Today, South Dakota is home to prairie and pasture, bisected by bands of asphalt and the sprawling squiggle of the Missouri River. In terms of human residents, the state is one of the emptiest in America, but millions of cattle graze on the land unfurling below a generous sky: In 2017, according to figures from the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, South Dakota’s bovines outnumbered the state’s humans by more than four to one. The local rocks have also yielded striking proof of the animals that roved…
