Chapter 15

This chapter was good. Not as many similes as last chapter, also there was some scenery change.

Once again the company gets a contract for scalps, this time from Sonora. I think it's interesting that they just went to another city to get pretty much the same contract. Is this one still 100 dollars a scalp?

Also they picked up a little sick boy named Sloat, which is a dumb name if you ask me. Sounds too much like Goat. I like the quote on page 204, "he must have counted himself well out of that place yet if he gave thanks to any god at all it was ill timed for the country was not done with him." I'm not exactly sure what this means. Maybe it means the boy was thankful that the company had a use for him instead of him being sickly ill in this town.

They also go out and massacre another pueblo of Indians, what else is new? If that's not bad enough they get caught or something because a cavalry led by Gen. Elias comes to massacre them. I figured the company would have fared better in the fight to be honest. I don't think they killed many soldiers, and they lost around three and seven were wounded, which they had to kill three of the wounded. I have to say Elias must be good to have done a number on Glanton and his gang. On page 205, "the fires on the plain faded like an evil dream." I thought this was an interesting simile.

I didn't understand the whole part of choosing arrows to decide who had to kill the weakened survivors. I know it's their form of drawing straws, but wouldn't it have been easier to just let the Delaware finish them all of or just leave them? I didn't understand the whole dilemma of Tate and the kid over who was going to kill the other guy and Shelby. I thought the line on page 206 was really amazing, "The Delaware let drop the reins and took down his warclub from his bag and stepped astraddle of the man and swung the club and crushed his skull with a single blow." That is pretty epic. I got to say that back in the day I thought the Iroquois Indians were cool, but these guys blow them out of the water. They know how to get stuff done. I think it's warrior-like that this Indian has no remorse over killing his wounded comrade. From his point of view, he's probably doing him a favor.

I thought the whole kid and Shelby scene was pretty touching. I didn't think that the kid would've killed Shelby. I think the kid is growing up a lot in this book. At the beginning he would just kill random people for the heck of it, but now he's all collected and wouldn't kill his allies. I think all the kid really needed was friends. I thought it was a classic western move to put Shelby up like that. I think there was a sunset if I wasn't mistaken which even adds to the western moment when the kid just rides as if he's too cool to care.

The ambush scene was interesting. I think the line on page 211 was awesome, "he came up out of the blanket and leveled the pistol and discharged it into the chest of the man nearest him and turned to run." I can see this kind of thing happen in slow motion. And whatever happened to Tate? Does he die? It's pretty cold in this part, and I wonder if the kid sustained any significant damage to his feet. Frostbitten feet isn't good.