The Shaman Laughs

Description

Ute policeman Charlie Moon is called out by the game warden to investigate the disappearance of a local rancher's valuable buffalo, Rolling Thunder. What Moon and his visiting friend, Anglo lawman Scott Parris, have on their hands (along with an officious FBI man) is a killer whose victims are animals. The case is unnerving for Moon and Parris not only because of the owners' financial loss. The bizarre way the animals have been mutilated after death seems to have a connection with the strong atmosphere of evil that has pervaded the area. Old Daisy Perika, whose powers as a shaman are respected by the most worldly Ute and many of the local Anglos, seeks advice from the pitukupf, the mischievous and unpredictable spirit to who she alone has access. But the pitukupf can't prevent the human killings that follow, and Daisy knows she must take a hand herself.