I was driving through Manitoba on my way home from the West Coast. Sometime during the night, I got tired so pulled over to the shoulder of the Trans Canada Highway and crawled into the back of my car for a nap.
I woke up about 6 a.m., ready to take off again but my battery was dead. I had left the parking lights on all night.
So I flagged down a trucker who said he couldn’t help me but he said there was a town on the other side of the bush he pointed to and a service station where I could find someone. But it was Sunday morning and I’d have to wait till 9 a.m. for the service station to open.
The trucker told me I could walk the highway around the bend – the long way to the town – or I could just cut through the bush as the town was on the other side of it.
So, just before 9 a.m., I climbed the fence to the field where the bush was located and threw one leg over. But I stopped because of a creepy feeling I had about that bush. It was a beautiful sunshine-filled day and there was nothing sinister about the bush, but I changed my mind about going through it and walked around the long way – a half hour or so – to the town.
I found my service station guy and we got in his truck to go back to my car. When we got there, I almost fainted. The field in front of the bush was filled with a herd of maybe 50 or 60 buffalo – old, young, mothers, fathers and calves. They had all been in the bush that I almost walked through.
I grew up on a farm around beef cattle and developed a healthy respect for them but I’m afraid I would not have been able to handle a bevy of bucking buffalo. My only hope would have been to climb a tree and my tree-climbing skills have never been the best.
It’s been 29 years since that day and I still shudder every time I think about my close encounter with those beasts.
Thank God we humans have not completely lost all our instincts. In this case, listening to that wee small voice within me saved my life.
©2011 Jim Hagarty
