On the Comanche National Grassland
The storm and horrible winds had whipped the land into a Siberian landscape that faded against the horizon in every direction. Left in its swath was some 50 inches of heavy snow on the level ground and great sweeping ivory drifts that easily covered six-foot barbed wire fences. Now, five days after the crushing storm had moved on, the snow still reached almost to the thick shoulders of the big, black bull.
Each step brought a heavy grunt from the animal’s whiskered jowls. Jets of condensation shot from his nostrils as his hot breath collided with the icy air. He had lived for several years in this wild place on the eastern Colorado plains. Breeding was his mission. He ruled the land.
But for five days now he had only nibbled on sagebrush and tumbleweed. Even his heavy hooves couldn’t penetrate the thick cover of snow. He could not get to any water. The massive muscle that carried him across the bluffs and arroyos was withering fast. The bones of his hips pushed against his skin. He was alone. And he was dying.
The snow began slowly on that late Friday afternoon of Dec. 29, the fringes of a powerful storm trickling onto the plains but growing ever stronger. By nightfall a blizzard tore at the land, sideways snow so hard and heavy that tough cowboys who have endured a lifetime of Mother Nature’s nastiest shots could only wait until the rage ended. Twenty miles north of La Junta in the tiny town of Sugar City, rancher Curt Russell stepped outside and shuddered.
“You couldn’t see the hand in front of your face,” he said.
About 30 of his cattle had wandered south from the pasture in the pounding storm, facing away from the oncoming north winds and winding up at the fence line near Russell’s home. They were lucky. They had water.
To the south and east, the blizzard was more intense. Fence posts were covered within a few hours. Snow drifts rose up toward the roofs of ranch houses. Sometime after midnight, the storm gathered even more strength. By dawn on that Saturday people huddled in their homes and looked at the windows. They saw only a solid curtain of white.
Randy Kurtz runs 185 cattle on 13,000 acres of the national grassland and other property south of La Junta. His home is nestled in the grasses a mile and a half from the nearest road, a dirt lane along a bump on the land called Dixie Bluffs. To the east of the Kurtz ranch house sits Colorado 109, a paved snake that winds toward the spot where Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado form a windswept, barren union.
On Monday, a day after the snow stopped, Kurtz got his wife, Kara, and daughter, Jordan, onto a snowmobile. They skimmed across the heavy blanket about 10 miles to La Junta, where the women would stay with friends.
On Wednesday, Kurtz stood on Highway 109 three miles from his home and spotted his big, Angus bull standing on a hillside. He knew the bull’s time was running out.
Then from a dip in the snow-packed road came a neighboring rancher. The man also saw the bull. He stopped and got out of his pickup truck. Quickly, he pitched a bale of hay over the seven-foot-high snowbank. And drove away.
“I don’t know who it was,” said Kurtz. “People out here just do things like that.”
The smell of the hay reached the famished bull and he came relentlessly toward the road, his broad chest plowing through the drifts. He stopped a dozen times to rest but never for long. And five days after he had last had any real food, the big guy reached the broken bale of hay and he ate. And ate.
Even then, Kurtz knew the bull would die without water. He had rented a front-end loader two days earlier, a machine that cost him about $1,500 a week. He and his son, Dale, would use it to try to save some of their cattle. As the bull ate hay alongside the road, Dale fired up the machine and whacked a six-foot-wide path through the towering snow to the nearest water trough. The plan was to herd the bull down the snowy path to the water.
For 30 minutes they and neighbor Dave Daniher pounded through the snow, shouting and waving their arms and even throwing snowballs at the bull, trying to turn it toward the new trail.
An hour earlier Daniher had spotted 30 of his own cattle on a ridge. They were unreachable. He feared they would die. He said they were valued at $1,200 each. The snow was about to take $36,000 from his pocket. But for the moment, his friend needed help. And so they chased the bull. And they failed. Shortly after noon, the giant Angus, frightened and exhausted, crashed over the top of a fence and plowed his way to the top of a rise a quarter of a mile to the east.
Randy Kurtz brushed the sweat from his face and the snow off his mustache and he sighed.
“He’s tough,” he said, gazing at the fleeing bull as it became a black speck on the white canvas. “Maybe he’ll survive another few days. But there’s nothing more we can do for him now.”
And then he got into his truck and drove down the snow-blasted road. In a Colorado winter that has already become legend, he had 184 more cattle to find.
Staff writer Rich Tosches writes each Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at rtosches@denverpost.com.
