Wind and Dust vs. White Men with Guns

Wind and Dust vs. White Men with Guns

Thacker Pass remembers when the hairy, pale-skinned men came to round up her people and drag them away to the forts. The hoofbeats of cavalry warhorses thundered through the basin. Pistols popped and carbines cracked. Children and elders hid in the red shadows of the...
She Would Never Rise From the Dead Again

She Would Never Rise From the Dead Again

Sentinel Rock, a naturally-formed stone tower, stands at Thacker Pass’ eastern entrance. The day before Easter, Max Wilbert and I accompanied Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone tribal members Daranda Hinkey, her father Day, and Eddie Smart to Sentinel Rock. We had...
The Potato Bug and the World We Used to Live In

The Potato Bug and the World We Used to Live In

Thacker Pass remembers the world we used to live in. She murmurs these memories in the long strides and white haunches of mule deer fleeing the scents of humans over the sage. She sends her reminiscences in sudden March snow squalls on otherwise sunny days. She...