Beware the Black Hatted Buffalo Nudger

Yeah... I didn't know such a thing existed either.

So there I was after a few days of fighting ee-lek-trawn-icks... struggling to get a book published... The sixth western novel and the first to cause difficulty uploading...

Well, after multiple crashes, regroupings, re-Nuking and reformulation I surrendered and sent the manuscript to a computer geek lady who had it fixed and back in the time it takes to write a couple emails... and refused compensation claiming it was too small a job to bother.

One tiny little missed "click" in the formatting process on a used to be clear and open and now hidden screen... crashed the whole deal. ALL attributable to Microsoft's penchant for taking working software and improving it into cumbersome, awkward NON-intuitive malware...

SO! with the thing fixed, uploaded and published - FINALLY - I decided to reward myself with a drive through the northern end of Yellowstone before I pull out in a day or so...

Hmmmm... traffic has thinned considerable__but there's still plenty. I came to a patch of it where folks that normally live in concrete pastures were busily building a Buffalo Jam. Now__sitting on the asphalt for who know how long watching townies take pictures of Buffalo cows silhouetted against somebody's church van is not my idea of a well spent afternoon... so I kept moving.

Yup... if you idle along the Buffs will generally move out of the way. 'course if they stop you've no option but to stop too.

Well, these didn't stop... I moved... and they moved and I was on my merry way... for about 15 miles... and then the flashing lights behind me said; "Tsk Tsk Tsk... you were a bad boy!" except, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I'd done... seeing as I was rolling 10 miles under the limit.

I pulled into a wide spot and this dang near 6' blonde Amazon Ranger walks up and wierdly... was really looking at and all over the truck.

"How are you doing?" she asks...

"Well... I -WAS- doing ok. What's up?" I say.

"I stopped you because we got a report phoned in that you were "Nudging Buffalo" ...

"Um... " I friggin' cracked up... "Are you serious? ummm... if I HAD BEEN you wouldn't be stopping me HERE! You'd be responding to the disabled truck sitting in the middle of the road with it's front end torn off!"

"If you Nudge Buffalo... those buggers Nudge Back!"

Well she grinned and laughed... and Agreed. "That's why I was looking at your truck so close... looking for damage."

Fact is... I DID... exactly what the Park Boys and Girls WANT you to do... keep moving... NOT cork the road...

We talked for some little while and she checked out my "Papers" to ensure that I wasn't some heinous jihadi looking to terrorize not only the american sheeple but a deviant terrorist hoping to sneak around NUDGING BUFFALO...

Laughed my way all the way back to camp... Walt Disney educated nature lovers are like somebody walking on a treadmill... they put out a lot of effort... they just don't get anywhere.

- Brian

P.S. Leather and Stone is now working through the distribution channels and is or soon will be available for Pre-order at Smashwords (and it's retailers) and Amazon! (I'll get an Amazon link up as soon as it's live)