Given all that, you can see why I was amazed to find myself jogging the other night.
Obviously, I hadn't planned to jog. If such a plan had crossed my mind, I would have had the sense to stay on my couch until it went on its merry way, as most of my thoughts are prone to do. On this particular evening, though, my husband asked me to bring his tool pickup out to the far north hayfield where he was baling hay. And a lovely evening it was, so I decided rather than having someone come along on the four-wheeler to bring me home, I’d just walk.
Our small band of Longhorns was clear out in the farthest corner of the pasture between the house and the hayfield, so I left the gate open. I should know better. Longhorns are capable of smelling the breeze blowing through an open gate from over a mile away.
I parked the pickup and set off for home. Halfway across the flat, I realized the Longhorns had stopped pretending to graze and were marching directly toward the gate, with a big, black, spotted cow taking the lead. I could practically hear her calling out cadence to be sure everyone stepped along smartly. The bull, I noticed, seemed a little testy, rumbling and growling and shaking his head. The one with the big, poky things.
Figuring I could probably get across the coulee and to the corral first, I broke into a slow trot, blundering down the rock-strewn trail, hopscotching across the bog at the bottom and chugging up through the buck brush. When I staggered, rubber-legged and huffing like a steam engine, to the top of the other side, the Longhorns were dead even with me. Worse, I was in the center of the pasture with the bull glaring at me with evil intent. The lead cow, recognizing my dilemma, made a swift command decision. Forget the gate. She led them south instead, cutting off my direct line to the corrals.
Luckily, a smaller coulee intersects the main coulee. I was on one side, the Longhorns on the other, moving parallel. Ignoring my oxygen-deprived body, I kicked into a brisk jog. The lead cow also picked up her pace. I stumbled over mounds of bunchgrass and into gopher holes, my vision beginning to blur, but didn’t dare slow down. The side coulee ends a quarter of a mile short of the fence, and we were on a course to collide at its head.
I drove my shrieking legs and hemorrhaging lungs onward, assisted by a healthy dose of adrenaline. The bull was 20 yards behind when I dove through the fence and sprawled on the other side, gulping air. The Longhorns gathered, elbowing each other and snickering, then wandered off in search of other entertainment.
I shoved my aching body into an upright position, plucked wild rose thorns from my knee caps and examined a small puncture wound from the barbed wire. My chest felt like I'd snorted cayenne pepper. My calves started to cramp. As I hobbled down to shut the gate, I reflected once again that joggers are not mentally sound. If this is what they call a natural high, I'd hate to see what they consider a low. FG
Author’s Note: In our country, a coulee is like a draw, only not exactly. Not as steep as a ravine, not as wide as a valley, it is ... a coulee.
Kari Lynn Dell is a third-generation cowgirl, horse trainer and rodeo competitor. She writes from her family ranch on the Montana Blackfeet Reservation. Read more of her scribblings, novels and short stories on the northern frontier here.
PHOTO: Longhorns are capable of smelling the breeze blowing through an open gate from over a mile away. Photo by Kari Lynn Dell.
