Do you know what a war-cry sounds like on the open Prairie when a storm is about to rage? Do you know how differently that sound carries in the Redwoods? Do you know the sounds of desperate carnivorous predators? Of stampeding herds? Of rivers that break their banks? Do you know how sound dies in the desert, just like everything else? Do you know the whistle of Mexican bullets that fly from Spanish guns?

These are things that true pioneers know! And, goddamn it, I knew them as an infant in Ohio at the hands of Tecumseh himself! I was taught that fear as a child and it was something I swore I'd never know again, whether that Tecumseh was a savage half-naked and bareback on a horse or that Tecumseh was a savage in Federal blue wool uniform!

And riddle me this, Dear Reader, since books clearly are your sport:

In the Homer I knew as a schoolboy, the thieves of the livestock were cursed by the gods; yet, in my life on the Frontier, I have found nothing, nothing but the opposite to be true!

After I fired that buckshot at men who were attempting to take my food—the food of the men who trusted me—the whole goddamn tribe waited three days and descended! The whole tribe sought to avenge an act of cowardice! An act of thievery! Oh, yes, what gifted hunters those braves were! How noble to attack a defenseless, fattened head of cattle! I've seen nobler hunting in general stores!

Yet, oh yes, it had to be avenged! Well, can you guess what happened next? Can you? A day or so later, one of our men was shot in the back with an arrow and spent the night in agony—though he somehow lived to ride his own horse the following day. I thought this a fine tit-for-tat, but no!

A couple of days after that, the hordes ambushed from the hills. When their intention was clear and they were fully arrayed and prepared to attack, I fired my warning shot into the air and that was all the warning that my men were willing to give, in the wake of that arrow in the back: we got off two rounds as the Indians began to string their arrows! Fourteen fell in the first volley and seven in the second!

Our opponents did not get off a shot, but rather fell in deafening lamentations that we heard as far as three miles off—and you can be damn sure they did not attack again!

[He breathes shakily:]

In case you may have wondered earlier, this was why my very first arrival at Sutter's Fort was attended by champagne: it was nothing short of a goddamned miracle.

[He gets distracted momentarily.]

And, oh, how God damned it, indeed...

[He drinks distractedly for a little while, as the fiddler plays "Loop #9, Strange Land."]