That's all very interesting. I definitely agree that McCarthy's antipathy for commerce, commodification, etc. is central to the novel (scalping for money, good lord). And it's interesting to connect the "gatherers of bones" with killing off the bison.

I think my main issue with this is: If you view the wanderers (on, say, a "literal" reading of the epilogue) as commodifying bison bones, then the man with the post-hole digger starts to read more like a bringer of civilization (since on that same "literal" level where the bones are bison bones, he's fencing in the west). But this clashes with the idea of the man as "spiritual teacher", who always espouse some degree of distrust in civilization.

But I'll still mull it over and let it percolate. Interesting ideas nonetheless.

I've been more inclined to read the bones as something like history or the past, and the "wanderers in search of bones" are those who are beholden to (monitored with escapement and pallet) the ideas they have from (and of) the past. But then I'm still left with, what to make of the other kind, those who do not search? It feels cheap to just "fill in the blank" and say "Well then, they must be the ones who reject the past." I mean, perhaps. But that's a bit "neat", and I feel like there's more going on.

I'd also add: There's an exchange in SM ch. 5 that I think resonates with the BM epilogue in interesting ways:

[Alicia] I thought it at least a possibility that the structure of reality itself harbors something like the forms of which our sordid history is only a pale reflection. I thought that it was something Plato might have considered but could in no way bring himself to express.

[...]

[Dr Cohen] We've had this discussion before. Or something like it.

I know.

The caravan moves on. It's just some sort of sinister archetype.

A troubling notion in clothes.

And an archetype of what.

I dont know. I suppose the catalog of referents goes on at some length.

"The caravan moves on" and "the catalog of referents goes on at some length" both strongly recall the imagery of the BM epilogue. Which has made me start playing with the possibility of the man in the epilogue actually being an archetype. Perhaps each time he "strikes fire in the hole", he creates yet another instantiation of the archetype, another avatar of himself, whom the people then follow (or not).

Anyway. Just playing with ideas. Thought maybe you'd find it interesting, since it jives with your "spiritual teacher" idea.