"This is a novel about the buffalo hunters and of the herds they wiped out. Sandy MacKenzie was one of them. For him killing buffalo was a living. He respected the shaggy beasts and felt their annihilation as a loss to the country. It wasn't easy for him, but he could forge another, a better life. But for his shooting partner, Charlie Gilson, massacring buffalo meant self-respect. Killing was a fever. Even in the good days, when they were milling herds to shoot down every day, Charlie and Sandy fought about their work, the land they ranged, and Charlie's Indian woman. After the buffalo thinned out, the tension heightened, and a showdown was bound to come."--Jacket.