This coming September I am scheduled to rendezvous with Ishmael and Shayne in Northern Utah, near Crow territory, to research Kettle of Bones, a Crow warriors’ view of the infamous feud between these friends of the U.S. Army, and Liver-Eater Johnson ,a virulent Indian-killer who served in the same army that used Crow scouts.

Much myth, misattribution and exaggerated numbers haunts this dim story. My plan is to take a minimalistic consideration of the legend in light of the Smallpox epidemic that killed between 85 and 91% of the Crow Nation, as well as their feuds with the Sioux [the largest tribe of the region], the Cheyenne, and the Blackfeet [the most feared warriors of the region], and yet other enemy tribes. The Crow were a besieged people.

Shayne will be our Liver-Eater stand-in, as he is the only one of us three to have fought other humans with firearms and remains an active hunter. Ishmael and Shayne hit upon the idea of freezing the meat of various game for me to eat, in order to literally gain a taste for the life of an Indian warrior. It seems that Ishmael has already stored some bison and elk, and is trying to get his hands on some cougar meat for me—although I run into plenty of that in Harm City.

A few days ago Shayne sent me an e-mail in which he included some prosaic anti-hoodrat suggestions and also stood for photos of him holding two items for my Noah’s Ark dining experience: a possum and a coyote, which was worrying his chickens and looks like a gray version of the Puerto Rican dog that attacked me when I was a little boy.

The one thing that strikes me about Shayne is that rifleman’s squint as he holds what looks like a .223 carbine in one hand and a coyote by the tail in the other. Putting myself in the position of a Crow wielding a bow, tomahawk and knife, all weapons I have been proficient with, and the knife an expert with, I could not even imagine getting close enough to this guy for him to hear the thud of the fifty-caliber ball he sent into me.

For the record, Kettle of Bones is to be written as a horror story, using Shayne’s notes on the monster perspective. The Liver-Eater Reader will be released as a preliminary study in August. A third, as yet untitled book, will be written about our experience walking in the footsteps of a monster, who Shayne described upon viewing his U.S. Army portrait as “A big fooker.”