The Buffalo Hunter Hunter Summary: A Reckoning with Colonial Bloodshed
Introduction
The book moves between 2012, 1912, and 1870, linking a university transcription project to a Blackfeet man’s confession and a Lutheran pastor’s buried past.
It draws on vampire folklore, the Marias Massacre, and the destruction of buffalo herds.
Stephen Graham Jones is a Blackfeet Native American author known for horror and experimental fiction. His works often blend Indigenous history, supernatural elements, and the American West.
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TL;DR: The Core Snapshot
A 2012 academic transcribes her ancestor’s 1912 journal and uncovers a confession from an immortal Blackfeet man named Good Stab.
His story connects the Marias Massacre to skinned bodies in Miles City, Montana.
Across 1870–2013, the novel follows revenge, transformation, and the attempt to end a violent family legacy.
- Dual timeline: modern-day transcription and early 20th-century confession.
- Horror rooted in a real historical massacre and buffalo extinction.
- A pastor’s hidden guilt drives the supernatural revenge.
- Ending involves a confrontation at the massacre site and the destruction of the journal.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter Summary: A Dual Timeline of Blood and Reckoning
SPOILER WARNING: This section reveals the full plot including the ending.
Read the Full Chapter-by-Chapter Story Breakdown
In 2012, Etsy Beaucarne, a struggling communications professor at the University of Wyoming, begins transcribing a digitized journal written by her ancestor Arthur Beaucarne.
Arthur served as a Lutheran pastor in Miles City, Montana, in 1912. Etsy hopes the project will secure her tenure, but the journal soon records a psychological and supernatural haunting.
In 1912, skinned human bodies, called “humps,” appear on the prairie near Miles City.
A Blackfeet man known as Good Stab begins attending Arthur’s services and visiting him privately to offer a confession. Good Stab’s story reaches back to January 23, 1870, the date of the Marias Massacre.
During that massacre, Good Stab and his group intercepted a wagon containing a caged European vampire-like creature called the Cat Man.
In the chaos of a soldier attack, Good Stab was bitten and transformed into an atupyoye, a creature that survives on blood and adopts physical traits from what it drinks.
For decades, Good Stab lived in the Backbone of the World, now Glacier National Park, and waged a one-man war against buffalo hide-hunters.
He skinned them as they had skinned the herds. His visits to Arthur in 1912 are not for forgiveness but for revenge.
Good Stab reveals that Arthur, as a soldier in 1870, instigated the Marias Massacre by whispering into a scout’s ear to shoot Chief Heavy Runner.
As retribution, Good Stab tracks down and kills Arthur’s illegitimate descendants, the Flowers family, and presents their skinless bodies inside Arthur’s church. Good Stab eventually transforms Arthur into a monster as well.
In 2013, Good Stab delivers a transformed Arthur Beaucarne to Etsy. Arthur has become a giant, seven-foot-long prairie dog monster because he fed only on rodents for a century to prevent regaining human form.
Etsy recognizes that Arthur’s existence is a cycle of agony and sin.
She takes him to the site of the Marias Massacre during a blizzard and kills him with an electric nail gun and a cable saw, ending his suffering.
Etsy then destroys the physical journal in a library lab.
She sifts her father’s ashes onto the pages, causing a chemical reaction that erases the ink forever.
Good Stab, still alive and immortal, watches from a distance before disappearing into the storm.
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Characters In This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Etsy Beaucarne | Communications professor in 2012 who transcribes Arthur’s journal. |
| Arthur Beaucarne | Lutheran pastor in 1912 and former soldier whose secret triggers the Marias Massacre. |
| Good Stab | Blackfeet man turned immortal creature who hunts hide-hunters and seeks revenge against Arthur. |
| The Cat Man | Ancient European vampire brought to Montana in a cage and source of Good Stab’s transformation. |
| Harrison Dove | Pinkerton agent sent to find a missing family and killed by Good Stab. |
| Benjamin, Archibald, Milo, and Arthur Flowers | Arthur Beaucarne’s secret descendants in San Francisco, murdered and skinned by Good Stab. |
| Wolf Calf | Good Stab’s father who tries to protect him after transformation. |
| Kills-in-the-Water | Young Blackfeet girl used as bait to trap the Cat Man and whose death Good Stab regrets. |
| Taz | Etsy’s cat who survives the modern-day haunting. |
What Drives the Story: Core Themes
| Theme | How the book presents it |
|---|---|
| Colonialism and Genocide | The Marias Massacre and the destruction of buffalo herds frame the novel’s historical events. |
| Intergenerational Guilt and Atonement | Etsy inherits Arthur’s journal and must decide whether to end his monstrous existence. |
| Memory vs Documented History | Arthur’s journal conflicts with oral confession and physical evidence in Miles City. |
| Monstrosity and Humanity | Good Stab and Arthur become monsters while retaining motives rooted in justice, guilt, and survival. |
| Environmental Destruction | The near-extinction of buffalo drives Good Stab’s war against hide-hunters. |
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Buffalo Hunter Hunter about?
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is about a 2012 academic who transcribes her ancestor’s journal and uncovers a Blackfeet man’s immortal confession tied to the Marias Massacre, skinned bodies, and vampire folklore.
What happens at the end of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter?
At the end of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Etsy kills her transformed ancestor Arthur at the Marias Massacre site and destroys the journal by sifting her father’s ashes onto the pages, erasing the ink forever.
Is The Buffalo Hunter Hunter based on real history?
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter incorporates the real Marias Massacre of January 23, 1870, and the historical destruction of buffalo herds, but the supernatural events and characters are fictional.
What genre is The Buffalo Hunter Hunter?
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is horror, historical fiction, and western fiction, with subgenres of Native American horror and monster fiction centered on the Nachzehrer and Cat Man myths.
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