A mysterious penitent confesses to murder, and then flees the confessional before Father John can identify him. Two months later, Vicky discovers rancher Dennis Carey shot dead in his truck along Blue Sky Highway. With the tragic news comes the exposure of an astonishing secret: the most sacred creature in Native American mythology, a white buffalo calf, was recently born on Carey’s ranch.
Making national headlines, the miraculous animal draws a flood of pilgrims to the reservation, frustrating an already difficult investigation. As visitors throw the reservation into turmoil, Vicky and Father John try to unravel the strange events surrounding both Carey’s murder and the recent disappearances of three cowboys from his ranch.
It could be coincidence, given the nomadic life of the cowboy trade, but when one of them fails to appear in court to testify on an assault charge, Vicky wonders if Arnie Walkfast and his Arapaho buddies are guilty of more than just assault. And at the back of Father John’s mind is the voice from the man in the confessional: I killed a man.
For me, the idea for a novel just arrives. One day I don't know what I might write, and the next day, I have an IDEA. It is just as Willie Nelson said when he was asked where ideas for his songs came from. Ideas float around in the universe, according to Willie, and from time to time one of them drops into his head.
Ideas for novels don't usually drop into my head fully blown. They come in bits and pieces. For years I have enjoyed visiting friends on the Wind River Reservation who run a buffalo ranch. I've ridden a flatbed out into the pasture at feeding time, holding on for dear life as the buffalo herd pounded toward us and my friend forked off bales of hay. I've watched a buffalo calf being born. I've heard lots of stories about living with a buffalo herd in your pasture. They can jump higher than deer, run like lightning, break through the toughest fences. They are always wild - always themselves. You can't change buffalo, modernize them, domesticate them, turn them into pets, or make them other than who they are. There is something wonderful about that wildness that I wanted to write about.
I had also read about the spiritual connection between the buffalo and the Plains Indians. They see the buffalo as a gift from the Creator to sustain their lives, which was certainly the case in the Old Time when buffalo provided all of life's necessities: food, clothing, shelter, tools. (Buffalo meat is delicious!) And the birth of a white buffalo calf is considered a sign from the Creator that he has not forgotten his people, that he is still with them. It is a momentous event that can bring pilgrims from all over and chance lives. So bits and pieces of ideas slowly coalesced into the idea for Night of the White Buffalo.
So I had the idea. Then what? I begin every novel by asking the "what if?" questions. What if a white buffalo calf were born on the reservation? What if this sacred animal were born on a ranch run by whites? What if the white rancher is shot to death? What if thousands of people come to see the white calf? What if the reservation is turned upside-down, Arapaho against white, Arapaho against Arapaho? What if Vicky Holden and Father John O'Malley find themselves in the midst of the chaos? The story came from the answers to those questions.
And in the end, I think the novel turned out to be what I had wanted it would be. A story that revolves around the culture and spiritual beliefs of the Arapaho, but is a mystery - a twisting, surprising, page-turning one, I hope.
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