Indian Killer

The police interview Truck Schultz, insisting that they found no evidence that any one was with him in the fog. The officers make no effort to hide their dislike for him, slyly suggesting that he is a coward and blaming his dishonest broadcasts for the increased tensions in the city. They tell him to stop broadcasting and to stay out of parking lots until the killer is caught. Truck insists that he did not imagine it and declares, “If that Indian Killer comes near me again, I’ll kill him” (302).

John is in the donut shop, quietly singing “a Catholic hymn that Father Duncan must have sung before he went to the desert” (303). Paul and Paul Too are worried about John’s dilapidated state and gently try to enquire about his mental health, but John is noncommunicative. They ask if he is worried by the Indian Killer and the retaliatory violence, but John simply declares that he has not done anything wrong.

John recalls seeing his parents in their underwear and realizing that their skin was white while his was brown. Wanting to look like his parents, he rubbed at his skin as though his color would rub off. For 10 minutes, John rubs his face against the donut shop counter before raising his fist and declaring that he could be famous if he killed someone. He climbs up on the counter and tells Paul and Paul Too that they, too, would kill a white person if they were able to get away with it. He jumps off the counter and tells the two men that they are “niggers,” that no one would care if they were killed, and that he would not get famous or solve anything by killing black men. He wants to find Marie and ask for help but knows he has nothing he can give to her in return. Paula and Paul Too calm him down slightly, and he apologizes and says “I can’t help it. Any of it” before suddenly screaming, “You could be the devil” (309). When John runs from the shop, Paul wonders out loud if John might be the Indian Killer, but Paul Too does not want to consider it.

Marie sits in a meeting with Clarence Mather and the department chair, Dr. Faulkner, who wish to address her disruptive behavior. Marie asks why a white person is teaching American Indian literature and, when Faulkner fails to understand the relevance of the question, explains that “when I take a chemistry course, I certainly hope that the teacher is a chemist” (312). The white men insist that Mather is an expert, and Marie is infuriated by Mather’s arrogant assumption that he knows more about Indians than Indians do themselves.

Marie asks Mather if he knows about the Ghost Dance, a ceremonial movement intended to make white colonizers disappear in the late 19th century. She accuses him of not believing in the dance’s power and of assuming that the Ghost Dance would pass him by—that “you love Indians so much you think you’re excluded from our hatred” (313). She says that, if it was successful, the Ghost Dance would destroy him along with all the other white people and that maybe the Indian Killer is the result of Indians dancing the Ghost Dance. She says that if the dead Indians so celebrated and revered by white men like Mather came back to life, they would go to war and start killing white people, including Mather.

Daniel isolates himself in his study, drinking and listening to Truck Schultz talk about the Indian Killer. He wonders for a moment if John would be able to be commit such acts before dismissing the idea. Olivia storms in and reprimands him for listening to Truck’s racist rants. Daniel claims that Truck is not being serious but turns off the radio nonetheless. Olivia recalls John’s childhood nightmares and wonders whether John’s mental health suddenly got worse when he was a teenager or if she simply did not notice the gradual decline. She prays for him and leaves the house as Daniel sleeps at his desk.

Reggie sits in his apartment with Ty and Harley, watching The Searchers, a Western in which John Wayne’s character searches for his kidnapped niece, planning to kill her because she had been tainted by her Indian captors. Signing, Harley asks the others what they would do in that case, and Reggie says he would kill her. Ty tells him that he needs to calm down, that he and Harley are worried the police will think they are the Indian Killer, and that they do not approve of beating up fellow Indians like John. Reggie thinks of Dr. Mather’s tapes and his own recording of the attack on the white man and wonders, “who can say which story is more traditional than any other?” (320). He grows increasingly angry at being told to calm down and threatens Harley, calling him a traitor and a coward. Harley storms out, but Ty sits down to watch the film because, “I want to know how this ends” (321).  

The police interview Mark Jones. He says that the person who took him was not a man or a woman. He refers to the killer as “it,” claiming, “It was a bird” that was there with him in the dark and that “it could fly because it had wings” (324).

The killer watches a white businessman get out of his car and follows him into a pornographic bookstore. When the businessman goes through an inner door, the killer follows him and finds a booth with a coin-operated television screen playing pornography. The killer is intrigued and disgusted, viewing another thing that they cannot understand, and becoming enraged. The killer waits outside the shop and follows the businessman back to his car, sliding into the car beside him and holding a knife to his throat. The businessman pleads for his life, showing the killer pictures of his wife and children, but the killer cuts his throat. The killer then stabs and hacks at the body multiple times before “feast[ing] on his heart” (328), scalping him, and leaving two owl feathers on his lap.

Marie makes sandwiches at the homeless shelter with Boo, a homeless white man in a wheelchair. She is in a bad mood, having been kicked out of the Native American literature class. She thinks about how much of her time is taken up making food for homeless people, considering that “other people, Indians and not, could run around on the weekends pretending to be what they thought was Indian” (331), but someone has to make sure that the hungry got to eat. Talking to Boo, she questions why he thinks that the Indian Killer must be a man rather than a woman and why he assumes the killer is Indian at all and not just someone trying to create that impression.

The police have told Truck not to broadcast about the incident in the fog, and he agrees, although mainly because he is embarrassed about his own fear. A caller suggests that they should lock up all Indians to be on the safe side, possibly putting them all on an island. Truck says that it is a good idea but would not work because “Indian are damn good swimmers” (336). While he is off-air, the police source phones and tells him that another white man has been killed and scalped, his heart eaten from his chest. Truck turns his microphone on to tell his listeners.

Wilson is still struggling to write his novel. At night, he dreams of the murders, seeing the businessman’s face as his throat was cut and feeling the weight of Mark Jones’s body, then lying awake for hours afterwards. He believes that he should listen to his dreams, as Aristotle Little Hawk does, feeling that he was “chosen for a special task” and that the book he is writing “would finally reveal to the world what it truly meant to be Indian” (338). He speaks to his agent, expressing his concern about other books addressing the same issue, but his agent assures him, “You’re the Indian writer. This belongs to you” (339).

Wilson drives to the police station to see if he can get any more information. The station is full of journalists and television cameras. Wilson talks to a white man who says he has been waiting for hours to report some information. He reveals that he is a foreman working on the last skyscraper and that one of his previous workers was an Indian named John Smith, who quit after his mental health declined. He shows Wilson a picture, and Wilson recognizes the man who looked so much like Aristotle Little Hawk. Pretending to be a police officer, Wilson takes the man’s information and his photo, along with John’s address, promising to sign them into evidence.

Truck broadcasts news of the latest murder, framing it as part of the supposed decline of the country and the early settlers’ dreams of a new, civilized society. He tells the story of two early missionaries who tried to “save” the Indians by converting them to Christianity and forcing their children to attend boarding school. He dismisses any cruelty on the part of the missionaries as a difficult choice made by decent people with the best of intentions. He even justifies them threatening the Indian children with smallpox to get them to obey.

Truck suggests that this technique ensured that the children payed attention in school but that, when they returned to their parents full of knowledge, the adult Indians were so full of jealous rage at their offspring that they raped and murdered the missionaries. He suggests that Indians can only respond to offers of help with savage violence and presents the Indian Killer as a contemporary expression of this fact. As such, he calls for people to “arm ourselves and repel further attacks on our great country,” even asking “when people ask you what you did when the Indian Killer was attacking, what will you say?” (346). 

Aaron and his roommates hear about the murder on Truck’s show and go back out on the streets looking for Indians. While Sean stays in the truck, Aaron and Barry brutally beat on old Indian man. The Indian man waits for someone to intervene and realizes that, in the chaos, he has lost his shoes. Aaron loses control, and Barry has to drag him back to the truck. As they drive away, Sean says that he no longer wants to be part of the violence. Barry wants to agree but is too afraid of Aaron. When he will not back down, Aaron punches Sean and calls him “a pussy” before chucking him out of the truck. When they drive off, Sean calls a cab to take him to the police station.

Reggie calls his mother. She is worried about him and claims that Reggie’s abusive father, Bird, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy, is also concerned. Reggie brings up a battle in 1858 in which Indians surrounded defeated white calvary troops but let them go. When his mother asks what he is getting at, he says simply, “I don’t know, Mom. Maybe Indians are better people than most” (352). He tries to borrow some money from her, but she has none, so he says he has to go and hangs up.

Wilson drives to John’s apartment building and, finding it unlocked, enters and goes up to John’s apartment. After considering kicking the door in, he simply knocks but is greeted by Olivia, who is disappointed to discover that it is not her son. Olivia recognizes him and says that his books “really get it right” (355). Wilson is grateful and admits that he wants to speak to John as part of his research for his latest book. Exhausted, Olivia spills out her heart to Wilson, explaining about John’s mental health, his refusal to take his medication, and her worries. Crying, she even says, “I keep thinking about this Indian Killer. Sometimes, I wonder. I think, maybe…” before dismissing the thought and talking about how gentle John was as a child, once crying over a spider she had killed (357).

Marie and Boo are delivering sandwiches in the truck when they see King, a homeless Indian, staggering around, his face bloodied and bruised. King explains that he was attacked by two white men who might have killed him if other white people had not intervened. Marie thinks of how much Indian blood has been spilled and that there are people responsible for it, which gives her “a beautiful kind of anger” (360).