Rick Bass

Selected stories. Wild horses ; In Ruth's Country ; Redfish ; Watch ; Legend of Pig-Eye ; History of Rodney ; Fires ; Field events ; Hermit's story ; Fireman ; Swans ; Elk ; Pagans ; Canoeists ; Goats ; Her first elk ; Titan ; Lives of rocks -- New stories. How she remembers ; Blue tree ; Lease hound ; River in winter ; Coach ; Alcoholic's guide to Peru and Chile ; Fish story.

A poignant look at the thirty-year journey of one of our country's great naturalist writers, Why I Came West explores how Rick Bass fell in love with the mystique of the West (and the Yaak Valley of northwestern Montana in particular) as a dramatic landscape, as an idea, and as a way of life. In a series of moving chapters, Bass describes his own transformation into the writer, hunter, and environmental activist that he is today. He profiles how the...

A transformative journey written in gratitude to the author's mentors describes his midlife attempt to recapture the passions of his youth, an effort marked by encounters with famous contemporaries and a variety of colorful mishaps.

A compilation of short fiction includes the title story about a woman's recovery from cancer, as well as "Pagans, " a retrospective about the dangerous games played by a girl and two boys in their youth, and "Her First Elk, " in which a woman recalls her first elk hunt.