Caught-His-Horse-First must be readying for his treaty because he’s flying the Yankee flag. It’s stuck up on top of the biggest teepee right in the centre of the village. Big coiling and uncoiling movement from our men. Batteries set up and the Gatling guns placed swiftly. We’re not two hundred yards away and if they fire a gun they can’t miss for tarnation. Winona, Winona! Guessing she’s down there in that damn tent. The major has issued orders and now the captains take hold of their companies and everyone getting into place. You see the Indians moving about and the early morning fires in the care of the squaws. Some of them standing up now and looking at us across the gap. Seem mighty surprised as I am myself. Must be about five hundred souls to judge by the spread of wickiups and teepees. The creek behind softly smoking with mist. Then the ground rising to the fringes of a forest and the dark green acres then and then heaped up high the black mountains and the haircuts of snow on top. There’s a silence now spread across our troops and a silence across the village and across the forest and across the mountains. All creation is puzzled and don’t know to say a thing. Now Poulson is at my side and he gives me a glance. Here’s Major Neale riding along the line. To every section of fifty men he shouting his orders. As he speaks there’s about twenty braves running up from the village. They ain’t even carrying arms. Just running towards us. Caught-His-Horse-First at the front. He’s took down his flag and is running with it. He’s waving it like it could be a word. Now Major Neale reaches our section. You’re to fall on them, men, and leave nothing alive. Not a blade of grass standing. Kill them all. These ain’t words that the major knows. Now Captain Sowell rides over and takes issue with his superior. That’s a terrible sight for a soldier. Battle is an ill without officers shouting too. All the eyes of the men, four thousand or so, look on with shock. Caught-His-Horse-First gets to the fringe of the army. He’s shouting too, and the major’s shouting at Captain Sowell. We can’t hear what the captain’s saying back.
The whole body of the troopers seems to shudder with intent. We see other braves now running through the village with rifles. We see the women and the children starting to leave from the back. A great smoulder and ruckus of squaws. A screeching and shouting crosses over to us. Captain Sowell can do no other thing but to rejoin his company. The Gatling guns start to fire at the distant women. We can see them falling like they belonged in a different world. The Napoleons open fire with another tone of screeching and a dozen shells erupt in the village. Now the men going to do what they got to. Someone orders mayhem they got to deliver it. Otherwise likely they die instead. Now Caught-His-Horse-First has hesitated. He waves back his braves and starts to run. He runs just as good as a young ’un. His legs powering through the sagebrush. The major lifts his Enfield, steadies, and fires. The great Caught-His-Horse-First goes down, killed by his puzzlement. Leave nothing alive, cries the major again. Kill them all. And down we all surge like that huge river flood of old.
Who will tell you the reason of that day? Not Thomas Mc-Nulty. Guess what’s savage in men was in our men that morning. Men I knew from aforetime and the new men I knew just days. Rushing down on the village like an army of coyotes. Braves fetch their guns and come bursting back out of their wigwams. Women crying and calling. The soldiers hollering like demons. Firing and firing. I see Starling Carlton at the head of his company, his sabre pointing against the foe. His face red as a wound. His corpulence balanced and dangerous. Poised like a murdering dancer. And everywhere strength and power and terror. Even in the heart of every trooper. Terror of dying and being second with a shot. Bullet in your soft body. Kill them all. An order we never known. I rush on with them and when I get to the teepees I drop down from my horse. I ain’t got one notion what to do only push on to the middle. I am praying to the soul of Handsome John Cole that Winona might be there. If she ain’t there it’s perdition. As I run through the teepees I get a queer sense of lightness. Like I got speed I don’t got. I reach the many-coloured wigwam of the chief and plunge in through the opening. It’s bigger than it looked and the first chill light of morning swims there. Then I got a body wrapped against me. There’s a dozen squaws there but the limpet on me is Winona. Merciful God, I say, stay near me. We got to get out of here. Thomas, she says, please save me. I going to do all I can. I don’t even look at these other ladies. I ain’t going to be no help to them. They just staring at me with the open blank faces of emergency. All around us the pocking of guns and the whining and cursing of bullets. There’s bullets passing through the wigwam and out another side. Even in the two seconds I am with them two or three of the squaws is knocked. These are Winona’s people and my brain is now aflame. What chokes my throat is love. I ain’t saying love for them but for her. I don’t care if she ain’t my daughter but all I know is the fiery feeling.
Back out I push, keeping Winona sheltered. But where in God’s hell do I go? Maybe make for the bluff again. Get her back up with the Gatlings. Fortunately for me she’s still in her army garb. That surprises me but I’ll take help from God or devil all the one. Two drummer boys was with us on their ponies but I didn’t see them come down. It’s not like a proper charge. But maybe the uniform is something to save us. Even if the flag weren’t. God knows a trooper don’t like to shoot blue. We’re nearly out of the village and the fight is fierce and loud. As many bodies now as living maybe. I’m not looking as such but I see everything around me like I had a hundred eyes. Men have swept through on their mounts slashing with their swords and firing freely. I don’t see one trooper on the ground killed or wounded. Now many have slipped from their horses and are killing with pistols and sabres. Why haven’t the braves fired back? Maybe they ain’t got no damn bullets left. Maybe they ain’t got nothing. I curse at my heart and plead this be my last battle. If I can only get Winona away. Now here’s big Starling Carlton and he’s standing five feet off. Captain, I say, can you help us, please help us. This is John Cole’s daughter. That ain’t his daughter, roars Starling. Starling, it is, and I beg you, stand one side of her and help me. Don’t you understand, Thomas McNulty? Everything changed now. We’re to do what was said. We’re to kill them all and leave nothing alive. But this is Winona, you know Winona. That ain’t nothing but a squaw. Don’t you know, corporal? These the killers of Mrs Neale. These the killers of his daughter. Stand aside, Thomas, and I going to quench her life. We got our orders and by damn we going to do them. His body looks huge and puffed out. He like an adder going to strike. Sweat like the Deluge in the Bible. Hey, Noah, where your ark? Old Starling Carlton going to drown the world. I do love this man. We been through a thousand slaughters. Now he’s lifting his pride, a shining Smith and Wesson pistol. In his belt he drags a beautiful Spencer rifle. Looks like he got his heart’s desire. Starling Carlton, ain’t nothing and is all the world. Every soul God’s fashioning. He lifting the handsome gun. He going to shoot. I can see it. By Jesus I pull on my sabre like a doctor draws a thorn and it moves across the brief space of three feet and one half of the blade meets with Starling’s big face and cuts in and cuts in till I see his eyes bursting and he don’t even have time to fire and down he is felled, my old crazy friend. And I push on past him and I don’t look back only crazy like him looking round to see any other snake or killing man might take Winona.