On a clear, autumn morning in early November, Lewis TallBull took a handful of men through a gate at Daniels Park, a Denver Mountain Park in Douglas County.
One held a rifle against his shoulder.
Denver has kept a few dozen bison — known as buffalo in Native communities — on the ridge overlooking the city skyline since 1938. More than 150 attendees watched as the group approached a pen holding a 600-pound bull. Once it arrived, TallBull’s nephew leveled the gun atop the fence, his sight focused just below the bison’s horns.
A few minutes passed before a gunshot echoed across the park and nearby suburbs. As the bison slumped into the dirt, the crowd celebrated with a chorus of war cries and approached the site of the dying buffalo…