“Where’s Mike?” Jed says. “He’s supposed to be helping.”

“Forget that little shit,” says Jean. “He’s been distracted all day.”

The platforms are situated beneath us. We are unPinioned and climb down the ladder one by one. We try to be swift without rushing. It will not do for us to be winded once we begin. The Singers are also unPinioned and climb down. Jed works his way along the row of us, gently inserting, into our Fahey receptors, the small wireless device called the RoamStar.

Equipped with the RoamStar, we no longer need to be attached to Listening Wall, but, feet and hands free, may now do our Speaking, our Singing, from anywhere at all.

A test is run: Jed has each of us Speakers wander around the Room while saying the alphabet extremely fast, then extremely slow.

Then the Singers are made, while wandering, to Sing major then minor scales, all the way up, all the way down.

We arrange ourselves along the front wall, heads leaning back, so that when Company returns, it will appear that our heads are, as before, nestled in our Fahey Cups. At the critical moment (as Custer reaches the small rise on which he will die, understanding, finally, that Reno’s attack on the village has failed, that his forces are outnumbered by perhaps ten to one, that his famous luck has run out), we will (surprise, surprise) step away from the wall and, voicing the encroaching Lakota, Arapaho, and Cheyenne, surround Company, moving aggressively into them, out among them. This will increase the immediacy of their experience, make them feel, as Custer and his men must have felt, the impossibility of escape. Death is coming, coming soon, it is nearly upon them; it is upon them. Mr. U. has encouraged us, as we Speak and Sing, to touch Company, climb over them, make them feel our presence. We aim to discomfit, he says, to make them understand that this thing actually happened, it involved real people, people just like themselves.

Mr. U. leans in, sees that all is progressing well, gives us a thumbs-up, and several of us give him a convivial thumbs-up in return.

This is going to be so good.

We watch Company’s faces as, returning from Intermission, they notice us standing on the floor, down from the Wall.

Mr. U. strides to Podium, visibly buoyed by the sincere praise he has received during Intermission.

He taps Podium once, crisply, with his baton.

We begin.

Custer attempts to attack the north end of the village but is driven back by White Cow Bull et al. In the attempt, an officer, possibly Custer himself, is shot. The men are confused, paralyzed, by this unexpected event, the first death of the day among that wing of the Seventh. Thousands of warriors now bear down upon them. It is the beginning of the end. They are pursued back up the coulee, fighting well at first, though hampered by their need to bear along the wounded officer. Then it is happening fast, too fast, faster than any of them could have imagined. There is no time to think, reconsider, pray. A man— a boy, really—from Kansas stands aghast, watching four braves on horseback approach. He has lost his gun and his left boot. He wishes to say: Stop, please, stop, let me think all of this over. How did I come to be here? Is there not a method by which I may turn time back, and be home?