"The Indian Uprising" is told with a limited plot, consisting primarily of the observations, memories, and insights of an unnamed narrator involved in an urban battle against a group called the Comanches. Woven throughout the descriptions of the battle and other war-related events are the narrator's comments and memories of different women.

When the story opens, the narrator is describing the city as it looked during the battle with the Comanches, when he and his compatriots "defended the city as best we could." The city is barricaded and festooned with protective wire, and it features streets with such names as Rue Chester Nimitz and George C. Marshall Allée. The narrator's troops have captured a Comanche and are interrogating and torturing him.

After this, the narrator shifts to describe a variety of situations and details sometimes connected with the interrogation and sometimes unrelated. First, he...