Читать книгу Coyote Peterson’s Brave Adventures - Coyote Peterson - Страница 11

One of the greatest things about being 15 years old is that you feel as if you are old enough and brave enough to do anything. This is the mindset which propelled me forward as I continued my search for incredible animal encounters into my early teens.

Worn leather hiking boots laced tightly to my feet matted down tall yellow prairie grasses as I veered off trail and began to explore a world that I had never imagined I would set eyes upon. Welcome to Wyoming, one of the most epic wilderness landscapes in North America, where massive white clouds roll across an endless sky and distant mountains paint the horizon like jagged teeth breaking out of the earth’s surface.

For a moment, I stopped and closed my eyes to soak in this untamed beauty. A gentle wind caused the long flowing grasses to dance as my outstretched fingertips touched their feathery tufts, reminding me of the serenity of nature. I was in complete and total harmony with my surroundings; I was at peace.

As I slowly opened my eyes, a smile cracked upon my face; this was about to be one epic adventure, yet in that moment I had no idea that it might also be my last.

My Mom and younger sister were back at our base camp, where our metallic silver 1988 Chevy Suburban was parked in the shade of a towering old tree. This was our cross-country chariot, and hitched to it was our home on the road: an old white and teal Scotty Sportsman trailer. To a 15 year old it was a dream home, though to a discerning adult it was barely enough space to fit three small people. However, to us size didn’t matter – we had been having the time of our lives for the past several weeks as we gallivanted across the northern edge of the United States. From Ohio to Michigan, down through Indiana, across Illinois and back up through the vast open wilds of Iowa and South Dakota, each and every state was a wonder to behold; but nothing was as breathtaking as Wyoming.

Many of the greatest memories from my childhood came from the cross-country adventures my Mom used to take our family on. I was seeing and experiencing things most children my age could never even imagine. The best part was that my Mom trusted me to always make smart, safe decisions when I was out adventuring on my own in nature.

Let’s be honest here for a minute, at 15 years old, your decisions are often about as risky as they get. The moment I told her I was headed out onto the prairie to search for rocks and wild artifacts, or land “treasure” as I called it, I knew in the back of my mind that also finding danger was inevitable. In fact, I was chomping at the bit to put myself up against any challenge that would push the bounds of my own bravery.

This was definitely my mindset as a teenager.

As I walked slowly through the prairie grasses, I carefully scanned the environment for any signs of animals. This was the perfect place to find rattlesnakes and whip-tailed lizards, or maybe if I was lucky enough, a snarly badger defending its burrow. How I would have loved to see a badger in the wild, despite the fact that I knew if you tangle with a badger, you are likely going to walk away shredded to bits.

In the distance, I could see a beautiful range of mountains,

the rocky peaks reaching up for the sky and the sun casting down a warm glow that seemed to draw me toward them. I was well off the trail now, and the last thing on my mind was how far I had gone. With each step, my curiosity drew me further from camp with a natural wonder for what was next beyond the bend.

The landscape quickly began to change, as scraggly bushes now littered the path forward and forced me to twist and turn my advancing direction. It was like a maze of obstacles – I battled the increasingly difficult terrain until I came upon a steep wash that cut through the prairie. My boots inched forward cautiously toward the edge and I peered over.

“Great, not much choice here,” I thought to myself… “it’s either climb down, through, up, and over OR turn around and head back to camp so I can hang out with my annoying little sister!”

“Ugh… NO WAY!” I said to myself. And before I knew it, my butt was in the dirt and sliding down the brittle side of the wash.

Parched earth began crumbling under my boots… The hillside broke apart and quickly began to slide me down with it into the wash. I was caught up in a skeet slide, and I thought to myself, “This is bad news bears!” My heart began to race as rocks dislodged around me and I battled to keep my balance. I was now moving as one with the earth, and a single wrong move could find me buried under a pile of falling rocks. I dodged left and back right, my ankles fighting to keep from twisting as the uneven ground attempted to contort my stance and crumple me to the dirt. This was my moment, live or die, and with a confident leap I sprang from the hillside and luckily made my landing in the middle of the wash.

POOF! A plume of dry dust enveloped me as rocks rolled to a stop at my feet. I dusted off my shorts and shirt, took a deep breath, and looked around.

“WHOA! That was awesome, like, way past cool!!” I wished someone had seen me pull that one off.

I jumped around in excitement, my adrenaline at its peak, and then I realized that this was a very dangerous place to be standing. In the event of a sudden rainstorm, flash flooding could come rushing down this wash and sweep me away. There was no point in tempting fate, so I decided to take on the challenge of scaling the opposite side of the wash. With a couple of clever moves, using rock outcrops, some protruding roots, and sheer determination, I shimmied up and out the far side of the wash. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and there I stood, a victor.

I had mastered my obstacle, and laid out before me was nothing but the unknown. I took one more look back in the direction I had come from. The camp was nowhere in sight. Even if I screamed for help at the top of my lungs right then and there, no one would be able to hear me. Boy, was I a long way from camp; I started to wonder if Mom was getting worried.

Standing there in the radiant sun, I began to question my mission.

“Should I head back? Have I come far enough? I haven’t seen any animals yet. I didn’t find any land treasures.” If I returned with only the story of making the descent down a wash, my little sister would most certainly giggle and say, “Ooh so brave, you slid down some rocks… I could have done that… in my SLEEP!”

I refused to be the subject of her snickering, so I trudged onward out across the shrub-scattered prairie. I was not going to return without something worthy of a grand tale. Something epic was bound to happen; it was Wyoming for Pete’s sake, the Wild West! I would have taken anything at that moment.

“Come on nature… present me with something epic!”

With my head down, I was more focused on the thoughts in my head than I was on the surrounding environment, a definite mistake whenever exploring unknown wilderness. I moved quickly, dodging around spiky plants that laced the tall grasses, and kicking at the small rocks that scattered the sandy soil. My frustration was clearly apparent, and it was growing with every step I took.

I picked up my pace. The faster I moved, the less I was paying attention to everything around me, and the danger was compounding.

“No snakes, no lizards, no fossils… shoot, not even a prairie dog standing on its back feet to call out a chatter of laughter which would most certainly be mocking me as I…”

My thoughts froze as all of a sudden the bushes ahead of me moved with incredible force. I stopped dead in my tracks. Like a video game freezing in mid-play, my entire world literally stopped.

Branches cracked back and snapped, the entire bush moved violently, yet I could not make out what was behind it. One thing was for certain – it was BIG.

This was one of those rare moments in life where you can literally feel your heart drop in your chest. Your senses shift into overdrive and begin firing on all cylinders to pump as much adrenaline through your veins as possible.

“Buh-bum… buh-bum… BUH-BUM…”

My heart was pounding out of my chest as my ears tuned in and listened to the haunting sound of deep breathing coming from in front of me, no more than 50 feet away.

I heard a low resonating bellow, like distant thunder… the sound rumbled into my chest, and then suddenly a short, strong snort caused me to jump. It was the sound of air being forced through a pair of nostrils, a crystal clear warning that said:

“I am here and YOU should NOT be!”

My body was paralyzed by fear, yet my mind was screaming at my feet, “RUN, COYOTE, RUN!”

But they could not hear my internal cries of desperation. My heart began to race faster as the sound of crunching sand and stone echoed out across the open landscape. Stepping out before me the beast revealed itself, arguably the most powerful and dangerous animal to roam the grasslands; the American Buffalo.

To say he was absolutely enormous is an understatement.

His massive head was armed with curved black horns that led into a muscle-packed neck. My eyes traced up his haunches and across his massive shoulders, burly and coated in thick tufted fur. His powerful ground-pulverizing hooves braced as they held up a 2,000 pound core. This animal was like a freight train on legs, capable of reaching speeds of nearly 40 miles per hour.

He looked straight at me, his eyes like two black marbles glistening in the late afternoon sun, almost lost in the dark traces of his brow line and filled with a timeless wisdom. This animal represented dominance and power. This land belonged to him, yet here I was, trespassing in his domain.

What an incredibly rare moment – partially because I had not yet been charged or trampled, but also because it’s rare to ever see a single buffalo outside of a herd. Normally these giant herbivores travel together by the hundreds, and you will only find a rogue male who has been driven out of the heard in a situation like this.

My current predicament had become incredibly dangerous, because it was clear that this buffalo was NOT happy. Large, aggressive rogue males are notorious for charging humans. Most of the time it’s a tourist who has gotten too close while trying to snap a photograph; this time it was a teenager who foolishly wandered haphazardly across a prairie looking for an adventure.

Now, I knew the worst thing I could do in this situation was to run. If I ran, it would most likely prompt a charge, and there was no way whatsoever I was going to outrun a buffalo. At top speed, an adult human can sprint around 15 mph. And remember, a full-grown buffalo… about 40 mph. You can see the impossible nature of attempting to outrun this beast. However, I had already made the mistake of direct eye contact, so at this juncture, I was already in way over my head!

“Think Coyote… think, how are you going to get out of this one…?”

My thoughts were cut short as suddenly he snorted again!

“WHHHUUUGGHHHHHH”

A massive burst of air and snot shot from his nose and sent up a plume of dust from the ground. My head immediately dropped, and I looked at my feet. I noticed my knees were now shaking from fear and I closed my eyes.

“He’s gonna charge,” I thought. “He’s gonna charge, and he’s gonna kill me if I don’t back myself out of this now… right now!”

I slowly opened my eyes and somehow mustered a single small step backward, my boots crunching ever so loudly on the ground; the sound seemed to echo across the prairie, and I stopped.

The buffalo exhaled again, and with a mechanically powerful movement his front left hoof pawed at the parched earth; a burst of dust kicked up as he displayed his dominance. The king of Wyoming had just signaled that this prairie belonged to him, and boy, I could not agree more. I would have gladly apologized – perhaps in a fashion something like this:

“Gosh, I’m sorry Mr. Buffalo… I was just out looking for snakes and lizards. I didn’t realize this was your side of the wash. I certainly would never have wanted to offend a handsome fella such as yourself. What do you say I head back to the human camp and we forget this whole thing ever happened?”

Yeah… unfortunately, that wasn’t going to work.

If the giant charged, it was likely to cover the space between me and itself in less than 10 seconds. The force of a 2,000-pound freight train would run me over like I was a single blade of prairie grass; my trampled bodily remains would likely become an evening feast for a wake of turkey vultures.

Suddenly, sticking around camp to help my Mom and sister make dinner sounded like a really good place to be!

I took another calm and collected step backward; the buffalo… did not move.

With my eyes pointed straight at the ground, I took one more. No reaction from the great American icon. In fact, he seemed disinterested as he licked at his nose with a long gray tongue; the slurping sound of wet muscle on slimy nostrils was loud and gross. I watched from the corner of my eye as his long tail methodically swatted at the 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!”