Canyons

During the evening, the raiding party passes a camp of bluebellies, which is their term for white men, but the leader of the raiding party, Sancta, tells them not to attack. Following this, they ride all night, with Coyote Runs feeling proud of himself for his involvement. When the sun comes up in the morning, Coyote Runs recognizes the mountains called El Paso del Norte “where the town lay, the white town and more, the fort where the bluebellies lived, Fort Bliss” (44). Sancta leads the party to a gully in the desert and asks that his men sleep, since they cannot be seen here by the bluebelly patrols.

Brennan had assumed that the children would calm down at nightfall, but they actually become more hyper and irritating. To get away from them, Brennan decides to move his sleeping bag farther away from the fire. His mother comes to ask why he moved and commiserates with Brennan about the annoying children. Feeling guilty, Brennan moves back to the campfire. Bill tells a campfire story about the canyons they’re camping in, saying that the canyons were once used as hiding places by Apache people during raids on the fort.