He did not fire often. He'd taken the gun from a dead soldier and he had just a few rounds.
The soldiers were below him. Trapped on the river bank. Afraid. They did not know where to go. The gunfire surrounded them. Or so they thought.
He had killed the one officer. Now a young corporal tried to shout orders. Knew nothing. The bugler was dead in the rocks just below him. A boy younger than himself. Still holding the bugle.
He wanted the bugle but to get it he would show himself. Perhaps at dark he could get it.
The others had left him. They had withdrawn to the horse meadow and right now were gambling and smoking round a fire while he alone confronted the demons.
``Let them alone,'' the old men said. They did not see the world as he did.
They took the world as they found it and joked and smoked and went on living while the young ones fought and died.
``That is your choice,'' the old ones said.
In the night word came that his cousin was dead by the river. His cousin wore the wolf skin that was prized by all the warriors because it conferred great power on all who wore it. But now the wolf skin covered the shoulders
of a dead boy and the old ones wanted it back.
``It is sacred,'' they said.
``Two handsful of gold dust,'' one offered.
``Five spotted horses,'' said another.
His cousin lay among the soldiers. They would have taken his medicine bag. His beaded moccasins. They would not have touched the ragged wolf skin ...
Like a snake he moved forward through the rocks and he reached his dead cousin and he picked up his cousin and pulled him onto his back.
He ran up the river bank in the first light and a soldier fired at him and his cousin took all the bullets for him and he brought his dead cousin and the wolf robe to the old ones' camp fire.
His cousin's father wept and hacked off his hair.
``No gold,'' the boy said. ``No spotted horses.''
He wrapped the bullet riddled wolf robe about him.
``I will take this,'' he said.