In the chill­ing dawn of Decem­ber 5, a group of men, includ­ing Glan­ton, Car­roll, and San­ford, rode north from Sono­ra, car­ry­ing a con­tract for Apache scalps. Among them was Sloat, a young boy aban­doned by a gold train weeks pri­or. They wan­dered across the arid Sono­ran desert aim­less­ly for weeks, chas­ing rumors of Chir­ic­ahua raiders. Their vio­lent encoun­ters led to the mas­sacre of a pueblo near the Nacozari Riv­er, which attract­ed the atten­tion of armed Sono­ran cav­al­ry under Gen­er­al Elias. A fierce clash result­ed in sev­er­al casu­al­ties, with Glan­ton’s par­ty suf­fer­ing three deaths and sev­en injuries.

As the dawn light broke, the com­pa­ny pre­pared to ride out, though ten­sions were pal­pa­ble, espe­cial­ly when the wound­ed demand­ed water. The Delawares, part of their par­ty, expressed their own for­eign­ness in this hos­tile land by hold­ing their ground in silence. Glan­ton metic­u­lous­ly count­ed arrows from his quiver and pre­pared for bat­tle. The atmos­phere was one of heavy dread; the judge and the men exchanged wary glances.

Soon enough, Tate broke the icy silence, mak­ing omi­nous inquiries about what to do with a Mex­i­can cap­tive. Dis­cus­sions of tor­ture and death ensued, reflect­ing the moral decay amongst the group. The kid, exud­ing a mix of guilt and shame, chose not to engage direct­ly but let his fel­low men speak their bru­tal truths. Shel­by, anoth­er mem­ber, lay wound­ed, con­tem­plat­ing the frac­tured lives sur­round­ing him.

As the cir­cum­stances grew dire, with hunger gnaw­ing at their insides, Shel­by’s des­per­a­tion became pal­pa­ble, lead­ing to an uncom­fort­able con­fronta­tion with the kid. The exchange turned into a cycle of taunts and unearth­ly demands for vio­lence, all reveal­ing the bro­ken­ness of their bonds.

The nar­ra­tive shifts as the rid­ers led into the wilder­ness, where mer­ci­less cold set in. Snow began to swirl around them, as the group strug­gled onward through the drifts, unwill­ing to turn back despite over­whelm­ing hunger and cold. The bar­ren land­scape soon buried their tracks, eras­ing all traces of their pas­sage. Exhaust­ed, they pushed through until night­fall, where ambush and despair lay thick.

New dan­gers await­ed them in the snowy expanse as they nav­i­gat­ed the harsh ter­rain, towards San­ta Cruz—an unwel­com­ing set­tle­ment that felt mon­key-like and absurd com­pared to their hos­tile sur­round­ings. Their jour­ney only inten­si­fied their bond with bru­tal­i­ty and sur­vival, marked in blood and hard­ship through­out each encounter .