The Buffalo Hunter Hunter – Essential Questions and Answers

1. Why does Good Stab refuse to kill Three-Persons immediately after cornering him in the church?

Good Stab wants the pastor to remember his complicity in the Marias Massacre rather than grant him a quick death. He forces Arthur to confess his role as a soldier who helped slaughter Pikuni women and children, treating the confession as a form of counting coup—a ritual touch before the final blow. In chapter 17, Good Stab laughs at Arthur’s pleas and says he is there to remind him of something he pretends never happened. The delay turns the church into a charnel house filled with corpses, making Arthur’s guilt inescapable.

2. How does the discovery of Arthur Beaucarne’s secret son reshape the novel’s moral landscape?

In chapter 20, Good Stab reveals that the youngest corpse in the church is Arthur’s grandson—the child of a prostitute Arthur slept with after the Baker Massacre. This bloodline revelation implicates Arthur not only as a witness to genocide but also as a man who fathered a child he never acknowledged, a child who later died by the same violence Arthur helped set in motion. The connection ties personal sin to historical atrocity, suggesting that colonial violence corrupts every generation.

3. What does the raven feather that Three-Persons steals from Early Tate signify?

In chapter 16, Three-Persons steals a raven feather and presses it to his forehead. Amos Short Ribs later recounts a Blackfeet legend about the medicine man Happy and the Morning Star Fullblood, who left a raven feather as a promise of protection. The pastor realizes the Fullblood is a benevolent divinity, distinct from the monster Good Stab. However, he keeps this insight to himself. The feather thus symbolizes the possibility of a different relationship with the supernatural—one based on guidance rather than predation—but the pastor chooses silence over understanding.

4. Why does Good Stab claim he hates himself for drinking the blood of Pikuni elders?

In chapter 17, Good Stab explains that by taking the lives of elders, he is stealing wisdom from his people. The elders are the only ones who remember the old days and the old ways, and Good Stab, even as an undead creature, recognizes that his hunger destroys cultural memory. This self-loathing shows that his vampirism is not just physical but also a force of cultural erasure. He acknowledges that the Pikuni might listen to The Fullblood, but not to Takes No Scalps—a name that signifies his inability to collect the honors of a warrior.

5. How does the cat Cordelia function as a symbolic touchstone throughout the 1912 timeline?

Cordelia, the pastor’s orange house cat, appears repeatedly as a gauge of supernatural presence. In chapter 12, her avoidance of certain spaces alerts Three-Persons to Good Stab’s activities, and later she screeches and flees the closet when the pastor returns from his failed attempt to convince Sheriff Doyle. In chapters 14 and 22, her absence allows mice to return to the church, signaling decay. Cordelia represents domestic normalcy and the pastor’s last link to an orderly life; her departure mirrors the collapse of his faith and safety.

6. What purpose does the Pinkerton subplot serve in the 1912 narrative?

Pinkerton agent Dove arrives to investigate a missing San Francisco family—the Flowers—only to find that parts of them are turning up in Miles City. In chapters 9 and 10, Dove reveals that the father was skinned, the sons abducted, and no tracks were left, implying a superhuman perpetrator. The subplot introduces a law-enforcement perspective that initially seems rational but collapses when Dove is found mangled on train tracks in chapter 11. The Pinkerton’s failure underscores the novel’s theme that colonial institutions cannot comprehend or contain the vengeance of the displaced.

7. How does the Marias Massacre of 1870 connect Etsy Beaucarne’s present-day story to Arthur’s confession?

Etsy discovers that Arthur was present at the Baker Massacre (Maria’s Massacre) as a soldier, and that his journal’s human-skin binding is a punishment for his role. In the final chapter, Good Stab transforms Arthur into a giant prairie‑dog monster, and Etsy kills him at the massacre site using a nail gun and cable saw. The massacre site becomes the locus where past and present violence converge. Etsy’s act of destroying the journal with her father’s ashes symbolically closes the cycle of guilt, but only after she personally enacts justice.

8. What is the significance of the buffalo robe that appears on the altar in Arthur’s final service?

In chapter 23, during Sunday service, the pastor finds a buffalo robe on the podium and sees the church filled with dead Blackfeet victims and his own deceased relatives. The buffalo robe, a symbol of the plains ecosystem and of Pikuni sustenance, now becomes a shroud for the ghosts of genocide. Its presence transforms the Lutheran church into a site of haunting, where the sacred space of colonial religion is invaded by the material remains of the culture it helped destroy. The vision forces Arthur to flee and await his execution.

9. Why does Etsy destroy Arthur’s journal with her father’s ashes at the end of the novel?

Etsy understands that the journal, bound in human skin and containing Arthur’s confession, is a relic of violence that perpetuates the cycle. By burning it with her father’s ashes in chapter 24, she simultaneously releases her family’s complicity and rejects the academic career she had built on that document. The act is both personal and political: she refuses to let the journal become another object of colonial study, choosing instead to let the story end with Good Stab’s departure and the buffalo’s return.

10. What does the black egg that Frieda Zimmerman finds in chapter 14 signify?

Frieda brings eggs to the church and tests them by dropping them to dogs. One egg yields a black yolk, and she mutters “Nachzehrer,” the German term for a vampire. The black egg represents corruption at the heart of everyday life, a folk omen that something undead is present. For Three-Persons, it confirms that his church is infested not only by Good Stab but by a supernatural evil that defies Christian ritual. The egg forces him to revise his narrative and admit that his rational explanations are failing.

11. How does Good Stab’s dream of having a beaver tail connect to his transformation?

In chapter 18, while recovering with Napi, Good Stab recalls a vision from the moment he died: he sees himself with a flat beaver tail, slapping it on the snow to warn Heavy Runner’s camp about the approaching soldiers. The beaver, a creature of water and construction, contrasts with the chaos of massacre. The dream suggests that Good Stab’s undead state carries a remnant of his warrior duty—to warn his people—but that duty is now corrupted. He cannot save anyone; he can only feed.

12. Why does Three-Persons steal a raven feather and press it to his forehead in chapter 16?

After failing to convince Sheriff Doyle, the pastor sees a raven feather on Early Tate’s hat and takes it. Pressing it to his forehead is a gesture of supplication, invoking the Blackfeet legend of the Morning Star Fullblood who left a raven feather as a promise of protection. Arthur is desperately seeking a supernatural ally to counter Good Stab, even if it means rejecting his own Christian framework. The act marks his shift from pastor to penitent, willing to adopt indigenous symbols for survival.

13. What is the meaning of Good Stab hiding the communion wafer in chapter 7?

After his confession, Good Stab hides the communion wafer rather than consume it, and he leaves the stew untouched. Arthur interprets this as a sign that Good Stab cannot partake of Christian sacraments—either because his undead nature forbids it or because he rejects a religion that has been used to justify colonial violence. The discarded wafer becomes a symbol of failed absolution: the church’s ritual cannot cleanse the blood that Good Stab has drunk or the genocide Three-Persons participated in.

14. How does the novel challenge the Christian concept of confession?

Throughout the “Absolution of Three-Persons” chapters, Good Stab offers a confession that is not about seeking forgiveness but about bearing witness to atrocity. Arthur, initially acting as confessor, becomes the one who must confess his own sins—especially his role in the Marias Massacre. The novel inverts the power dynamic: the Indigenous undead creature holds the moral authority, and the Christian pastor is the penitent. Confession does not lead to absolution; it leads to Arthur’s death and transformation into a monster.

15. What role does Napi the trickster play in Good Stab’s development?

Napi appears in chapter 13 disguised as a trapper, teaching Good Stab English by mixing napikwan words into Pikuni. He feeds Good Stab from his own wrist and later breaks off their arrangement, telling him to hunt for himself. Napi represents the enduring indigenous knowledge that survives colonial violence. He is neither ally nor enemy; he is a force of transformation, pushing Good Stab to confront his own nature. In chapter 18, Napi’s blood gives Good Stab a taste of the land itself, connecting him to the Backbone and reminding him that his identity is rooted in place, not in the monster he has become.