Quoted By:
There are layers to this nightmare you are not aware of. In fact you’re clearly not angled toward any of it. This time at least, nothing seems to be braying for your throat. You will stay out of this until that fact changes.
There is no more reprieve for the prisoners. On the plains the Comanche and Lakota draw a knife around the edges of the scalp and simply tear. Up in the Sierras, the process is apparently more specialized. Three men hold the first prisoner down as the leader…chief, whatever he may holds him by the chin and traces his serrated knife around the prisoner’s crown. He then reveals something you can’t quite make out, but that resembles a boot scraper, and slowly wedges it in between the wet scalp and the skull. The Indian takes his time, careful to preserve the scalp in a single piece, using his scraping tool in short, broad strokes.
The lack of sound allows some remnants of the screams to carry, but there is an uncomfortable disconnect between the sounds the prisoner’s open mouth should be producing, and the ragged little scraps that ultimately reach your ears. Finally it’s done, the prisoner collapses on the deck of the large platform, in too much shock to be a threat. He is released by the Indians holding him, and the second chief takes a steady stride to him. This one raises his war club, an enormous staff inset with a stone the size of your head, and brings it down with both hands on the prisoner. The head bursts like rotten fruit, spraying debris across the moccasins of all present. The body is tumbled off the platform into the crowd as the first chief raises the scalp he took, presenting it toward the ravens in the dark. They do not react.
The second prisoner is brought forth. He struggles mightily, and it takes six men to press him down amongst the gore of his former companion. The scalping repeats itself, the first chief taking just as much care to ensure his prize is untarnished, the second approaching as the prisoner shivers in agony and disbelief and scattering his last thoughts all over the floor of the platform. The ritual is repeated, the scalp raised as offering to the ravens. They do not react.