the yard for business two, then back to me for cookie two. Like clockwork. Only once, since we’ve had her, did the “timing” get off and I believe it was because I think she may have eaten bunny poop. After a few days she was back on track.

    So Shannon get’s 2 cookies at breakfast and 2 at supper, and 1 at bedtime, and about 5 more through out the day. An average day means she enjoys 10 or more cookies. That’s 3,650 cookies a year. Over 7 years it adds up.

    It’s not about the cookies, with Shannon. Afterall, her breakfast and supper is the same Iams large breed dog food. It’s the routine, and that I praise her heavily every.single.time. I give her a cookie. It’s a bond reinforcement. She and I are together almost every waking moment and usually she must be within inches of me. Her favorite place to be is wrapped up in the spokes/legs of my desk chair. Yes, that is dangerous, and she’s been rollled over a few times, and I’ve even scolded her about it. But she won’t be deterred. She must be as close to me as possible at all times.

    If I get up from my chair Shannon gets up from the spokes and she’ll look at me with her ears up wondering what we’re gonna do next. Usually it something mundane like go to the house and fix a cup O’mud. Walking beside me across the bridge she is bubbling over in the joy of just living. Dancing, even in circles, prancing, and jumping and nipping at my fingers. It is a big thing for her to just walk to the house. She’s easily amused and entertained.

    In a way Shannon is my best friend, even better than my wife of 37 years, because we spend so much time together. Even though my wife runs her business out of the house and I run mine out of my detached office/workshop we only see each other occasionally during the day, like when I got in the house to make my cup O’mud. Even though her and I are usually less than 100′ apart during the day it’s not unusual to not see each other until supper time when we sit down together, along with Shannon to break bread. The rest of the time it’s just Shannon and me.

    After my last mutt died, in 2014, I didn’t really want to get another one. My previous mutt’s lifestyle and mine was pretty much like mine is with Shannon. We were heavily invested in each other and when she was gone an enormous vacuum existed and I floundered on how to fill that void. I just couldn’t get the thought of her out of my head. Almost every second of everyday was filled with misery and there was nothing I could do about it. The thought of getting another mutt was almost repulsive to me. Like I was desecrating the memory of my deceased mutt. My wife would bring it up and I’d quickly dismiss it, even getting angry about it at times. It got so bad that I told her to not bring it up again. “If I want to get another mutt at some time in the future I’ll decide”. She told me she hates to see me down in the dumps about the loss. I told her there is nothing to be done and to stop trying to fix something she has no control over.

    In mid Sept of 2014 my wife sent me an email. “At the risk of making you angry I just had to take a chance and send this to you. Take a look and see what you think.” The email had a link to a website for a dog kennel about 40 miles from here. The link had a mutt that they recently received and she was ready to be adopted after she had met their requirements. I looked, then I closed the site and forgot about it. 2 days later, a friday, I looked at the website again. I went in the house and told my wife that we are going to Bargersville to look at “Spirit” the 4 month old female hybrid Australian Shepard – Brittany Spaniel at the website.

    When we got to the Golden Post Kennel to see Shannon (her name was Spirit at the time), they brought her out to my wife and I in the front room and we were all glad to see each other for our very own and particular reasons. Spirit was overly bubbly and was jumping up at us uncontrollably and I was knelt on the ground at her level. The leash and collar arrangement they had on her was difficult to work with as it was all one piece. The leash was basically wrapped around her neck, and acted as a collar, and it’s impossible to control an animal in that manner.

    After a few minutes we went to an outside area in the rear that was enclosed on all 4 sides. This area was about 100′ wide by about 50′ deep and had a 10′ chainlink fence on the 2 ends. The front of this area was enclosed by the office building itself. The rear of this area was contained by the row of kennels with chainlink fence seperating them from this large open area. Each of the kennels had dogs in them, some 30 kennels in a row and each kennel had a barking and curious dog in it. Various people were coming and going in this “meet and greet” area so the distractions were immense and a quality interview with Spirit was almost impossible. We were in this area for about 20 minutes and weren’t making much headway. My wife and I frequently looked at each other in frustration and wondered aloud if we were doing the right thing. The situation was so difficult I had my doubts as to whether this whole thing was right. I needed to find a way to break through the chaos and discover what I needed to know. I needed to know if Spirit was the dog I was going to invest a big part of my life in and with.

    At one point I decided to try something to see how Spirit would act toward me. I told my wife to stay here and without saying another word to anyone I walked to one corner of the 50’x100′ space and just stood there for a moment. In short order Spirit came over by me and just stood there. Without looking at, or acknowledging her, I started slowly walking to the opposte end some 100′ away. Spirit followed, and my wife stood in the middle observing, not saying a word. The mayhem meanwhile continued all around us. When I got to the corner I stopped and just stood there, again not saying anything to anyone and just observing out of the corner of my eye. Spirit stopped at that corner too and acted like she was waiting for direction on what to do. After a moment I started slowly walking toward the next corner, Spirit again followed.

    Keep in mind there were numerous distractions all along, dogs barking uncontrollably, kids and adults running about, cars coming and going, etc. I repeated my previous behavior at this corner and then started walking to corner 4, again Spirit followed me. Spirit had been off the leash the whole time we were in this enclosed area, and could have run off, so she was following me of her own volition. I stopped at corner 4 and stood there, by now Spirit was in tune with what I was doing.

    I started walking to corner 1, where we had started, and Spirit followed me again. When we got to that corner I stopped and just stood there, and so did Spirit. I looked down at her and she was looking around, but she already knew where she was supposed to be – by me. I knelt down and wrapped my arms around her and told her she was a good gurl and she turned into a fountain bubbling all over the place.

    Her natural charms had worked their spell and cut through the fog of distraction and confusion and overwhelmed my emotions. She won me and I stole her.

    That clinched the deal for me, she was now my gurl and we just had to go through the formalities to make it so. My wife went inside and handled all the administrative tasks and I releashed Spirit with my own hardware I had brought along and her and me went out front to the huge grassed yard with large shade trees and boulders. We walked about and Spirit grew more comfortable with me, and I was learning her. I had not spent more than a few minutes with any dogs in more than 6 months and they of course were other people’s dogs, so not only was I finding Spirit I was finding me.

    I sat down on a large boulder and Spirit climbed up on top to be near me. I spoke to her and she listened to me. I could see it in her eyes. Finally, she had found someone that wanted to spend time with her, just her, for the first time in her life. And I found someone to help me heal, to become whole again, to fill a void that had only seen despair for so long. She seemed appreciative if that is possible. She was very excitable but I attributed that to her very young age of 4 months. Everything around her was new all the time and warranted investigation. I understood this and allowed her to find her way. In a moment I was back in her main view and she was glad of it.

    The printer was causing problems inside so it took my wife an unusually long time to join Spirit and me, maybe 20-30 minutes. The yard we were in was vast and was surrounded on 3 sides by an immense cornfield with stalks 10′ high, it was like we were in an enclosed castle yard. Cars came and went from the parking lot next to the yard and people would walk past us to their cars. On 2 occaisions people stopped and told us how good we looked together and wished us luck and I thanked them. Finally, my wife emerged with the paperwork in hand that legally made Spirit ours, and us, hers. The 2 women that owned the place came out and wanted to take a picture of us for their Facebook page. Everybody thanked everybody and wished each other luck and we, my wife, Spirit and I, jumped in the car and headed for home, Spirit’s new home.

    Spirit, now “Shannon”, is laying on her blanky here next to my chair in front of my desk in my office.
    Shannon is sleeping, and just now she let out with a low woo-woo-woo, from something she is dreaming about. I hope she is not having a bad dream of the days when no one wanted her. I hope she is dreaming about the good times she and us have had since she’s been here and the many more good times we will have in the future.

    “” I name my mutts after 10970’s songs.
    The first one was named Dusty, for “Dust in the Wind” (Kansas).
    The next one was named “Lady” (Styx).
    The next one was “Brandy” (Looking Glass)
    And now “Shannon” (Henry Gross)

    • Mike Austin November 30, 2021, 5:02 PM

      What a beautiful story, Ghost!

  • gwbnyc November 30, 2021, 6:46 PM

    In Montana, hunting with father&brother-in-laws. B-I-L being guided by a woman who managed a herd, the deal is you buy the buffalo (livestock) and donate half the meat to the state, everyone’s happy. The buffalo was one that was older, they go solo as they age, and it had to be tracked and found. The guide yelled “man, SHOOT that sunnovabitch!” as it loped toward him- and so he did, one shot between the eyes about three inches high with a .270.

    Back at her corral she raised the animal chained by the rear legs with a front-end loader and butchered it with a Dewalt reciprocating saw.

    She had a well-worn .38 snubnose on her belt throughout, I asked her at the end of our day why she wore it, she replied, “in case one of you assholes breaks an ankle.”

  • Dirk December 1, 2021, 11:39 AM

    Buffalo Jumps, couple years back we attended a WRSA, gathering in Cody Wyoming, we visited a couple buffalo jumps, now state, or small fed parks. Kinda interesting. Both were innWyoming.

    Dirk

  • Vanderleun December 1, 2021, 1:42 PM

    UPDATE: Fulghum writes to tell me:
    ” The man who owned the buffalo died several years ago. The property looks abandoned, but there’s still a soccer ball out there. The buffalo were donated to the Northern Ute tribe for their wild herd,
    which is culled every year for buffaloburgers .”

  • Dirk December 1, 2021, 4:12 PM

    GV, awesome. As a young man I hunted, especially like bird hunting. As I aged, carried a gun for a living,,,,,,, aaaaahhh 40 yrs ago I quit hunting, I enjoy the animals in their environment. Na when Safeway can’t meet my monthly needs, then I might start hunting again.

    Klamath Coumty up highway 97, maybe 40 miles north, is a huge buff ranch. Haven’t seen it in awhile. Back in 1990, the buff broke the fence down between the ranch and the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Late that winter we got called out to a buff VS railroad engine incident.

    Don’t recall, but think it was 15/25 dead buffalo scattered a mile up the tracks.

    The blunt force trauma was amazing, the train traveling at fifty mph pulverized, I mean turned those buff, to bits and pieces. Tallow wagon salvage what they could, and the train was NB, in an hour.

    The rancher tried to sue the RR, claiming this was a grazing area, Open Range.Turns out he’d lost several buff to vehicles on hwy 97, nobody said a word when he charged em for open range kills.

    He told a group of us the open range stuff, I laughed hard. Mister no such thing as open range on any state highway or freeway, he smiled, recognized his game was up. He did fix the fences after that.

    Anyway we can get buff burgers at a couple places in town. A bit dry for me.

    VI