Wichita Tribe – Native Americans
Wichita Tribe feature film by ALAN NAFZGER
Wichita Tribe – Pecan Street Press
Lubbock ● Austin ● Fort Worth
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Wichita Tribe is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Wichita Tribe Amazon edition
Copyright © 2021 Alan Nafzger
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9798756409192
TITLE: Wichita Tribe
Wichita Tribe ALT TITLE: Indian Blanket or Bluebonnets
Wichita Tribe WRITER: Alan Nafzger
Wichita Tribe COPYRIGHT: 1989
Wichita Tribe GENRE: Alternative history that verges on horror
Wichita Tribe LOGLINE: A once peaceful and happy young Native American unleashes an army of living dead on Texas Rangers after they betray her father and massacre her village.
OR: A mild-mannered Native American girl from a “friendly” tribe wreaks zombie havoc on a corrupt and murderous unit of Texas Rangers.
FILM REFERENCE: Billy Jack (1971) meets John Wick (2014) with a splash of Night of the Living Dead (1968).
LITERARY TRADITION: The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), revenge.
Wichita Tribe SETTING: 1840s, central Texas.
FX: Moderate use of special effects. Twelve percent of this film will require CG.
- Zombie rabbit chasing a boy
- Zombie horse attacking a settlement
- Zombie buffalo herd stampede hunters
- Zombie herd attack ghost town
- Dozens of Zombie Texas Rangers ravage themselves.
Wichita Tribe ORIGIN OF THE STORY
In 1989, while in Dublin (just arriving at UCD), I was of course young and beginning work on my PhD in Russian studies. My brain was in history and political science, but my imagination was back in West Texas and I’m sure I was feeling a bit homesick. You can see I was highly influenced by the history of the region. In my youth, I travelled with YMCA groups to Fort Sill (US Army) to see the Native American museum there. I made this trip once every two weeks in the summer for seven years.
The script hasn’t been read in nearly 35 years and I’ve always felt the script was always a bit nebulous in terms of gender and race. I thought, given the fact that these issues are finally being addressed, I might want to explain the script a bit.
In 1989, I wrote probably about 100 query letters and received several traditional rejection letters. HOWEVER, Gale Anne Hurd was the only positive response and she agreed to read it and probably had a reader look at it. I don’t recall if I ever received word back, but at the time it was a significant victory for me to even have something read.
BEND, BREAK, BLEND: I hope to bend gender AND history a bit; I’ve always found the script Hollywood gatekeepers to be rigid about bending anything. I’m breaking the old stereotypical western by making the Texas Rangers villains. I’m blending an honest historical situation with the zombism of George Romero.
UNIVERSE OF THE WICHITA INDIANS: So, I wrote a fantastic (fantasy) script about a Native American girl named BIT, from a relatively peaceful tribe, who grew into a fierce warrior. Because the Wichita tribe was the first group of Plains Indians subject to missionization by the Catholic church, I made the protagonist a member of this tribe.
Almost every Native American tribe has a speciality, and I was taught the Wichitans were traders; they bought and sold horses, blankets, knives, other items and I’m sure even guns. The Wichita were entirely peaceful and friendly with the whites and I’m certain that they had access to the various markets. The Wichita then, in turn, sold the goods to the war tribes, the Comanche, Kiowa, and others. They were “middlemen” in the western economy; they also farmed and hunted buffalo as well. The Wichita were indigenous to Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.
Wichita Tribe VILLAINS
The reputation of the Texas Rangers, in history, has always been dubious. Hollywood should stop being programmed by the previous fiction and “cowboy” movies. The Texas Rangers of 1840s were just as bad (or worse) than police today. With no body cameras or cell phone video back then; they did whatever they wanted.
To understand this film, you will have to put Lonesome Dove (and countless other fictions) out of your mind; Larry McMurtry intended the novel to be quixotic (fools on a quest for mindless glory); Hollywood and the public misread it as the traditional heroic western romanticism. I asked him about what Hollywood did to that story and he said, “they wrote me a check that didn’t bounce.”
Later he said, “They are heroes in a way but who drives cattle to a place that’s not populated? We need heroes so bad we will create them when they are none?”
As a result of their misbehaviours, the villains in this story are Texas Rangers. Despite the heroic interpretation of history that has been dominant, I doubt the original rangers were much different than the oppressive and racist Texas police today. I’m sure the police in the state today feel constrained in their agenda by current events and media scrutiny. But in the past, I’m sure rangers were the same self-righteous bullies. Racial, gender and religious oppression and flat-out corruption of law enforcement is now, and have forever been, a problem in the state. Remember not a single Indian reservation was established in the state and ALL the native tribes were forced out. The Texas Rangers didn’t accept a woman into their ranks until 1993, about 20 years after other police departments became enlightened.
The irreverent Texas Rangers in the story establish a fort; they name their small fort “Royal Bastard’s Hotel”. The “fort” is only actually a blockhouse (jail), but it’s growing as the movie progresses; there is constant construction. The jail is the forerunner and beginning of what is commonly termed here as the “Texas Prison Industry.” It’s highly symbolic (an origin story) of what is in store for Texas minorities. Texas has as many felons as 48 states combined and you can become a felon (and never allowed to work again) for crimes as small as stealing a 4$ roasted chicken. There are currently 280,000 incarcerated, with over a million on parole supervision.
The ranger jail is their headquarters but they end up controlling the entire town through bullying and intimidation. The people only put up with it (the bullying, rapes, and high taxes) because they fear the Comanche. Of course, governments have always hyped the external threat, basically to expand their power and demand higher taxes.
The rangers are full of hypocrisy. They fight and argue for the importance of institutions, but they have little respect for their English traditions. Many of their families arrived after the wars of 1775 and 1812. The rangers are in church every Sunday morning, nodding their head as if they understand, “thou shalt not kill,” but they’re still hungover from the earlier night’s carousing, gambling and drinking. To capitalize on their hard-drinking, the saloon across the street is renamed “Bastard’s Palace”. In fact, the entire settlement is named after the jail/prison, “Bastard’s Paradise.”
ALT VILLIANS: For a visual effect, substitute the U.S. Army as villains with their nice blue uniforms. All the anti-establishment political activists I know and some left-leaning directors might enjoy the clarity of the uniforms. Uniforms suggest “government” and who was more culpable in the Indian War atrocities than the U.S. Army? Move the setting back to 1869 and put the action at Fort Sill (Southwest Oklahoma) and you have a more picturesque film (blue uniforms contrasting with a stark blown terrain in the background). She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.
Wichita Tribe – TIME FOR CHANGE:
This movie with a gender-ambiguous Native American protagonist and police/army for villains could not be made, in 1989. I appreciate Gale Ann Herd (or reader) for reading it 35 years ago. And frankly, I understand why the script has never probably been seriously considered, but as Bob Dylan, said, “the times they are a changin’.”
GENDER POLITICS HAVE CHANGED: The protagonist is named “Bit” (meaning two) because of the pan-Indian tradition of tolerance of “two spirited” people; this describes Native people who fulfilled a traditional third-gender. Research suggests that the “two-spirited” American Indians were actually well regarded and considered healers, visionaries, shamans, nannies of orphans, and caregivers. So what happened to the LGBTQ native Americans? Western Christianity arrived and to gain economic superiority, geographical territory and religious purity every attempt was made to end the special place of the “two-spirited” natives. The sexually uninhibited freedom of American Indians were shamed and deemed as barbaric and threats were made that “God’s mercy would end,” if they did not stop immediately. It was a sentiment taught from the pulpits every Sunday and also in the 1800’s U.S. Army induction education. This social and psychological manipulation, as far as I’m aware, has never been filmed. It would be a major step forward if this film were made.
RACE POLITICS HAVE CHANGED: Historically, the Hollywood establishment didn’t hire Native talent. In 1911, Stephen W. Bush, who wrote for the magazine Moving Picture World, complained about the lack of “real Indians” on celluloid. And then when allowed Native roles their efforts were discounted. In 1914 after they hired Native as actors, Bush wrote that they are “constitutionally incapable of acting.”
Also, it has continued until more recently. In 2015, a dozen Native American actors walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s comedy, The Ridiculous Six. The media reported it and the script was leaked to the press; it featured jokes depicting Native Americans as dirty, animalistic backdrops. The film’s producer, Netflix, was quick to defend Sandler’s jokes as “a broad satire of Western movies and the stereotypes they popularized…” The PR seems to have worked; the issue went away for a time. The entire incident only reinforces the need for this film; the reaction to The Ridiculous Six was only a blip on the radar screen; six years down the road and the times ARE still a changin’.
SPECIAL EFFECTS HAVE CHANGED:
This movie wasn’t practical in 1989. However, now with modern CG, nearly any producer can blow this out of the water. Movies with human zombies have always been doable… however this film is dominated by animal zombies and the buffalo especially hate long stays in the makeup chair. In fact, their guild strictly prohibits that. 😊
HOLLYWOOD HAS CHANGED:
I’m not certain that before 1989, a script could get away with a radically alternative history. But in the 30+ years that this script sat on eight or more hard drives, we seem to have invented an entirely new genre, alternative history. Jack Hays, Mirabeau Lamar, the Battle of Neches, the Council House Fight and The Great Raid of 1840 are all documented historical characters/events. However; a lesbian-led zombie rebellion is NOT part of history. However, I like to think that I put historic events together in a way that they complement, or perhaps even add to the fiction.
There is a great deal of historical expository in the script and I’m sure some readers will bristle at it. But at the same time, I’m sure the readers don’t know even the basics. So, how does one tell a political period piece without explaining a few things? All this was taught in Texas schools, in the 7th grade. I explain a lot because I don’t know any filmmakers who went to junior high school in Texas, or are of a mind to educate themselves in Texas-Indian relations. If you are a reader, I don’t despise you. My explaining isn’t an insult to your intelligence; it’s just that you aren’t from Texas and you’ve probably never been to any of these places… our battlefields or heard the stories in our classrooms. And things haven’t improved in 30 years; I’ve been teaching college freshmen for 30 years and I’m accustomed to having to explain and justify everything.
NOTE THE FILM’S MOTTO: The times are a changin’, Bit by Bit.
MUSIC:
If the producers can secure Bob Dylan’s The Times Are a Changin’, that song would be tremendous. Use that music as the TITLES FLASH. It would foreshadow to the audience is about to see a movie where the Native American’s finally win a battle.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:
The U.S. Army and Texas Rangers used Wichita and other natives as spies and scouts. What if a Wichitan, after being used as a spy against the Comanche, was betrayed by the Army and the daughter took revenge on them?
Wichita Tribe THE PROTAGONIST:
The lead character is named Bit. This comes from the Caddo/Wichita language and means “two” (2).
BIT’S EXTERNAL CONFLICT: Bit seeks revenge against the Texas Rangers for her father, but also a massacre the rangers claimed the Comanche were responsible for.
BIT’S INTERNAL CONFLICT: Early in the film it is established that Bit is clearly lesbian; she never gazes on a man. As a young girl (in the tribal setting) she’s taught the interconnectedness of all things… and that gayness… has a spiritual (positive) meaning within the tribe. At the same time, the priests are perpetuating the idea that Indians have no “tribal consciousness” or ability to control homosexuality. So she’s two-spirited (literally). There is the Indian notion of two-spiritedness (lesbian or bi-sexuality) and she is also “two-spirited” in the idea that she’s a native AND allegedly a Catholic. She’s torn in two halves.
BIT’S FATHER IS A SPY: The Comanche (Uto-Aztecan) and the Wichita (Caddoan) spoke very different languages. If he is going to be used as a spy, we must explain how he speaks both languages. Because the Comanche frequently kidnapped children, it’s highly plausible that he was taken into the Comanche culture as a child and perhaps never escaped (or was bought back) until he was a teenager. Once the Texas Rangers learn of his past they immediately move to take advantage of him. They promise him a house in the city; of course, they won’t ever pay that debt.
SPYING ON NATIVE TRIBES: One might think, first that spies weren’t used in the Indian wars; that’s entirely not true. They did use spies to gather intelligence, just like in any war. Frankly, there aren’t any movies about espionage against the natives. Second, one might think the Comanche would be a difficult tribe for spies to penetrate; in truth, the Comanche had captured and released so many hostages (and so many hostages decided to remain with them) they were relatively open to espionage.
Wichita Tribe — BLUNT FILM SUMMARY:
I see Bit as a lesbian or maybe edging toward a transgender Native American in the 1840s. She is transformed by the brutality of Texas history from a gay member of a mild peace-loving tribe into a cunning and barbaric warrior for her people.
I believe this film can easily be Bit’s origin story and it can continue as a series or franchise. This script will establish how her experiences as an oppressed Native guided her to turn against the Republic of Texas.
During her childhood, Bit lives in a village of Wichita (located beside the Red River) with her sick mother, and her father, SAKU. They are part of a group of Wichita people living in Oklahoma and her father is the head of their clan (family group). Bit (13) finds a girlfriend (NÁTTIH); rather than fetch water, they run away from a river and innocently (experimentally) hold hands. Several Wichita women see it and giggle. The priest scolds the woman.
Bit finds a trail of furniture, clocks, a piano, and clothes on the prairie. It seems to lighten the load someone has dumped most of their belongings. Bit follows the trail but stops to take a necklace from a jewellery box. When she finds the starving group of settlers in an empty Conestoga wagon, the famished woman points to Bit as if to request something. Bit offers her the necklace which she’s not interested in. The settler woman is interested in Bit’s food pouch. Bit keeps the necklace but gives the woman the food. Bit returns to her village and gives her girlfriend the distinctive necklace.
Bit is with her father at the famous Council House Fight. Thirty-three Comanche chiefs accompanied by thirty-two other Comanches, arrived in San Antonio in March of 1840, for peace talks and prisoner exchange. The Chiefs enter a building and only eight emerge alive. The eight survivors are put in prison. Murdering these negotiators, under a white flag, was the lowest dirty trick ever perpetrated by the Texas Rangers. Bit’s father, Saku, works for the rangers and Bit isn’t too worried about the massacre. Bit’s loyal to her father and sides against her perceived enemy, the Comanche. The Comanche hated everyone and everyone hated them back.
The Comanche referred to themselves as “the people” and they referred to whites, blacks, other Natives (outside the tribe) as “non-people.” They were the least hospitable tribe in all of the Americas. The nicest thing I can say about them is, “they wanted to be left alone.” They seem to have invented a Native American version of isolationism. Also, geography helped them stay isolated for a long time.
The character of MUKWOORɄ (based on Comanche mukua “spirit”), translated as “Spirit Talker,” is a Comanche shaman. He takes all sorts of ingredients and mixes them in a pouch. He prays (it’s a magical curse); that’s what shamans do. He leaves the seeds to sit. In the night, a panther enters the encampment urinates on the bag… the next morning the shaman smells the bag and smiles… he scatters the wildflower seeds just outside one of the white settlements. If the director, and the art director, wants to use bluebonnets (or Indian blanket) for this scene, that would work well.
FORESHADOWING: Time passes and occasionally one of the white settlers’ horses will eat the wildflowers, die from the poison but will be reanimated as a zombie and run wild attacking cowboys and settlers until the horse is killed. Children are chased by crazed jackrabbits until their mothers come and kill the rabbits. The horses and rabbits fail to infect anyone; no humans are turned into zombies.
Young Bit is left in the settlement while her father goes to spy on the Comanche. Bit is there and witnesses the animal zombism begin. Eventually, the settlers believe the place is cursed and they pack their items. And later with the discovery of a dozen dead Comanche and the possibility of war, they still move farther west. When her father returns from West Texas he finds her abandoned, hungry and cold. After this, she always travels with him.
As white encroachment truly begins, tensions were high between Texas Rangers and the Comanche. The Comanche have gathered their army at the bottom of the Palo Duro canyon. Every time they have sent a white scout (or spy) they never return; they are hunted and killed by the Comanche. The rangers want to better monitor the Comanche. As a result, the Texas army recruits a group of Wichita. Bit’s father is offered a job as a spy; he’s worked for the Texas Rangers previously. He agrees in the hopes that the president will grant him a house, improving the lives of his family. His wife is ill and needs better shelter.
A BOTANIST from the East, crosses the Sabine River and sets out innocently across the prairies. He is documenting, drawing and collecting plant life. One thing is clear… he has a journal with everything he finds and a good set of notes on each find. Because the zombism is tied to a plant… this journal is a valuable military resource/weapon.
When a dozen Comanche men are hunting buffalo in an area near where the hybrid seeds are growing. They all die unexpectedly. Whilst claims of their deaths were attributed to a buffalo stampede, some of the Comanche were sceptical of the narrative being pushed by the whites.
The Comanche hunter’s bodies are left to rot in the hot sun but almost immediately a Comanche boy finds the bruised and broken bodies and reports back ot the tribe. Of course, he doesn’t report any bullet holes in the bodies; he’s a mere boy. He does however notice a dozen or more dead zombie buffalo a few hundred yards away. Then, settlers moving west discover the bodies; they turn dramatically and return to the nearest settlement. Soon both adversaries know about the dozen dead bodies.
First, the panther comes and feasts on the dead Comanche hunters; then a pack of wolves and finally come a frenzy of 100 coyotes. By the time the Comanche women come to bury the bodies, there isn’t much evidence of bullet wounds. However, speculation is rife.
There is far more action in this script than dialogue. Let’s just say it’s a homage to BOTH Texans and Natives. Historically neither are prone to over-talk any subject. Texans have always been quiet. We don’t talk much, because nothing much happens. But when something does happen (like a dozen dead Comanche warriors), everybody talks about it. And everybody knows about it. And we never forget it.
Once Texas Ranger commander JACK HAYS overhears talk in the barbershop, he realizes the massacre of the Comanche hunters might have been a serious mistake on his part. He travels around the state from barbershop to barbershop conducting damage control and trying to prevent an erupting conflict – Comanche vs the new Republic of Texas. He blames the Comanche deaths on the buffalo so that if war comes it will be justified.
During a meeting with Saku, Jack Hays requests him to travel to the Comanche tribe and spread the message, that the deaths were caused by buffalo.
After Saku leaves the settlement, Hays re-travels the barbershop circuit again and spreads the rumour that it was the Wichitas who ambushed the Comanche and made it look like a buffalo stampede. Word will travel from the whites eventually to the Comanche camp. He feels this lie will direct the Comanche hostility away from the whites. Divide the natives and conquer. We learn this idea of pitting the Comanche against the Wichita comes from the president, Mirabeau “Buonaparte” LAMAR.
Bit will later figure it out that it’s all been a ruse conspired by Hays and the president, to strategically protect the interests of the whites. Saku is a mere pawn. By sending a Wichitan to spread lies, Hays is taking advantage of the situation to further the tension between the two tribes. The misinformation propagated in Saku’s message brings a tragic turn of events. The Comanche people now feel they need to retaliate against Saku, first of the lie and then because he is working for the rangers. They torture Saku and he’s presumed to be dead.
The script eventually reveals that Bit was there when Hays organised the deaths of the fallen Comanche hunters. The buffalo hunters, surprised when the zombie-like buffalo don’t run; the Comanche hunters are chased by the crazed buffalo, but we learn that when chased over a rise, the hunters were ambushed by Texas Rangers. Their dead bodies are trampled by the buffalo after they were shot dead. Then the buffalo turn on the rangers but with superior weaponry, Mississippi rifles, (headshots) the zombie buffalo are slaughtered. Bit witnessed the entire bazaar event and it’s a lingering puzzle to her.
Bit is now clearly aware of the zombism. She doesn’t understand it’s origins but she’s trying to sort it in her mind.
As revenge for the Council House Fight, rather than attack the Wichita tribe, Buffalo Hump leads a Comanche raiding party in an attack on Linnville (modern-day Port Lavaca). They take furniture from the Linnville warehouses and return to West Texas. As the Comanche return, they are confronted by Hays, who is dumbfounded. “Furniture!” The Comanche abandon the furniture on the prairie and run for the high plains. Rather than pursue them, Hays peels off and heads toward the Wichita camp. If the Comanche won’t attack the Wichita (and start an Indian vs. Indian war) then he will do it instead and he’ll make it look like the Comanche did it.
Hays’ men strike Bit’s village in the middle of the night to enflame a tribal war. Evidence is planted to make it look like a Comanche raid.
At the same time her village is attacked, Bit finds Mukwoorʉ (the shaman) wandering on the prairie, with no horse and blind by old age. He tells her of the new hybrid/magical wildflower and about its properties and effects. She’s interested in it as a weapon, because of all the animals she’s seen go berserk. The shaman is blind and doesn’t know what direction is what but she follows the dead buffalo herd’s trail north and finds the flowers. She collects more than enough and put them in her pouch.
When she returns to her Wichita village, she finds that it has been burned to the ground “supposedly” by the Comanche with the remains of dead bodies scattered around. Only a few Wichita escape. Bit’s girlfriend escapes with several others.
Unbeknownst to Bit, her father is being tortured by the Comanche.
She’s incredibly young (now 15), but the sole survivor of her band, Bit goes to Hays and the president and begs for a job in the rangers; she’s only suited to be a spy. Hays, against the wishes of President Lamar, places her in a ranger unit, where she’s treated as a servant and cook. She’s disgusted because that will never allow her to get revenge on the Comanche.
She goes exploring and finds petroleum (a tar pit) not far from the ranger’s jail/prison. She is offered firearm training but rejects it. Bit is raped by rangers; Hays only scolds the rapists, “we are trying to win their heart and minds.” She however trains relentlessly and quietly with a lance and bow. She makes her own arrows. She hunts Texas prairie chickens for their distinctive feathers. Her lance will be a signature of revenge. She grows into a warrior while waiting for the rangers to use her in the war.
Later, Bit is more mature. Her first mission for Hays is to spy on an encampment of Comanche. Not long after, Bit uncovers a devastating truth that plants the seeds of vengeance in her mind. She finds her father in the camp. He was previously tortured by the Comanche, with his eyes poked out. Her father only recognizes her as she sobs and she promises to save him. However, he begs his daughter to leave him and get the hell out of there (back to safety). Bit leaves her father as he requests but she runs off every horse in the Comanche camp before going back to the ranger settlement.
She needs to get answers to her new questions. Did Hays and Lamar know her father was being held and why didn’t he try to rescue him? They sent Saku to spy but then abandoned him? And where did the rumours come from that the Wichita ambushed the Comanche hunting party?
Hays is summoned to deal with a “border problem” with the Mexicans. While Hays is butchering Mexican immigrants in the south, he leaves only doltish jailers and construction workers behind and Bit’s able to break into the ranger HQ (now a large and growing prison). She uncovers documents implicating Hays and the president, in scheming to frame the Wichita tribe for the Comanche buffalo stampede deaths. She also finds that the rangers were responsible for the massacre of her village; it wasn’t the Comanche as the rangers insisted.
Bit prepares to take revenge against the rangers, but Hays isn’t there at the time. Not part of her job, she takes bucket after bucket from the tar pit to the prison, climbs a ladder and pours it on the roof. Of course, everyone knows it might stop the leaks when it rains. Someone mentions that it hardly ever rains anyway in Texas, but that’s not what Bit is about.
Finished with his atrocities at the border, Hays returns north. A ranger finds the bones of the botanist out on the prairie. Most importantly he finds the scientist’s journal. He hands the book to his boss, Hays.
After a time, Hays and the rangers return to the settlement. Bit has been waiting patiently.
She hasn’t been a cook for a time (since she became a spy) but she enters the cooking area; the other Native women, acting as cooks, seem to know to step aside. They defer to Bit’s new design. She poisons the soup of several rangers with the wildflowers; they die but are reanimated in the night. The plant brings them back as zombies, just like it did the animals.
Before the coming full-on zombie rampage Bit releases the prisoners in the jail, most of which are Natives and runaway slaves. There are also several ugly (or mentally defective) white prisoners, clearly social rejects for some reason; basically in any era if the rangers don’t like you then you are going to prison. No different today. The Texas Rangers are clearly making money off the practice. The prisoners disappear out into the prairie.
All night, the rangers turned zombies rampage around the camp. As the other rangers come to deal with the outbreak, Bit picks them off with lance and bow. She also ensures that none escape by turning the horses loose. She wounds the last ranger and drags him leaving a blood trail into the prison; this lures the zombies inside. She closes the door behind them and then lights the entire prison on fire. The building goes up like a bonfire (the tar on the roof).
The zombies and rangers everyone remaining, all burn. No survivors, living or undead, remain. The entire settlement is a smoking wasteland.
Bit on a horse leads a packhorse with an apparent deadman tied over the saddle into a “lost canyon.” At the bottom of the canyon is a zombie chained to a post. Bit pulls up just near enough so we see Bit’s old girlfriend (distinctive necklace). The zombie, Náttih, runs to the length of the chain and is stopped. Clearly, Bit is pained by it all… but she can’t kill her former girlfriend. Bit knows exactly how close she can get to the chained zombie. As Náttih moves back to the post, Bit pulls the packhorse near what would be inside the chain’s length. She cuts the ropes tying the body to the packhorse. He falls to the ground and when he hits we realize that he’s a ranger and is alive, though barely. The zombie runs at the ranger and consumes him. The packhorse bolts out of range. Bit, calmly turns her horse out of the canyon. The implication of the scene is that Bit is wandering the state randomly kidnapping rangers and feeding them to her former girlfriend.
It’s not clear how or why, but after the massacre of her village, somehow Bit’s girlfriend has been converted into a zombie. Could be wild animals transferred the virus or perhaps someone else (Hays) could be using the plant as a weapon against the Natives. The whites used smallpox against Native populations, so why not?
After feeding the ranger to the zombie, Bit leaves and doesn’t stop riding until she reaches a sign “Austin – the new Capital of Texas.” The camera pans a full 180° and we see Bit is now in full transformation; she’s wearing a skull helmet. Comanche men used to make helmets from the skulls of buffalo. This final scene hints at transgenderism. Bit’s slowly transformed herself from a young, innocent, and shy lesbian into a seriously dangerous warrior.
She’s about to unleash her wrath on the new capital. Four rangers ride out to confront her.
END OF MOVIE