Dodo Eggs

The frozen pleasures of Dakota Territory are not easy for a common man to detect. The long horizons sandwiched between white snow and the slate gray cloud cover of mid winter fail to sell postcards. What makes the forgotten corners of America’s prairie so special are the hidden delights that only the locals know about. (And I’m not talking about drinking. That is a portable activity; you can do it anywhere.)

I experienced one of these thrills while visiting Sam at his father’s ranch on South Dakota’s western side.

The wind blew into our faces as we zipped across the fallow fields on the back of his 4-wheeler. The temperature or lack thereof made my eyes water. My fingers and toes ached from the bitter extremes. I had sneezed as we tore out of Sam’s yard. The remnants of my snot and saliva were flash frozen into a permanent mosaic on my sleeve.

Sam was forced to yell over the engine’s unhindered roar. “Everything looks new, huh Matt!”

It had snowed only a little the previous evening but it was enough to give the previous snowdrifts a new coat of paint. Snow doesn’t melt in Dakota it only accumulates. I glanced down and the ground was a blur of sold white.

“Where are we going?”

I couldn’t be sure but it sounded like Sam laughed. “There’s a shed out here in the north pasture with a rope and a large inner tube. You’ve gone sledding without hills before right?”

I yelled back, “How is that supposed to work?”

“C’mon Matt, figure it out! We’re going to tie the rope between the inner tube and the 4-wheeler. A little gas and three or four misused laws of physics and we’ll have more fun than we know what to do with!”

We found the shed and after breaking the icy patch over the door handles we found what we needed.

“This inner tube looks like a big rubber donut. What do I do if you’re about to sling me into a fence post or something? Haven’t people died in accidents from doing this sort of thing?”

Sam stopped tying the rope to the 4-wheelers hitch. “Did you know that deaths related to the combined use of inner tubes and 4-wheelers is one of our nation’s rarest forms of death. It’s just below dying of boredom.”

“Very funny, but if I’m headed for something that won’t move for me, what do I do?”

“For pete’s sake Matt, if you want to, just try dragging you butt.” He checked the knots on the both ends of the rope. “Now hop in or I’m giving one of the cows a ride.”

I jumped into the inner tube and a second later was speeding only inches above the snow’s surface. Sam looked back to make sure I was still attached before giving the handlebars a wicked turn to the right and punching the gas.

My body approached the speed of light as the inner tube’s pendulum rotation tired to match the ATV’s quick turns. A grin of involuntary proportions broke across my face despite the bits of dirty ice and rock.

I had a blast until…Whump!

“Oooowww!”

Something hard had displaced my rear end. I knew right away that I had earned a bruise.

When Sam tried a turn too close to the water trough, I knew I was in big trouble. As instructed, I tried to slow my approach by dragging my rear.

Whump! Whump! Whump!

If I didn’t abort the inner tube right then, I was going to the hospital. I threw my body to the ground in an effort to lessen the damage my body was already taking.

Sam drove up and shut off the engine. “Sorry about that but it was fun right?”

“My butt feels like ground beef! I tried dragging it to slow down but it kept hitting rocks or something!”

“Rocks? There aren’t any rocks big enough…wait. Oh, I drove too close to where we feed the cattle! Yea, we have a different definition for Eskimo pies around here, frozen cow dung. Gee, they get pretty hard once their frozen, huh?”

He hopped off the 4-wheeler. “Now you drive, it’s my turn.”

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• Cupid Correction