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him.
    He caught himself thinking it for whatever savage he would find over there, and he liked that. He didn’t hate Indians personally, individually, but he was clear about their being an inferior race. He couldn’t tolerate the so-called idealistic Americans who didn’t face that reality. Inferior race. A backwater of history, foul and rank. For the sake of humankind, which had advanced beyond them, they must be swept away.
    The job of the soldier was to protect civilization—the state, the church, the family—against barbarians of every kind. Breitshof’s grandfather had fought against the barbarians in Africa. He liked to think his ancestors had probably fought barbarians back to the Crusades, or even the Huns. His was a soldiering family. He had migrated to America from his native Saxony to go soldiering against slaveholders first, and then against savages.
    Oh, some few of these Indian barbarians might adapt to civilization, like that tall, eccentric doctor at the agency. They were welcome to its benefits. But this bunch that was headed north, back to the blanket, they had thrown away their chance. They’d said they’d rather die than live like white men. That was fine with Karlheinz Breitshof.
    He stopped and squatted down. He let his eyes play across the area where something had moved. He had learned to let his eyes roam, light and unfocused, instead of peering at some spot. Without looking down, he made a practiced reach into a blouse pocket, got out his Navy plug, opened his Barlow knife, and cut off a chaw. He didn’t mean to move until he saw more.
    For his part Sergeant Breitshof meant to help these Indians die quickly. That would be merciful. He hated to see creatures suffering. But he had indulged in no false pity. He had seen too many of his comrades-at-arms die at the hands of these savages. Frederickson, especially, just this summer. Breitshof didn’t call many men friend—they had to earn it—but Frederickson had been a friend, and a drunken Indian had knifed him over a woman.
    Breitshof remembered the others. Davis, the boyish Welshman. Kelly—two Kellys, in fact. Morehead. Vanderkamp, the peculiar Dutchman. He didn’t remember their Christian names, for he didn’t hold with the American custom of calling people outside your family by their Christian names. He did remember their faces, though, and how they died, and how he had sworn to avenge them.
    He thought he heard a gasp, or a little cry, almost like a plaintive birdcall. He waited. It didn’t come again. He waited longer. He heard nothing, but he knew something was there. Someone.
    Sergeant Breitshof moved forward in a crouch. Crouching was humiliating enough—he refused to crawl. He crept up onto a knoll of thin grass and squatted to look around.
    And there she was, not twenty steps in front of him. An Indian woman, he supposed one of the Cheyennes who had run off, plopped out on a blanket in the sand. Her legs were spread wide, her knees were up, like she was rutting, but …
    She cried out, or moaned, or …
    Mein Gott , the sergeant saw. The woman was giving birth, actually giving birth. Right now. He could see the baby’s head out of her. And she was stretched back, resting.
    Breitshof shivered. Incredible. He felt his guts churn.
    He felt a great urgency to have something to do with his hands. He got out a piece of cartridge paper and began the ritual of tying another cartridge for his ancient Springfield—powder, ball, stout string, two ties, twist the paper end tight and fold it back. He tied the cartridge automatically, barely looking at what he was doing, his eyes riveted on the woman. When he finished, he held the finished cartridge in his left hand, uncertain.
    For the first time he noticed that she wore a white woman’s dress, a kind of fancy one, actually, with a lace collar and buttons down the back. He felt a spasm of anger. The woman’s buck would have stolen that dress, and likely raped and killed its rightful