Free Flight by Sherman Alexie Page A

the Indian camp.

Eleven
    T HIS IS WHAT REVENGE can do to you.
    I lead those one hundred soldiers down the hill toward the Indian camp.
    We are killers.
    As we ride to the bottom of the hill and race the short distance across the flats toward camp, I can feel Gus’s rage and grief leaving my body. With each hoof-beat, I lose pieces of my rage, until I am left with only my fear.
    I had wanted to kill, but now I just want to stop.
    I throw away my rifle. I don’t want to use it. But I keep riding. I am unarmed. I think I want to die. I think I want Gus to die.
    I think I want to lose this fight.
    We didn’t really surprise the Indians with our attack. We didn’t even try to sneak up on them. We wanted them to know we were coming. And so, yes, they knew we were coming, and they’re ready.
    But only twenty-five Indian warriors ride out to meet us. Most of them are boys. And only a few of them have rifles.
    The rest have bows and arrows. And, sure, they’re accurate. I see one soldier get hit in the chest with an arrow and another get hit in the stomach.
    But we have repeating rifles.
    It’s one hundred repeating rifles versus seven rifles and eighteen bows.
    We only lose a few men as we roar toward the Indian warriors. They are screaming and crying. They must prevent us from reaching their camp. If we reach it, we will kill old people, women, and children. We will destroy families. But the warriors can’t stop us. They are riding to their deaths. And they are singing their death songs.
    Most of them fall before we’re even close to them. One hundred rifles equals one hundred bullets every three seconds. In the twenty-one seconds it takes us to close the distance, we shoot seven hundred bullets.
    Only a few of the warriors survive that crash of bullets.
    And then we swarm into them. Ninety-five surviving white soldiers attack eleven Indian warriors. We barely pause as we kill all of them, with bullet and fist and saber and boot.
    I don’t kill anybody. But I ride with killers, so that makes me a killer.
    We ride into camp. There’s only twenty or thirty tents arranged in loose circles. I don’t know what tribe. Gus doesn’t care. He almost makes me not care.
    We are attacked as we ride through the camp. A few of the women have bows and arrows, too. And a few old men.
    And one tiny Indian boy. He can’t be more than five years old. He holds a bow. He is Bow Boy. Is he strong enough to even use his weapon? Can he pull back the string and let loose an arrow?
    No, he can’t.
    He bloodies his fingers on the taut string. And he cries out in pain. But he keeps trying to shoot us. And he bloodies his hand again and again.
    I see a soldier slam his horse into an old woman. She falls. The soldier spins his horse around and tramples her. He spins again and rides over her one more time.
    A soldier dismounts and chases down a woman and her little daughter. He shoots the woman in the back. She falls. The daughter drops to her knees beside her mother. Daughter wails. The soldier shoots at the daughter. But his gun jams. He pulls the trigger again. Nothing. So he grabs the barrel of his rifle, still so hot that it burns his hands. But he doesn’t feel the pain, not yet, as he smashes the gun down on the girl’s skull. He hits her again and again. Keeps hitting her until his rifle breaks in half.
    A group of soldiers, seven or eight of them, drag two screaming and kicking women into a tent.
    A soldier jumps up and down on the belly and chest of an old man.
    And everywhere, everywhere, other soldiers are shooting Indians.
    Bullet after bullet after bullet after bullet.
    I see General Mustache down on one knee, taking careful aim at the women and children and old people who flee from us. They run toward the faraway hills. To the thick woods on the faraway hills. Two or three miles away.
    The general pulls the trigger. Again and again. And a person falls each time he shoots.
    It’s madness.
    I wish I had kept my rifle so I could