I lost my fingernails in the first few minutes of digging, but I don’t remember any pain. I was too busy. I wanted a nice, deep hole to crawl into. If I could have pulled the earth on top of me, I would have done that, too. Fear galvanized me and I burrowed like a madwoman.

Soldiers were digging in a short distance away from us. Puffs of smoke billowed out at intervals on the bluffs and ridges around us. The Bluecoats fired more often than we did, but with less effect. Since that awful siege, I have read some soldier accounts of the whole summer’s journey. To a man, they all mention the superior marksmanship of their opponents.

Soldiers with gold on their shoulders went down first. Hopefully, on those still alive, this created a melancholy reflection on the folly of seeking rank. One soldier, shot in the throat, fell halfway out of the breastworks. He stayed that way, because, as Hawk put it, the Bluecoats had small hearts and feared to raise up enough to pull his body in.

Every now and then the body moved as another bullet slammed into it. Hawk put an arrow in the man. I knew it wasn’t a mistake and told him if he did that one more time I wouldn’t speak to him again.

When we had dug in as best we could, I was assigned to reload the rifles. It wasn’t a bad job. The rifles were warm and felt good in my cold hands. Our piles of ammunition grew smaller and smaller. I felt I ought to mention the fact, but didn’t have the heart to say anything. The sharpshooters could see as well as I.

Our hearts turned bad in the early afternoon when more personal disaster struck. Poker Joe took a good look at the mound of shells remaining and shouted to another group of Nimiipuu sharpshooters in a nearby rifle pit. They shouted back. On his hands and knees, Poker Joe crawled over to the next rifle pit.

Hawk stood up to cover him and I nearly fainted from fright. “Sit, you idiot!” I yelled and he did, but not until he squeezed off a really deliberate shot from a borrowed rifle.

Poker Joe got a handful of shells and stuffed them down the front of his shirt. He started back to us, crawling low, a smile on his face. He looked pleased about something, but all I wanted him to do was hurry up.