Coyote Peterson’s Brave Adventures. Coyote Peterson

      To say he was absolutely enormous is an understatement.

      His massive head was armed with curved black horns that led into a muscle-packed neck. My eyes traced up his haunches and across his massive shoulders, burly and coated in thick tufted fur. His powerful ground-pulverizing hooves braced as they held up a 2,000 pound core. This animal was like a freight train on legs, capable of reaching speeds of nearly 40 miles per hour.

      He looked straight at me, his eyes like two black marbles glistening in the late afternoon sun, almost lost in the dark traces of his brow line and filled with a timeless wisdom. This animal represented dominance and power. This land belonged to him, yet here I was, trespassing in his domain.

      What an incredibly rare moment – partially because I had not yet been charged or trampled, but also because it’s rare to ever see a single buffalo outside of a herd. Normally these giant herbivores travel together by the hundreds, and you will only find a rogue male who has been driven out of the heard in a situation like this.

      My current predicament had become incredibly dangerous, because it was clear that this buffalo was NOT happy. Large, aggressive rogue males are notorious for charging humans. Most of the time it’s a tourist who has gotten too close while trying to snap a photograph; this time it was a teenager who foolishly wandered haphazardly across a prairie looking for an adventure.

      Now, I knew the worst thing I could do in this situation was to run. If I ran, it would most likely prompt a charge, and there was no way whatsoever I was going to outrun a buffalo. At top speed, an adult human can sprint around 15 mph. And remember, a full-grown buffalo… about 40 mph. You can see the impossible nature of attempting to outrun this beast. However, I had already made the mistake of direct eye contact, so at this juncture, I was already in way over my head!

      “Think Coyote… think, how are you going to get out of this one…?”

      My thoughts were cut short as suddenly he snorted again!

      “WHHHUUUGGHHHHHH”

      A massive burst of air and snot shot from his nose and sent up a plume of dust from the ground. My head immediately dropped, and I looked at my feet. I noticed my knees were now shaking from fear and I closed my eyes.

      “He’s gonna charge,” I thought. “He’s gonna charge, and he’s gonna kill me if I don’t back myself out of this now… right now!”

      I slowly opened my eyes and somehow mustered a single small step backward, my boots crunching ever so loudly on the ground; the sound seemed to echo across the prairie, and I stopped.

      The buffalo exhaled again, and with a mechanically powerful movement his front left hoof pawed at the parched earth; a burst of dust kicked up as he displayed his dominance. The king of Wyoming had just signaled that this prairie belonged to him, and boy, I could not agree more. I would have gladly apologized – perhaps in a fashion something like this:

      “Gosh, I’m sorry Mr. Buffalo… I was just out looking for snakes and lizards. I didn’t realize this was your side of the wash. I certainly would never have wanted to offend a handsome fella such as yourself. What do you say I head back to the human camp and we forget this whole thing ever happened?”

      Yeah… unfortunately, that wasn’t going to work.

      If the giant charged, it was likely to cover the space between me and itself in less than 10 seconds. The force of a 2,000-pound freight train would run me over like I was a single blade of prairie grass; my trampled bodily remains would likely become an evening feast for a wake of turkey vultures.

      Suddenly, sticking around camp to help my Mom and sister make dinner sounded like a really good place to be!

      I took another calm and collected step backward; the buffalo… did not move.

      With my eyes pointed straight at the ground, I took one more. No reaction from the great American icon. In fact, he seemed disinterested as he licked at his nose with a long gray tongue; the slurping sound of wet muscle on slimy nostrils was loud and gross. I watched from the corner of my eye as his long tail methodically swatted at the barrage of flies that swarmed his massive stature.

      “This was good” I thought. “Maybe he is angry at the flies, maybe he didn’t even notice me… how great would this be, saved by flies… who would have ever imagined that?”

      I took another step, then another… and another. My heart rate began to even out as my distance from immediate danger was growing with…

      And then it happened!

      “OH… MY… CRAP!”

      For reasons unknown to me, the rogue buffalo decided… IT WAS TIME TO TRAMPLE A COYOTE!

      Like a freight train that had exploded from its tracks, this massive animal was charging at me full steam ahead; with no hesitation I turned around and ran like I had never run before.

      Everything went black.

      It was as if I were running in a dream state and the rest of the world had shut down around me. My heart was beating a million beats per second as my skinny tan legs cut through the prairie grasses, desperately trying to avoid tripping. The ground was shaking under rapidly-gaining hooves as the sound of an angry buffalo barreled down after me. For every stride I gained, he closed

      the gap by ten. I could practically feel the hot steam from his wet nostrils on the back of my neck, his rugged earth-worn hooves nipping at my heels, and the bone-crushing force of his iron-strong skull inching closer to slamming into my back.

      This was the fastest I had ever run in my life, and to this day I am not sure I have ever covered ground more quickly. You would be surprised how fast you can run when your life literally depends on it!

      Sweat poured from my brow as the dry air stung my eyes and open mouth. I gasped for air as my lungs worked on overdrive to propel my body forward… and then I saw it:

      THE WASH!

      The very environmental feature I had recently been so proud to have conquered might now be the only thing that could save my precious little life.

      The buffalo was closing in; I could almost hear its heart beating as it blazed across the prairie.

      “Just a few more yards… maybe if I jump I can make it to the other side…” and suddenly with all of my might I leapt from the edge and WOOOOOOSH!

      Time seemed to slow in the following moments as my body launched off the side of the wash. My arms and legs flailed as I soared through the air, my eyes wide as saucers. The sound of the charging buffalo mixed together with the sound of wind in my ears as I flew toward the far side. I was flying, I couldn’t believe it… I was literally flying!

      And then… reality snapped back and my 15-year-old body fell like a ton of rocks, flat into the bottom of the wash. WHAAAAM!

      I hit the sand and gravel with a cracking SLAM! The wind in my lungs was knocked straight out of me as my palms and knees smashed into the ground. In a sliding tumble, I rolled and skidded to an incredibly painful halt.

      You see, the wash spanned about 25 feet across. Leaping from one side to the other…