barrage of flies that swarmed his massive stature.
“This was good” I thought. “Maybe he is angry at the flies, maybe he didn’t even notice me… how great would this be, saved by flies… who would have ever imagined that?”
I took another step, then another… and another. My heart rate began to even out as my distance from immediate danger was growing with…
And then it happened!
“OH… MY… CRAP!”
For reasons unknown to me, the rogue buffalo decided… IT WAS TIME TO TRAMPLE A COYOTE!
Like a freight train that had exploded from its tracks, this massive animal was charging at me full steam ahead; with no hesitation I turned around and ran like I had never run before.
Everything went black.
It was as if I were running in a dream state and the rest of the world had shut down around me. My heart was beating a million beats per second as my skinny tan legs cut through the prairie grasses, desperately trying to avoid tripping. The ground was shaking under rapidly-gaining hooves as the sound of an angry buffalo barreled down after me. For every stride I gained, he closed
the gap by ten. I could practically feel the hot steam from his wet nostrils on the back of my neck, his rugged earth-worn hooves nipping at my heels, and the bone-crushing force of his iron-strong skull inching closer to slamming into my back.
This was the fastest I had ever run in my life, and to this day I am not sure I have ever covered ground more quickly. You would be surprised how fast you can run when your life literally depends on it!
Sweat poured from my brow as the dry air stung my eyes and open mouth. I gasped for air as my lungs worked on overdrive to propel my body forward… and then I saw it:
THE WASH!
The very environmental feature I had recently been so proud to have conquered might now be the only thing that could save my precious little life.
The buffalo was closing in; I could almost hear its heart beating as it blazed across the prairie.
“Just a few more yards… maybe if I jump I can make it to the other side…” and suddenly with all of my might I leapt from the edge and WOOOOOOSH!
Time seemed to slow in the following moments as my body launched off the side of the wash. My arms and legs flailed as I soared through the air, my eyes wide as saucers. The sound of the charging buffalo mixed together with the sound of wind in my ears as I flew toward the far side. I was flying, I couldn’t believe it… I was literally flying!
And then… reality snapped back and my 15-year-old body fell like a ton of rocks, flat into the bottom of the wash. WHAAAAM!
I hit the sand and gravel with a cracking SLAM! The wind in my lungs was knocked straight out of me as my palms and knees smashed into the ground. In a sliding tumble, I rolled and skidded to an incredibly painful halt.
You see, the wash spanned about 25 feet across. Leaping from one side to the other… NOT humanly possible.
“Uhhhhh, uhhhhh, uhhhhh…” I moaned as my body squirmed
in pain.
I struggled to regain my breathing and slowly rolled onto my back. Had I died? Had the buffalo trampled me? My eyes stared up into the blinding sun, white orbs spinning around in my head as I lay there in a daze not knowing what had just happened.
Blood oozed from my hands as they wrenched in pain. My knees were scraped and skinned many layers down, sand and stone painfully wedged into them. I winced in pain but caught my breath, finally realizing that I was not dead. This was great…except for the fact that I was in a serious world of hurt.
I looked up toward the far edge of the wash. No huffing, bellowing, or angry breathing. No hoof stomping. No trace. No… BUFFALO. I had just outrun certain doom by the hooves and horns of a great American icon, and as I lay there in temporary paralysis I began to cry tears of joy that I was still alive.
Well, tears of joy for being alive, but also tears of pain from the many cuts and scrapes I had suffered. “UGHHHHH!” I cried out as I slowly sat up and struggled to my feet. Blood poured down my knees, and I turned in a circle, coming to grips with what had just happened. I wiped the tears from my cheeks, took a deep breath, and fought my way back up the safe side of the wash.
When I made it to the top, I looked back, but the Rogue Buffalo was nowhere to be seen. Like a phantom, it had vanished amongst the shrubs and shadows, with not a single trace remaining. I slowly limped back toward camp, the sun now beginning to sink in a sky painted in a beautiful scene of cotton candy pinks, oranges and blues. I kept looking back over my shoulder, thinking I would hear the charging hooves of the animal that had chased me off the side of a cliff, yet saw nothing but grasses dancing in the wind.
Did that really just happen? Was I just chased and did I somehow outrun the most iconic mammal to ever roam Wyoming? YES. Yes, I did!
After arriving back at camp, broken and bruised, bloodied but breathing… my Mom cleaned me up as I recounted the tale. My encounter had been as grand as they come, and as my sister listened with wide eyes, she certainly had nothing to say other than…
“I am glad you’re still alive!”
I was always told to never grow up, and while I could not elude the passage of time and the perpetually aging body we are all given, at 30 years old, when I peered down at my own reflection in the water I still looked at myself as a child. Sure, my baby soft face was now rugged with a stubbly five o’clock shadow, and my physical stature had morphed into a formidable adult figure, yet, in my heart and soul I hadn’t aged a day since capturing The Dragon.
As I placed my hands, scarred from years of adventure, down into the swamp, they distorted my reflection and I pulled a cupped wave of stagnant water over my face.
Welcome to the Florida Everglades, where the humidity is thick enough to cut with a saber and the flying insects are as relentless as gravity. Most would think that a splash of grimy swamp water would be the last thing one would want to relieve the afternoon heat, but trust me when I say it was the greatest
