Major Elliott had taken a small group of officers and enlisted men to a nearby valley when word reached the waiting commission that a herd of buffalo was grazing. The soldiers killed several of the animals for the sheer pleasure of shooting something and watching it die. They had no interest in eating the meat, and they were not interested in trophies. The Indians, already angered by the increasingly wanton slaughter of the animals on which they depended for most of their food and much else they needed to live, from clothing to shelter, were angry, and Satanta, the Kiowa chief who was known for his explosive temper and his contempt for all things the white men held sacred, protested. He cornered General Terry. “Your blue coat soldiers killed many buffalo. They killed them and left them to rot. They didn’t take the skin to make robes, and they didn’t take the meat to feed themselves. Now the buffalo are covered with white worms and they are good for nothing. You wonder why the Kiowa don’t want the white man in Kiowa country.
