"Kittredge paints with these colors: sky blue, night black, blood red. Nature has more--but none truer."--"The New York Times Book Review"""We were meat hunters. You spent money for shells, you brought home meat. I saw Teddy Spandau die on that account. Went off into open water chest deep, just trying to get some birds he shot. Cramped up and drowned. We hauled a boat down and fished him out that afternoon.""--from "The Waterfowl Tree"A master storyteller and essayist, William Kittredge is best known for his unflinching vision of the hardscrabble landscape of the West and the people who survive and die in it. His stories are stripped down but bristle with life to offer a dusty, relentless landscape; the smell of freshly turned dirt; the blunt conversations about work that needs doing; and the rare, quiet moment of reflection that amounts to nothing less than poetry. This volume represents the best of Kittredge's stories, available together in a handsome edition.