The Dakotas: Fear, Wild Horses, and The Best Place to Cut a Narrative

An equine scream, rife with fear and anger, shot through the air like lightning to wake Astrid from almost-sleep, set her heart and mind racing. It was a high-pitched, but throaty roar of what sounded like a very wild and nearby horse. **Just a little note for next time- this is the best, better place to cut this  narrative. Sometimes, where you cut the frame of a visual or verbal picture makes all the difference. **Wild horses. That’s what made the ball-like manure, helped to make the trail they followed off the people-trail, and what was screaming, somewhere very close to where Astrid and her family were sleeping in the tents.Astrid had never been comfortable around horses, never had much experience with them, but had the same healthy respect for them as she did other, very, very big, massive herbivores she’s been around. The shear mass of the creatures, never mind their potential velocity, made for some trepidatious imaginings.

The horse-scream sounded close, shooting through the air with the wind. And it sounded angry.

After a few minutes of heart-racing and uncontrolled fear-fueled thoughts, she tried to regain some reason, “Think, Astrid, think. Assess the situation,” she told herself. 

The wild horses were angry and probably scared … somewhere. Maybe near, but, their screams seemed to carry on the wind. She couldn’t feel or hear the beasts through the ground (foot falls of very large animals usually can be felt through the earth, especially if you are lying on it). The animals could have been just below the ledge they camped on. Maybe they were spooked-she knew horses get spooked. Astrid had been spooked since the sun went down.

Maybe the flapping tent entrance (Bjorn saw no reason to secure the tent vestibule flaps), or the tripod outside, or the camera which was automatically clicking away at the night time sky, was scaring them. Eventually Astrid came to a more comforting thought: the horses are either 1) fighting amongst themselves, or 2) probably just as scared of you as you are of them.

She felt better, her heart was slowing, but she lay awake, kept up by the cacophony of the all-out fight between her fear and her reason, listening to the whinnies and horse screams, now sounding close, now far-away, her ears tuned sharp to any other noise, and expecting to hear the snort of a bison any minute. Eventually the angry horse noises gave way to a chorus of coyotes, and somehow, she fell asleep. 

Wild Horses (the little one is not dead, just tired)

The next time she woke it was still disappointingly night, but she was faced with a different dilemma: she had to go outside. After minutes of tortuous debate, the call of nature overcame her fear of nature and, leaning into her trepidations, she unzipped the tent, expecting to see a massive, snorting, pointy horned bison staring her in the face. 

But there wasn’t. She couldn’t see any animal, just a massive sky full of clear, twinkling, untouchable stars. A shooting star lit up the sky so bright that it made her turn and look. 

In the morning, she found herself and Bjorn and Snorri un-trampled and whole, but not necessarily well-rested. The wind was still breezy, so instead of cooking breakfast at the campsite (the vegetation was very dry), they made due with granola bars. 

A long-dead bison

Bjorn’s camera was still standing, battery exhausted, but full of night sky pictures. He traipsed off to catch the morning light amongst the hills while Astrid and Snorri packed up camp. As they drove off Buck Hill Trailhead, they passed a family of wild horses standing, the colt tired enough to lie down.  

They drove to the end of the remaining TRNP park road, stopping at the Coal Vein Trail, walking along with a booklet that explained certain landscape features, including a dead bison in the process of going back from whence it came, and that there had been a ground fire sparked by lightning and fueled by a coal vein which burned for 26 years, . 

The grand vistas in this TRNP park are fascinating mounds and sometimes hills of stratified color, dotted with hearty, drought resistant shrubs and plants, junipers, some dead, some alive … and bison, horses, big-horn sheep and deer. 

On the way out, they stopped at the Cottonwood Campground picnic area to cook their dinner for lunch from dehydrated supplies: a modified shepherd’s pie, with instant mashed potatoes, rehydrated ground beef and corn. 

Would Astrid camp in such uncomfortable circumstances again? Despite the irrational fear, the discomfort-yes, absolutely. She would experience the same eerie discomfort while camping before the week was out, but not because of animals. The experience made for good practice of reining in unexpected and sudden fear, and to reflect with caution, reason, and thought. 

But life is a great adventure, and the worst of all fears is the fear of living.-Theodore Roosevelt

~~~

Leaving Medora, South Dakota, they drove South on US-85, into Wyoming, where the landscape changed from dry hills to green mountains and streams and pine forests. After arriving in Hulette, Wyoming, which was strangely be-speckled with freely roaming wildlife (turkeys and deer), and checking into the very clean Best Western, they walked around Devil’s Tower. It is a big conglomerate of rock pillars sticking out of the green rolling hills. The attraction held spectacular photographic potential, and patches of tiny, evil, biting insects. 

Some time in the innumerable past, magma pushed up through other rock, creating a column, then the rock around it eroded, leaving a gigantic tree-stump like rock formation. The family had seen this rock on previous adventures in Iceland and Scotland. Geologists theorize that Devil’s Tower is the largest example of columnar jointing in the world. 

That evening, as usual, Bjorn left the hotel when most patrons were turning in. He was out to catch the light of another night sky, as a backdrop to Devil’s Tower. It wasn’t until he came back, after midnight that Astrid was informed of the many things that can happen when one is asleep. “I had an interesting encounter with a rattle snake, oh, and the smoke alarms went off at home. I’ll tell you more about it in the morning.” 

“What?!” One just doesn’t hear news of  rattle snakes and smoke in your home and go quietly back to sleep. 

P.S. I've given up fighting with the formatting ... will look into a better platform.