“He’s George Nichols’s hired killer. The notion of a killing for hire gave me an idea. You ever seen three hundred dollars before, Billy Hancock?”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“I got that much in the Colorado National Bank in Denver.” Parmelee watched him through pensive eyes. “I haven’t made up my mind yet, but if you’re as good as I think you might be…”
“At what?”
“We’ll see at End-of-the-Tracks. If you’re good, I might pay you that whole three hundred dollars to do some killing.”
“The whore?”
“No, she’s mine. Very personally mine. I’m thinking about you dry-gulching George Nichols. His people won’t have a single notion of who you are or why you’d kill him. The Meadowlark would have no idea who to hunt down for making his boss into dust.”
“All that for three hundred dollars?”
“That’s a year’s wages, my friend.”
Billy broke out in laughter. By damn, the Devil was playing him good. One thing Billy had never been short of was a sense of humor.
114
June 1, 1868
These were halcyon days for the Dukurika. Yet again Butler found himself amazed by the genius of the Sheep Eaters and their resource-filled world. What looked like rough and mountainous country was a virtual breadbasket. From strategically placed camps, hunters had a wealth of different animals to pursue. Within a day’s walk downhill were long-established antelope drive lines and traps. In the foothills, cunning hunters set braided rawhide snares for mule deer along narrow paths between choke points on steep and rocky trails. Up high, mountain sheep could be stalked in the open meadows, and marmots on rocky slopes. Rabbits and grouse were common fare, brought down by throwing sticks. Nets were placed at exits, and pack-rat nests set afire to drive them out. By careful herding, bison were driven into dead-end canyons, and high-country hunters returned with pika and ptarmigan. If it ran, slithered, crawled, swam, or flew, it was fair game for the stew pots. Even coyote—which other Shoshoni considered taboo—was cut up and thrown into the Sheep Eater larder.
In addition the sego lily, bitterroot, shooting star, biscuit root, bladderwort, wild onions, cactus blossoms and tunas, elk cabbage, juniper berries, yucca blossoms, pine nuts, balsam, pond lily and cattail roots, wild licorice, breadroot, tobacco root, mint, and many other plants added variety. To Butler’s delight, not only were the soups and breads delicious, but a tea made from blazing star seeds reminded him of lemonade.
Not all of the harvest was consumed. Even now, portions were placed to one side to dry before being processed for winter storage. Plant material in particular was desiccated and compacted into rawhide parfleches. Wild hemp and milkweed were stripped for fibers, as was juniper bark and yucca leaves, the fibers processed into cordage. If the Sheep Eaters depended on any piece of hunting gear, it was nets—they used them for everything. Small nets were for catching crickets, fish, pack rats, and rabbits. Medium sized for netting grouse, coyotes, and beavers. The large ones for deer and mountain sheep. Second in priority were the braided ropes for snares that ranged from elk-sturdy at the top, to cord capable of suspending a flopping rabbit.
While nets and snares provided most of the catch, a man’s most prized possession was a sinew-backed horn bow. Each one painstakingly crafted from the heavy boss of a fully mature mountain ram. Such bows might take a year to manufacture, and Butler had seen one drive an obsidian-tipped arrow past its fletching into a bison’s chest. Despite never having been stronger, it was all he could do to pull Cracked Bone Thrower’s, let alone hold and aim with it.
That day Mountain Flicker led the way as they walked down an elk trail that skirted the bottom of a thick patch of subalpine fir and lodgepole pine where they had been working.
They had spent nearly an hour collecting pitch from old cuts in the fir trees. The balls of hardened sap would be moistened and mixed with crushed larkspur and gumweed. Then the concoction was boiled into an insect repellent that, when mixed with fat, could be rubbed on to keep off ticks and mosquitoes.
Like most things in the Sheep Eater world, this patch of trees was cultivated. As they left each tree, Butler had been instructed to slice additional gouges into the bark so that whoever came back later would find a new and plentiful source of the sap.
Sheep Eaters didn’t just live in the world, they changed it, guided it, and shaped it to produce for their needs. One of the first things he’d helped Cracked Bone Thrower and Puhagan do after his journey to the Spirit World was set fire to a large meadow over on the Wind River.
“Too much sagebrush,” Cracked Bone Thrower had told him. “We burn it now. When we come back next fall, this will all be filled with goosefoot to harvest. That slope up there. It used to be full of rice grass. If the sagebrush continues to grow, there will be none. But if we burn it now, in two years, it will be full of rice grass again.”
Life among the Dukurika was all about long-term planning.
Butler let his gaze travel across the narrow mountain valley with its rock outcrops, grassy meadows, and mixed patches of timber. When he thought about it, it was a lot like managing a farm to keep it productive.
Farther up the valley and above, elk grazed a lush meadow, their pale tan catching the bright sunlight. He could still see the skeletons of burned trees dotting the slope. Flicker had told him that it had been purposely set afire four years ago in hopes it would become elk pasture.
How odd; he would have thought this entire country a wilderness, untouched by human hand. Instead, most every inch of it was being manipulated with the same careful forethought that a Mississippi planter gave to his plantation. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his happy forest savage was no more true than the Eastern
