From the short story "Confession for Raymond Good Bird"

You hauled thirty-seven dead sheep down a hillside west of Helena. They'd died as one, skulls fractured by lightning, the head of each sheep resting tenderly on the rump of another. They were filthy now, their gray wool rain-soaked, their shocked bodies bloated. Flies swarmed you and them.  Crows and hawks and kestrels circled. You lifted them by their broken legs, you and two Colombian men who called themselves Jesús and Eduardo, who jabbered as they worked, quick Spanish words muffled by bandannas. You tore your own rag from your mouth and nose to be with the dead, to know their smell, to breathe their bodies. The Colombian brothers laughed when they heard you choking.  Estúpido. Even then you didn't hide your face. You heaved the pitiful animals into the bed of the rancher's truck. You saw that each face was distinct, with a certain space between the eyes, a soft curve of the mouth, a singular tilt of nose and forehead. Each one of them - and you, and Jesús, and Eduardo - secretly made, silently beloved. Why were you whole? Why were they shattered? 

You left that night. Issaquah, Butte, Aberdeen, Seattle. You slept in the woods, in a cardboard box, in a barn with a whiteman's cow, in a bed of leaves under a freeway. You dove in dumpsters for bruised fruit, half-eaten buffalo wings, cold biscuits and gravy. You snatched three perfect blue eggs from the nest of a robin. The birds woke you for a hundred nights, beaks sharp as barbs in your lungs and liver.  You stole corn from pigs and a gnawed bone from an old wolfhound.  He rose on his crippled hips to tug his chain, too sick and slow to nip you. A goat gave you her milk, and for this offering, you praised her.

North of Spokane, you walked up a dirt road to a weather-wracked farmhouse. You meant to ask for work mucking stalls in exchange for one meal. Nobody answered your knock, but you touched the doorknob and it turned. You breathed, and the door opened. The sweet smell of cherries sucked you inside, pulled you in a dream down a long passage to a sun-dazzled kitchen. 

There it was, all for you, a cherry pie with a lattice crust, cooling on the table. In the freezer, a half gallon tub of vanilla ice cream waited - untouched, perfectly white, unbelievably creamy.

You thought, Just one piece or maybe a quarter. The pie vanished. Who could blame you? You tried to stop, but you couldn't do it. In your swollen stomach, seven scoops of ice cream swirled.

Your head throbbed. You felt hot and cold at the same time, stunned by bliss and suddenly so tired.  You staggered to the living room, but the couch was old, too short, too lumpy. Somehow you gathered the strength to climb the stairs. You opened three doors before you found the room you wanted, cool and dark with a wide bed and a down comforter.

You were afraid to sleep, but a voice that was your own voice gone mad and mocking said, Why stop now? Why resist this last pleasure? You knew you might die in this bed, victim of your own delight and a farmer's righteous fury. You woke to a woman's voice, insistent and gentle. Mister, you best get up now, go down those stairs and keep walking. She was white-haired, but not old - thin, but not frail. A farmer's wife, yes, without the farmer. The widow cradled an unraised rifle. She was kind: she wanted you to go, but she didn't want to scare you. 

That night it rained and you slept in a child's treehouse. You crept out hours before dawn. If the boy came with his BB gun, he'd aim for your right eye and kill you.

Raymond Good Bird, twenty-two years gone. You walked close to death every hour, but somehow you survived, and then one day you came home to rest, and I let you die in your sister's kitchen.