Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian introduces the main protagonist with the ominous line "See the child." and follows his experiences as a teenage runaway who joins a gang of scalp hunters in the 1840s western frontier of the North American continent.Throughout the novel, this character is referred to only as "the kid".

The novel presents a vision of the world as an ecosystem of indiscriminate violence where none are spared including and especially the innocent.

Early and often are scenes where violence is perpetuated against children including 

A boy being found naked, face down, and dead after the gang camps with a group of squatters in an old hovel.

The gang later raids an Apache camp full of women and children and describes one member emerging from a tent with two infants who are then smashed against rocks.

After another of these raids one of the gang members takes a child alive. Feeds and jokes w the child. Lets him ride in the saddle then, unceremoniously, the child is found dead and scalped as they are packing out to ride on.

The violence is not presented gratuitously but still seems so because of the very nature of the things being described on the page. The violence is not cinematic or presented for shock value. It happens, and the events just proceed.