News of the World

The Captain and Johanna are still in the middle of their gunfight with Almay and the two Caddos. He is running low on ammunition. He is proud of Johanna and her quick thinking.

A round comes in at them, splintering the rock in front of the Captain and causing a piece to chip off and strike him in the forehead, just above his right eye. The wound bleeds. He tells himself how much he cannot get wounded, killed, how he cannot fail for Johanna's sake, how he needs to save her. He even goes so far to think, "some people were born unsupplied with a human conscience, and those people needed killing” (110). Johanna hands him their canteen. He takes a sip and realizes that, in a siege, not only do they not have enough ammunition but also not enough water to last very long.

He spots a rifle barrel downrange, aims carefully, and fires. He hears a cry of pain. However, he now only has fourteen rounds left. He tries to get Johanna to leave on Pasha, his stronger and faster horse, but she will not leave his side. He begins to feel the desperation of the situation, and fires off five more rounds that he wishes he had saved because they were not good opportunities.

Johanna crawls back over to him with the shotgun and the bag of dimes. He tries to explain the ineffectiveness of the light birdshot, the only ammunition he has for the shotgun, and also that the money is useless, because Almay will not be bought off. It turns out, however, that Johanna didn't have any of those things in mind. She wants him to use the dimes as projectiles for the shotgun. He is amazed by her ingenuity, and thinks that her idea just might work. They begin loading shells with dimes. However, to make this work, they will also need to play a small game of deception. He fires off a few rounds of the birdshot to make Almay believe that the birdshot is all he has left. It appears to work, as Almay laughs and teases him. Almay calls out he wants to make a deal still, that he can be reasonable. The Captain doesn't believe him for a second and judges Almay's intentions to be that of a ruse, that Almay just wants to delay him long enough for the two Caddos to get into a better position. The Captain uses his own form of deception, goading Almay out from behind his rock and getting him to move within range of the new, super-charged dimeshot. It works, and he unloads a round into the head of Almay, who falls over dead. The two Caddos, seeing their boss shot and killed, run off with no more desire to fight. For good measure, the Captain lets off another round into the backside of one of the Caddos.

He is overjoyed that they were able to pull off their plan, that everything worked out. Johanna is excited and happy, too, and begins chanting the victory song of the Kiowa. She holds a knife above her head, and moves off down the ravine towards Almay's body, to scalp him. The Captain goes after her, in order to stop her, telling her that in no way whatsoever is she going to scalp him. He tells her "it is considered very impolite” (118).

The Captain and Johanna have some difficulty driving the wagon back down the ravine. The Captain's nerves are still humming. Johanna sits in the back of the wagon, holding the revolver. The Captain has unloaded it, but it comforts her nevertheless to have it in her hands. Once they make it back down, the Captain needs a rest. He is exhausted. He muses over Almay, how his child prostitution ring has come to an end. They stop for the night for some much-needed rest. The Captain wonders how it is that he isn't haunted by war memories, that he can fall asleep peacefully and sleep like the dead.

In the morning, Johanna wakes him up with breakfast. After the meal, he takes his time recovering. He still feels the effects of the fight. The wound above his right eye is swollen, but not badly. Johanna is playing in the creek, singing, and splashing. Even though he hasn’t fully recuperated, they move on.

They arrive at the Brazos ferry landing, but they don't see a ferry, which means that, once again, they have to make a river crossing on their own. Fortunately, this one goes off easier than the first. While they travel, the Captain contemplates Johanna's fate. She is happy while they travel, and he thinks back on examples of other captives he has known or heard of who were eventually returned to their families. He remembers that two of them had starved themselves to death. Others became alcoholics or simply outsiders. All of them had difficulties re-acclimating to the civilized world. For the first time, he begins to doubt the goal of his mission.

Johanna likes to play language games along the route. She enjoys learning new words and creating new sentences, especially ones that don't make much sense: for example, the horse shoots the gun. The Captain humors her as best he can, but it quickly gets on his nerves. At one point, he tells her to shut up, which she just parrots back to him.

She does fall absolutely silent, though, as a group of men on horseback approach them. She crawls down, making herself as small as possible. The Captain is wary of their intentions. The leader of the men, a man with a black beard, questions the Captain about the shot-up wagon and about the girl. The Captains tells them about his taking her back to her relatives. The group has heard about children being captured by Indians, but has never actually known one personally. The black-bearded man gives Johanna a piece of saltwater taffy. He then asks the Captain about his political standing. The Captain realizes reading the news in Durand will be problematic, but he is so short of funds that he doesn't have much of a choice. One of the other men tells him that no one who supports Davis is allowed into Erath County. The men are very anti-Davis, whom they blame for the anarchy in their town. The Captain realizes that what they really want is a bribe. He asks the black-bearded man directly how much it will cost to let them pass. After a short pause, he asks for 50¢.