The Death of Fighting Woman

Captain Murray loved his wife Mary with all his heart. She had been a dutiful wife, and the first years of their marriage were the happiest years of his life. But, now in the tenth year of their marriage, Mary had withered, become drawn, a shell of the beautiful young girl he had married. And Captain William Murray knew the reason why.

They had tried for years to have a child, all to no avail. As each succeeding year passed, and it became more evident that they were not to be blessed with children Mary had gone within. She followed him from posting to posting like the good military wife she was, but she was slowly dying, and Captain William Murray knew it.

These were his thoughts as he entered the Indian village before dawn on that cold winter morn. His scouts did not report to him that the men of the village had left the night before on a hunting party. This winter, what with the White Man killing off the buffalo for sport, there was no food. The women and children of the village were hungry. The men of the village, they would go without, but they would not stand by and allow their women and children to do without.
It would not have mattered to Captain Murray if he had known there were no braves in the village, he was an ambitious man, and his orders were to destroy the village and kill as many of its inhabitants as possible. And those were the orders he gave his men.

Captain Murray stayed on the edge of the village as his men went from teepee to teepee setting them ablaze. If a woman, or child emerged from a burning teepee, they were immediately shot, if the were lucky. Captain Murray witnessed women being pillaged and children having their brains knocked out of them with the stock of a rifle.

As Captain Murray was passing a teepee, which had not yet been put to torch, he heard a baby’s cry. For some unknown reason the wail drew him to it as a siren’s call. He dismounted and entered the teepee. As he entered a women ran at him with a knife. Before she got to within striking distance, he drew his gun and shot her through the right eye, and as the bullet exited her head, it took with it a large portion of her skull. Captain Murray heard a noise behind him and saw what appeared to be a boy of about ten years of age running at him, also with a knife drawn, with the business end pointing directly at him. The boy, for his trouble, also received a bullet to the head, though it did not exit his skull. As the boy collapsed onto the ground, Captain Murray took stock of his surroundings, and it was at that moment he saw the reason for his being in this particular teepee. It was a baby Indian, no this baby had yellow hair. He immediately thought of Mary, and how taking care of a child would bring the bloom back into her cheeks; without really thinking it through, he wrapped the child in the skins in which it was lying and left the teepee. A corporal was just passing, and he ordered the man to set fire to the teepee he had just exited.

Captain William Murray had just killed the entire family of Yellow Wing, with the exception of Yellow Wing’s youngest son, which he now intended to raise as his own.