GREGORY, S.D. -- Amid the commotion of 18 pheasant hunters and nearly as many bird dogs, Coleson Bruce hears only the quiet of days bygone.
In September 2009, on a warm, windy, sun-drenched morning that was almost identical to Sept. 15, Bruce and a pair of mules owned by Federal District Judge Bill Wilson of Bigelow began a 40-day, 400-mile journey from Gregory, S.D., to northeastern Kansas.
At that time, Bruce, an oil and gas attorney in Austin, Texas, was nearing the end of a year working as a law clerk for Wilson and had a six-week gap before he began his new job.
"A lot of clerks in their gap go backpacking in southeast Asia or something like that," Bruce said. "I was finishing my clerkship in September, and Judge Wilson and I brought his mules up for the Fourth of July parade in Gregory."
Wilson and his mules are notorious in southeast South Dakota. He often rides them in small-town parades, and he frequently presided over the federal bench in Pierre, S.D., as a guest so he could ride his mules around the countryside. During his year with Wilson, Bruce often rode mules with Wilson.
"I was fascinated with stock travel in western country, the history and the image of it," Bruce said. "While we were riding, I realized I had the time and potentially the animals if Judge was willing to let me borrow a couple of his mules."
He had to work up the courage to ask, but his misgivings were misplaced.
"I should have known he would be even more excited than I was," Bruce said. "If he'd been five years younger, he probably would have gone with me."
Bruce spent the next two months at Wilson's farm training with the mules, Wilson said. He researched equipment and planned his route.
"When he finished, he probably knew more about mules than I did," Wilson said.
The route was probably about 230 linear miles, Bruce said, but he meandered about 400 miles through South Dakota and central Nebraska, including its phenomenal Sandhills region. The terminus was about 20 feet inside Kansas, Bruce said, so he could say he had been there.
News of Bruce's journey traveled quickly through the sparsely populated country, and people along his route adopted his adventure as their own. People watched for him, befriended him and even dropped off hay for the mules.
"All my interactions with people were entirely positive," Bruce said. "It's a pretty small community from South Dakota to Kansas, and people knew I was coming for days. I'd meet somebody and chat, and they'd call somebody at a farm six hours away."
Everybody in that part of the country works with livestock, so Bruce often knocked on doors to solicit advice about treating equine ailments.
"I knew in that part of the country that if my animals had any problems, people would know how to help," Bruce said. "It would often be some semi-famous rodeo person."
The journey was a defining moment for Bruce. It gave him courage and confidence. It taught him self-reliance, but also taught him how to rely on others.
"Those first few days were really pretty nerve-wracking," Bruce said. "I was really lonely those first few days.
"After a week or two, I was not fearful but confident, I was not lonely, but I reveled in that quiet. By [the] end of four or five weeks, the coin was entirely flipped. I was almost fearless."
By extension, the experience prepared Bruce for the grueling dues required of a junior attorney in a big law firm.
"I've spent seven years working 70 to 80 hours a week on the 34th floor of a high-rise," Bruce said. "All that time I spent in the middle of nowhere by myself fueled my ability to work like that ever since."
When Bruce's internal compass starts to drift, Bruce said he reflects on the journey for perspective.
"When I come back up here to hunt, we're in these fields and the weather is just like it was back then," Bruce said. "I can imagine that none of you other people are around. None of the dogs are around. Man, I really want to go back to that."
All dreamers sense the tension between the tyranny of the present and nostalgia. It's a delicate balance of who you are versus what you were versus what you will someday be.
"I don't know if sentimentality helps you get through, or points you back to where you were," Bruce said.
Bruce loves practicing law, and he's good at it, but when he talks about mules and wanderlust, there's little doubt where his passion lies.
Sports on 09/29/2016