D-Day plus sixty-one years makes me think about my father on the Normandy Invasion. I was eight years old. Today I am working on horseback with Dan and Jill. We have located a group of our buffalo that took advantage of a washed out river crossing and went back into the U.S. forest Service grasslands. Now all of those cows have calves, and we have devised and are executing a plan to bring them in again. The concentration on the job at hand neatly supersedes reminiscence about D-Day.
We are three to four miles out; the buffalo are ahead of us and are moving toward the river. So far is so good. We’ve been here before but with limited success. We’re still learning; so now we have modified our original strategy; and, at least for now, it seems to be working. Dan and Jill are outriders, fairly far forward and out to the sides to keep the lead cow and her calf headed toward the gate. I am riding drag, just close enough behind to keep them moving forward. If the outriders go too far ahead or in too close, the herd will stop or even circle back, looking for an escape. If the one riding drag comes too close, the forward movement of the herd will be impeded or stopped. The same thing happens if the rider is not close enough; so all of the riders must pay strict attention to each other and to the herd’s behavior and maintain its forward movement. Concentration on what we are trying to accomplish and on what is taking place in the herd is paramount.
Finally, we can see the river breaks; the fence stretches away to the east and north. The gate is at the corner. To the left of the gate is Little Corral Draw spreading miles south back toward the Badlands-where they just came from. We move as slowly as we can, directing the herd toward the gate. None of us is any closer than about fifty yards to the herd. We watch closely to see when and if the lead cow will see the open gate. When she makes her move toward it, we can rein up and watch the flow of animals into the gate, that is, after we have positioned ourselves to preclude a calf from staying outside the gate while the mother goes inside.
The lead cow and her calf have just gone through the gate. The trailing animals rush through, and in the hurried press toward the other side of the gate as a couple of calves and a cow are forced to the outside. They head along the fence on Dan’s side. He moves his horse out and around them to turn them back. They turn. Jill and I shift out of the way, giving the three animals the gate’s opening. They enter and run to join the herd.
We follow them slowly through the gate. I dismount to close the gate behind us. And once more I can think about my father on the beach in Normandy on D-Day. It is time to relax for a moment, to catch our breath and try not to become overconfident or reckless about future movements with our small, but important successes of this day-in our efforts to bring everyone home again.