![]() Men are shot while circling each other on horseback. Blocker’s escort mission is attacked numerous times by outside threats-by Comanche, by roving gunmen and by a rancher and his three sons. ![]() The film’s violence spools out from there. Then a tiny infant is shot in the head-an event so emotionally wrenching for the child’s mother that she can’t bear to loosen her grip on the dead baby in its gory bundle until days later. That father is then scalped by a Comanche. The movie’s opening moments depict a man and his two young daughters being shot with bullets and hit with arrows as they run in terror. “There’s no finer soldier,” Blocker tells the man. Woodson voices his regret for letting Blocker down, and the two men get slightly teary over having to part ways after so much shared service. Woodson is badly injured, he needs to be left behind at a local military post. When Blocker’s fellow soldier and good friend Cpl. Blocker eventually tells the ailing Yellow Hawk that when the chief passes, a certain part of the man and soldier that Blocker has been for the past 20 years will die with him. During one conversation, the men talk of the grief of losing friends. Through their common struggle against still other attackers, they gain a mutual respect for each other. ![]() Eventually Rosalie begins helping the Cheyenne captives in small ways in return, so much so that Yellow Hawk later thanks Rosalie for her spirit of kindness.īlocker and Yellow Hawk begin to move past their losses in the past and their mutual feelings of hatred. His daughter offers the woman a blanket and a dress that she can use to replace the bloodstained clothes she’s wearing. Yellow Hawk and his family reach out to Rosalie, too. Blocker gently comforts the emotionally savaged woman, and he gives her all the time she needs to help her bury her murdered family. When his company comes upon a burned-out farm, for instance, Blocker and his men rescue Rosalie Quaid, the sole survivor of a terrible Comanche attack. He lowers his revolver, uncocks its hammer and slips it into his holster.ĭespite the fact that Captain Blocker has obviously been deeply damaged by his bloody past, his humanity and compassion still peek through in his interactions with those around him. What will killing himself say to them? How will his dereliction of duty mar their sacrifices?īlocker opens his squinted eyes and relaxes his grimace. His hatred won’t allow him to follow through on this order, no matter what killing himself might do to his reputation.īut then Joseph Blocker pauses to think again on all those men he’s served with. Even if this is supposed to be his last assignment before retirement, it’s an unconscionable one. It’s enough to make a soldier like Blocker want to end it all. They can’t comprehend what it does to a man. Who cares if Yellow Hawk is dying of cancer? Who cares about the public mood? Who cares if the newspapers are all calling for his release? Those starched-shirted buffoons sitting behind their typing machines have never seen war. It’s the equivalent of spitting on the graves of all the dedicated soldiers who lost their lives hunting that red-skinned killer down, men who bravely rode by Blocker’s side. Once there, Yellow Hawk and his family are to be set free. The heated Indian conflict has been winding down, and Blocker’s commanding officer has ordered him to escort the despised Chief Yellow Hawk-the worst of the Cheyenne butchers-back to his home territory of Montana. But it’s not a physical pain he’s enduring: It’s emotional anguish.Īfter 20 years of killing Comanche, Apache and Cheyenne natives-two decades of watching those Indian “demons” slaughter innocent white settlers-he’s being called upon to be a nursemaid to one. As he kneels on the dusty plain with the barrel of his Smith & Wesson revolver biting into the tender flesh under his chin, United States Cavalry Capt.
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