By Robin Marx
As The Buffalo Hunter Hunter begins, Etsy Beaucarne is struggling with an undistinguished academic career. A surprising opportunity falls in her lap, however, after a distant relative’s crumbling journal is discovered hidden in the walls of a decrepit parsonage. Penned in 1912 by her great-great-grandfather Arthur, a Lutheran pastor posted in Montana, Etsy hopes to use the manuscript as the springboard for a new research project, ideally leading to publications and tenure. But as transcriptions of the brittle and faded pages are delivered, she discovers a much darker and more troubling narrative than expected.
The premise established, Etsy’s story fades into the background. The Beaucarne Manuscript makes up the bulk of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Arthur Beaucarne’s religious ministrations to the small town of Miles City are disrupted when an ominous stranger begins attending his sermons. Invariably seated in the rearmost pew, the visitor is a Native American man dressed incongruously in a black Jesuit robe, battered cavalry boots, and dark glasses. Disturbed by the man’s intense scrutiny, Arthur nevertheless finds himself fascinated by the visitor. Eventually the Indian approaches Arthur after a Sunday service, introducing himself as Good Stab of the Pikuni (Piegan Blackfeet tribe), and says that he has come to the church to confess his sins. Over a series of weekly visits—the chapel dimmed so as not to aggravate his unusual sensitivity to light—Good Stab unburdens his soul, and Arthur dutifully recounts the man’s anecdotes in his journal.
During his first visit, Good Stab describes encountering the scene of a bizarre massacre, with dead white men surrounding a wagon containing a caged and hissing chalk-white man with fangs. After a series of catastrophes, the so-called “Cat Man” escapes from his prison and Good Stab undergoes a traumatic metamorphosis.
Andrew Mayden 
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