Buffalo Bull Yellowstone

Early this Spring we are began getting reports of a white buffalo up in Middle-Earth or as it is sometimes known, Yellowstone National Park. The reports were sketchy, sometimes it would be seen ghosting along the banks of the Yellowstone, or high up on a forgotten ridge in the Lamar, or sometimes for unknown reasons riding in the back of an old Dodge half-ton, but the reports were consistent. There seemed to be a white buffalo there and we needed to document its existence. After all, that is the mandate of The Institution. To go where no man has gone before and make up stories about it.

The Institute immediately sent its crack photographic team to locate, photograph and get its hoof print on a contract. If you’re going to track down a ghost and document it for the world to see, you have to monetize the experience and be able to cash in to make the endeavor worthwhile, otherwise it’s just a good deed and there are enough of those going on at the moment. We need some of those big fat green smackaroonies to keep the lights on.

Our team of seventy-three highly trained staff members arrived and quickly fanned out to begin collecting  data on this white buffalo. The reports began trickling in, he was up on the south side of Mt. Washburn licking the side of a pine tree, he was down near Fishing bridge cavorting with the Cutthroats, he had just been seen getting the oil changed in the dodge. When people began hearing about our project the reports went from a trickle to a furious outpouring of information. It was if the public took a strange delight in bringing us these reports, each more fantastic than the last. We began to be suspicious and concerned that some of these sightings were unreliable.

One report that seemed to have some reliability to it was the sighting in the Hayden Valley near the Mt. Mary trailhead. It was one that would not die. Each report was very similar to the others and we began to think we might have hit on something. If you stood on the edge of the road and glassed the tree line there would often be a glint of white back in the trees. Sometimes in the morning when the fog was thick from the Yellowstone river and you could barely make out the dark outlines of the big pines, a ghostly bellow could be heard throughout the valley, echoing back and forth until it faded away in the early morning stillness.

We immediately established base camp at the pullout near the trailhead and set up the tent and satellite transponders to send the data out as soon as we received it. It was here that we also set up the field kitchen, the explorer’s club, the theater, the T-shirt stand, the cut-out of what we thought the Great White, as we had begun calling him, would look like so you could get your photo taken with it as a pricey but tacky souvenir. Security was tight and bracelets were issued to all of the paying customers. This was to keep those pesky park rangers out who were trying to establish authority over what is our property as tax-paying citizens, with the flimsy excuse that commercial activity is banned from our National parks. What a bunch of yahoo’s, like we’d believe that making a buck was illegal. Anyway since it is legal to carry weapons in our national parks our staff was able to reason with them without having to resort to using the AR-15’s we had brought along for self-protection.

Everything was going gangbusters and the support from the public was pouring in, T-shirt sales had jumped 86% in the last 48 hours especially the one with the “I Saw the Great White Buffalo and It Was Bitchin” slogan on it. We immediately tripled the order from our Chinese outlet in Singapore and told them to air freight them here. So with the bailing machine working overtime to handle all those great big fat green smackaroonies, there was talk of franchising this operation to other national parks just as soon as we could fabricate reasons for it.

Then the big one hit. The great White had just been seen on the edge of the meadow and was simply standing there as if it were daring us to come and photograph it. You don’t dare The Institute. We don’t back down from a challenge, or run from adversity. Instead we stand and fight, we endeavor to persevere, and we do the hard thing. The call went out for our more trustworthy interns to take over our sales centers and we grabbed our cameras and headed for the meadow. Calls were going out left and right as we mounted what was nearly a paramilitary operation. “Don’t forget your extra flash cards, make sure you got charged batteries, no tripods those just make buffalo mad.”  Photo equipment was banging  and clanging together matching the sound of slightly overweight photographers grunting and wheezing as they ran to be in the first wave of white buffalo shooters. The excitement was heady and the thrill was on. We charged en-masse into the meadow and that ‘s where we met disaster.

Disaster in the form of Randalf. Randalf the Brown. The horned one. He stood there calmly, waiting for us to come to a stumbling halt, before he uttered those fateful words. “You Shall Not Pass!” There was instant silence as we stopped and stared at each other. The silence grew, the tension mounted, and then the inevitable happened. Someone snickered. Oh man, that was something I think everyone would take back if they could. It was the new guy, a stringer we had hired at the last-minute from the Boise Sun-Times thinking a local would be helpful. He wasn’t.

Without moving a muscle Randalf looked at him, blinked once slowly and there was a dizzying flash of light, a soundless scream and where the luckless Boise guy had stood there was simply a pile of, well, in the old days they were known simply as buffalo chips or sometimes buffalo pies. The fact that the guys camera, an old Nikon D300 with a broken strap was sticking out the pile was the only indication that one of our own was gone. There was no more snickering, in fact you couldn’t find the trace of a smile anywhere. In fact you couldn’t find a trace of anyone anywhere, there was just this giant vacuum as those that were closest to old Boise teleported back to base camp. Some didn’t even stop there, they went straight on to Cody.

That left the leader of the expedition, a fearless soul who didn’t flinch, falter or flee in the face of adversity, to face Randalf alone. There was another long moment  and then another. “Any chance of getting a shot of the white buffalo?” “No” was the simple answer. “Any chance of me getting out this without being turned in to a meadow-muffin?” “Only if you leave this place and never return, now” was the reply. “What if I just step over here to the side and grab a quick shot before I go…” “You Shall Not pass !”

Unfortunately the expedition ended at this point. When our rescue team arrived on site there was no trace of our two original team members and they are presumed lost. We did recover two cameras and the Boise guys wristwatch but that was it. The Park rangers sensing a moment of weakness soon overcame our security and confiscated all of our property which they still maintained was illegal. We never got an accurate count of the money that was seized, they broke our bailing machine and everyone who had bought a T-shirt soon abandoned them in case they ran into Randalf.

All in all this was a complete disaster. We’re in the hole for a bundle, the Chinese want their money for the T-shirts and customs won’t release them because of a conflict with some obscure government regulation. This is a black-eye for The Institute and I have to say I’m worried about our solvency. And worst of all we don’t have a single image of the Great White buffalo. Not one. But I did hear that there is one in a park* just off I-94 near Jamestown, North Dakota. If that’s so then maybe there is a chance of salvaging something out of this. We’ll keep you posted.

* http://www.buffalomuseum.com/