The Story of Brutus by Casey Anderson

Author:Casey Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books

CHAPTER 12

UNBREAKABLE BONDS

WE ARE NOT ALONE ON THIS PLANET. WE ARE NOT THE only ones who exist and feel. We share what it is to be alive with other species of all shapes and sizes. All animals, including humans, perceive the world from their own perspective. The lives we lead are very different, but each moment lived is equally valid.

Yellowstone’s Swan Lake Flats is a stunning place—the sounds of waterfowl in the morning, the sun rising over the snowy mountains, the mist and fog, and the playful elk calves. But life is short for some of these beautiful creatures.

Born on a cold, rainy, foggy morning in early June, a calf is tucked safely away in the sage. Its new life is overwhelming. Its thin fur and skin barely keep it warm as it instinctually lies in a tight ball trying to keep out of sight until its mother returns. Its scentless body is a nice evolutionary trait to keep it safe. The sounds of passing cars and human voices are part of its new audio reception. Although it was born near a road, it has not yet learned to fear them. Sandhill cranes call in the background along with the constant hum of western chorus frogs. The elk calf thinks it hears its mother returning. The calf anxiously awaits its mother’s warm milk, but it’s not Mom. The drive to stay alive comes from deep within. This young calf has only stood a few times in its life and walked even less, but now its deep instincts tell it to run. It runs and finds it’s being followed. It cries in fear and panic. Over and over it calls to its only ally, its mother, whose whereabouts are unknown. Not knowing if its cries are heard or if they would matter, it runs into a lake. Now it starts to swim, something it has never done. But is still being pursued by an animal it knows somehow it must escape. Its little body is running out of energy and it heads back to shore. As the water grows more shallow, the calf’s small hooves sink into the muddy lake bottom and it tries to wade to solid ground. Now it has reached the shore but can barely stand because it’s so exhausted. For a day, this calf lived in one of the most beautiful places on earth, breathed some of the freshest air, listened to the most beautiful songs of birds and frogs on the planet, and stared at some of the most picturesque mountains in the world. On this day the calf would stand for the last time on the shore of one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and have its skull and neck crushed by the jaws of a grizzly bear.

After the bear spent an hour eating most of the twenty-five-pound calf’s body, the happily full bear ambled off into this same gorgeous place to live another day, but in this brutal land, no one knows who’s next.

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