Life on the Wire

Life on the Wire

Recently I was discussing my novel with a local book club, and I was asked which is my favorite part. After giving the question a little thought, I said that my favorite part would have to be the scene in which a group of Blackfoot Indians are hunting buffalo.

A brave is riding his horse across the snow covered plain approaching a large herd of running bison. He guides his horse toward the stampede and proceeds to loose arrows into a cow until she falls. When this image came to me, I was sitting idle (as I often do) and casually wondering what it would be like to hunt buffalo when the scene sprang almost full grown into my mind. The image lingers with me still.

Imagine with me if you will, rising from your pallet of furs long before the break of day and emerging from your buffalo hide teepee (or lodge) and emerging into the cold darkness of a winter morning on the plains of what is now northern Wyoming or southern Montana. You and your friends gather your horses from where they have spent the night and leap onto their bare backs, setting out to locate the nearest buffalo herd.

By the time you reach the herd the sun has risen, and thousands of huge animals are spread out before you on the plain. You ready the bow that you made with your own two hands, and kick your horse toward the milling beasts. Soon the horse beneath you is running full tilt, and the panicked buffalo are streaming around you. You release the reins because you need both hands to fire your bow and now you are holding on with only your feet. The buffalo around you are nearly twice the size of your horse and the impact of their collective hooves shakes the frozen earth. It is difficult to aim from this position, so you wait until a buffalo is right beside you, at point blank range, before firing.

Close your eyes for a moment and really imagine it.

Sound a little dangerous?

It does so to me. OSHA would never stand for such a thing.

Now imagine that you had to do this thing regularly simply to survive. Imagine that if you failed in this insane task, you and your family (possibly your entire communtiy) would be hungry and possibly starving before long. Imagine that if any one of a thousand things went wrong, you or your horse could be crippled or killed, leaving your family without the resources to house, clothe or feed themselves.

That adds to the intensity a little doesn't it?

When I imagined this for the first time I was outside my workplace waiting for my shift to start. At my current job, we are not allowed to carry a pocket knife and are only allowed to use retractable box cutters to reduce the chance of us cutting ourselves. The dichotomy between the two realities struck me in that moment as I'm sure it did you.

The First Nations hunting buffalo, the Anglo pioneer woman literally carving a home from the earth, and the Vaquero rounding up cattle in the vast arid plains lived on a level that I will ever know. Granted, their lives would have been difficult, uncomfortable, and for the most part extremely short. I'm sure that each of them suffered their share of boredom and drudgery, but they were living with a capital 'L'.

I don't want to sound ungrateful for the conveniences of modern life that I enjoy every day. We live in a time of wonders, and by no means do I wish to disregard the amazing advances in technology which make our modern lives possible. I can't help but think however, that the comfort and security of twenty-first century America may preclude me from a depth of life that might have been possible in a less civilized time.

It would have been difficult, and at times terrifying, but to quote Karl Wallenda:

“Life is on the wire, everything else is just waiting around.”

10/13/2014

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