Indian Killer

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1996

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-5

Part 1, Chapters 6-12

Part 1, Chapters 13-21

Part 2, Chapters 1-14

Part 2, Chapters 15-19

Part 2, Chapters 20-26

Part 3, Chapters 1-16

Part 3, Chapters 17-31

Character Analysis

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Important Quotes

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Part 2, Chapters 20-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary: “The Elliott Bay Book Company”

Wilson has a book reading and gets a ride to the store from taxi driver and fellow ex-policeman Eric. Eric talks loudly about the Indian Killer, saying that the case seems like fair retribution and will hopefully mean that white people will stop tormenting Indians. Wilson worries about other writers producing inferior novels about the Indian Killer, novels that would not have the gravitas and understanding of his own, unfinished work.

When they arrive at the store, a group of Indians are protesting outside, carrying signs that say “WILSON IS A FRAUD and ONLY INDIANS SHOULD TELL INDIAN STORIES” (263). Marie is talking to the press, and when Wilson walks past, she brandishes a petition asking him how many Indian signatures it would take for him to stop writing. Wilson is dizzy and confused, thinking that he is “a real Indian and had done all he could to help other real Indians. He was on their side” (264-65). He pushes inside and gives his reading while the protest continues. The white audience asks Wilson about the Indian Killer, suggesting that the murders are a sign of America’s “spiritual bankruptcy” and proposing that “we all need to turn to the Indian religions in order to save our country” (266). John arrives at the protest and, mimicking Marie, raises his hand above his head, joining in the chanting.

When Wilson leaves in the taxi, Marie and John follow him in the sandwich van. They confront him outside his apartment, and for a moment Wilson is convinced that he is looking at his fictional hero, Aristotle Little Hawk. Eric gets a golf club out of his taxi, but John takes it off him and stands over Wilson and Eric brandishing it. Marie thinks that he is about to beat them, but he throws it through the apartment window before running off into the night. Afterwards, Wilson tells Eric that he did not recognize them, not wanting the police to interfere with John, who so resembles his hero.

Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary: “Testimony”

The police interview the white man who was beaten by Reggie and his friends. He is scared and hurt but will likely get most of his eyesight back. He explains that the men were definitely Indians, judging by their appearances, and reports that they recorded him. He also reports that one of the Indians was deaf and used sign language and that one had blue eyes. He expresses confusion as to why Indians would target him just because he is white, explaining that he likes Indians and has even visited two reservations, finding them “beautiful,” before declaring that “not every white guy is an evil dude” (273).

Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary: “Slow Dancing with the Most Beautiful Indian Woman on Earth”

Big Heart’s Soda and Juice bar is packed with Indians listening to music, occasionally awkwardly approaching one another to ask for a dance. John is there, quiet and isolated, concerned by the anger he felt toward Wilson and guilty about running away and leaving Marie. A beautiful woman named Fawn asks him to dance, and he does so reluctantly. After a while, he raises his fist in the air, as he learned to do at the protest. Laughing, Fawn joins him, and soon other dancers mimic his stance, too. Fawn talks to John, playfully teasing him, but he does not understand her flirtations.

Reggie has been trying to seduce Fawn for years, and he watches the dancing jealously. When John, afraid that Fawn is the devil, suddenly leaves the dance floor, he nudges Reggie, spilling his drink. Reggie, Ty, and Harley follow him outside. Reggie taunts him, trying to start a fight, and John does not know how to respond, shutting his eyes and retreating into his head. Reggie brags that, unlike some historical Indians, he will never stop fighting his enemy before kicking John. John raises his fist again, and the others copy him, laughing, as John staggers away.

Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary: “A Conversation”

Buck Rogers calls Aaron and asks him about Indians being beaten by three white men with baseball bats. Initially, Aaron lies, but he soon admits that it was him, Barry, and Sean. Buck tells him to stop, worried that Aaron will get caught and he will lose both his sons. He tells Aaron that Indians are not worth that. Aaron confesses to intentionally trying to shoot an Indian when he was a child and Buck took them to defend the camas field, admitting that he is worried that this is what caused them to kill David. Buck reassures him, “You were just a kid. You didn’t know any better” (284).

Part 2, Chapter 24 Summary: “Mark Jones”

The killer watches Mark Jones sleep. The boy has been sleeping more and is becoming difficult to wake, so the killer knows they must do something. Gently, the killer undresses Mark and cleans his whole body before dressing him in an outsized T-shirt. The killer then takes the knife from the wall and picks up the boy, carrying him tenderly away “to finish the ceremony” (286).

Part 2, Chapter 25 Summary: “How He Imagines His Life on the Reservation”

John’s mother is sad that he is leaving for college but also proud of him. He is handsome and kind and helps her deliver food to the elders. He spends much of his time helping the elders and has learned their tribal language from them. He is also a good teacher, teaching the reservation children. He likes the girls best as they are most mature, but he also enjoys coaxing the reluctant boys to reveal the talents they hide beneath feigned indifference. Now, he is going to college to become a doctor so that he can return to the reservation and continue to help his tribe. He feels a tremendous sense of belonging to his tribe. His mother warns him that white people are “going to try to humiliate you. They’re going to call you names. They’ll want you to fail” (292). She makes him promise not to let them hurt him or change him, and he insists he will be fine and drives from the reservation.

Part 2, Chapter 26 Summary: “Hunting Weather”

Truck Schultz is smoking a cigar behind the studio, thinking of how the Indian Killer has greatly boosted his show’s ratings. He realizes that the back door has locked and that he must walk around to the front, through an early morning filled with fog. Aware that he has never even been able to shoot a deer, he wonders how the Indian Killer “found the courage to cut a man’s throat” and begins to be afraid that there is someone in the fog with him (294). As he enters an alley, a loud noise drives him to his knees, and he thinks that the fog is “specific and alive,” armed with “sharp teeth” (295). Terrified that the feathers and scrap of pajamas he received from the killer have marked him out, he steps further into the fog.

Part 2, Chapters 20-26 Analysis

As the book builds towards the end of the second section, laying out the final pieces for its conclusion, the matters of identity and of different perceptions of Indians are again thematically significant. Wilson is convinced that only he can accurately tell the story of the Indian Killer and that he is the only person with the knowledge and the right to represent contemporary Indians. His white audience support him in this hubris, asking him to confirm their assumptions about Indian spirituality and whether “we all need to turn to the Indian religions in order to save our country” (266). However, Marie’s protest challenges this perception of Indians and questions white people’s assumed right to dictate what it is to be Indian. Wilson cannot understand this position as it threatens his own fragile sense of identity as a “a real Indian […] [who] had done all he could to help other real Indians” (264-65).

This confused, obsessive thinking become even more extreme when he sees John and is convinced that he is looking at Little Hawk. His response is almost proprietorial: He wants to keep John for himself, without involving the police, so that he can have exclusive access to this manifestation of his own alter ego. Importantly, in identifying John with Little Hawk, Wilson makes him a receptacle for his own projected concerns about identity and authenticity, essentially casting John in the role of “real” Indian in a way that John cannot ever perceive himself.

Meanwhile, John’s mental health is worsening, and his ability to understand situations and distinguish dream from reality is getting shakier. Fired up from the anger of the protest, he starts to raise his fist in the air, first in and then outside the bar, much to others’ amusement. Arguably, this is unformed expression of his long-held anger. That is to say, like the fantasy of killing the white boys on the bridge, it can be seen as the early stages of John developing a form of expression for his rage, pain, and confusion, something that will eventually manifest in his attack on Wilson.

Importantly, this behavior appears to be distinct from the already-actualized murder committed by the killer, as though John is building himself up to an act of violence while the killer has already committed such crimes, something that again places some doubt on whether John truly is the Indian Killer. The careful and controlled creation of “ceremony” in the killer’s treatment of Mark Jones also seems out of step with John’s confused and shambling actions and his general inability to look after himself. Still, John’s fantasies of his life on the reservation focus on belonging and connection, on connecting with elders and the next generation, and on learning and teaching within a functioning community. These are all things John feels he was robbed of by white society or, especially, some scapegoat or figurehead for that society. As such, his sense of being wronged and of seeking vengeance and his motivation for violence against white people remain very real.

In Truck’s encounter with the fog, we can again see what might be considered magical realist elements. Truck complains that the fog has never been as bad as it is that day, and he perceives it to be “specific and alive” and armed with “sharp teeth” (295). This impression could be a result of his own fear of the Indian Killer, but, as with Mark’s perception of the killer’s shifting, changing face, this can also be seen as Alexie suggesting that the mysticism and magic around the killer are real, again foreshadowing the idea that the killer is perhaps an almost spiritual manifestation of Indian rage or a result of the Ghost Dance.