Enemy bullets were splashing the ground around Blue Turtle, and as he began to run, Dances With Wolves kicked his pony forward.
He was just reaching for the stranded warrior when a bullet slammed into his chest and passed out his back.
As Dances With Wolves slumped forward Blue Turtle managed to climb up behind him. Slipping his arms around his wounded friend's waist, the young man grasped the reins, turned the pony, and gave him his head.
They had just cleared the village and Blue Turtle was frantically searching out a good spot for hiding when Smiles A Lot appeared alongside and, motioning for him to follow, galloped ahead.
Dances With Wolves was still conscious when Blue Turtle and Smiles A Lot pulled him down from the pony and began to carry him up a steep, clear trail leading to the canyon's rim. A hundred yards later they reached a wide spot on the trail and laid their burden down to catch their breath. The hair-mouths had overrun the village and dark columns of smoke boiled up from the lodges as they were set ablaze.
A gurgling sound swung their attention back to their fallen comrade and the young warriors were crestfallen to discover that the sound was coming from the hole in Dances With Wolves' chest. The bullet had gone through one of his lungs. Blood was bubbling at the corners of his mouth and his eyes were going gray with the dull film of death.
"See to my wife. ." he wheezed, his voice garbled with blood, ". . my children."
“We'll carry you to the top," Smiles A Lot insisted. He and Blue Turtle lifted their comrade up but had only managed to progress a few feet before they realized that the man they were carrying had died.
Not wanting his body to fall into the hands of the enemy, the two young warriors searched the side of the canyon until they found a crevice suitable for burial. They wedged his body into the slit and stuffed the opening with rocks and earth. When the tomb had been sealed and thoroughly camouflaged with brush, Blue Turtle and Smiles A Lot continued up the trail.
Once over the rim, they saw that most of the village had escaped. Women and children and warriors were scattered over the plains adjacent to the canyon's edge. some were huddled in little groups and some were wandering, half-dazed, trying to locate family members. The wounded had been grouped together and Owl Prophet was doing what he could for them.
After a few minutes of looking, Smiles A Lot found Hunting For Something. She was sitting, stunned but unhurt, with Stands With A Fist and her two daughters. The littler of the girls, the one called Stays Quiet, was crying in her mother's arms, and the one called Always Walking had her hands against her ears.
"The baby?" Smiles A Lot asked his wife.
"The baby's not hurt," Hunting For Something assured him.
"Have you seen Dances With Wolves?" he heard Stands With A Fist ask.
She sat very still, cradling her child, but her eyes were wild with fear and anxiety, and for a moment Smiles A Lot could do nothing but blink.
"Have you seen him?” she asked again, as if he might not have heard.
"He is dead," Smiles A Lot said.
This revelation seemed to have no effect on Stands with A Fist.
"Have you seen Snake In Hands? He was with the ponies.”
"No," said Smiles A Lot, but as he replied, a flurry of excited shouts rose around him. Looking up, he saw a small herd of perhaps thirty horses trotting toward him. When he stood, he could see that a single, bloody-faced boy was driving the ponies.
"Here he comes,” Smiles A Lot said.
Although his face was streaked with blood, the boy was unhurt. But he had terrible news.
"The soldiers have captured the horse herd!” he announced breathlessly. "They ran off with them!”
Smiles A Lot and his fellow warriors rushed to the edge of the canyon to see if such a thing could be true and were surprised to see that the blue-coated soldiers were withdrawing. They —- out of the canyon far to the south, and as Smiles A Lot watched the force serpentine toward the rim, something caught his eye on the prairie beyond.
At a great distance they looked like a legion of worms wriggling over the plains, but Smiles A Lot knew immediately that they were the Comanche horses. He also knew that an effort must be made to recapture them. Without the horses they would all be helpless.
Chapter LXII
General Mackenzie broke off the fight, falling short of but one goal. He had not destroyed the hostiles themselves, an action that would have been in keeping with his orders, but in all other respects he had achieved a significant victory in the great canyon.
Rarely had the general been as enamored of the rank and file as he was following the battle in the canyon. The hundreds of men under him had ridden out the terrible storm and marched all night across the frozen heart of hostile country before scattering the foe and reducing their town to ash.
But as Bad Hand's force marched south the general found himself most pleased in the knowledge that Captain Bradley had succeeded in capturing the entire hostile horse herd, almost a thousand in number; and these animals were being driven in front of him now. Indians without horses were like wagons without wheels, and there was no doubt that the last significant pocket of aboriginal resistance had been shattered. The freezing weather was aggravating the general's many old wounds, but there was no way he would let it reduce his pleasure as the miles between himself and the broken enemy piled up.
What to do with the mammoth horse herd was a piece of unfinished business that he dealt with swiftly and decisively when it was reported at mid-afternoon that the column was being shadowed by fifty or sixty warriors.
The scouts were ordered to locate a dead-end canyon large enough to accommodate the Indian ponies. In less than an hour a suitable place, with high walls on one side and an elevated ridge on the other, was discovered, and Bad Hand ordered the ponies driven inside.
More than a hundred men were ordered to surround the herd. Dozens of cartridge boxes were positioned along the line of soldiers and, as afternoon shadows began to stretch over the cold, brittle landscape, the order to commence firing was given.
At the height of the slaughter, the riflemen had wavered. Some had thrown down their weapons and a few had been overcome with nausea, but the incapacitated were quickly replaced with fresh shooters. The plunging, shrieking mass of ponies diminished rapidly, and by last light, no movement could be discerned in the box canyon now filled with the bodies, two or three deep in some places.
As he was eating dinner, a mixed group of civilians and Tonkawas reported that the hostiles had disappeared, confirming the general's suspicion that they were after the horses, and that night Bad Hand settled into one of the deepest, most peaceful sleeps he had ever enjoyed.
A few scattered and impotent bands might wander the prairie a while longer, but, for all practical purposes, the conquest of the southern plains was complete.
Chapter LXIII
Less than two weeks after the battle in the canyon, on the plains west of Fort Sill, a safe-escort team of warriors met the bedraggled, starving, destitute remains of what had once been a grand confederation of Comanches and Kiowas.
That same afternoon, one hundred and forty-six men, women, and children, many of them former residents of Ten Bears' village, marched drearily past flanking columns of expressionless soldiers. Among them were White Bear, Smiles A Lot, Rabbit, Hunting For Something, the Owl Prophet family, and Wind In His Hair's widow, One Braid Trailing, Stands With A Fist, Snake In Hands, Always Walking, and Stays Quiet were there, too, buried deep in the group that filed through the post.