Editorials by Forrest Fenn

Buffalo Smoke
West Yellowstone News
story #1
by Forrest Fenn

In the 1940s, when I was a very young teenager, my dad and I liked to get up early to fish in the park. The west gate didn’t open until 6:00 so the night before my dad would leave our car just inside the log fence that separated government land from the little village of West Yellowstone. Many times we found ourselves fishing at first light and it was not unusual for it to be so cold that ice formed in the agate guide on the tip of my fly rod, making it hard to retrieve the line.

One morning when it was mostly still dark I was walking along bank of the Madison River, leisurely fishing and enjoying myself, when I suddenly got a very strong, musky smell that puzzled me. When I looked around I saw twelve large buffalo resting in the tall grass, looking at me with great disinterest. They could not have been more than ten feet away. So much steam was rising from their backs that a small cloud formed, partially obscuring their bodies, and then disappearing as it rose into the trees. If the wind had not been just right I am sure I would have walked right past those great beasts, being totally oblivious of that wonderful experience. Over the years I have remembered that incident and thought how nice it would be if all animals, human and otherwise, would just go on about their business, as we did that morning, and leave each other alone. There must be a moral in there somewhere.

Forrest Fenn

ffenn@earthlink.net