Police Action on The Prarie

It would be the last big shootout between settlers and Redskins
on that desolate stretch of the Great Plains.
A cattle baron by the name of Hawkins
decides it's high time to end the tenancy of the aborigines.
Clashes of culture and commercial interests have peaked
The standing peace treaty needs
revisiting.

On the last Thursday of November, 50 of the Baron's cowpokes
ride thunderously towards a Sioux encampment,
descending upon it like a brush fire.
In less than an hour the eviction is complete.
Not a tepee stands erect. Some of the victims die huddled.
Mrs. Hawkins, family and friends watch from a distance.

Unbeknown to the adults, the kids had separated
to view the day's events from a bit closer,
and there in the heat of battle are massacred themselves.
Mrs. Hawkins shall see the rest of her life in an insane asylum
where she dies at the age of 52, as loony as the day she entered.

Jack Hawkins personally shoots the men responsible for the mishap,
then turns the revolver on himself. His eyes had been deceived,
mistaking the fruit of his loins for Indian kids.
It was he who gave the order:

Kill every last one of them,
including their dogs,
and painted ponies.