He shut the case and dropped it into his pocket. If it was Pierre's he couldn't just throw it away.
The few remaining Indians, a flock of women and children, huddled weeping with their backs to a big tree, arms around one another. Some were already wounded and screaming in pain.
Tiredly Raoul told himself he must reload rifle and pistol and get on with the killing. But his anger was spent. He felt empty, worn out.
From somewhere behind him came a shout of, "Cease fire!"
It was welcome. He'd done enough.
"Yonder come the bluebellies," said Levi.
"Ah, merde," muttered Armand, standing with red-dripping bayonet above a pile of bodies.
Raoul looked around. The order to stop the shooting had come from their rear, from a short, stout officer who, as Dodge had, was advancing with drawn saber. Colonel Zachary Taylor.
Taylor looked around the smoking glade at the dead, big bodies and little ones, brown flesh and tan deerskin splashed with bright red, eyes staring, limbs helter-skelter.
"Jesus Christ." He turned to Raoul, pain in his bright blue eyes.