February 18, 2004.

About three weeks ago, not too long after the buffalo herd had been moved into the newly fenced River Pasture, I was up on a bluff overlooking the Cheyenne River Valley. I was near what we call the old homestead, where an old, abandoned house, a collapsing horse barn, the remains of a corral, and a chicken coop are slowly returning to the ground on which they stand. I was removing a short section of old cross-fencing and an old stackyard fence. From there I would move to the homestead itself and take out the tumbledown, broken fence separating the homestead's yard from the surrounding prairie pasture. I was unclipping the wires from the steel posts, unstapling them from the wooden posts, and laying them out on the ground in preparation of rolling the wires (this time by hand) and loading them into the pickup.

I was engaged in rolling up the first wire, occasionally glancing up to take in the vista of the valley with the sun moving past dawn into the full morning light, revealing the mists in the small draws and breaks along the bluffs. I was working alone, as I often do, trying to extract what small pleasure there is to be had, if any, from rolling up old barbed wire by hand, realizing that removing this wire further opened the prairie to the free-range movement of our buffalo herd. I had just tied up the loose end of a strand of wire when I heard a thundering sound.

As the day was clear, I could hardly believe that rain was imminent. I looked up to check for airplanes or helicopters, both military and civilian, which often pass overhead. There was nothing, but the sound continued, drew closer, included a strange clicking noise. I turned around. The sound grew louder. Hooves pounding and clicking together, and the lead animals of the herd came charging full bore up out of a draw parallel to a fence a little distance behind me. More and more animals roiled up out of the draw toward an inside corner of the fence. At that point the lead animals reversed themselves and started running back down the way they had come, where they met the rest of the herd still charging up the draw. Once more they reversed themselves and ran full tilt back toward the corner. I stood still, holding a roll of wire in my hands, watching the herd charging back and forth through an area from which I had removed the cross fencing. It was almost as if, in my anthropomorphic flash of mind, they were playing in their newly discovered, free access to more land. After about ten minutes of moiling around they began to settle down and graze or lie down on the slope of the hill. They watched me briefly as I turned once more to the task of rolling wire, fully aware that I was doing something truly worthwhile.