Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West

by Hampton Sides

It was the poorest Navajos, the ladrones, who had surrendered first. They were the sickest and weakest, the ones who had lacked the wherewithal to hold out. Now they had less than nothing—not their health, not their animals, not even a country. Men like Manuelito were not among them. Manuelito was one of the ricos—he had sheep enough to eat and barter his way across Navajo lands, to keep on the move, to resist. “I shall remain here,” he told one army scout who sought his surrender through an intermediary. “I have nothing to lose but my life, and that they can come and take whenever they please.” Manuelito was a strong and defiant man, a man of uncommon pride. But he also had something that the ladrones did not have when they finally did the unthinkable and gave themselves up: He still had food in his belly.