Ulzana's Raid - Classic western with Burt Lancaster

Following mistreatment by Indian agency authorities, Ulzana breaks out of the San Carlos Indian Reservation with a small Chiricahua war party . When news reaches Fort Lowell , the commanding officer sends riders out to alert the local settlers, but both troopers are ambushed separately; one is dragged away, while the other kills the European woman he is escorting and then himself. The Apaches play catch with his liver. The woman's husband, who stayed behind to protect his farm, is captured and tortured to death. McIntosh, an aging U.S. Army scout , is ordered to bring in Ulzana. Joining him will be a few dozen soldiers led by an inexperienced lieutenant , Garnett DeBuin, a veteran Cavalry sergeant , and Ke-Ni-Tay, an Apache scout . Ke-Ni-Tay knows Ulzana because their wives are sisters.

The cavalry troop soon discovers the brutal activities of the Apache war party. The soldiers know they are facing a merciless enemy with far better local skills. DeBuin is shocked by the cruelty and harshness he sees, because it conflicts strongly with his Christian morality and view of humanity. After failing to find Ulzana, McIntosh and Ke-Ni-Tay consider how to outwit their enemy. DeBuin remains cautious and mistrustful of Ke-Ni-Tay, though, because Ulzana did not let him join his war party.

Ulzana and his warriors decide to continue on foot to tire out the pursuing cavalry, while their horses are circuitously led back the other way. However, after Ke-Ni-Tay notices that the tracks are of unladen ponies, McIntosh leads an ambush that kills the horses and their two Apache escorts, one of whom was Ulzana's son. Despite angry protestations, DeBuin forbids his men from mutilating the dead boy.

The war party attack another farm, burning the homesteader to death and seizing two horses. McIntosh realizes that the remaining Apaches physically and psychologically need horses and will try to obtain them by raiding the troop. A woman at the burned-out farm, instead of being murdered following her gang rape, was left alive but injured so the cavalry will be forced to send her to the fort with an escort. By splitting the troop, Ulzana hopes to successfully attack the escort and seize its horses. McIntosh suggests a decoy plan to make Ulzana falsely believe that his tactics are successful.

Ulzana's warriors ambush the small escort detachment obtaining all of its horses and killing the sergeant and his soldiers before DeBuin can arrive with the rest of his force. McIntosh is left mortally wounded. Only the woman survives unharmed, though now apparently crazed by her experiences. Ke-Ni-Tay scatters the captured horses just as bugle calls from the cavalry ineptly alert the Apaches to DeBuin's approach. Ulzana flees on foot as the remnants of his band are killed. Ke-Ni-Tay confronts him and shows him the Army bugle taken from the body of his son. Ulzana puts down his weapons and sings his death song before the Apache scout kills him. A corporal suggests that Ulzana, or at least his head, should be taken back to the fort. DeBuin, now hardened by what he has witnessed during the mission, sternly orders him to be buried. Ke-Ni-Tay insists on carrying out the task himself. The surviving troopers led by DeBuin pack up to leave, but McIntosh knows that he will not survive the journey back to the fort, so chooses to stay behind to die alone.