Ulzana's Raid
Following mistreatment by agency authorities, Ulzana breaks out of the San Carlos Indian Reservation with a small war party. Soon news reaches the local military commander, who sends riders to alert local homesteads. Both troopers are separately ambushed; one is dragged away while the other shoots the settler woman he is escorting and then himself. The warriors play catch with his heart. The woman's husband, who stayed behind to protect his farm, is captured and tortured to death. Army scout MacIntosh (Lancaster) is given the job of finding Ulzana (Martinez) with a few dozen soldiers led by an inexperienced lieutenant, Garnett DeBuin (Davison). The small cavalry column includes a veteran sergeant (Jaeckel) and Apache scout Ke-Ni-Tay (Luke). Ke-Ni-Tay knows Ulzana, as their wives are sisters.
The cavalry troop leaves Fort Lowell and soon finds evidence of the activities of the Apache war party. The film then depicts the soldiers' reality, facing a merciless enemy with far better local skills. The young officer, shocked and then hardened by the cruelty and harshness around him, struggles with his Christian conscience and view of humanity. MacIntosh and Ke-Ni-Tay attempt to outthink and outfight their enemies, while advising the lieutenant. DeBuin cautiously accepts their guidance though remaining mistrustful of the Apache scout. Ulzana and most of his men abandon their horses to be led circuitously by two other warriors in an attempt to tire the pursuers' heavily loaded mounts. Ke-Ni-Tay notices that the trail is now of unladen horses, and Macintosh works out a plan that leads to the loss of the horses and the death of their two Apache escorts, who include Ulzana's son. The lieutenant prevents his men from mutilating the dead boy.
The raiders attack a nearby farm, burning the homesteader to death and seizing two horses. McIntosh realizes that the remaining Apaches physically and psychologically need horses and will try to obtain them by raiding the troop. The woman of the burned-out farm, instead of being murdered following her rape, has been left alive but injured so that the cavalry will be forced to send her to the fort with an escort. By splitting the troop, Ulzana hopes to successfully attack the escort and seize its horses. McIntosh suggests a decoy plan to make Ulzana falsely believe that his tactics are successful.
Ulzana's warriors ambush the small escort detachment, obtaining all of its horses and killing the sergeant and his soldiers before DeBuin can arrive with the rest of his force. McIntosh is fatally wounded. Only the woman survives unharmed though now apparently crazed by her experiences. Ke-Ni-Tay scatters the captured horses as bugle calls from the cavalry ineptly alert the Apaches to DeBuin's approach. Ulzana flees on foot as the remnants of his band are killed. Ke-Ni-Tay confronts him and shows him the Army bugle taken from the body of his son. Ulzana puts down his weapons and sings his death song before the Apache scout kills him. A corporal suggests that Ulzana, or at least his head, should be taken back to the fort. The lieutenant however orders him to be buried, a task that Ke-Ni-Tay insists on carrying out himself. MacIntosh knows that he will not survive the journey back to the fort, and chooses to stay behind to die alone.
violence, murder