Mexican Game Trails: Americans Afield in Old Mexico, 1866-1940

"Mexican Game Trails" is a compendium of short stories written by Americans hunting in Mexico between 1866-1940. Almost all the stories are excellent. One of the memorable ones concerns a huge herd of buffalo in, I think, Chihuahua, a place bison didn't ordinarily occur. Apparently, the the buffalo herds in the north were being decimated and this herd migrated south to avoid the apocalypse. The local Mexicans decided to add a few bullets of their own but, when they discovered the body of an Apache hunter crushed by the thundering herd, they rushed, en masse and terrified, back to the safety of their town--such was their fear of the Apache. Another great story involves the Seri Indians of Tiburon Island in the Sea of Cortez. Some American sportsmen from Yuma build a boat and sail down the Colorado into the Gulf. They have multiple trials and tribulations but nothing like what they would face on Tiburon. They meet the Indians and all seems well. One of the gringos is stupid enough to marry the chief's daughter. One guy goes hunting with the Seris killing a mule deer. His Indian guides become apoplectic with excitement--they fall to the ground and have something like epileptic fits. Now this would have been enough for me to have rapidly retreated to the boat but these guys, despite evidence that things were "going south", stick it out. The Seris stage an underhanded attack and kill two or three Americans. They then try to lure those who had remained in the boat into the shore. Fortunately for them, they stayed out of reach but their comrades were dead and possibly cannibalized. This, and other murders, finally led to the Mexican Army going to war against the Seris. The Seri survivors were picked up, placed on a reservation on the mainland and carefully watched by Mexican soldiers. Now, many years later, the Seris are permitted back onto the island where they sell desert bighorn sheep hunts [released in the 1970s] for $100,000.00 each. They also go up to Arizona and sell handmade trinkets in southwestern art stores. As far as I know, they haven't eaten any Arizonans during the past few years. Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Conquest of Mexico