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finally, after repeated jabs, rose weakly and lumbered after Grignon, the many arrows rippling and sending streams of blood down its thick pelt. Bouchet was dragged behind in the dust by the tail, laughing in a high-pitched tone. The buffalo stopped after only a dozen yards and made a halfhearted effort to dislodge Bouchet, then collapsed, blood pouring from the innumerable arrow wounds. Grignon walked back to the beast, looked it in the eyes, placed his pistol against the creature’s head, and fired.
    Ferris had taken refuge near me. I noticed he also had not joined in the hunt.
    “Waste of meat,” he yelled out over the sound of shooting.
    “But a glorious hunt,” I said.
    He did not comment. I saw he did not agree. He did not think it was glorious. He thought it was a useless slaughter. A part of me agreed, but I was not indifferent to the hunt, either. I could not be so close to the men engaged in that sport and not want to join in. Everyone, it seemed, had gotten their bull. I had not. And a feeling of absolute misery quivered inside me.
    Nearby, a young bull was flushed from a dense patch of foliage, and I was off in an instant, up the side of a nearly vertical hill, pursuing the bull.
    As we neared the crest of the rise I let go of my reins and raised my rifle to fire. Just as I did the bull veered back toward meand I thought it odd for the creature to turn back after fleeing so desperately, but understood after a moment that there was someone coming over the rise on the other side. I thought I ought to lower my weapon, and then I thought, No, I have chased this beast. This one is mine. Let them lower theirs.
    I kept my weapon raised, and just as I was about to fire I saw that it was Bridger coming up over the rise. Either the jolting of the horse or my own ineptitude made me shoot low. At the same instant Bridger shot. The bull was at the same height as his gun. If he’d hit it, all would have been well. He missed. I was close enough to see the blanket wad come from Bridger’s muzzle. At the same instant I was thrown back and the world slowed and stopped. The smoke from my discharge hung overhead. A calmness and resignation flowed into me.
    I am slain, I thought.
    I felt my body hit and roll and wrench across the clayey soil.
    The next thing I knew I was being dragged over grass by Pegleg who had a bloody piece of flesh stuck in the waist of his leggins.
    “Gimme your paw, Wyeth, you ain’t a virgin no more. Help me, boys.”
    Glass bent to one arm. Bridger, who was bleeding from the head, grabbed my legs, and was almost bawling.
    “All you did was gutshot him,” Pegleg said. “Now if you’d hit him a little lower he’d have room to complain.”
    They set me on a buffalo robe. My gut and my legs were wet with blood. I tried to sit up but could not. I was strangely chilled but felt little pain. Bridger knelt at my side, gape-mouthed, with a sad, dumb, cow-like expression.
    “How are you, Wyeth?” he asked. But before I could answer,Ferris arrived, jerking Bridger away and shoving him to the ground. I believe he would have stomped on him but Branch stood between them.
    “Vanish,” Branch said to Bridger.
    Ferris knelt next to me. “How do you feel?”
    “Never been better,” I said faintly.
    I felt cold water splash my gut and something squirming at my side—black tadpoles flapping. That was Pegleg, who’d brought a hatful of water.
    “Wash without the fish,” Ferris said in a derisive tone that was not normal for him. A while later I felt the pressure of Ferris’s hand gently prodding my stomach, pushing something in. A sort of faintness welled as he did it. And then I did faint.
    When I awoke there was a native staring down at me, holding a wooden cudgel with a little hair on the end. It was Chief Red Elk. He stood over me, feathers dangling off the braids of his hair, sweat streaks on his cheeks. I thought perhaps he’d come to watch a white man die, or to cudgel me. But he did neither. He