raise buffalo and sell them for meat.”
“Cool,” I replied, though I was hardly sure of the sanity of his statement.
“Beef’s got cholesterol in it, and doctors are saying cholesterol is what gives people heart attacks. Buffalo has a lot lower cholesterol, though we’re calling it American bison because we don’t think people will eat it otherwise. What you’re looking at is the start of a herd we’re going to let get to about five hundred head.”
A red pickup truck was parked out beyond the buffalo pen—I recognized it as Mr. Shelburton’s vehicle. Mr. Shelburton himself was on a horse.
“Hey, Charlie, you going to help us inoculate these critters today?” he called. Mr. Shelburton used words like a cowboy, but his accent was the same as the gangsters we saw in the movies.
I was excited to help until my job was explained to me.
“You can sit on the hood of the Jeep,” my father said to me, his voice singsongy with false promise. I pretty much knew that if I were up on top of the Jeep I wouldn’t be on a horse or anywhere near the “critters.”
“I got a clipboard here, and every time we inoculate a bison, you call out the number and keep a written tally,” my father continued.
I pictured it in my mind. I’d sit on the front of the Jeep, holding a clipboard, with absolutely nothing to do but watch the two of them maneuver a buffalo down the narrow wooden chute. One of them would lean over from the platform and inject the bison, and then they’d open the door and the buffalo would walk out. I’d make a mark and then call out the number. In other words, I’d be a bookkeeper. “Why can’t I help inoculate?” I demanded.
“Charlie, these are wild creatures, these buffalo. They’re not like cows.”
There it was—no matter what, I had to be kept safe. My dad had buried one family member and was never going to risk losing another.
“Sure ’preciate your help, pardner!” Mr. Shelburton called out to me.
I wonder how my dad’s worry reflexes would react if I told him I’d been cavorting in the woods with an animal so fierce he could eat a buffalo. Among the three of us men, who was the real rancher wrangler? Why, it was Charlie Hall, master of the grizzlies, that’s who.
I obviously wasn’t going to give voice to these thoughts or tell my father anything about the bear. Living with my father was so emotionally dangerous I’d learned to parse truth and dole out only as much information as was absolutely necessary—to do otherwise would be to risk the disapproval that always came charged with the clear and devastating message that with my mom gone there wasn’t a family anymore, nothing to anchor Dad to my life, no connection. Avoiding the conclusion that my father didn’t love me was my main pastime, and I’d withhold any amount of truth from him to keep it from myself.
Of course, I didn’t have the advantage of months of painful psychotherapy then, so I didn’t have any actual insight into why I’d become such an artful dodger of integrity. I just knew that it was always smarter to keep my mouth shut than to give my father any ammunition he could use against me.
I climbed up on the Jeep, clipboard in my lap, and watched as my dad and Mr. Shelburton tried to coax a buffalo out of the corral and into the wooden chute. Before me the Grassy Valley Ranch, more than a thousand acres in all, spread out like a wide green ocean shouldered on either side by rugged, thickly wooded hills.
“Come on there!” Mr. Shelburton yelled in frustration at the beast they were working.
The buffalo herd stood around like parked cars. Flies buzzed at their faces. They were immense creatures, the males taller at the hump than I would be on tiptoes. Apparently, if they didn’t feel like moving, they didn’t move.
Finally one gigantic bull grudgingly bumped his way down the chute. Mr. Shelburton triumphantly leaped off his horse and onto the platform. He had what looked like a sharp stick in
“Cool,” I replied, though I was hardly sure of the sanity of his statement.
“Beef’s got cholesterol in it, and doctors are saying cholesterol is what gives people heart attacks. Buffalo has a lot lower cholesterol, though we’re calling it American bison because we don’t think people will eat it otherwise. What you’re looking at is the start of a herd we’re going to let get to about five hundred head.”
A red pickup truck was parked out beyond the buffalo pen—I recognized it as Mr. Shelburton’s vehicle. Mr. Shelburton himself was on a horse.
“Hey, Charlie, you going to help us inoculate these critters today?” he called. Mr. Shelburton used words like a cowboy, but his accent was the same as the gangsters we saw in the movies.
I was excited to help until my job was explained to me.
“You can sit on the hood of the Jeep,” my father said to me, his voice singsongy with false promise. I pretty much knew that if I were up on top of the Jeep I wouldn’t be on a horse or anywhere near the “critters.”
“I got a clipboard here, and every time we inoculate a bison, you call out the number and keep a written tally,” my father continued.
I pictured it in my mind. I’d sit on the front of the Jeep, holding a clipboard, with absolutely nothing to do but watch the two of them maneuver a buffalo down the narrow wooden chute. One of them would lean over from the platform and inject the bison, and then they’d open the door and the buffalo would walk out. I’d make a mark and then call out the number. In other words, I’d be a bookkeeper. “Why can’t I help inoculate?” I demanded.
“Charlie, these are wild creatures, these buffalo. They’re not like cows.”
There it was—no matter what, I had to be kept safe. My dad had buried one family member and was never going to risk losing another.
“Sure ’preciate your help, pardner!” Mr. Shelburton called out to me.
I wonder how my dad’s worry reflexes would react if I told him I’d been cavorting in the woods with an animal so fierce he could eat a buffalo. Among the three of us men, who was the real rancher wrangler? Why, it was Charlie Hall, master of the grizzlies, that’s who.
I obviously wasn’t going to give voice to these thoughts or tell my father anything about the bear. Living with my father was so emotionally dangerous I’d learned to parse truth and dole out only as much information as was absolutely necessary—to do otherwise would be to risk the disapproval that always came charged with the clear and devastating message that with my mom gone there wasn’t a family anymore, nothing to anchor Dad to my life, no connection. Avoiding the conclusion that my father didn’t love me was my main pastime, and I’d withhold any amount of truth from him to keep it from myself.
Of course, I didn’t have the advantage of months of painful psychotherapy then, so I didn’t have any actual insight into why I’d become such an artful dodger of integrity. I just knew that it was always smarter to keep my mouth shut than to give my father any ammunition he could use against me.
I climbed up on the Jeep, clipboard in my lap, and watched as my dad and Mr. Shelburton tried to coax a buffalo out of the corral and into the wooden chute. Before me the Grassy Valley Ranch, more than a thousand acres in all, spread out like a wide green ocean shouldered on either side by rugged, thickly wooded hills.
“Come on there!” Mr. Shelburton yelled in frustration at the beast they were working.
The buffalo herd stood around like parked cars. Flies buzzed at their faces. They were immense creatures, the males taller at the hump than I would be on tiptoes. Apparently, if they didn’t feel like moving, they didn’t move.
Finally one gigantic bull grudgingly bumped his way down the chute. Mr. Shelburton triumphantly leaped off his horse and onto the platform. He had what looked like a sharp stick in
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