The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

Four days later, Arthur returns to his journal to report several significant events. Livinius Clarkson has been found dead and skinned outside the city. There is another skinned corpse with him, whom Arthur surmises is another of the newspaper heir’s sons. Arthur visits the lodging house to collect Dove’s belongings. This includes the documents of Dove’s assignment in Miles City. Arthur learns that the newspaper heir was named Benjamin Flowers. His sons are named Archibald, Milo, and Arthur, the last of whom alarms Beaucarne.

Arthur convinces Sheriff Doyle to come to his next Sunday service, fabricating evidence that ties Good Stab to the murders. To their disappointment, Good Stab is absent. He only appears long after the sheriff has left, and Arthur has locked up the church. Good Stab explains that he was drying his robes after they had gotten muddy. Arthur suspects it is not mud but blood. Good Stab asks Arthur about his limp, causing Arthur to explain how he lost his toes to frostbite. They go on talking about Arthur’s French and German lineage, which he has not passed on to any children. Good Stab picks up Cordelia when she passes by with a mole in her jaws. Good Stab takes the mole and feeds on its blood. Arthur invites him to continue his confession.

After Good Stab leaves, Arthur discovers a small window in the rafters above the church. The window provides an easy passage for Cordelia, but it is also big enough for someone like Good Stab to crawl through.

Good Stab names the white buffalo calf he rescued, Weasel Plume. He shepherds the other calves he rescues into a hidden sanctuary on the mountain. Four years later, while passing through Two Medicine Lodges, they find a boy struggling to start a fire. After providing the boy with kindling, Good Stab is invited to sit with the boy. Through the boy, Good Stab learns about the Marias Massacre, which pushes him to grief and regret. The sudden appearance of his sharp teeth frightens the boy, who runs away. Good Stab scatters the fire so that it can spread through the sacred ground. The boy faints from inhaling smoke, allowing Good Stab to reach him. Good Stab sticks a black feather to the boy’s head and returns him to his camp, the Fat Melters. He stays to watch the camp wake up, knowing he can never return to that kind of life again.

Back at the buffalo sanctuary, Good Stab encounters a trespassing trapper. Speaking in Blackfoot, the trapper calls Good Stab a new name, “Takes No Scalps,” and teases him with several other names. He invites him to follow him to his lodge on the mountain. The trapper claims that he has been monitoring Good Stab’s activities and has even protected his buffalo herd from hunters. When the trapper claims that he is old friends with Wolf Calf, Good Stab’s father, Good Stab comes to believe that the trapper is the deity who created the world in Blackfeet tradition, Napi.

Napi shows Good Stab that he is growing facial hair, a sign that he is turning into a napikwan. He warns that as the Pikuni run out of food, they will need to offer hunting rights in the Backbone to the napikwan. This puts Good Stab’s buffalo sanctuary at risk. Good Stab doesn’t believe that Napi’s prediction will come to pass. Napi invites Good Stab to stay with him during the next winter. When Good Stab exits the lodge, it disappears.

Good Stab refuses to feed on a napikwan prisoner, fearing his continued transformation. He wrestles with the ethics of feeding on his people, especially as he knows that he can’t stop feeding once he starts. Walking past Blood Clot Hills, Good Stab hears a group of wolf hunters. He destroys their camp without feeding on the hunters. He delays feeding by searching for another blackhorn to rescue. He finds a herd of skinned blackhorns and tracks a scent down a band of White Clay People, who have stolen the blackhorn meat.

The White Clay hunters prepare to eat the meat, unaware that the napikwan buffalo hunters have poisoned them. A White Clay hunter starts dying from poison, so Good Stab draws him away to feed on him. It does not undo his growing hair stubble. He hides from the other White Clay hunters inside a blackhorn carcass. The next evening, he discovers that the White Clay have sealed him inside the carcass. He escapes and considers fighting against the White Clay People.

Good Stab attacks the napikwan buffalo hunters instead, killing two of the hunters and a boy they are raping. After an intense battle, Good Stab puts each of the skinners in blackhorn carcasses. He then skins the hunters the way they did to the buffalo. Good Stab observes two White Clay People who are watching him. They acknowledge him and paint a hunter’s face yellow and black.

The following night, Good Stab conducts a similar massacre on a group of wolf hunters. In his weakened state, however, he retreats from their camp because of his injuries. Good Stab proceeds west to find a Pikuni camp, though he fears that his prolonged hunger will force him to feed on another Pikuni. To his terror, the first camp he finds belongs to the Small Robes.

Good Stab tries to resist returning to his old camp, but then he finds a lodge marked for a dying person. In the lodge, Good Stab finds a mirror, where he sees how much he looks like a napikwan. Good Stab introduces himself to the old woman in the lodge, who reveals she is Yellow-on-Top Woman, the mother of Tall Dog. Good Stab tells her that he had witnessed Tall Dog’s death, leading Yellow-on-Top Woman to recognize him as Takes No Scalps. Grieving, Good Stab asks her to tell Tall Dog to return to the world. He feeds on her blood so that she can die.

Wolf Calf is waiting outside the lodge for Good Stab. He recognizes Good Stab at once and rejoices in their reunion. To relieve his grief, Good Stab asks Wolf Calf to tell him a story from his youth. Good Stab’s injuries heal soon after. Wolf Calf asks if Good Stab plans to kill all the napikwan settlers. Good Stabs feels there are too many for him to kill alone. Grieving again for the loss of his Pikuni identity, Good Stab asks for another story, this time about his mother. Wolf Calf offers him his smoking pipe, but when Good Stab smokes it, it causes a violent reaction, nearly strangling him.

To save his life, Wolf Calf drives his broken pipe into Good Stab’s chest, releasing the smoke from his system. Wolf Calf carries an unconscious Good Stab back to Napi. Napi breathes into Good Stab’s chest, which also helps to save his life.

The next day, a superstitious parishioner named Frieda Zimmerman visits Arthur to ask for the eggs that another parishioner had given him. Frieda explains that her husband, Heinrich, had been drinking milk during a recent service to relieve his stomach pain. Though Arthur assures him that he will excuse Heinrich, Frieda adds that the milk had gone bad during the service. She breaks all the eggs at the threshold of the chapel. Only the last egg is rotten, oozing out a black yolk.

Frieda attributes the rot to a Germanic folk creature she calls the “nachzehrer.” The nachzehrer is an undead creature that feeds on the living. Frieda retreats from the chapel at once, fearing its infestation. Arthur indicates that he will be retitling all the transcriptions of Good Stab’s confession as “The Nachzehrer’s Dark Gospel.” The infestation prompts Arthur to finish his supply of sausages.

Two days later, Arthur cancels the coming Sunday service, believing that Good Stab will consume him. He interprets Good Stab’s confession as an attempt to exert power over him before killing him. He does not know how to convince Doyle to protect him. Arthur hides Cordelia in the closet for her safety as he goes into town.