The food destroyed at Palo Duro was not incidental provisions.

It was the winter survival supply for hundreds of people.

The lodges were not temporary shelters.

They were carefully maintained structures that represented significant labor investment and that were designed specifically for the conditions of the Panhandle winter.

When Mackenzie burned the camps, he was not destroying temporary property.

He was destroying the infrastructure for winter survival that the families had worked for months to accumulate.

The timing — September 28, just at the beginning of the cold season — was not coincidental.