title: The Man Who Killed the Deer
author:  Frank Waters 
description: The story of Martiniano, the man who killed the deer, is a timeless story of Pueblo Indian sin and redemption, and of the conflict between Indian and white laws; written with a poetically charged beauty of style, a purity of conception, and a thorough understanding of Indian values.
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  [www.sfwp.com](http://www.sfwp.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For my family
  
  
  For the community
  
  
  For the land
  
  
  For all our different strengths
  
  
  In memory of too many
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  H
  
  
  ere they were then, all these things and shadows
  
  
  of things ensnared like flies in the web of silence.
  
  
  —Frank Waters, The Man Who Killed the Deer
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  usty stood at the window, thinking about the snow, the house a fortress of
  shadows, and traced a river on the windowpane, a deer loping over the jagged
  line of water. Anything not to feel her stomach tumble in hunger again. She
  tried to remember the last time the lights were on—maybe a week ago—and she
  wished Jake would pick up the fiddle and distract them, like he’d done every
  night this week. Before he’d gone into Sullivan’s with  
  
  
  the can of pennies and tried to buy food. Before Dale had broken one of her
  baptismal promises to Jehovah.
  
  
  
  
  
  As the s