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 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
While out hunting, Fools Crow sees a strange figure approaching on horseback, whom he soon recognizes as Fast Horse. Fast Horse reveals that he has recently been shot by the Napikwans and requires immediate treatment. Fools Crow takes Fast Horse to his father’s lodge, and Mik-api performs a healing ceremony. After three days, Fast Horse wakes up from his illness to see his father. Boss Ribs tells him that he wants Fast Horse to stay and learn the ways of the Beaver Medicine in the hope that it may lead him to renew his faith in his people once again. Fast Horse closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.
Chapter 17 Summary
During a blizzard, Fast Horse sneaks away from the Lone Eaters to rejoin Owl Child and his men. Fools Crow sits with Boss Ribs before the Beaver Medicine ceremony. Boss Ribs asks Fools Crow to tell him why Fast Horse changed so much after the raid on the Crow Horses. Fools Crow explains about Fast Horse’s dream of Cold Maker, the search for the ice spring, and the careless boasting that led to “Yellow Kidney’s discovery and mutilation” (203). He says that Fast Horse never fulfilled his vow to Cold Maker and was afraid of what he had done to Yellow Kidney. Boss Ribs replies that he knows Fast Horse did wrong but since he is his only son he wishes Fool Crow to try to bring him back to learn the ways of the Beaver Medicine. As Boss Ribs is speaking, Fools Crow thinks of his brother, Running Fisher, and how recently he has “become sullen in the same way that Fast Horse did after the raid” (204). Fools Crow promises to do his best to find Fast Horse and bring him home.
Chapter 18 Summary
Fast Horse has rejoined Owl Child and is preparing to kill the Napikwan who shot him. He shoots and scalps the red-headed white man, and the rest of the men beat and rape his wife in front of her children. Meanwhile, Fools Crow travels after Fast Horse in his attempt to bring his former friend home to his father. He reaches Mountain Chief’s camp, where he hopes to find Owl Child and Fast Horse. He explains to Mountain Child that Boss Ribs has sent him to look for his son. Mountain Chief says that Owl Child and his men have not been with them for “ten, twelve sleeps”; “three sleeps ago,” Fast Horse appeared in the camp looking for Owl Child (216). Mountain Chief asks Fools Crow if the Napikwans are looking for him, and Fools Crow explains that the seizers want to hold Mountain Chief and his people accountable for Owl Child’s violence against Malcolm Clark and other Napikwans. Mountain Chief admits that if it were up to him, the Pikunis would go to war with the Napikwans. Before leaving the camp, Fools Crow learns that Fast Horse has gone south to find Owl Child.
Chapters 16-18 Analysis
When Fast Horse returns to the Lone Eaters after getting shot, he is given a second chance to reintegrate into the community. Boss Ribs hopes that when Fast Horse recovers, he will understand that he has strayed from the ways of his people and that he should remain with him to become the next keeper of the Beaver Medicine. When Fast Horse first wakes up, Boss Ribs tells his son that he believes the change that occurred in him began before the raid on the Crow horses as he saw him becoming increasingly arrogant and boastful. He believes that Fast Horse is sick on the inside as well as on the outside and that he must look to heal his spirit as well as his body. This inner sickness, Boss Ribs warns, has made Fast Horse “look down on [his] own people” and “ignore their most sacred traditions” (190). Fast Horse, however, ignores his father’s words and thinks to himself that he “no longer [believes] in the Beaver Medicine or in anything Pikuni” (189). As soon as he recovers, he rejoins Owl Child and takes revenge on the Napikwan who shot him as well as the man’s wife and children.
The form of justice that Owl Child and Fast Horse mete out is similar to the approach to justice that Napikwans often take. Owl Child, for instance, wishes to punish all Napikwans for the shame that Malcolm Clark brought upon him. Neither Owl Child nor his companions seem to reflect on the consequences their actions will have for their people. This refusal to think of the larger community makes Owl Child and Fast Horse different from people like Mountain Chief. While Mountain Chief hates the Napikwans, he tells Fools Crow that he wishes the Pikunis would go to war with them, he does not use violence against them because he knows it is against the wishes and interests of the Pikuni people.
