61 pages • 2 hours read
James WelchFools Crow
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
The chapter begins from the perspective of a white man who came west to seek his fortune in the Montana goldfields and has joined two other men carrying whiskey and other goods to sell in the Blackfeet camps, when they are attacked by Owl Child’s men. The gang kills the men and steals their guns and the goods in the wagons. Fast Horse realizes that the Lone Eaters are nearby and tells Owl Child they should not have attacked so close to their people’s camps as the Pikunis will be blamed for the attack. Owl Child agrees, and they decide to burn the wagons and the bodies of the Napikwans so that they will not be discovered. Owl Child says that he does not wish to bring any harm on their people, though he resents the fact that they think him wrong for trying to rid their land of the Napikwans. He suggests that they escape into Canada after burning the wagons, but Fast Horse notices that their leader sounds more hesitant than usual.
Chapter 26 Summary
Pretty-on-top, a relative of Three Bears, rides into the Lone Eaters’ camp with a Napikwan named Sturgis, a doctor who has been trying to help Pikunis who have fallen sick with smallpox. Sturgis explains that he used to be married to a Pikuni woman who died of smallpox. Rides-at-the-door asks why the Napikwans do not get sick with the white-scabs disease, and Sturgis explains that some do but that often “their medicine men shoot them with…a juice that keeps them safe from this disease” (306). When Boss Ribs ask why the Pikunis cannot be healed with this juice, Sturgis tells them that the juice prevents the disease from entering the body but cannot help once a person has fallen sick. He says that they must avoid contact with the other bands and the Napikwans until “the destroying juice” (the vaccine) can be administered to them. When some men protest that they cannot turn away family members, Pretty-on-top tells them that they must do as Sturgis says as he has seen many families destroyed by the disease. After Pretty-on-top and Sturgis leave, the Lone Eaters debate whether to take the Napikwan’s advice. Although Fools Crow thinks they should not trust a Napikwan and Pretty-on-top, “who wears the Napikwans’ clothes, who sleeps in the Napikwans’ bed” (310), Mik-api and Three Bears believe that the two men were sincere and suggest that they move camp to an area where there are fewer Napikwans.
Chapter 27 Summary
Owl Child and Fast Horse enter an old war lodge to discover the body of a Pikuni man who has been shot. Fast Horse sees that the man’s hands have no fingers; without looking at his face, he knows it must be Yellow Kidney.
Chapters 25-27 Analysis
These chapters represent the beginning of the end for Owl Child’s gang. After killing the tradesmen and raiding their wagons, Fast Horse cannot “help feeling that Owl Child’s days [are] counted” (301). In some ways, the chapter makes Owl Child seem more sympathetic or at least understandable by having him explain how he never meant to cause pain for the Pikuni people. Even though he has broken with his people’s traditions, he still considers himself a Pikuni. Fast Horse recognizes that he will soon have to decide whether to keep running with Owl Child. When they discover Yellow Kidney’s body in the war lodge, Fast Horse is forced to realize the way in which his actions have brought harm on his people by being confronted with a reminder of how his actions led to Yellow Kidney’s capture and mutilation.
Chapter 26 also describes the way that smallpox is beginning to cause many deaths among the Pikuni bands. Sturgis, the white doctor whose Pikuni wife died of the disease, is perhaps the most sympathetic Napikwan in the novel. Welch describes him as truly grieved over the loss of his wife and sincere in his desire to help the Pikunis avoid sickness and get the vaccine if possible. Although Fools Crow does not want to trust him, Three Bears and Rides-at-the-door recognize his sincerity and take his advice seriously. However, the Lone Eaters have a difficult choice to make; to isolate themselves from the other bands goes against Pikuni values, since it would mean refusing help other members of their nation who are need.
