To see Yellowstone, of course, is to see lots of bison, about 4,000 of which rim the park’s circular road system. Inevitably one or more of the giant ungulates will step onto the pavement and stop all traffic — which happened again Sunday morning when Harley came face to face (horn to windshield?) with a 2,000-pound bull. We’d already  stopped for some of his relatives, but the bull positioned himself right in front of us.  So we bided our time, as a string of vehicles lined up behind us.

Meanwhile, a raven walked onto the road too. Like the bull, he appeared totally unintimidated by the cars or people. Maybe he was hoping for a hand-out, but no one obliged him. Besides, he wasn’t really begging the way certain pigeons or seagulls do. He just seemed curious.  He even hopped on top of the hood of the red truck behind us, peering into the windshield. So now we were bracketed by two critters, one fore and one aft.

For about a half an hour, the stand-off continued. The bull remained motionless where he stood, as if taking some sort of pleasure from stopping all the traffic, asserting his authority. Or maybe he was simply enjoying the relative warmth of the sunny road on his hooves. The raven enjoyed the situation as well. He walked up to the truck’s windshield and peered a little closer inside. An elderly woman shrank

back in the passenger seat.

Then another younger bull stepped onto the road and our buffalo appeared offended, snorting his disapproval and whirling around. That was enough to break up the standstill. All the other bison began shuffling away.

I thought that was probably the end of it. So by way of preparing to move on, I turned on the ignition key and pushed Harley’s starter button. His little 883-cc engine sprang to life with a soft rumble. Instantly that got the bull’s attention. Suddenly he turned in our direction and stared. Hard. My breathing froze. Something told me I had just made an important mistake. Instantly I turned the engine off and slowly began back-peddling Harley in neutral, wheeling him around the truck behind me, hoping it might provide a shield. The raven hopped away, judiciously. The bull kept staring in our direction, but ultimately chose not to charge. Instead he ambled very slowly off the road.