The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

by Stephen Graham Jones

I might portend that those who fear the presence of a judge may very well be carrying a secret burden of guilt they hope to unload. Yet, to be judged by an Indian, here in the new century? To have this twentieth century called to task by its predecessor?

I’m an atupyoye now, Person-Eater like the Pikuni have always known about, but I’m worse.

There’s only one thing I can drink anymore. It’s why I’m here, talking to you. You Black Robes know about drinking blood, don’t you? You make your people in these wooden seats do it every time they’re here. In that way we’re the same. But you’re still a two-legged, even from drinking all that blood. Not me. What I am now is a four-legged, but with a man’s memories, as punishment.

What I am is the Indian who can’t die. I’m the worst dream America ever had.

With my face still lowered, I laughed to myself because, even though I wanted to be, I wasn’t a boy anymore. I was a child, but not my father’s. I was the Cat Man’s son now.

There was just me, his son, dying years before he was supposed to die, years after he had already died.

Behind me now, Cordelia is mewing long and plaintively, and I know she’s asking for another fresh egg like was dropped between the pews but previously, which I’ve been trying not to hear her lick up bit by bit while I write this, her tongue a metronome of meat, steady in its hunger, implacable in its need. There are no fresh eggs anymore, dearest Cordelia. I most humbly apologize. All we have left here is rot and decay.

And so I sit here alone, uncaptured yet captive.

But God never said it would be easy, did he? If it were easy, then everyone would receive the grace of absolution. That’s the only repast I hope to gorge myself on, now. Let this be the end of it. Please.

I can now attest that he is indeed monstrous, his mind and heart spawned from the most sinful part of the Pit. Perhaps it’s such for all of his kind. If so, then what trespass have I really committed? Or, as Lot said to Zoar, it was but a little sin, and my soul shall live. So, I troth, shall mine.

Good Stab fell to his knees, pressed his forehead to the floor and he screamed too, and I daresay our screams harmonized, at least in how much they pained us. This, I believe, is the story of America, told in a forgotten church in the hinterlands, with a choir of the dead mutely witnessing. “You tore out the heart of my people, Three-Persons,” Good Stab said into the floor. “I’m sorry,” I said back, I knew how weakly. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

“How could you shoot us in our winter lodges?” “You weren’t even there,” I told him. “The best part of me was,” he said. “Why did you——” “Because you were just Indians!”

A raven settled down up there with me. “Tell him I’m back,” I said to it, and waved it away. It dropped off the edge then came back up after a minute, riding the wind because doing that is more fun than delivering messages.

the site of the massacre is on private land, some ranch, and it requires special permission to visit. Fine. I give myself permission, thanks. It’s what we white folk do.

Everyone longs to be in a storybook, do they not?

Everyone in the column was drinking just to stay warm, Major Baker the most, I believe, as leaders of course lead by example.

“God looks the other way when men must dole out justice. I can show you in the Bible whereof it speaks that. No forgiveness is necessary when those you punish are naught but savages. Would you feel guilt for shooting the fox that stole your hens? No, the fox, by his acts, is compelling you to take his life, even as downy feathers line his foul mouth. So it is with these Piegan.

Any man can ratiocinate his own deeds and thereby cleanse his conscience, but doing so when evidence to the contrary, such as this to you, exists, must need be an act of futility.

I implore you not only not to burn this, but to frame it for all to see, such that such darkness in Man can be known, and then avoided. In this way will my life at least have served some small purpose. ——A. Beaucarne. Jan 26, 1870