But they are upon him.

Oh, John!, his friend calls out from nearby and, dying, the boy from Kansas hears this dimly, the last sound he ever hears. (Back in Kansas, the boy’s mother, at this exact moment, pauses at the water well, bucket in hand, feeling, briefly, his presence—as she will later say, she will say and say until the last day of her life—with an overlay of such dread and panic that, dropping the bucket, she falls to her knees.)

The cry goes out among the tribes: We can kill them all. Arrows arc up and kill horses and horse-holders. Troopers are pierced through their skulls, necks, eyes. The braves wave blankets to stampede the horses. A warrior’s jaw is shot away and he wanders the field disoriented, the lower half of his face missing. This is Three Horn, the man who, at night, warms his wife, Red Deer Woman. She, like the Kansan mother, feels a presentiment of disaster, as she continues to guide their son to safety. Seeing Three Horn thus disfigured, Wooden Leg retreats to a ravine nearby to vomit. The fleeing horses of the Seventh intermix with the ponies of the braves, who have dismounted, the better to seek cover in the countless gullies and washes leading up to the high place to which the final group of whites has fled to make its stand. The dust is thick; it feels like night, though it is only four o’clock in the afternoon.

I clench and unclench my fists nervously, as in: Here we go.

It is nearly time for my Solo.

I stand, nervously priming my pump.

I am to be Lieutenant Henry Harrington, known among the warriors as “the Bravest Man” for the way he fought in those last frenzied moments, as his command, C Company, tried in vain to rejoin Custer’s main force, and who, once it became clear that all under his command were either dead or about to be killed, turned his horse (a magnificent large-chested sorrel) directly into the Indian ranks and rode through the startled braves, away from the battlefield, thundering into an open field to the west.

Two braves broke away from the fight to chase him down (I will Speak, I will Shout). But his mount was superior, and soon he had left the pursuing braves behind. Then, even as they abandoned the chase and slowed their horses to a walk, Harrington inexplicably brought his revolver to his head and—­

“Hello, hello!” adult son Mike calls from the doorway of Listening Room. “May I have your attention please?”

Mr. U. hits Pause.

It is a jolt, this abrupt leaving behind of the heat/fear/prairie feel into which we Speakers and Singers have just begun to pleasantly resettle.

“Son,” Mr. U. says, his uncertain smile seeming to indicate that he will, of course, be happy to include adult son Mike in this, his moment of triumph, in whatever way adult son Mike would like to be included, although he is also wondering, somewhat, perhaps, why adult son Mike couldn’t have said whatever it is he seems to want to say a bit earlier (during Intermission, for example).