He has no idea where his brother, Sidney Bosco, has gone—with Kilt’s share of stolen money—and, following his “rebirth,” even more miseries await Kilt, who’s mauled by a lion. Passed out on his wandering mule, he’s found by Bonnie Grace, a 13-year-old Indigenous girl who nurses him back to health when not being brutally abused by the owner of the cabin in which she’s staying. Kilt rescues her from her circumstances, but not before taking care of her abuser with his ever-active Luger, which, along with a copy of Moby-Dick, is his prime possession. Flash back to 1912 Minnesota, where Benjamin, a sweet but passive 10-year-old who quit school after second grade, cleans a barroom in exchange for a place to sleep—until he’s trained by a charismatic bank robber, Nick Mercy, as his getaway driver. Before fate catches up to Mercy, he mysteriously urges Benjamin to head to Black Elk, Montana, where there are “nothing but answers” waiting for him at the Triple Nine Ranch. Its high-minded owner, Royal Wainwright, proves to know all about Benjamin. The promised answers are about the boy’s mother (who recently killed herself), the father he never knew, and his never-seen half brother. Partly told in retrospect by the aged Bonnie, this is a raw, biblically heated tale about generational trauma, the possibilities of redemption, and predetermined fate. With its parade of blood-spattered victims, its philosophical ponderings (“things evolve solely for the outcome of their own destruction”), and fiercely lyrical depictions of the American West (“the limbs of ponderosa bejeweled and frosted like enormous sticks of rock candy”), this is country noir at its grimmest while at the same time channeling hope. Its intensity never lets up.