Dawn in a Plains fall's most always cold- y'wake up expectin' to see snow,
but maybe all's you get's just a little frost. Quick to warm up, though; by the
time coffee's finished and your horse is tacked, air's comfortable enough t'move around in without thinkin'
you're freezin' to death.
'Least, that's how it always seems to me. One-Eyed Wolf's wife always teases me
about that, sayin' I look like a bear that's been sleepin' in for a few years and how I need to get some fat
on me afore I freeze to death; that buffalo coat she made me when I was a young'n still fits, for a wonder, but it ain't no bear
coat.
What the hell am I talkin'
about bears for? Mostly to distract myself, I guess. No buffalo tracks today, and there ain't been none for the past week. He ain't
sayin', but One-Eyed Wolf's getting antsy. Most
people can't tell with him- he got a face like a rock on his more expressive
days- but I always can, and it's makin' me nervous
too. How the hell you s'pose to hunt buffalo if'n there aren't any left?
Ain't that the big question? S'been somethin' I haven't wanted to think much about;
easier to try'n convince myself that we just hit a
dry spell, that the buffalo are north of us or goin'
south by a different track than they usually do. Big lie, Tanner, and you know
it. They're runnin' out, like water right down a
drain. Runnin' out
'cause of damn fools who
think it's the best thing in the world to kill a big animal. We ain't got tigers n'elephants like they do over'n
Africa, so they make do with buffalo n'Indians.
We're takin' one of
our lucky paths through a cluster of pines that stands on a ridge just above
some lowlands. The pines ain't much of a cover any more- lot of 'em've been chopped down to build that
goddamned Army fort over yonder, got those big ole timbers hidin' guns an' lookin' right
down our necks like Death itself. When all the original growth was there,
though, we still got a good view of the plains below; now we get an even better
one of the golden field beneath us and the lone buffalo standin'
in it.
One-Eyed Wolf flashes me a hand signal- old
male buffalo, probly injured or strayed from his
herd. Or maybe he hasn't got a herd left. He readies his spear an' checks his
quiver. So do I, but he motions for me to put 'em
aside and use my rifle.
I don't want to.
He wants me to, an' I know why.
It's been too long since we brought back a
buffalo- hell, it's been too long since anyone else
has. The tribe needs this one, needs it to just hold on a little longer, to
survive even as the Americans start to shove 'em out
to reservations where, accordin' to them, the Indians
won't need buffalo no longer. They'll have School n' Civilization, trains
'stead of horses, an' farms to tend 'stead of gallopin'
over the open Plains.
Still, I don't want to. Don't seem right, to
bring in a buffalo usin' this fuckin'
gun of mine. Don't know why I take it along- well, it's mostly to warn off
soldiers who start getting' ideas 'bout the girls. I still don't wanna use it,
though, but One-Eyed Wolf gives me a look, an' I know I'm needin'
t'do this, that it's okay even though so much of me
says it ain't.
I know the Spirits look well on this killing;
they know the buffalo will be taken and used well, every part of him goin' into somethin' for the tribe. What we can't eat'll be made into clothin',
handles for knives, string for bows and stitching, leather for clothin' and tents. The marrow'll
be used for pemmican an' the fat for ointments for the medicine man. If'n the white man takes him, though, all's he'll get is
his head on the wall of some fancy lodge an' his meat on some rich man's dinner
plate.
Listen to ya Tanner,
talkin' like you was an Indian.
Well, ya been with 'em
two years now, ain't left for the winter like the rest of the white men who
come pokin' round the Kiowa camps. Maybe
y'are one after all. One-Eyed Wolf says so.
If'n you're an Indian then, you'd best be getting' ready t'do this thing.
I flip up the sight on my rifle, cursin' it all the while. I could miss on purpose; I know
that, but so does One-Eye, an' I don't know if'n I could live with disappointin'
him like that. We're 'bout a quarter mile from the buffalo; he just standin' there like everythin'
ain't no never mind of his, just eatin' an' maybe thinkin' 'bout
whatever a buffalo thinks about.
Dammit, Tanner, concentrate… I look down the sight, straight
down the top of the barrel of the gun. I look at that big brown blot on the
landscape that's so far away for me but so close for the bullet I'm about to
send his way. I look at the wide-open spaces fallin'
away beneath us, how it seems like the Plains go on forever n'ever,
even though they run up against the mountains sooner or later.
I look at that buffalo.
But I can't make myself see him.
There was a time when the buffalo became so
scarce that one could go several moons without seeing even one small herd. One
morning, a girl walked out of her camp and saw a great herd of buffalo moving
across the plains, walking slowly towards the mountains of the
west. As she watched, a great door opened in the side of the mountain; through
this door she could see a land of gently rolling green hills, blue skies, and
gentle breezes. The herd leader turned the cows and babies to the place, and
before long, the last of the buffalo walked into the mountain, in which there
grew every good green thing.
--Old Lady Horse (Sword Woman)
Last of the Buffalo;
contemporary story, circa 1920.