Last
Ride
The journey
ended on a day of austere tranquility in Eastern Oregon’s rangeland, an ocean
of land the color of cougar, resting in solitude under a cloudless October sky.
From horizon to horizon in terrain unbroken save for an occasional clump of
starved junipers, the bunch grass that fed sizable herds of cattle the
previous spring and summer had been consumed, trampled, or frost-killed. The Black
Angus and Hereford cattle that summered there, as well as their cross-breeds, were
loaded onto rail cars two days earlier, heading for the Sacramento Valley where
they would spend the next six months grazing on purple needle grass in a climate
more hospitable than winter in the high desert.
A red-tailed
hawk, surfing the wind currents overhead, was the last visible denizen of the
season. As the hawk swooped low over the barren landscape, a steady wind dusted
the surface of a paved but otherwise unremarkable road that sliced through the rangeland like a tarnished silver knife. Upwind from the road, a lone tumbleweed
about the size of a bear cub bounded across the scant vegetation and over the
crest of a gentle rise where it paused for a few seconds before leaping into
the air and bouncing across the road. Strong-limbed, and with a few seeds left
to sow, the tumbleweed rolled up the ditch bank into the waiting arms of a cluster
of weeds with similar heritage, weeds stacked three feet deep against a barbed
wire fence that shadowed the road as far as the eye could see. Though the thick
pile of weeds made for a soft landing, when the thorny arms therein refused to
let go, the hapless tumbleweed’s gypsy days were over.
It was a quiet
demise, but what an adventure was had by this new member of the tumbleweed gang
before losing its freedom on a sunny day that belied its fate. After blowing
away from the Alfalfa, Oregon farm where it grew up, wind gusts sent the frisky
weed rolling across a corner of the Badlands and down the western border of
Bear Creek Buttes onto Highway 20 where it sat for less than a minute before a truck
loaded with lumber hit it head on. Stuck in the truck’s grill, the tumbleweed was
suddenly hitching a ride to who knows where, and it might have set some sort of
tumbleweed distance record if the truck hadn’t hit a bump near Brothers and shook
it loose.
The weed spent a
day and a half, drifting or idling in what little remains of the community of
Brothers, bouncing from place to place as the wind saw fit, finally rolling
inside a ramshackle sheep shed with a door falling off its hinges and no way
out. It remained in the dark, windless wreck of a structure for a week before a
tourist ventured inside, and determined to go home with a memento from the old
West, grabbed the weed by the stem end, carried it outside, and propped it
against the side of the shed for a semi-authentic picture of a bona fide ghost
town.
Free again after
the fortuitous photo op, the tumbleweed somersaulted eastward, crossing patches
of alkali, abandoned railroad tracks, half-buried boulders, and the dry bed of
a creek with no name. When it passed a small herd of wild horses, a mare and
her colt looked up, then lowered their heads again to feed on summer’s
dwindling forage. The tumbleweed rolled across empty rangeland for another two
days before bouncing into the weed pile that would turn out to be its final
resting place—one of thousands of such tangles lining roads and highways in less-traveled
parts of the West.
Although a
nuisance to ranchers and farmers and an eyesore to many who drive through
tumbleweed territory, these mounds of dried vegetation form an integral part of
the high desert's ecological balance as shelter for lizards, quail, jack
rabbits, field mice, spiders and other regional dwellers with precious few
places to hide or nest. Coyotes, hoping to flush out a meal, can be seen sneaking
along these stretches like hungry fence line riders, and snakes, camouflaged by
the canopy of latticed shadows, will slither inside for a rodent snack or stop
for a nap during the heat of the day.
A sympathetic
passerby with an unfettered imagination might envision these long, lacy weed
piles as huge crowds, anxiously pressed against the fence, even climbing on one
another’s backs for a chance to catch a gust of wind and blow free; or dry old
spectators, vying with one another for a better view of some titillating
entertainment that plays in the adjoining field when no one’s around; or
marathon runners, hunched at the ready, waiting for the signal to race with the
wind like they did in their youth—try their legs again, see some new country, escape
the confinement of their tightly-knit fraternity.
None of this
happens, of course, and the piles grow deeper and longer with each passing
summer, broadened by weeds blowing in and thickened by the plants germinating from
the seeds they drop after they land. If the weeds in these piles weren’t
lightweight and fragile, their encroaching mass might topple a fence and send
tumbleweeds tumbling again; but with spikes not unlike those on the weeds themselves
and strong enough to keep cattle in check, a barbed wire fence is a formidable
barrier.
Over time, exposure
to the elements and the harboring of tenants take a toll on the individual
weeds in these piles, making them barely recognizable as the seed-spreading
vagabonds they were when they snapped off their stems and started tumbling. Countless
insect-infested summers and snow-laden winters eventually weaken their spines,
and their sun-bleached branches become gaunt and barbless. After most of their
spindly legs have been stolen for nests, the oldsters at the bottom of the pile
collapse. They break up, turn to dust, and finally reach the other side of the
fence in one last ride on the wind.
Ginger Dehlinger
2011
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