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Summary
Summary
In the wake of Fourth of July fireworks in Montana's Madison Valley, Hyalite County sheriff Martha Ettinger andDeputy Sheriff Harold Little Feather investigate a horrific scene at the Palisades cliffs, where a herd of bison have fallen to their deaths. Victims of blind panic caused by the pyrotechnics, or a ritualistic hunting practice dating back thousands of years? The person who would know is beyond asking, an Indian man found dead among the bison, his leg pierced by an arrow.
Farther up the valley, fly fisherman, painter, and sometime private detective Sean Stranahan has been hired by the beautiful Ida Evening Star, a Chippewa Cree woman who moonlights as a mermaid at the Trout Tails Bar & Grill, to find her old flame, John Running Boy. The cases seem unrelated-until Sean's search leads him right to the brink of the buffalo jump.
With unforgettable characters and written with his signature grace and wry humor, Buffalo Jump Blues weaves a gripping tale of murder, wildlife politics, and lost love.
Author Notes
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Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of McCafferty's absorbing fifth Montana-set Sean Stranahan mystery (after 2015's Crazy Mountain Kiss), something causes 11 bison to jump off the Palisades cliffs. Nearby, Sheriff Martha Ettinger and Deputy Harold Little Feather discover the corpse of a Native American man who was disemboweled, shot with an arrow, and left to die. Down at the local mermaid bar, performer Ida Evening Star hires fly-fishing private eye Stranahan to track down her childhood sweetheart, John Running Boy, whom she thinks may be in town. The cases intersect, and the investigators join forces when it's determined the bison were driven to their deaths during a reenactment of an ancient hunting ritual in which Running Boy likely participated. Nuanced relationships, nontraditional heroes, and a strong sense of place offset two-dimensional antagonists with murky motives. McCafferty's entertaining tale, which shines a light on the government's slaughter of migrating bison, is sure to please advocates for change in current U.S. wildlife management policy. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The lettering on the door reads, Private Investigations, and behind it is an artist's studio rather than a detective's office, although Sean Stranahan does take on select investigations when he isn't painting or fly-fishing. In McCafferty's fifth witty and gripping Montana-set mystery (following Crazy Mountain Kiss, 2015), the plot is as multifaceted as the hero, who is trying to shrug off the collapse of his relationship with flinty sheriff Martha Ettinger. She has taken up with her deputy, Harold Little Feather, who discovers a disturbing crime scene: a herd of buffalo has been driven over a cliff, just as his Blackfeet ancestors used to do when hunting, but these desecrating killers left the wounded in agony and the dead to rot. As Harold and Martha search for the perpetrators, Sean visits his favorite bar, where mermaids named after fishing flies swim in a glass tank, including the Chippewa Nymph, aka Ida Evening Star, who hires Sean to find her lost love. McCafferty's wryly bantering characters are irresistible, his humor tangy, and his lyricism potent as he matches escalating action with intriguing disquisition. The latest in this ever-evolving, highly enjoyable series is a sharply ironic and suspenseful tale surreptitiously veined with profound insights into love, friendship, cultural collisions, and dire conflicts over wildlife and land, the sacred and the profitable.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2016 Booklist
Kirkus Review
An animal sacrifice is prelude to human murder in Montana. The dead and dying should be all in a day's work for Harold Little Feather and his lover and boss, Hyalite County Sheriff Martha Ettinger. But the moaning, broken bodies of bison that left the protected herd on federal property and stampeded over the cliffs guarding the Madison River are heartbreaking. Though Harold's own Blackfeet ancestors used to drive the bison over these cliffs and then kill them in an age-old ritual, he doesn't like having to destroy the first bison to return in 150 years to his people's old hunting grounds. Worse yet, a blood trail he and Martha follow leads to a human body. While Martha tries to learn the identity of the dead man and wrangles with the Montana Department of Livestock over the fate of the stampede's sole surviving bison, her ex-lover Sean Stranahan is getting friendly with a mermaid. Ida Evening Star, one of the swimming attractions of a local bar, hires Sean, who's a private eye (Crazy Mountain Kiss, 2015, etc.) when he isn't a fishing guide and a watercolor artist, to find her childhood sweetheart, John Running Boy. Sean's quest overlaps with Martha's when they learn that John was one of four young men who drove the bison over the cliffs. As Sean and Martha join forces in professional camaraderie and personal regret, the search widens to include an old arrow maker, a bison advocacy group, and a white man called the Great Tatanka. Sean increasingly suspects that the masterminds behind the jump and the murder don't share his respect for the land, the wildlife that inhabit it, and the people who first lived on it. And he'll put his own life on the line to stop the culprits. The fifth case for McCafferty's fly-tying detective is as rich in history, local color, and unique characters as the first four. You can't help hoping that the two leads will solve the problems of their relationship as readily as all those crimes. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof*** Copyright ©2016 Keith McCafferty CHAPTER ONE Kettle of Blood " I suppose a gun would be too much to ask for." Harold Little Feather stared across the river. A small group of gawkers, two fishing guides and the couples who were their clients, gathered at his back. Moaning sounds emanating from the tree and willow tangle at the base of the cliffs were spaced farther apart now, just in the thirty minutes since he'd driven up from Ennis. He'd been sitting down to breakfast when he got the call. His day off, a date to meet Martha and cast a fly in the braids of the Madison, hence unarmed. "I mean, this being Montana and all, land of free men and open carry, I'd think somebody would be packin'." If Martha was here she'd have her Ruger, day off or not. Strapping up was part of her a.m. ritual, like turning Goldie out for a run while she steeped her tea, running a ChapStick across her lips and looking at her face critically in the mirror before squaring her hat. On nights when Harold slept over he'd step up behind her, bring his big hands to her face, chestnut against white, lift the corners of her mouth so she saw herself smile. "I got a two-two." Harold turned around. He'd heard the crunch of gravel a few minutes before as another truck pulled up. It was Peachy Morris hauling his ClackaCraft, the one with the pink ribbon on the hull to show his support for breast cancer research, though anyone who knew Peachy knew the only breast research he was interested in was the hands-on kind. The lanky fishing guide crinkled up his eyes, a What do we have here? look on his face. Harold's glance took in Peachy's clients, a tall, sandy-haired man he recognized as a member of the Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Club, though he had forgotten the name, and a small girl who looked maybe seven. "And what's your name?" Harold asked the girl. The girl hid her face behind a wing of straw-colored hair. It's because I'm Indian, he thought. When she'd boldly pronounced her armament, he'd been facing away from her. The sandy-haired man extended his hand. "Robin Hurt Cowdry. We've met." "Sure. You're from Zimbabwe, you import the African artifacts." "Botswana," the man corrected. "Mugabe redistributed my keister all the way to Botswana. This is Doris, my niece." And to the girl, "Mind your manners." She shyly faced Harold. "You can have my two-two," she said, "but it's back at the house." "I might need something bigger than that," Harold said. His eyes turned to the cliffs as the moaning picked up in volume. "Sounds like a bloody pride of lions," Cowdry said. Harold's nod was half an inch. "It's bison. Guy on the Tenderfoot Creek game range saw them on the escarpment last night, maybe a part of the herd that came out of Yellowstone onto the Hebgen Plateau, reported it to Fish, Wildlife, and Parks this morning. A guide putting in heard the ruckus"--Harold jerked his head to indicate the group standing at the boat ramp--"so he called the county and here I am with my hands in my pockets." "So you figure they fell over the cliffs?" Peachy Morris was tugging on his rowing gloves. "Fourth of July. All that racket down in the valley, people setting off fireworks. They could have panicked." "That's what I'm thinking." "Then let me see what I can come up with." Harold crossed his arms against the bite of morning chill, caught the girl staring at his tattoos, the weasel tracks hunting around his left upper biceps, the hooves of elk following each other around his right. "Are you an Indian?" she said, pushing the hair out of her face. "I've never seen an Indian." "Absolutely," Harold said. "I saw a Zulu warrior dance. They're fiercer than you." "That's because I didn't put on my paint this morning." Peachy was back, handing over a revolver in a leather holster. "It's a .454 Casull. The loads are just snake shot, but there's some hard cast rounds floating around in my boat bag. Shoot through thirty inches of wet phone books." The girl's eyes widened. "Jah, you could right donner them with that. Couldn't he, Uncle Robin?" "Speak American, Dorry," Cowdry said. Morris produced five hard cast loads with the comment that they might not be enough. "How many you think there are?" he said. "Sounds like a few." Harold tipped out the cylinder to eject the snake loads and fed in the full-power rounds. He turned to Cowdry. "I left a message with the sheriff. She comes, she'll have donuts. Tell her to save me one of the glazed. Make sure your niece gets one." He raised his chin to the guide. "Peachy, you think you could row me across?" He spoke briefly to the group who'd been standing on the bank, telling them to wait until he'd crossed before launching and to stay in their boats until they were through the cliffs. He left them stringing fly rods and pushed off with Peachy at the oars of the driftboat, making for a backwater on the far bank. "You want me to come with you?" Peachy dropped the anchor. "No, I got it." Harold ran his eyes to the tops of the cliffs, which were known as the Palisades and stood sentinel for a solid mile over the river's west bank. The moaning sounds were louder here and sounded more like growling, though the reverberation on the rock walls made them hard to place. He drew the Casull from the holster to double-check the loads. "I won't be needing this," he said, and tossed the holster to Peachy. He started hiking up the bank, holding the heavy handgun at his side. The first buffalo was dead, a jagged edge of cannon bone sticking through the skin of its foreleg, its bowels evacuated, its enormous eye glazed over. A cow, fingers of shaggy winter coat hanging off it like brown moss. The cow had rolled after falling off the cliff, carving a wide swale through the brush. Twenty yards farther up, where willows choked the river bottom, was a second cow. Its cavernous rib cage expanded, then collapsed like an accordion. With each exhalation, a ragged gurgling sound blew bubbles in the blood covering its nose and mouth. Its eye followed Harold as he walked around it, but it lacked the strength to turn its head. Harold clenched his jaw. He extended his right arm and shot it in the back of its skull. At the shot, Harold's arm jerked up and back, spinning him halfway around. He brought the barrel down out of recoil, feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder from the wrenching of his arm. Jesus, the thing was a cannon. His ears ringing, he sat down beside the dead bison. The roaring of other bison had become an undertone, dull and muted from the concussion. Eventually the underwater sensation subsided and the sounds of the dying animals came back. Harold tucked his braid under the back of his shirt and fought through brush. He climbed until he reached the base of the cliffs, which was scree rock and sagebrush studded about with giant slabs of stone that had broken away from the cliff face. The rattling, guttural sighs seemed to surround him. He found another dead cow and then three bison still clinging to life, two of them lying down, one on its knees, feebly pushing its short horns against the withers of one of the fallen animals. Harold tore strips from his bandana and wadded them into his ears. He looked away for a few moments, putting off the inevitable. Then he grasped the rubberized grips of the revolver with both hands, extending his arms, and shot the bison that was on its knees. It rolled over and was still. He moved a few feet, sat down, and shot the next one, and then the third. The great heads rocked with the impacts and the moaning stopped. Harold got to his feet. He pulled the cotton out of his ears. Except for the river running, he heard nothing, and the relative silence seemed oppressive. That must be the lot, he thought. He had gone a long way inside himself to find that still place where the hunter went when he killed, had gone so far as to regard the bison as "it" rather than he or she, something no Indian would do without conscious decision for they were his brothers, his sisters, and only now did he take in a bigger picture. Harold was Blackfeet, his people were buffalo people, nomads who had followed the herds until there were no more herds to follow. For thousands of years his ancestors had driven bison over cliffs similar to those above him. In fact, Harold thought, it was entirely likely that they had driven bison over these very cliffs, for this had been a Blackfeet hunting ground and the cliffs formed what was called a pishkun in the tribal language, a "deep blood kettle." But that was before the white man came with his seeds and his cattle, before the Sharps rifles spoke and the Sun Dances held on the reservation became only ceremony. Harold squatted on his heels, facing the river. He watched the occasional car pass by on the highway, a quarter mile to the east. If you lifted your eyes it was Eden as his grandfather's grandfathers had seen it, the mountains uncolored by time. The irony of what he had done, killing the first bison to have returned to these ancient hunting grounds in one hundred and fifty years, was not lost on him, and the tears that hung on the high bones of his cheeks were the tears of his people. He ignored them as a white, boxy-looking vehicle slowed and turned onto the access road. That would be Martha's Cherokee. Well, he'd better get back across and give her the news. The slope he'd climbed earlier was choked with willow and alder, and he looked for an easier route down to the river. To his right the gradient eased, and he'd descended a few yards when he saw the bushes above him bulging and heard a sound like rocks clashing. The head of a bison emerged from the brush, strings of bloody mucus hanging from its nostrils. It was striking its hooves against the stone scree, pawing it. The bison was thirty feet away and it came in a stumbling charge. A bull, its great hump standing taller than Harold's head, coming on three good legs, one rear leg flopping. Harold cocked the hammer on the last round in the Casull and held his fire. Twenty feet, ten, the bison's head dropping to toss him with its thick, incurved horns. Harold brought the muzzle level with its forehead and pulled the trigger, then jumped to the side as the bull fell heavily, its nose plowing into the scree. For a moment it lay still. Then, slowly, it began to slide down the hill. It picked up speed, rolled over once, and came to rest against the trunk of a limber pine tree. Harold had felt the earth shake as the bison fell, and now he couldn't feel his feet underneath him. Where he'd been standing, blood painted the stones. He worked his way down to where the beast lay dead, into the envelope of its heavy odor, into their collective past. The underwater sensation was back and he shook his head. Such a magnificent animal. Such a waste of life. That's when he heard the bleating. It was not loud, but higher-pitched than the moaning he'd heard earlier. He knew it must be a calf. He thought about going back to the landing, waiting for Martha, borrowing her .357 to finish it off. No, do it now. Get it over with. He reached for the bone-handled knife on his hip. Excerpted from Buffalo Jump Blues by Keith McCafferty All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.