Part 15 opens with a group of men, includ­ing Glan­ton, rid­ing north from Sono­ra at the break of dawn on Decem­ber 5th, embark­ing on a jour­ney marked by hard­ship and vio­lence. Among their num­ber is Sloat, a young boy left behind by a gold train weeks ago. These men trav­el across the dry, bar­ren Sono­ran desert, search­ing for the elu­sive Chir­ic­ahua raiders. Their path is filled with rumors of their quar­ry, but they are met with lit­tle more than des­o­la­tion. After a vio­lent encounter near the Nacozari Riv­er, they mas­sacre a pueblo, catch­ing the atten­tion of Gen­er­al Elias’ Sono­ran cav­al­ry. The clash results in sev­er­al casu­al­ties, includ­ing three deaths and sev­en injuries on Glanton’s side, under­scor­ing the bru­tal, unfor­giv­ing nature of their jour­ney. This scene high­lights the vio­lence and suf­fer­ing that fol­low them, no mat­ter where they go.

As the day con­tin­ues, the ten­sion with­in the group grows. The wound­ed men, who are des­per­ate for water, cre­ate fur­ther strain on an already tense atmos­phere. The Delawares, qui­et and uncom­mu­nica­tive, seem dis­tant, their for­eign­ness empha­sized by their silence. Glan­ton, ever the leader, takes stock of their dwin­dling resources, care­ful­ly count­ing his arrows and prepar­ing him­self for the inevitable bat­tle. The men exchange wary glances, the weight of their cir­cum­stances and the dan­ger they face hang­ing heav­i­ly in the air. Despite the mount­ing fear and the bur­den of their sit­u­a­tion, they move for­ward, unre­lent­ing in their pur­suit of their bloody mis­sion, bound togeth­er by a shared his­to­ry of vio­lence and blood­shed.

The next sig­nif­i­cant event unfolds when Tate speaks up, break­ing the uncom­fort­able silence by ask­ing what should be done with a Mex­i­can cap­tive they’ve cap­tured. The con­ver­sa­tion turns chill­ing as the group dis­cuss­es the prospect of tor­ture and death. Their descent into bru­tal­i­ty becomes evi­dent as they voice their inten­tions, show­ing no moral restraint. The Kid, deeply dis­turbed but hes­i­tant to speak, lis­tens to his com­pan­ions, acknowl­edg­ing the grow­ing moral decay with­in the group. The wound­ed Shel­by, in par­tic­u­lar, seems to reflect on the shat­tered lives around him, con­tem­plat­ing the cost of their vio­lent exis­tence. As the men con­front their own sur­vival instincts and the depths of their cru­el­ty, a con­fronta­tion between the Kid and Shel­by reveals the frac­tured bonds with­in the group. Taunts and bit­ter exchanges illus­trate the emo­tion­al toll their actions are tak­ing, turn­ing once-sol­id rela­tion­ships into strained, hos­tile inter­ac­tions.

The sit­u­a­tion grows dark­er still as the group trav­els deep­er into the wilder­ness. The harsh cold set­tles in as snow begins to swirl around them, com­pound­ing their exhaus­tion and hunger. Yet, despite the over­whelm­ing obsta­cles, the men refuse to turn back, deter­mined to con­tin­ue their mis­sion. The harsh land­scape, cov­ered in snow and filled with the promise of death, eras­es any trace of their move­ment, leav­ing no foot­prints behind in the vast, bar­ren land. As night falls, the weight of despair grows, and the men find them­selves sur­round­ed by the unre­lent­ing cold, the bleak wilder­ness threat­en­ing to swal­low them whole. Their jour­ney becomes one of sur­vival against the ele­ments, as they push for­ward with no respite in sight. They approach the des­o­late set­tle­ment of San­ta Cruz, an area that seems as absurd and alien as the hos­tile wilder­ness they have tra­versed. This final leg of their jour­ney marks the deep­en­ing of their shared bru­tal­i­ty, as each pass­ing day draws them fur­ther into a world dom­i­nat­ed by vio­lence and cru­el­ty. Their strug­gles and hard­ships bring them clos­er togeth­er, not in cama­raderie but in the shared expe­ri­ence of suf­fer­ing and sur­vival. The chap­ter con­cludes, leav­ing the men more entrenched in their bru­tal exis­tence and fore­shad­ow­ing the deep­er vio­lence yet to come.