Buffalo Jump Blues (12 page)

Sean said sure as Martha pulled to a stop. He reached for the door handle, hesitated.

“What is it?”

“I'm thinking about visiting the buffalo hippies tomorrow. They can confirm if the brothers were part of their group or not, if nothing else.”

“Okay,” Martha said. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Anything I should know?”

“No, just don't go all starry-eyed and start picketing the capitol dressed up as a bison. You smile, but their leader is charismatic. They call him ‘the Great Tatanka'—Lakota for buffalo bull. You know the Nelson Story story? The guy who led the first cattle drive from Texas to Montana back in the 1860s? It's what inspired the book
Lonesome Dove
. Well, Tatanka—his real name is Jackson McKenzie—he's a descendant of one of the men on that cattle drive. Prominent family in the Helena area. It's ironic, because the cattle sounded the death knell for the bison, and McKenzie has devoted his life to trying to bring them back and atone for the sins of his ancestors. Ninety years young and still sharp as a razor. The man's got some get-up. Walt had to arrest him about five years ago for interrupting a Stockmen's Association meeting and fighting with one of the state brand inspectors. McKenzie was putting a whupping on him before they pulled him off.”

“I'll try to keep the stars out of my eyes. Hey, this was fun tonight, wasn't it, shivering on a rock ledge. We'll have to do it again sometime.”

“Right. Maybe next time we'll see an actual human being.”

“We saw a buffalo.”

“Yeah, we did. But I've been up all night and I'm done with the subject for a while.”

“Later, then,” Sean said, but she was driving away. He made it to his cot in time to see sun creep up the tipi walls, setting the canvas aglow, and fell asleep thinking of the bison calling in the night.

S
ean wasn't entirely surprised when Sam called to say the second guide day had been canceled. Was it because the brothers weren't eager to take another trip down memory lane? He didn't know, and, sipping his morning coffee at two p.m. in his art studio, thought it just as well. He'd had his fill of being called Captain and didn't want to press the brothers on their involvement in the jump until he was sure that they were involved. Standing before his easel, he screwed the cap off a tube of cadmium yellow to line a sunrise on a riverscape, then screwed the cap back on, remembering the impossible colors he'd witnessed only hours ago from the pallet of God. He booted up the cultural center's computer to see what he could learn about the American Bison Crusade before knocking on the door, and found out, among other things, that there was no door to knock on.

The drive to the Hebgen Plateau took ninety minutes. He passed part of it listening to a recorded book by C. J. Box on a boom box—the Land Cruiser didn't have a radio, let alone a CD deck—then switched it off, thinking back to last night. Despite the poor visibility, it had struck him that the bison was a cow; a bull's silhouette would have had more pronounced forequarters. Was it among the handful of survivors that managed to avoid the pishkun? If so, could it be the mother of the baby bison Harold had rescued, walking up and down the river calling for its calf? But then, it already had a calf. Or did it? Sean wasn't sure what he'd seen, and when he'd asked Martha, she said she hadn't seen anything but the one animal.

Stranahan detoured to collect Choti at the clubhouse because he
missed her, and not incidentally because he thought he might need an icebreaker. Something told him that he would have more luck driving in late, when the volunteers would likely be gathered at the camp, so he ate a leisurely supper with Pat Willoughby and raided the freezer for a peace offering, selecting a slab of elk round steak. He smiled at the paradox of offering game meat to a group whose express purpose was saving native animals. Well, he'd play that one by ear.

The sun was in steep decline when he found the turnoff that Martha had marked on a map. A half mile up the road he idled down and man and dog put their noses to the wind drifting from the higher elevations. Sean had that feeling of crawfish in his veins that he'd had before, when he sensed that something was about to break. The Palisades where the Indian man had been killed were some twelve miles to the west but he had a gut feeling that this was where the bow was bent and the arrow set to flight. He just had to find out who drew it and why.

Sean put the Land Cruiser in gear. “This is where you earn your keep,” he said, regarding Choti's mismatched eyes.

And then for the second time in four days he took a wrong turn, climbing into a gloom of forest before doubling back to find the right road. It didn't lose him a lot of time, but it lost him light, so that his first sight of the crusade headquarters was the glimmer of a fire. Sean pulled into the camp, which consisted of a white canvas wall tent set in an old aspen grove, orbited by a motley collection of nylon tents that made domes of color against the monochrome creep of nightfall. A small stream was singing itself to sleep nearby. A drum beat from the campfire—
thump, thump
—like the beat of a heart.

Presently a tall, exceedingly thin young man with a wizard's beard detached from a group obscured by the smoke and raised a hand for Sean to stay inside his vehicle.

“I'm sorry, sir,” he said, “but the landowner does not permit us to have dogs in camp, as much as we'd like to.”

So much for the icebreaker. Sean cracked the windows for Choti and stepped outside.

“Do you have your application and non-abuse agreement with you, sir? We were not expecting any volunteer arrivals today.”

The young man had a southern drawl, the broad vowels of the Gulf. He accepted the hand Sean extended, and Sean found himself looking upward into pale eyes, below the left one a shadow of bruise along the orbital bone.

“I am Isaac,” the man said, “I am the volunteer coordinator.”

Sean shook a surprisingly strong hand. “I was hoping to speak with Jack McKenzie.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“No.”

“Then may I ask what your business is?”

“I'm a private investigator who works with the sheriff's office.” It wasn't a lie, but as he wasn't under current contract with the department, it wasn't the truth, either.

“Please excuse me,” the man told him, bringing his hand to his chest and dropping his head an inch.

He walked toward the wall tent, which was lit up like a harem tent, while Sean wondered whether he'd just been bowed to. A minute later a woman appeared at the door, looked over her shoulder at Sean as she spoke to the young man, and approached, stopping before him with her hands on her hips. She had lank gray hair and a narrow face that added austerity to her expression.

“What do you want with Mr. McKenzie?” It sounded like an accusation.

“It's a personal matter.” Sean produced Martha's card. “You can check my credentials with the sheriff. That's her cell number on the back.”

“There's no mobile service here.”

“There is at the junction. If you will drive with me, you can speak to her.” That touched a nerve.

“We obey strict letter of the law here,” the woman said in a clipped voice. “We do not condone violence, gender or racial discrimination, or any form of sexual abuse. No drugs. No alcohol. Tensions run high in the field and we must maintain clear heads at all times. Following the herds is demanding work that provides its own high, something you cannot buy from a bottle.”

It was a rehearsed speech, words Sean guessed she spoke with little variation for each arrival. She nodded curtly. “Mr. McKenzie will be here shortly. Until then you're welcome to join us.”

Sean followed her and offered his smile to the half dozen men and women seated at the fire ring. All were end-of-day tired-looking—the weather-beaten, mile-weary that you see on wilderness trails. Long hair and dreads, beards accented with braids, threadbare flannels, hiking boots caked with mud. Five men and four women, including the woman who'd spoken, whom he'd heard one man call “Mother,” which Sean decided not to take literally. The youngest of the women, little more than a girl, had her shirt hiked up and was nursing a baby. Her smile was shy, though she made no effort to conceal her swollen nipples as she passed the baby from one breast to the other. They all seemed deferential, toward Sean as well as Mother. One good thing about edging toward forty, he thought.

Mother explained that the group was the second shift that had recently come in from patrol. McKenzie also was on that shift, which typically ended at sunset, but as there was no activity around the bison they were tracking, he'd sent them back early.

“We call him ‘Comes in Last,'” Isaac said.

“I'd heard it was Tatanka.”

“He
is
Tatanka—Tatanka who comes in last.”

Sean asked where they were from and they were from all over—a Minnesota Frankenstein with a receding hairline; a full-faced black man from Maryland's Eastern Shore who managed to look stylish wearing farmer's overalls; a young Indian man who bore no resemblance at all to the man in the video who might be John Running Boy.
He was the drummer, Bitterroot Salish, he said. The young mother, whose name was Lilly—Sean had yet to hear a surname—was from Hayward, Wisconsin. Isaac was from Whitefish, Montana, but had worked as a naturalist for a wildlife preserve in Jasper County, South Carolina, where he'd picked up the accent.

“What do you do on patrol?” Sean put the question to the group.

Faces turned toward the one called Mother, who said, “Isaac, as you will be taking over my duties next winter, why don't you answer?”

“Yes, brother Isaac,” the black man said, “tell the man how much fun it is to step in steaming bison patties all day.”

“Well, thank you. I'll choose to ignore that note of sarcasm. All y'all have put me on the spot.” He dropped his head to his fist—Rodin's
The Thinker
. “Hmm now, let me see.” His fingers twirled the point of his beard. Sean smiled. Whatever he'd expected of these people, it wasn't sly humor.

“Mostly,” Isaac said, “we stay with any bison that have left the park—that's why they call us the bison shadowers. We document their movements and video any government or state activities that affect the animals. Things like hazing, hunting by the tribes or white hunters licensed by the state, and capture of bison to be shipped to slaughter.”

“We call ourselves the bison shadowers,” the young mother said, repeating her fellow volunteer's words. Sean returned her smile. Her guilelessness reminded him of Dorry.

Isaac added, “Any member of the public who witnesses our activities, we explain what we're doing. What the threats to the bison are.” Again he tugged the beard. “We don't do anything illegal, like interfering with licensed hunters or driving bison back into the park so they can't be shot. It isn't like the old days, when we'd stand between the buffalo and anyone who intended them harm.”

Sean saw several people nod.

“More than one of us has stared down the barrel of a gun.” The words came from Mother.

Sean raised his eyebrows, but before he could ask for elaboration, the snapping of the fire was interrupted by the rumble of a motor. Headlights illuminated ghostly swirls of sagebrush. The valley beyond was engulfed in blackness, the sun's last gasp that thinning crust of gold that he'd so often tried to capture with a brushstroke.

A geriatric Sierra Classic ground to a halt, idled, and shut down. Sean heard the door open and shut and saw the silhouette of a man advancing in no particular hurry.

“Ah, the Great Tatanka. Comes in Last comes in
at
last,” Isaac said. He rose and bowed deeply. A few of the others also rose, but looking at the faces of those who remained sitting, Sean saw only thin smiles and small headshakes. Evidently, whatever their fearless leader used to inspire with was not fear.

“What's on the spit?”

T
he voice was gruff, but without a trace of rancor. Sean saw a man who was carefully erect despite or perhaps because of his age, and whose hair looked like a nest of rattlesnakes, gray tendrils falling in curls across his shoulders and down his back. He wore a checked wool shirt tucked into wool stovepipe trousers, wide suspenders, and a burgundy silk scarf, knotted at the front, the way cowboys wore them. His profile was an eagle's profile, the face gathered around a hooked beak of a nose with long expressive nostrils. Eyes flashed in the light of the fire. Black eyes with sparkle.

“New meat,” he said, nodding his head toward Sean. “Mother radioed your arrival. So, what have you brought me from the United States of America? Something good to eat, I hope.”

Sean opened his hands.

The man laughed, a short bark. “Nobody reads the fine print in the agreement clause. I told you, Mother, we'll have to boldface it from now on.”

“I have an elk steak in my cooler. But maybe you don't eat game meat?”

“Don't eat game meat! Isaac, what is it that they call us?”

“They call us the bison shadowers, sir.”

“No, that other thing.”

“The bison shitters, sir.”

“Yes, that's the one. It sounds like blasphemy, indeed it does. But our red brethren occasionally stock the larder. We aren't anti-hunting. I'm an elk hunter myself, so are half the volunteers. But our
position is that bison shouldn't be hunted until sustainable herds are established on public lands outside the park.” He settled on a chair, waving a hand to dismiss the smoke.

“You're here because of those bison that died at the cliffs. Correct me if I'm wrong.”

Sean's silence was his answer.

“And you're wondering if we had anything to do with that? Am I on the right track?”

“That's the gist of it.”

“Because that's what I'd be wondering if I were you. After all, we're the boots on the ground. Who would better know if the bison were moving and where to find them? And you can make a case for it. We draw attention to the plight of the Indian by honoring his hunting traditions, by killing bison with cliffs and arrows that would have been killed by bullets anyway. At the same time, we draw attention to the state's intolerance for bison migrating onto public lands. Make no mistake, that buffalo Sharps rifle Calvin Barr totes around would have made gut piles of the herd if someone hadn't beat him to the task.”

“Better to die at your hands than his.”

“Amen.”

“So did they—die at your hands?”

“If I'd been a part of it, number one, we'd have finished off the buffalo after driving them over the cliffs. And number two, I sure as hell wouldn't leave a human being to die, though my sentiments would have been with the buffalo. Did they find out who the dead man is?”

“Only that he's Indian. Why do you assume that the bison were driven and didn't just fall? Nothing about a jump has been released in the press.”

McKenzie laughed. “You think you got me, huh? Let me tell you, young man, those bison had about as much chance falling over the cliffs as I have falling between the thighs of Scarlett Johansson. I may
be just an old smoke jumper, but I know buffalo, and buffalo don't jump.”

As a coyote yipped in the lull following his proclamation, McKenzie cleared his throat and sent a howl in rejoinder. It was uncannily accurate, and the song went back and forth, several other coyotes and their human counterparts joining the chorus. The Indian man, Henry, began a song in what Sean guessed was his native language, his wails rising. Soon his song was picked up by the others.

“Sisters of the night,” McKenzie said when the racket died down. “Who does a man have to poke to get a cup of tea around here? Please, Isaac, one for our guest, too.” From the speed with which the cups were proffered, Sean guessed it was a ritual. “Ah,” McKenzie said, taking a sip with an audible slurp, “the smell of sassafras reminds me of summer nights. It warms the cockles of an old man's heart.”

He fixed Sean with his cheerful black eyes.

“I'm sorry you aren't getting the answers you'd hoped for. But as you've made the drive, I feel compelled to give you something to take away and chew on—call it a short history of buffalo. Everybody knows that forty million buffalo roamed the plains before the white men started shooting and killed all but a couple hundred. But the story I'm going to tell you starts in the winter of 1988–1989. That's a few years after the great state of Montana, which has been in the back pocket of the livestock industry since my ancestors brought the first cattle over in 1867, decided that there was no place inside its borders for bison. White shooters—I won't dignify their actions by calling them hunters—created a firing line at the Yellowstone Park border, and when the smoke cleared the blood of 569 bison had soaked into the snow. All this while TV cameras rolled. Supporters for bison from as far away as Japan called for a state boycott. Tribal leaders held prayer vigils for the buffalo, while gunshots from the hunters sounded in the distance. Why, it caused such a scandal that the '91 legislature called off the hunt.

“The state and the Park Service were forced to retreat and lick their
wounds, and between them they had just enough brain cells to figure out that the best way to lower the decibel level was to bring Indians into the equation. Licensing Indians to shoot bison under treaty rights is more palatable to the public than having it done by park rangers or a goon like Lucien Drake. At the same time it obscures the real reason the bison are being killed. So they throw the red man a bone.”

He nodded to himself. “Quite a few bones. Quite a few.

“The way it works today is that the Park Service and the state put their pointy heads together and decide how many bison to murder each winter. The quota this season was more than a thousand. Most are herded into a trap inside the park and shipped to slaughter. A few hundred are shot by tribal hunters and a handful by state-licensed hunters who don't want their pasty faces to be caught on our cameras. Buffalo that migrate beyond the buffer zones where they can't be hazed back in, or that aren't near areas where the hunters are operating, are executed by the Department of Livestock. This has been the story of buffalo for the past twenty-five years.

“Now, let's jump ahead to April last, when thirty-six bison migrated out of the park at the West Yellowstone gate. State employees on horseback drove them back into the park. The bison returned, and what do you know, they were pushed back again, this time with a helicopter. I expected the scenario to repeat itself, because that's the nature of the beast, but the bison did something bison sometimes do, which is be unpredictable. They traveled at night, crossed the park border, and turned west. This caught the DOL in their pajamas, and by the time the sun rose and the dust of their hairy toenails settled, that herd was about a mile and half away from here. Do you know Murdoch Avery?”

“He's the owner of this ranch, isn't he?”

“That's right. Michael Murdoch Avery of Avery Aves Designs in Seattle. They design software for the airline industry. When his ranch manager called him saying he'd caught DOL cowboys on the property who refused to leave, he jumped on his four-wheeler and
confronted them at his gate. Told Lucien Drake he'd have him arrested. Drake spat on the ground and quoted state statute MCA 81-2-120, which gives the DOL the right to haze or kill any bison from a disease-infected herd, which is the entire Yellowstone herd, once those bison stray beyond park boundaries and he deems them a threat to cattle.

“Avery told Drake to fuck himself and drew a line in the snow. An actual line. With the toe of his boot. If I'd been there I'd have kissed the hem of his tunic, if he was wearing a tunic. Drake said he'd be back, but a man like Avery doesn't get to own one hundred and seventy thousand acres by standing around waiting. He got the Alliance for the Wild Rockies to file suit, and the district court judge came down in their favor, saying the DOL was harassing a threatened species, grizzly bears, with the chopper racket and issuing a temporary restraining order to cease and desist. I asked for an audience with the man and he gave us permission to camp here and make certain the law's being enforced.”

“Were the bison killed at the Palisades part of the herd they were trying to haze?”

McKenzie nodded. “Most surely. When we put the herd to bed last Tuesday night, we counted forty-four head. That includes the calves born on the property in the past month and a half. Usually a mixed herd doesn't move too far after dark, but these bison are led by an old cow with a broken horn who has itchy feet. By eight o'clock Thursday morning we knew the herd had divided and some of the bison had hit the highway and gone up 287 along the Madison River. Wasn't the first time she'd led a splinter group on a sightseeing tour. Bison aren't hard to follow when they're sticking to pavement, it's follow the pies, but we lost them after they crossed to the west side of the river at Raynold's Pass bridge. Nobody saw the herd again until they were on the game range, so they were covering country. I don't need to tell you that after that it was just a matter of time before they were killed, jump or no jump.”

“They created an intolerable situation for the state.”

“Lucien Drake couldn't put it better himself. Because that's what this is really all about. Tolerance. Sharing a little bit of grassland with a fellow species that was here before we showed up, and that we could coexist with if we tried.”

“Is it hopeless to think the situation will change?”

“Not at all. All it takes is some old codgers in the legislature to keel over, so that we can pass an interagency plan that shifts bison management from the Department of Livestock back to the state wildlife and parks department, where it belongs. As my old friend Edward Abbey put it, we just have to outlive the bastards.”

He threw his head back to implore the sky. “Do you hear me, old man?” And to Stranahan: “As Isaac and Mother have been kind enough to remind me, Cactus Ed didn't outlive the bastards. But they'll find I won't go easily into that good night.”

McKenzie picked up his tea and set it back down, seeing the cup was empty. “You'll excuse us for a few minutes,” he said. “We need to input today's data and make a game plan for the morning. And Mother has to process applications. We've had more volunteer requests since the news broke than all last winter.”

“Forty-one,” the woman said, “and I haven't checked the incoming today.”

“That must be a windfall,” Sean said.

She rolled her eyes. “Look around you. Most of us are too tired to talk by this hour. Volunteers get charged up thinking there's going to be tent hopping and hippie sex, then they find out that animal advocacy is a slog and people call you filthy names and you watch magnificent animals die miserable deaths and the only bathing facility is a creek. We ask volunteers to stay at least two weeks, but most are gone in a few days. And we don't need them now. In the summer the bison stay mostly in the park. When we need bodies is at twenty below zero during the slaughter. We'll see how many show up then.”

She stood, which was the signal for the rest, and after Sean shook
hands and wished the volunteers good night, he found himself alone. He went to check on Choti. He liked these people, hadn't thought about it but should have known. Sean had decided long ago that liking people was a choice, and he'd always been drawn to the McKenzies of the world, who heard their calling and answered the bell, whose mission broke the heart but who somehow managed to maintain a sense of humor while losing one round after another.

“Let him out if he knows how to stay.” It was McKenzie, swinging a lit lantern by its wire handle. Standing next to him, Sean saw that he was almost a head shorter, which surprised him, for the aura was that of a much bigger man.

“Thanks.” Sean got the elk steak and a wire grilling basket.

“What cut did you bring me?”

“Top round. A bull, so it's on the tough side.”

“That's what your molars are for.”

McKenzie sat down by the fire, setting the lantern on a stump. Sean busied himself shifting stones to form a keyhole at the side of the fire ring and scraped some coals into it.

“You didn't really drive all this way just to talk about a few buffalo, did you?' McKenzie said. He tapped the side of his long nose.

“I was waiting until we were alone,” Sean said.

“It's just the three of us now.” The old man looked deep into Choti's eyes and stroked her head. “Good dog, you're a good dog.”

“That Indian man who died,” Sean said, “he may have been associated with two young white men, brothers named Karlson. I heard they volunteered for you. They wear felt hats with trout flies sticking out of them, call themselves the Fedora brothers.”

McKenzie shook his head. “You're asking me to violate our privacy clause. We have volunteers who would lose their jobs over their association with us. I don't want to be a hard-ass, but you came with a card, not a badge. Try rephrasing your question.”

“Fair enough. No need for names. Do you have any brothers volunteering at this time?”

“No.”

“Have you had any volunteers who were brothers in the past few months?”

“Yes.”

“How long were they here?”

“About a week back in March, during the hazing season. Then they were here last month for a couple weeks after their college semester ended. They left in June, but they were still around last week. We marched in the Ennis parade and I remember seeing them outside the Long Branch and thinking good riddance.”

“Good riddance?”

“I had to ask them to leave the camp. Actually, I grabbed one of the lads by the balls and twisted until his eyes popped out of his head. Isaac had caught him in Lilly's tent. Lilly has been a victim of abuse and suffers from low self-esteem, and her reaction to that has been to revert to the personality of a child. She can be persuaded to do what people ask of her, which makes her an easy victim. The man struck Isaac when he tried to drag him off her. When I got there he still had his pants down, and I gave him something to think about for a long time after. His brother had to help him to their truck and they left shouting that we were going to be sued by their father. But I don't expect to hear back. I have a feeling the incident isn't something the old man would want to revisit in a public venue.”