Late one evening last fall, as darkness drew in on Montana's Great Bear Wilderness, a hunter on a lathered horse reined up in front of Carrie Hunt and Tim Manley's camp, shouting breathlessly. A radio-collared grizzly was ripping apart his tent, and he wanted to know what the hell the…

Are Peltier's supporters—or his attackers—the true "merchants of myth"?

He became a rallying cry for centuries of oppression against his people, one of America's most potent political symbols. But now, 20 years after the murder of two FBI agents that put him in prison for life, he's more important as a legend than as a man, and the legend has begun to unravel.