Heap Big Pile of Bones...

A pile of bison skulls circa 1870!

I found this photograph while I was searching for a good public domain graphic of a skull.  It's a frakking huge pile of bison skulls.  The skulls are going to be ground into bone meal for use as a fertilizer.  As unusual as this photo is, what I would like to see is the machine they use to grind the skulls!  I can't imagine they do it by hand, but who knows.  I also wonder what they did with the rest of the bones?  If I recall my history correctly the buffalo hunters usually only took the hides, and left the rest to rot.  I imagine the enterprising future fertilizer tycoon realized there was a fortune to be made from the bones, and had crews pick them up off the plains.

Anyway, I thought of how this could be used in a weird western campaign.  A medicine man of a mostly decimated tribe of Native Americans could use some ancient magic and animate the pile into something terrible.  A giant bone golem, or perhaps a herd of ghost bison?  Maybe a bit of both, there's quite a few bison skulls in that pile.  It's time to wreak vengeance on the white man!