I feel the most powerful pre-Pulse I have ever felt.

And am Harrington.

Very much so.

Samuels is writhing in the dirt, arrow in his throat. Riverton, unhorsed by a group of three braves, is the object of three hatchets moving in the sun like pistons. I realize I must break away or die. Here is an opening. I turn my magnificent, large-chested sorrel into the Indian ranks and ride through the startled braves, away from the battlefield, thundering into an open field to the west.

And am free.

Am I being pursued?

I am.

The Singers join in. They have no choice. They too are being Pulsed at very highest Intensity. Each Sings a different, jagged melody line. As Rehearsed. The intent of their Song: to indicate the agitated state of my mind as I ride. If caught, will I not, as we have often discussed among ourselves, be taken alive and tortured, like Dennison, that poor bastard, found on the trail with his balls pinned to his forehead? I, Harrington, am a fair-minded man, and recognize that this would merely be a case of “turnabout is fair play.” I recall seeing, at an exposition in Denver, the genitalia of a Cheyenne woman, obtained by a trooper after the Washita fight, displayed in a glass case. And yet I myself have never participated in such depredations, and “fair play” does not seem like “fair play” when you are the one who, within minutes, is to be made victim of whatever foul, sharp-bladed mischief these fellows intend.

On my magnificent sorrel I begin to leave the braves behind.

But then, even as they abandon the chase and slow their horses to a walk, I inexplicably bring my revolver to my head. Any second now (I Speak) I will fire, killing myself instantly, and my body will lurch off to one side of the sorrel, astonishing the watching braves.

Why will I do it? I ask.

No one can know, I reply.

“Dude, shut it!” someone shouts from far away.

“Ignore him, Darren, Jesus,” says a second person.

“I can’t hear myself think,” the first says frantically.

Perhaps (I Speak, I Shout) my body could not help but flee (the dust, that screaming, the percussive stone-on-meat sound coming from every direction) but now, in flight, it occurs to me that this is cowardice itself: one’s body dictating an action with no honorable end. How might this flight be justified, even if I succeed in escaping? When Custer and the others are still, at that moment, as I flee, alive? Mustn’t I turn, rejoin the fight? But I can’t, I won’t, it is too terrible, my legs and arms agree with my horse that back is not a direction in which we may go, but my mind, my hero’s mind, honor-bound, in love with virtue, knows that I will not be able to live with this, will not be able to ride the hundreds of miles to some outpost of civilization and there lie about what happened (I was knocked unconscious and woke hours later to find my fellows dead around me) or honestly confess (I fled when there was still more I might have done to aid Custer and his men, who were still alive and fighting as I abandoned the field).