Paul Hamby

A mask sheared in half has a grim smile.

One was waiting for Lisa Schmidt earlier this summer, when she found a yearling steer stiff and stretched on the grass. With ravens overhead, the grinning yearling looked up at the seasoned rancher through a fly-choked eye.

Schmidt, co-founder and operator of A Land of Grass Ranch outside of Conrad, had seen her share of stirs and oddities while making the rounds to check on her cattle and sheep, like the morning she woke up to meet a grizzly bear parked on her picnic table. She last saw the 900-pound yearling on a Saturday, where it was healthy and grazing with the other cattle in the summer pasture. By Monday, a portion of the animal’s face known as the mask was stripped away, revealing the bone and teeth of its jawline.

The loss of

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