In Part Six­teen of “Blood Merid­i­an,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds in a stark and chill­ing land­scape, where a group of horse­men ride through a cold morn­ing, encoun­ter­ing silence and untouched snow. They tra­verse a des­o­late ter­rain, find­ing rem­nants of life in the form of aban­doned agri­cul­tur­al fields and the skele­tal remains of dried fruits. Their jour­ney through a val­ley leads them to the mead­ows that house deer and the dis­tant sound of cat­tle low­ing at night.

The sub­se­quent day brings them to the ruins of San Bernardi­no, where they encounter aging wild bulls, rem­nants of an ear­li­er age marked by Span­ish brands. A ten­sion-filled moment occurs when a charg­ing bull attacks James Miller; the chaos cul­mi­nates with Miller hav­ing to shoot the bull before attend­ing to his strug­gling horse. Their jour­ney con­tin­ues along the San­ta Cruz, through the impres­sive cot­ton­woods, yet they find no traces of miss­ing scouts or Apache signs.

Glan­ton’s par­ty rides to the mis­sion at San Jose de Tumaca­cori, where the judge shares his knowl­edge of its his­to­ry, dubi­ous giv­en his lack of pri­or vis­its. As they explore the church’s ruins, they come across a dying man dressed in home­made clothes, who, in his fee­ble state, points seem­ing­ly towards eter­ni­ty before dying. The mys­tery deep­ens when they encounter anoth­er her­mit who turns out to be the deceased man’s broth­er, who dis­re­gards his sibling’s fate.

Con­tin­u­ing on their route, they pass through aban­doned ter­ri­to­ries, not­ing the stark­ness of Tubac and the haunt­ing pres­ence of a blind man. The group sets up camp in the desert, where they main­tain vig­i­lance for Apache threats, even­tu­al­ly pick­ing up their trail. Their hor­rif­ic dis­cov­ery comes when they find the bod­ies of the lost scouts hang­ing from a tree, grue­some­ly muti­lat­ed; this stark real­i­ty of vio­lence per­me­ates their jour­ney.

As they approach Tuc­son, under­ly­ing ten­sions flare with the inter­ac­tion between Glan­ton’s par­ty and Apache rid­ers, set­ting up a con­fronta­tion brew­ing with mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion and hos­til­i­ty. The encounter brings cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences and the volatil­i­ty of colo­nial and native rela­tions to the fore, fore­shad­ow­ing impend­ing con­flict.