"Enduring as bedrock"

I had heard about a book with the curious title Buffalo for the Broken Heart. After reading a few favorable reviews, I bought the book. Love it. One of my favorite passages is the author's encounter with a buffalo that had strayed from the herd of the nearby Badlands National Park in South Dakota: "I drove too fast, and when I came over a dusty rise I nearly ran into an enormous bull buffalo. He reclined luxuriously in the center of the dirt road, stretched out in the sun like a two-thousand-pound tomcat. By the time I'd braked, I'd gotten way too close and was struggling to get the gear shift into reverse when he raised his head and looked straight into my eyes . . . . His head was the size of a dishwasher. . . . I was frozen in place. We stared at each other for perhaps a minute . . . . leisurely, the head dipped and the legs pulled under the great beast. The short, paintbrush tail whipped in the dust and the bull rocked once, twice, and up onto his feet. He shook like a dog, creating a cloud of dry South Dakota soil . . . . Then he slowly raised the tiny, black hoof of his left rear foot, stretched his head out, and, as if the hoof were a ballet slipper, scratched his neck below the long woolly goatee. He took one last look at me before he moved off the road . . . . "

Was this chance encounter with the woolly bully an omen? Well, author Dan O'Brien, on the brink of financial ruin on his cattle ranch, which he called the Broken Heart, later decided to substitute buffalo for cattle. Unlike cattle, Dan knew that buffalo could pretty much take care of themselves and could endure the harsh Dakota winters. The book is a smooth read as it relates the struggles of living and ranching in the desolate area. His character portrayals of his neighbors and his descriptions of everyday life on a buffalo ranch gripped me. A Boston Globe book reviewer wrote that O'Brien "by God can tell a story . . . . This is the book you need to read next." Indeed.

And this passage as the author reflects on his herd during a cold Dakota morning: "When I kneel and dig my hands through the curl of dormant winter grass to the earth below, I imagine the vibration of hooves. I feel buffalo moving within it all and understand that they are constant, enduring as bedrock, powerful as the prairie wind."