Throwing one leg up and over his pony’s head, Joe dismounted and approached the buffalo. Its dark, humped form was slumped over, looking like a shaggy, debilitated volcano.
Examining the wound, Joe remarked, “A head shot is something of a break with tradition, but at least only one bullet brought him down.”
Walking over to the dead bull, Jak said, “Two.”
Joe glanced up at him. “What?”
Extending a pair of fingers, Jak repeated, “Two.” He pointed to himself, then to Joe. “One. Two.”
“Your bullet did not bring it down, therefore it cannot be counted.” Joe’s tone brooked no debate.
“You keeping score?” Jak demanded. “Like contest?”
“All life is a contest, young man. Past time you learned that.”
Jak glared at the Lakota, then he quickly raised his blaster. Joe recoiled, fumbling to bring up his weapon, eyes wide with sudden fear. Jak’s blaster continued to rise, over his head, and he fired two shots into the air.
“Signal,” he said. “Two bullets. You lose two points for flinching.”
Joe’s lips tightened, then he muttered something in his own tongue and turned his attention to the buffalo. Stripping down to his breechclout, Joe removed his pack of possessions from his pony and withdrew a very long skinning knife from a fur-lined sheath. It had no hilt, and the steel blade widened and curved slightly toward the tip.
After recovering his horse, Jak watched the butchering process with an expressionless face but an interested eye. The difficulty with butchering the buffalo was that it could neither be hanged and dressed like a deer nor turned onto its back. Lashing ropes to the buffalo’s legs and knotting them around his pony’s neck, Joe then backed up his steed until the legs were pulled and braced outward.
By the time Jak saw his friends riding toward them across the plain, Joe had already made the first cut crosswise at the nape and the second cut along the length of the spine. Lateral cuts were made along the insides of all four legs. Tugging, wrestling and grunting, Joe peeled the skin away from the body, revealing the thick layer of fat and tallow beneath. The hump looked like a small hill covered in glistening fat of surprising whiteness. Joe continued to pull the hide back in jerks of several feet at a time. It was hard, bloody work, and since Jak wasn’t asked to help, he wasn’t about to offer it.
When Ryan and the others cantered up, Joe was spreading the hide around the flayed beast like a picnic cloth. He was covered with gore, his near-naked body plastered with grease, hair, fat and blood. It was clotted thickly between his fingers.
“You had better luck than we did,” J.B. said, swinging out of the saddle. “Stampeded on us. Lucky we weren’t all stomped and squashed right into the basin.”
Joe didn’t respond. He plunged the knife into the buffalo, almost at ground level, and slit it open. Then his drove his hand inside the carcass and ripped out the liver, dripping blood and seemingly palpitating. He rose and carried it over to Jak, holding it up in front of his face. He said nothing.
Jak stared at him over the dark, crimson-smeared organ, then leaned forward and sank his teeth into one dangling end. He gnawed off a hunk of the raw, hot liver, keeping his eyes on Joe’s face all the while. It was tough, and he chewed through a few stringy vessels before he was able to tear it free and swallow it.
Once he swallowed the mouthful, he felt his muscles begin to tense and quiver, relax, then tense again. For a moment he felt as if he could have caught the breeze and flown to the Wind River Mountain Range. Despite himself, he felt a smile crossing his face, his teeth red filmed, blood streaking his white chin.
He knew Joe’s offer of the first bite of the liver was the closest thing he could expect by way of an acknowledgment of his shot or an apology, and Jak decided not to push it further.
Joe bit off a morsel of liver himself, then went back to butchering the buffalo, taking the cuts he claimed were the most desirable. While he worked, he asked the others to set up camp and collect firewood. An owlhoot’s oven wouldn’t suffice for the feast he had in mind.