Joe Mendelson stood atop a rocky hill, the life and death drama that played out beneath him appeared small. It was almost as if it were the struggle of tiny ants to survive, and not real people. The stagecoach that had been stopped looked a little larger than the tiny people that exited it. The riders that had stopped the coach along with their mounts looked like slightly bigger bugs than the others. But it was clear from where Mendelson stood that they were not just bugs. These were human beings locked in a life and death struggle that seemed all too common in the times they lived in.