The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (2025) is a historical horror novel by American author Stephen Graham Jones. Jones, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, draws from the United States’s historical exploitation of the Blackfoot Confederacy to inform the novel’s events. Jones also draws from the traditions of the horror genre to introduce vampires into the novel’s historical setting. The novel uses a nested narrative structure to relay the stories of Good Stab, a Small Robe who finds himself turned into a vampiric creature in the wake of a brutal massacre, and Arthur Beaucarne, the Lutheran pastor to whom Good Stab gives his confession. Good Stab’s arrival in Arthur’s parish coincides with a string of murders that happen outside Miles City limits. As Good Stab comes closer to sharing the great sin for which he is guilty, his hidden agenda to implicate Arthur in a racist mass murder becomes increasingly clear. Jones explores themes of Identity as a Product of Moral Action and Memory, How Greed Corrupts the Soul, and Seeking Justice for Past Sins. 

This study guide refers to the first hardcover edition of the novel, published by Saga Press in 2025.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, death, racism, child death, sexual violence, rape, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, animal cruelty and death, addiction, and sexual content.

Language Note: In the text, Jones uses anglicized translations of Blackfeet names for animals before transitioning into using their English names. For instance, Jones initially refers to Buffalo as “blackhorns.” This authorial choice represents the cultural shifts occurring around the protagonist as European American settlers diminish Blackfeet influence in Montana. For clarity, the guide will refer to these translations only in the Chapter Summaries, reflect their transition during the narrative, and revert to the English names in other sections of the guide.

Plot Summary

This novel utilizes a nested narrative structure that begins in the relative present and moves deeper into the past. For clarity, this summary will present the novel events in chronological order.

Good Stab is born in 1833 as a member of the Small Robes, which is a band of the Amskapi Pikuni. When Good Stab is in his late thirties, he and three other men discover a raided wagon train that was transporting a person who looks and behaves like an animal. They decide to bring the person, whom Good Stab names the Cat Man, to Chief Mountain to see if he is the Great White God destined to create a safe haven for the Pikuni. During their journey, Good Stab destroys a beaver lodge so that he can acquire a beaver pelt and trade it for a repeating firearm. A troop of United States soldiers hunting down a Pikuni named Owl Child soon massacres Good Stab and his companions. As they die in the snow, Good Stab’s companion releases the Cat Man, who ravages the soldiers. One soldier manages to destroy the Cat Man with a cannon. Cat Man’s blood mixes with that of the dying Good Stab.

Good Stab reawakens on the mountain with superhuman abilities and a ravenous thirst for blood. He starts hunting animals around the mountain but soon discovers that the more he eats of certain types of animals, the more he absorbs their physical traits. This motivates him to feed on the blood of people. The guilt of feeding on a Pikuni boy drives Good Stab to stay away from Pikuni camps. He soon comes upon a herd of skinned buffalo, which urges him to take revenge against white hunters.

Good Stab spends several years as a vigilante against the buffalo hunters, rescuing buffalo and raising them in a protected herd. During this time, Good Stab learns that on the same day the soldiers killed him, there was a simultaneous massacre on the Pikuni camp Chief Heavy Runner led—the Marias Massacre. Good Stab also learns that he has become a legendary figure among the Pikuni, both feared for his monstrosity and revered for his vigilante efforts.

The Blackfeet deity Napi appears to Good Stab in the form of a trapper to tell him that he has spent so much time feeding on the blood of white people that he is beginning to resemble one. Good Stab wrestles with the ethics of feeding on his people but fears becoming fully unrecognizable to himself. He starts feeding on Pikuni people who are already dying to resolve his conscience. Good Stab reunites with his father, Wolf Calf, but when he smokes Wolf Calf’s pipe, he is incapacitated for two years. Napi helps Good Stab recover but urges him to hunt again once he is better. 

Good Stab forms a bond with a Pikuni boy named Yellow Kidney but feeds on his sister when he discovers that she is already dying. Sometime later, Good Stab is framed for the death of Yellow Kidney. Good Stab discovers that the Cat Man, who survived the massacre on Chief Mountain, killed Yellow Kidney. The Cat Man traps Good Stab in an ice tunnel, leaving him for white trappers and hunters to feed on. When Good Stab escapes from the tunnel, he returns to the Small Robes camp and discovers that the Cat Man has made himself their new chief, disguising himself as a Pikuni named Walks Twice. The Cat Man uses a premature Sun Dance ritual to torture and humiliate Good Stab, eventually leaving him in the mountains to recover from his injuries.

Good Stab returns to the camp after learning that the Small Robes have dispersed out of fear of the Cat Man. The Cat Man wants to feed on a young Pikuni girl named Kills-in-the-Water. Good Stab hatches a plan to defeat the Cat Man by using Kills-in-the-Water as a lure. He leads the Cat Man to a lake island, allowing the Cat Man to feed on Kills-in-the-Water. While the Cat Man is feeding, Good Stab bites on the girl, allowing his blood to mix with Kills-in-the-Water’s. This poisons the Cat Man, allowing Good Stab to gradually transform him into a giant fish. Good Stab feels extremely guilty for his role in Kills-in-the-Water’s death, especially as it coincides with the dispersal of the Pikuni to Indigenous American reservations.

Good Stab devotes himself to seeking justice for the Marias Massacre. In 1912, he tracks down Arthur Beaucarne in Miles City, Montana. Arthur is a Lutheran pastor who influenced the scout Joe Cobell to take the first shot in the massacre. Good Stab tracks down his descendants in San Francisco and systematically kills them, leaving their bodies skinned on the outskirts of Miles City. He approaches Arthur to confess his guilt over the death of Kills-in-the-Water, which requires him to share his life story with the pastor over several conversations. The pastor becomes increasingly suspicious of Good Stab, especially as details from his story implicate him in the murders. They both acknowledge, however, that Arthur’s paranoia is an extension of the guilt he feels for his participation in the Marias Massacre. When Good Stab urges Arthur to admit to his fault, Arthur distances himself from the soldiers’ act. Arthur’s paranoia hinders his ability to preach to his congregation. His journal abruptly ends, leaving a mystery around his sudden disappearance.

In 2012, Arthur’s great-great-great-granddaughter, Etsy Beaucarne, acquires the journal, which was found in the walls of Arthur’s old parsonage. Etsy transcribes the journal, believing that its research value can earn her a promotion and tenure at the University of Wyoming. 

At the start of the following year, Etsy’s tenure is denied when her colleagues reject the validity of the journal. Frustrated by the effort she put into her research, Etsy starts to dispose of her notes when Good Stab visits her. Good Stab brings Arthur to her apartment, though Arthur has been transformed into a giant prairie dog after feeding on them for years. Having learned the truth about Arthur’s actions against the Pikuni, Etsy destroys Arthur’s journal and brings him to the site of the Marias Massacre, where she brutally dismembers him. The novel ends on the anniversary of the massacre with Good Stab watching Etsy as she throws Arthur’s head off a cliff.