The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

Arthur calls the deputies to remove the corpses from the chapel. He identifies Good Stab as the killer. 

Two weeks after Good Stab ended his confession, Arthur remains in Miles City. He keeps expecting that Good Stab will come to kill him, but he never does. Mice infest his chapel, eating his supply of food. Arthur loses his appetite, even as the parishioners continue to bring him more food.

Arthur resumes his Sunday services. At each service, he breaks an egg into a clear chalice to reassure his congregation that the chapel is not cursed. He momentarily panics when he sees an Indigenous American man at the service, but it is only Amos. After the service, Arthur bribes Amos with another bottle of alcohol and then asks the saloon bartender to provide him with a supply of alcohol at Arthur’s expense. Arthur does this so that he never has to hear an Indigenous American person’s confession again.

One week later, while he is preparing for Sunday service, Arthur accidentally breaks an egg and finds that it is rotten. He breaks a few more and sees they are rotten as well. Afraid of what his parishioners might think, he retrieves fresh eggs from his parsonage and uses them for his service. When he leans on his podium, he finds that it has been draped over with a buffalo skin. He looks up into the chapel and sees that it is filled with the dead of Miles City, the dead Flowers men, and the dead from the Marias Massacre. Arthur runs out of the chapel and locks himself in his parsonage. Hours later, he returns to the chapel to write his final journal entry, believing that Good Stab will finally come for him. He hides the journal in the wall for the mice to eat.

Six months after she started reading Arthur’s journal, Etsy Beaucarne is disappointed to learn that her research project is deemed unworthy to merit her promotion and tenure. The tenure committee refused to take Etsy’s transcription of the journal seriously, arguing over the semantics of her terminology. Some went as far as to call her work a piece of fiction developed around a flimsy nom de plume. 

To counter the latter claim, Etsy discusses the historical link between the Beaucarnes and the Flowers. Benjamin Flowers’s mother was Ada Neismith, the red-haired woman whom Arthur had sex with in the wake of the Marias Massacre. The change from “Beaucarne” to “Flower” came from a mishearing of the surname as the French word “bouquet.” The officiant at Benjamin Flowers’s birth wrote down its English translation, “Flowers,” instead of the proper surname. Etsy’s grandfather, Artemis, was born to a housekeeper who had an affair with Arthur Flowers, Benjamin’s son. Ada only restored Artemis’s proper surname when she was on her deathbed.

Etsy burns her copies of Arthur’s journal pages. As she does this, she sees someone watching her from afar. She jests that it is Arthur.

Etsy’s father passes away in hospice care. Etsy soon receives his belongings, which include a Bible that contains several letters tucked into its pages. Lydia Ackerman calls Etsy to tell her that the buckskin used to protect Arthur’s journal in storage was made from human skin, not deer. The police want to examine it in case it might offer any insight into their cold case files. Etsy finds herself starting to believe in Good Stab’s story. She suspects the skin belongs to Benjamin Flowers.

Taz goes missing, which doesn’t alarm Etsy until three days later. She puts up missing cat flyers around the complex. Etsy goes through her father’s old Bible and finds an unopened letter marked with the seal of the Blackfeet Nation. She realizes that the letter was inserted into the Bible before her father died.

On January 20, Etsy’s missing cat flyers are returned to her because she does not have a permit to post them. Upset, she takes Benadryl, which leaves her disoriented. She sees a shadow scurrying across her floor. Early the next morning, she hears someone using her laptop. When she investigates, she sees the same man she saw watching her in her apartment. The man is unusually large and has a bison’s head instead of a human one. She calls the stranger “Good Stab,” and when he turns to look at her, she panics and calls for help. The stranger is gone when the police arrive. Etsy is convinced he will return, however, because she finds leather gloves beside her laptop.

Etsy researches the Marias Massacre and Chief Mountain. The following night, she is alarmed when she once again sees the bison man, who acknowledges that he is Good Stab. Etsy assumes he is there to kill her as part of his revenge against Arthur. She offers to destroy the journal to appease him and then offers him her life when Good Stab brings Taz back to her.

Good Stab shows that he has also brought a giant prairie dog into Etsy’s apartment. Etsy deduces that the prairie dog is Arthur, transformed after years of feeding on prairie dogs. Good Stab disappears, leaving the bison head behind to reveal it was only a mask. Etsy theorizes that Good Stab has brought Arthur to see if Etsy will feed him human beings and turn him back into a person. Etsy uses her audio recorder to capture evidence of Arthur, which she hopes will vindicate her findings from the journal. Etsy tells Arthur that they are related. She gives him the Bible from her father’s possessions, but he does not react to it. She then takes her father’s cigarettes and gives one to him to smoke. This leaves him sick and incapacitated. 

Etsy prepares to get Arthur out of her apartment, passing by a hardware store to pick up tools. She tells the apartment property manager, Marcie, that Arthur is her brother who is experiencing alcoholism in the wake of their father’s death. Marcie brings two police officers to conduct a wellness check on Etsy’s apartment. Etsy dismisses them by withdrawing from her lease.

Etsy places Arthur in the backseat of her car and drives with him and Taz to Montana. Etsy makes a detour in Bozeman to pour her father’s ashes into Arthur’s journal, dissolving the writing on each page. She then erases all digital traces of the journal. 

On the anniversary of the Marias Massacre, she drives into Blackfeet territory, using a bolt cutter to enter the property where the massacre took place. Etsy opens the letter that Good Stab hid in her father’s Bible and discovers that it is the same letter that Arthur had attempted to destroy many years ago. The letter confirms his involvement in the Marias Massacre, willfully lying about Heavy Runner’s identity. He claimed it was God’s will that the Indigenous Americans should be destroyed to provoke Joe Cobell into killing Heavy Runner. He had written the letter to absolve himself from the massacre, putting the blame entirely on Cobell. 

Amid a snowstorm, Etsy lures Arthur out of the car and back to the bluff where the soldiers were waiting before the massacre began. She uses a nail gun to shoot nails all over Arthur’s body. She then uses a cable saw to decapitate Arthur. Arthur’s body comes for her until she sets it aflame with spray foam and lighter fluid. Arthur’s body falls off the cliff just as a group of Blackfeet are passing by on their annual memorial ride to honor the massacre victims. Among the riders is Good Stab, who watches Etsy as she throws Arthur’s head down the cliff. She raises her fist in solidarity, which Good Stab does not return. Instead, he rides out with the other Blackfeet into the storm. Etsy sees that he is riding with work gear, implying that he was the worker who excavated the journal in the first place.