“We were both in the millions, and we almost disappeared.” Steve Tamayo, Cultural Specialist of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, speaks with some sadness in his voice in referring to what the Plains People of the American West consider to be their brothers and sisters: the American Bison. Once a “moving multitude which darkened the whole plains,” as William Clark, the American explorer, described, this resilient yet vulnerable animal reached extinction by the end of the nineteenth century, its skeletons piled high in the grasses in massive mountains of white. Yet, today, not everything is so black and white: in this account of one of America’s most iconic creatures, we learn the story of the ways in which the spirit of the American bison continued to find its place in the hearts of at first a few, and then many, of its guardians, making its way back into the American landscape to remind us of a wilderness that precedes us all and still calls for our collective stewardship.