Chapter 9: The Last Stand

The war party rode out at dawn, sixty warriors strong, their faces painted for battle, their weapons ready. The morning air was cold and sharp, carrying the scent of sage and the distant promise of snow. Winter would come early this year.

Firebird rode beside Red Hawk, her bow slung across her back, her quiver full of arrows she’d fletched herself. She wore her warrior’s dress—shorter than a woman’s usual garment, easier to fight in—and her copper hair was braided tight against her skull. War paint marked her cheeks: red for courage, black for death.

Red Hawk glanced at her as they rode, and something passed between them. Not words. Not even a look, really. Just the understanding that came from fighting side by side, from sharing a life, from loving each other completely.

“You should have stayed,” he said quietly, though they both knew it was pointless.

“I am a warrior,” she replied. “I fight beside you. That is who I am.”

He nodded, accepting what he’d known all along. She was not a woman who would wait in the tipi while others fought. She never had been.

Behind them rode White Bull, Crazy Horse, Two Moons—the best warriors the Cheyenne had. The Dog Soldiers, fierce and proud, their reputation known across the plains. They were riding to meet a cavalry unit that had been burning Cheyenne camps, killing women and children, destroying food stores before winter.

This was not a raid. This was not aggression. This was defense. Survival.

The chiefs had tried diplomacy. The peace talkers had gone to the fort with white flags. They’d been turned away, threatened, told to go to the reservation or be exterminated.

So now they rode to battle.

“When we get back,” Red Hawk said after a long silence, “I want to take the children to the sacred mountain. Show our son the place where the spirits speak. Teach him the old ways before they’re forgotten.”

“When we get back,” Firebird agreed, though something in her chest tightened at his words.

They rode in silence after that, conserving their strength, their focus shifting inward to the warrior’s mind—the place of stillness and readiness where thought became action without hesitation.

By midday, they reached the place.

The cavalry was camped in a shallow valley, their horses picketed, their cook fires smoking. Scouts had reported forty soldiers, maybe fifty. The Cheyenne had the advantage of surprise, the high ground, and superior horsemanship.