The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

 The paint at the fence shakes her head from too many horse thoughts rattling around in there and Cassidy shakes his head just the same, trying to get a rise out of her.  She's smart enough it works sometimes.

Not this time

She's looking past Cassidy.

He turns, stands slow, dropping his bowl and Jo's both.

"Holy shit," he says, having to move side to side to stay standing, from the dogs rushing this spilled lunch.

He doesn't care about it anymore.

Spread out behind him, just down the slope from the camper, are probably eighty, ninety elk.  Maybe a hundred.

They're all looking right back at him, not a single tail flicking, not one eye blinking.

Cassidy swallows hard, wishing more than anything for his rifle.

The name he was born with wasn't Cassidy Thinks Twice, even though that's what he's doing now -- Where's my gun, where's my gun?-- but Cassidy Sees Elk.

Names are stupid, though.

Pretty soon he won't even need his.


With every new Stephen Graham Jones novel I read, I love him more.  That last line - how chilling.

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