The local mayor has passed away, and local residents are mourning through a day-long funeral featuring children dressed like mutilated angels and men howling like apes. Nearby, a teenage boy named Leonel calls for his younger half brother Skeet to come home and help their father, a Vietnam War veteran triple-amputee. Skeet, who is drawing symbols into the mud at the river, refuses to go, claiming their father is always mad. He turns to his brother angrily, revealing the black X tattoos under his eye — his earliest memory is of his father tattooing them there. Leonel, unlike Skeet, is visually unscarred by the cruelty of their father Agaju, although he too has been victim to it. Skeet finally agrees to return home. Agaju hasn’t left home, a clapboard trailer outside of city limits, in 7 years. Despite being a triple amputee from the war, he had impregnated two women with his sons. No one in town goes there, and they live in fear of Agaju’s two boys. Skeet comes inside to see his father, who interrogates him about drawing pictures in the old language, which is dangerous and bad magic, but Skeet swears he wasn’t. Agaju also asks about the death of the mayor, and seems to have a plan that will make sure they eat for the next few years. He warns Skeet not to tell his brother about it. Then he goes to the garage, where he tattoos himself as part of a ritual. Leonel is in the back lot breaking glass bottles. He literally feels as though the air is being crushed out of him, and falls down and hits the dirt. When he looks up he sees Skeet behind the glass bathroom door, and realizes it is Skeet who is causing him to suffocate, so he throws a bottle at the door, shattering it. But Skeet has already gone inside to shower, which to Leonel means that the ritual is not far off. He doesn’t want to watch, and runs deeper into the back lot to his safe room, his real home. There, he keeps his father’s rifle, a Henry .45-70 Government. He calls the rifle Ochosi, and practices shooting it when he knows he’s alone. This time as he shoots he curses his father and Skeet’s bullshit magic. But then, he finds a note from his brother. He likes what he reads, though we are not told why. In the shower, Skeet looks at the markings on his body. He hopes his brother has found his letter. Agaju is smoking meth and drinking mezcal. He hopes that someone—unnamed—will come back. Night falls and something will come soon to pay witness to Agaju’s ritual. Leonel clutches Ochosi. A parade of men and women in tailcoats, ball gowns, and life-like animal masks appears, carrying the mayor on a stretcher to see Agaju, whose ritual will revive the mayor for the umpteenth time. Leonel, watching from afar, calls him the death god. Agaju prepares for the ritual, which will take place at the altar in his living room. He begins the ritual and a crease opens in the altar that no one except Skeet sees. But then, Leonel shoots his father in the face, killing him. Skeet continues the ritual, carrying out the plan he describes to Leonel in his letter. Leonel shoots people in the crowd, until, as we later find out, everyone is dead. The room goes quiet and the magic drains out. Skeet’s smile reaches across his whole face and his tattoos begin to reshape themselves. He leaves the house to wait for Leonel, and makes the house collapse and flatten. He meets his brother at the river, but Leonel worries that the boy in front of him is no longer his little brother, but a magic creature. As Leonel walks, he fails to see the rising water swallow up his brother. By the time he turns around the water is opaque and rising, likely to flood. Leonel reloads his rifle. He sets off to the distant town and the first house, ready to use some magic of his own.