Stephen Graham Jones to Publish New Horror Novel in 2025 (Exclusive)

The shot pulled me away from the dying napikwan, my mouth holding on last, the Cat Man part of me screaming because I wanted more, I needed all of the blood, not just the first few drinks. And even though I needed to run, to fight, to not die, I couldn’t help crawling back to this napikwan to finish feeding.

He was cold and dead.

I stood without drinking more.

Blood was pouring down my side, out of me, and was still leaking from my back, and the rest of me was shining and covered in it. Another story we have is of Blood-Clot Boy, and how I looked now is how I always saw Blood-Clot Boy in my head, the way Otter Goes Back would explain him, his voice whispering so all us children would lean in to hear better.

But Blood-Clot Boy was a hero in all the stories.

That’s not what I am.

I’m the one who killed Beaver Chief’s people. I’m the one with the Cat Man inside me. I’m the one who has to drink the blood of my people, just so I can keep drinking that blood.

And now there were seven smelly napikwan standing around me, two of them holding burning torches, one of them trying to hold his short gun steady on me, the rest of them raising their longshooter guns, three of them screaming because they didn’t know what I was.

What I am is the Indian who can’t die.

I’m the worst dream America ever had.

When that short gun finally shot, I wasn’t there anymore, so that little greased shooter went into the hip of the man behind me and he fell over, shooting before he fell. It was into the knee of a napikwan with a long beard who was standing beside the one with the short gun.

Three of the longshooter guns shot with one booming voice, one of them burning a line along my calf right here and then hitting into the ground, but I was already running into the night, naked and covered in blood, my eyes crying it too, my side open to the night right here, and the Pikuni are fast, the fastest, we always have been, especially when running for the Backbone, but this night I ran like no Pikuni had ever run, and on the way out of the light of those two torches, with longshooter guns booming behind me, their greased shooters burrowing fast into the darkness around me, I scooped up that blackhorn calf that had licked my face and held it close to my chest, because I couldn’t leave it there to have its throat cut, and it wasn’t until Sun Chief rode into the sky that I could see that this calf was dirty white.

My heart is empty now from telling this, Three-Persons.

So is my pipe.