In an interview, Simpson said he and other hunters had been pressing for the designation for years. He asked Smith to identify Interior officials who might help with the issue, he says. Soon after, Simpson met with agency officials, and the designation process was set in motion, according to the inspector general's report. Simpson says the port designation saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in permit fees and other costs for his clients alone. "This was not at all a favor to me by David Smith," says Simpson, past president of Safari Club International. "I understand how it looked that way, but it really wasn't."

Smith, one of several Interior officials who dealt with the port issue, signed the rule designating Houston on Nov. 29, 2004. Two other ports were also designated. A few days later, at Simpson's invitation, he attended an annual barbecue at the Double D ranch, a 5,000-acre spread southeast of Austin owned by Dan Duncan, a billionaire oilman.

Duncan is identified in the report as "the rancher," though not by name. It says that he "vaguely recalled some brief mention" of the Houston port designation during the gathering. The report says that Duncan also said that Smith was given the "honor" of killing the old, ill buffalo. "According to the rancher," the report continues, "one could practically walk up and pet the animal." Duncan said that Smith shot the buffalo from "30 to 40 yards away," investigators wrote.

Point blank. Smith says that the animal was dangerous and had damaged equipment on the ranch. He says that the ranch manager asked him to kill the animal--and that he was anywhere from 75 to 125 yards away when he shot the buffalo between the eyes with a .300 Winchester Magnum rifle. He shot it a second time in the same spot, then walked up and fired a third shot into its brain at point-blank range.

Smith says that Simpson completed the taxidermy work last August. The skull was bleached, the hide tanned, and the hooves made into bookends. He says he paid $2,770 for the work; the ranch charged him an additional $400 "for an old, excess bison."

Smith says some will ridicule him for killing an American icon. But he's comfortable with what he did, he says: "I killed the animal as humanely as possible."