Hardwired

By Jill Sisson

There were a lot of them, a small crowd of pronghorns, shining like bits of lightning on the sagebrush hills just outside the small town of Worland, Wyoming. I was part of a three-person crew of field biologists, all of us in our mid-20s, crammed in a government rig to inventory and map big-game animals for the Bureau of Land Management. When we spied the flashes of white among the sagebrush, we came to a halt, the pickup idling, and as though on cue, over 20 pronghorns faced us, their large, dark eyes taking us in. From what they could tell, we were a single entity, a clunky machine on wheels. Curious, a few stepped in our direction while the others watched and fidgeted. Then, at a signal invisible to us, the herd burst into flight. We watched transfixed as they flowed over the mounds and dips, a honey-and-white wave of grace and instinct, until they receded like an outgoing tide over a wide, green hill.

The pronghorn is an old soul on our Western lands, having lived here for over 20 million years. Smaller than deer, elegant, and hardy, it is commonly — and mistakenly — called the American antelope. In fact, it is the only surviving member of its otherwise extinct family. Like the true antelopes of the old world, our North American pronghorn evolved with exquisite adaptations to escape the streamlined cheetah, still the fastest animal on earth. The pronghorn’s huge, widely-spaced eyes gave it an incredible 320-degree field of vision, acute for up to four miles away, to help it scan for tawny danger in tall grass. With trigger-sharp senses, strong, slender legs, and bodacious lung capacity for aerobic efficiency, this species was precisely adapted to flee.

The cheetah and pronghorn were matchless in their incredible race for survival. It was fire chasing wind. The charging cheetah could out-sprint its graceful prey, but only for the briefest spell; the pronghorn would always win the test of endurance. It was a fair contest, but not a permanent one. For, at the end of the ice age thousands of years ago, the cheetah vanished from our side of the planet, leaving the pronghorn behind to outpace the coyotes, wolves, and bears, who, it seems, will never catch up. 

Yet the pronghorn is forever hardwired to bolt and bound from any perceived threat, scoring the earth with the fastest hooves on the planet. Its instincts remain intact.

It is troubling to witness fellow beings so primed for disaster, but pronghorns do handily escape most travails that travel on four feet. What does stop them in their tracks, though, are the miles of fences that crisscross their habitat. Adapted for the open range where they can easily hurdle grass clumps and sagebrush, pronghorns aren’t designed for high vertical jumps. Unless there is space to slip beneath the lowest wooden rail or barbed wire, these animals will expend valuable energy looking for passage. They lose ground whenever we close the doors to their life-sustaining migration routes. Fortunately, wildlife scientists and land managers are systematically finding ways to safeguard the pronghorns’ seasonal journeys.

Catching sight of these beautiful animals never fails to thrill me. Whenever I can, I like to park on rural roadsides and study them for a while, the males with their black-sheathed horns, the paler females and with their short unpronged spikes. Watching quietly from behind the windshield, I’m not much of a threat to them. They look pretty chill, browsing and gazing about.

Several years ago when I worked in Stanley, Idaho, I would routinely see a pair of pronghorns during my early morning walk on the Nip and Tuck Road just outside of town. At that frosty hour, I was always the first to greet the doe and buck as they looked down at me from their hillside. My hiking boots rattled the gravel, and I kept my voice to a whisper, “Just passing through.” For a couple of weeks the buck would send me a huff and a snort. Maybe a fawn was hiding nearby. But the pair never ran; they knew I was harmless.

***

Twenty minutes before lunch in my study hall of 10th and 11th graders,  I’m reaching across a corner table to retrieve a pen. My sleeve may have brushed hers, or I’m just too close to her haven of long hair and solitude. She jumps, a full-body contraction. Her hands clench and her head jerks sideways. Our wide eyes meet — I’m startled, too. For the briefest moment, I am an enemy. 

I try to pop the sudden bubble of fear between us. “Sorry, Audrey. I didn’t mean to surprise you.” I back away a couple of steps, sending all kinds of unheard messages. I’m so sorry I scared you. . . Please don’t be afraid.” 

She hunches down a bit, black hoodie enveloping her in its soft cave. “It’s OK,”  she mutters, and then turns away, dark hair closing over her pale face. She waits a beat, then returns to the page in front of her, not a study guide as I’d thought, but a trail of thorns and spiky leaves inked in black. A complicated maze moves across the page like a jagged scar or a holy Celtic knot; either it’s rending the page or mending it.

It was only a few weeks ago that our high-school counselor enrolled Audrey in my 4th period study hall, explaining that she’d been going through a “rough patch” and would probably benefit from my class. A quiet kid, she easily slips under the radar, so I’ve made a habit of checking in with her as soon as she arrives every day. Since my class is meant to offer a sense of comfort, I’m nursing a pang of worry. I glance at her every now and then while busying myself with the last of my tasks, and notice she’s back at her artwork and snapping her gum—both good signs. I start to relax.

Just before the lunch bell rings, a handful of boisterous sophomores pours into the room on a wave of high energy. “Hey, Audrey!”  She looks up, breaks out in a smile, and swiftly stuffs everything in her book bag. They pool around her, she adds to the flurry,  and together they leave on a bubbling tide of laughter and inside jokes.

She’ll be OK for another day.

Jill Sisson is a naturalist and educator from Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Her writing is situated in that sweet spot where science overlaps with the ineffable. Western settings, stretching from the Colorado Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Northwest, backdrop most of her written work. She has been published in the anthology, Emerge 24.