Excerpt from "Horizon Dawn" novel by Carl Schuler (Part 1 of 2)

Van Gangen-burg, Nebraska

(circa 1875)

 

 

 

 

Somewhere on the Modern-day Spring grassland Prairie (circa 2016)---

 

Elsie chomped tender green shoots from the verdant prairie floor as she led the herd in their never-ending meandering foray across the lush grasslands of the “flat water”-name in the country of the near-extinct Otoe Indian tribe in the state of Nebraska. At the head of a smallish group of bovine members numbering some two hundred animals, the lead cow funneled the herd over rolling swales and through shallow coulee troughs, the subtle undulations like constant waves upon some green seascape, in a continuous search for green nourishment. In the new-dawn freshness chill, a peeking sun, just challenging the fleeting of nighttime blackness to once more reign supreme over its vast domain until the space of time claimed yet another vestige of dark’s return harbingered by dusk, old Elsie’s eye captured an annoying glint on a nearby bucolic moraine-like hillock on the prairie meadow. Instantly alert, the anomaly coaxed the animal curiously forward though not providing any haste in the quest as she moseyed ever-onward continuing to “feed” her way toward the peculiar confounding observance.

Cattle are not known for their high intelligence like that of their sophisticated, erudite masters, but many species in the animal kingdom manage to survive, quite well with eons of honed, expert instinct coupled with a nervous disposition toward danger and the good sense to avoid such snares. The cow’s head had come up abruptly when the sparkling glare garnered her alert attention automatically kicking her “survival mode” intuition into high gear.

That slight rise of hillock, with its unusual copse of scattered trees including myriad willow along the river bank, hardwoods, cedar, several fir and a smattering of pine, uncommon on the sea of grass causing a curiosity of its existence rather than any phenomena of natural consequence, held a peculiar odor of dread, and, therefore, warning to the alerted Elsie. She snorted her disapproval of the scent, both real to the day and also the vagueness of dark images confined somewhere within her miniscule brain. A warning grunt at the smell brought the assemblage to an abrupt halt of their slow-motion progress as each member of the herd looked to Elsie for direction. An expert leader, suddenly, now, she hesitated with unusual trepidation.

Nervously, the cow pawed at the fertile earth, shaking her large head which caused her ample neck to shudder ocean-waves of flab like an undulating sea. With painstaking caution, Elsie moved forward, ever-watchful for the first sign of danger, tensed to sound the alarm to flee.

 

 

(Part 2 of 2---Tomorrow)