Stranded in Time

The blazing sun of the Western Plains beat down like fire, tearing through the thin remnants of morning mist clinging to the limestone peaks.

The man stepping out from the shadow of the mountains wore neither brilliant war paint nor a boastful array of eagle feathers like the other warriors. He was clad in a dark buckskin shirt that hugged his wide, square shoulders, his broad frame rooted as solidly as an ancient oak springing from a cliffside. Long, pitch-black hair fell to his lower back in neat braids, anchored behind his head by a single ash-gray eagle feather—the mark of absolute authority and blood-soaked renown.

His face appeared carved from granite: a high, proudly straight nose, a sharp, axe-chiseled jawline, and, above all, his eyes. Deep amber eyes—cold, calculating, and ruthless as a hunting falcon soaring the high sky before diving to tear its prey apart.

Grey Elk—War Chief of the Talon Ridge tribe.

His presence cast an aura of heavy, suffocating command so absolute that even the restless warhorses reined themselves in, lowering their heads and snorting hot streams of air. The warriors surrounding Elena instinctively parted to both sides, pressing their hands to their left chests and bowing in silent respect.

The man with the scar across his cheek—Running Deer—roughly dragged Elena forward. He slammed his hand onto her shoulder, trying to force the white doctor to her knees at the feet of the Chief's warhorse.

"A-pó, Nita-ka!" (Chief, look what we caught!) Running Deer barked in vicious triumph, his fingers digging into Elena’s shoulder joint hard enough to threaten bone. "A Wasichu woman! She was hiding in the brush with alien metal objects. She must be a spy sent by the blue-coated soldiers from Fort Russell!"

Elena was forced onto one knee. The dry grass bit into her smooth skin through her tailored trousers, but the physical pain failed to derail her razor-sharp mind working at full capacity.

She snapped her head up. Her deep gray eyes, fierce and unyielding, met Grey Elk’s amber glare head-on without a trace of fear.

Their gazes locked in midair. On one side burned the wild, icy flame of a plains ruler; on the other stood the iron pride and intellect of a surgical prodigy who had never bowed her head to anyone.

Grey Elk narrowed his eyes slightly. He had seen countless white intruders—from ruthless bounty hunters to US cavalrymen—weep, beg, or tremble like leaves when facing the blades of the Talon Ridge tribe. But the woman before him was different. Her skin was white as early snow, her ash-blonde hair tangled wildly in the wind, her attire strangely delicate, yet those eyes... those eyes were utterly still. The stillness of someone who held death in total contempt, or possessed a bizarre, arrogant confidence.

His lips twitched as his eyes swept over her dirt-streaked white Etro shirt, her broken high-heeled shoe, then rested on her sterile lab coat and the tactical surgical kit another warrior was rummaging through.

"What does she say?" Grey Elk spoke. His voice was a deep, gravelly rasp, like two stones grinding together beneath a dry riverbed.

Running Deer spat onto the dirt. "She speaks strange words. Wyoming, Montana, Doctor... All cunning lies of the white man! Why waste words, A-pó? Cut her throat and spike her head at the valley ridge to warn the Fort soldiers!"

As he spoke, Running Deer flashed a rusted steel dagger, swinging the sharp blade through the air straight toward Elena’s throat.

Elena didn't close her eyes. Her heart rate spiked to 110 beats per minute; adrenaline flooded her bloodstream. In a fraction of a second, her mind calculated the exact angle of her neck and shoulder leverage to evade the blade within a fifty-centimeter radius.

CLANG!

A crisp, metallic clash split the air.

A long arrow fletched with eagle feathers streaked forward at terrifying speed, striking the dagger right out of Running Deer’s hand and driving it deep into the dirt.

"Stand down, Running Deer!"

A calm, authoritative voice echoed from the left. A younger warrior, dressed with understated elegance and wearing strands of blue ceramic beads around his neck, trotted forward on his mount. His eyes were intelligent, sharp, and decidedly more calculating than the rough men around him.

White Feather—second-in-command and chief strategist of the Talon Ridge tribe.

"You are too hasty, Running Deer," White Feather said, shooting a warning glance at the scarred warrior before turning his gaze to the strange objects on the ground.

"Look closer. Her clothing bears no insignia of the Federal Army. This fabric is soft as Eastern silk, yet the stitching is impossibly uniform—something even the finest tailors in Washington could not produce. And look at what's inside that bag."

White Feather used the tip of his lance to nudge Elena’s medical kit. A polished stainless-steel stethoscope, sterile glass syringes, and surgical blades crafted from titanium alloy caught the sunlight, gleaming like sacred relics.

"Would a female spy carry no guns, black powder, or military maps, but instead carry these strange metal instruments?" White Feather narrowed his eyes at Elena, asking in fluent English accented with an archaic cadence:

"White woman... where do you come from? Who sent you?"

Elena drew a deep breath, suppressing the burning pain in her wrists bound by coarse rawhide rope. She stood up straight, brushed a smudge of dirt from her cheek, and spoke with crystal clarity:

"My name is Elena Marsh. I am a thoracic surgeon. I belong to no fort and no military force of yours. My car crashed during an electromagnetic storm in the western valley. All I need to know is where I am and how to contact local authorities."

White Feather raised an eyebrow, translating her words for Grey Elk.

At the words Doctor ("Medicine Woman") and Electromagnetic Storm, the surrounding warriors began to murmur among themselves. In the beliefs of the Plains tribes, unnatural atmospheric phenomena were inextricably linked to signs from the Great Spirit—or dark magic.

Running Deer grew more furious by the second. He stepped forward, snarling, "Lies! All lies! The Wasichu always use twisted words to deceive the Indian! A-pó, if we do not kill her, she will use her black magic to guide General Crook’s cannons to flatten our village!"

"Enough."

With just those two low words from Grey Elk, the chaotic shouting vanished instantly. The valley fell so silent that the wind howling through the limestone ravines was clearly audible.

Grey Elk slowly urged his black warhorse toward Elena. His towering silhouette and his horse loomed over her slender frame, creating an overwhelming psychological dominance. He leaned down from his saddle, using the butt of his lance to lift Elena’s chin once more.

This time, the distance between them was so close Elena could see the faint, jagged scars across his muscular chest—wounds left by bear claws and artillery shrapnel. His scent was a raw blend of woodsmoke, tanned leather, wild herbs, and a dangerous, primal instinct.

Grey Elk’s amber eyes bored into Elena’s pupils as if attempting to strip away every secret buried in her mind.

"Liars have their tongues cut out. Enemies are flayed alive," Grey Elk said in broken English, each word dropping like a heavy stone. "But Talon Ridge does not slay those who carry signs of the Spirits before the sun sets."

He turned his head toward White Feather, barking a cold command in his native tongue:

"Bind her. Gather her metal tools. Take her to the village and lock her in the ceremonial lodge. Search her thoroughly for hidden plague or weapons. Tonight, after the Sun Ceremony, I will pass judgment on her myself."

"Understood, A-pó," White Feather bowed his head.

Though seething with rage, Running Deer dared not disobey his Chief. He stomped forward, yanking the rawhide rope so violently that Elena stumbled forward.

"Move, Wasichu!"

The party set off.

Elena was given no horse. One end of the rawhide rope was bound tightly around her wrists, the other hitched to the saddle of Running Deer’s horse. She was forced to march on foot through waist-high prairie grass, her heel throbbing where her remaining shoe had snapped.

Yet the sheer pride of a world-class surgeon refused to let her collapse or beg. Elena gritted her teeth, relying on pure mental fortitude to fight off physical exhaustion.

As they traveled, her brilliant brain continuously observed and analyzed every micro-detail of her surroundings.

First: Weaponry. The warriors carried 1866 Winchester "Yellow Boy" carbines and a handful of trapdoor Springfields. These were personal firearms that proliferated in the 1870s and 1880s. The ammunition lined on their leather gun-belts was severely limited, indicating a choked supply line.

Second: Attire and Injuries. The hides were dyed with natural plant extracts. Many warriors bore wounds caused by modern artillery shrapnel, treated crudely with pine sap and ash. Several men suffered from advanced infections and high fevers, yet remained stoically mounted.

Third: Geography and Climate. Those jagged limestone mountains were the natural boundary of the Bighorn/Talon Ridge valley. Dry air, low pressure, and vegetation characteristic of the Great Plains.

Every piece of data converged into a brutal conclusion:

She was not the victim of a kidnapping or a staged prank. She had fallen through a spacetime fold triggered by an extraordinary geological anomaly, landing in North America in the 1880s—the height of the Plains Indian Wars, when the U.S. Army was relentlessly driving indigenous tribes onto reservations with blood and artillery.

And she—a white woman dressed in modern luxury—was the number-one target of hatred for the men holding her captive.

God damn it... Elena cursed silently. Before she could even process her failure against the limits of 21st-century medicine, she was now facing the threat of being flayed or hanged in the 19th century.

After more than two hours of relentless marching, the party cleared a narrow canyon and entered the Talon Ridge valley.

Stretching out before Elena was a massive indigenous settlement. Hundreds of conical bison-hide tipis stood tall along a rushing river. Cooking smoke rose into the air, mingling with the scent of roasted bison meat and pungent herbs. Bare-chested children ran freely, while women in braided buckskin dresses pounded wild grains or scraped hides.

At the sight of the returning war party leading a bound white woman, the entire village erupted.

"Wasichu! Wasichu!"

Jeers and curses rang out from every direction. Children hurled clumps of dry dirt and small pebbles at Elena. Women stared at her with burning hatred—the raw hatred of those who had lost husbands and sons to the guns of white soldiers.

A sharp stone grazed Elena’s temple, leaving a thin trail of blood. The crimson trickled down her fair skin, yet Elena maintained a stone-cold expression, her gray eyes staring straight ahead, her gait uneven but her spine straight as an arrow.

Her extraordinary resilience gradually hushed the hostile shouting. The villagers began to watch her with a mix of curiosity and awe. To them, white captives usually wept, begged, or succumbed to hysterical panic; never had a woman walked through a gauntlet of hatred carrying herself like a visiting queen.

Running Deer dragged Elena toward a massive tipi at the center of the camp—its surface painted with a striking, dark red emblem of a winged eagle.

He shoved her violently inside. Elena lost her balance, spilling onto a pile of damp-smelling animal hides.

SLASH!

Running Deer used his knife to sever the lead rope attached to his saddle, but left her wrists bound tight behind her back. He tossed her medical bag and lab coat into the corner of the tipi, turning to glare down at her with a cruel grin:

"Stay here and pray to your white God. Tonight, A-pó will use your blood to sacrifice for the warriors who died at the hands of General Crook!"

He stepped outside, pulling the heavy bison flap shut. The voices of two guards armed with long lances rang out immediately from the threshold.

The interior of the tipi plunged into near-total darkness, save for a few shafts of late afternoon sunlight filtering through the smoke hole at the top.

Elena leaned her back against the central wooden pole, drawing a deep breath. Her temple burned, her wrists were badly swollen, and her entire body throbbed from the trek.

She closed her eyes. In the dark, the memory of her modern operating room returned—the rhythmic Beep---Beep--- of the heart monitor, followed by the flatline of that twenty-year-old man.

"Dying in the 21st century out of medical helplessness, or dying in the 19th century under a war chief's blade..." Elena let out a soft, dry laugh, raspy and self-deprecating. "You really know how to pick a fate, Elena Marsh."

Yet a surgeon's instinct refused to let her yield. She began surveying her surroundings.

In the corner sat a pile of crude healing tools: clay jars filled with dried roots, powdered herbs, a few razor-sharp flint blades, and a copper bowl of distilled water. Her tactical medical bag lay about ten feet away. Inside sat her titanium scalpels, two ampoules of morphine, Betadine antiseptic, and absorbable sutures—weapons of an advanced civilization.

Just then, the entrance flap was pushed aside.

A figure entered. It was neither the ruthless Running Deer nor Chief Grey Elk.

It was an elderly woman, stooped with age, her face deeply lined like the bark of an ancient oak. She wore a buckskin dress adorned with sea shells and bear canines. Her eyes were clouded with cataracts, yet flashed with the deep wisdom of a veteran Medicine Woman.

Behind her came two warriors carrying a makeshift stretcher crafted from wooden poles wrapped in bison hide. Lying upon it was a young man—no older than seventeen or eighteen.

The youth’s face was ash-gray, his lips blue, his breathing labored and shallow. The right side of his chest bore a gaping wound—inflicted by artillery shrapnel or a lead musket ball. The wound had begun to turn necrotic, foul-smelling green pus mixing with dark blood oozing past a crude poultice of crushed leaves.

"Khờ-táp... Khờ-táp..." The young warrior groaned deliriously in the grips of a raging fever.

The elderly medicine woman knelt beside him, her trembling hands using herbal water to wash the wound, but dark blood continued to seep out unabated. She looked up toward the top of the tipi, letting out a mournful wail in an ancient tongue filled with despair.

Elena—curled in the dark corner—instantly went rigid.

That was no superficial wound. The sharp, expert eyes of the master thoracic surgeon immediately diagnosed the medical emergency:

Tension pneumothorax and hemothorax! Shrapnel or a lead ball had punctured the right lung tissue, creating a one-way valve that trapped air and blood inside the pleural cavity, crushing his heart and left lung. Without immediate decompression and hemostasis within the next fifteen minutes, this boy would die of respiratory failure and obstructive shock.

The scene... was horrifyingly similar to the young man who had died on her operating table that morning.

Elena’s heart hammered against her ribs. Her blood boiled. The powerlessness and wounded pride from the 21st century suddenly erupted into a fierce, unyielding blaze.

Death had beaten her once today in the 21st century. She would never allow it to beat her a second time right in front of her eyes—no matter what century she was in!

"Let me go!" Elena’s voice rang out, sharp and hard as steel inside the dim tipi.

The old medicine woman gasped, turning to stare at the bound white woman with deep suspicion.

"He is suffocating! Blood is crushing his heart!" Elena used simple words and urgent body language, shuffling her body closer to the stretcher, her gray eyes flashing with the overwhelming authority of a chief surgeon: "I am a doctor! I can save him! Untie my hands!"

The old woman didn't understand English, but Elena’s gaze and posture—an absolute aura of someone who commanded the line between life and death—made her hesitate. She looked at her grandson’s purulent wound, then back at Elena’s bound hands.

At that exact moment, the entrance flap was thrown wide open.

Grey Elk stepped inside. The dying light of the setting sun painted his broad shoulders in a shade of blood red. He looked down at the young man gasping on the stretcher—his only surviving cousin—then shifted his cold gaze to Elena.

"He is dying," Grey Elk said, his voice flat as ice, though his fist clenched tightly enough for his knuckles to turn white. "The Spirits have called his name."

"To hell with your spirits!" Elena barked, showing zero fear before the ruthless Chief. "He’s not dead! His chest is trapped with blood! If you stand there playing the cold stone statue, in ten minutes you’ll be carrying a corpse out of here!"

Grey Elk narrowed his eyes. He took a long step forward, leaning down to stare directly into Elena’s eyes: "You say you can heal him?"

"I am the best surgeon you will ever see!" Elena delivered every word with razor sharpness: "Untie me. Give me that bag. If I fail to save him, you can flay me alive tonight just as you promised!"

Deathly silence fell over the tipi.

White Feather stepped in behind Grey Elk, whispering urgently into his Chief's ear: "A-pó, Kicking Bear’s wound is too severe. Even the old Medicine Woman has given up. If we let her try... we lose nothing. If Kicking Bear dies, we can still cut her throat."

Grey Elk stared down at his young cousin frothing blood at the mouth, then looked at Elena’s purplish, tightly bound wrists.

He drew a black steel dagger from his belt.

SLASH!

The rawhide rope snapped in two.

Elena immediately rubbed her blood-marked wrists and bolted to her feet. She didn't waste a single second acknowledging the pain, lunging straight for her tactical medical kit.

The "hands blessed by God" belonging to Elena Marsh officially awakened in the heart of a wild tribe. Unzipping her bag, she pulled out sterile gloves, Betadine antiseptic, and a large-gauge chest decompression needle.

"Everyone back up!" Elena bellowed, the absolute authority of an operating room queen instantly filling the bison-hide tipi. "Turn him onto his back! Bring a lit torch over here! NOW!"

Grey Elk stood with folded arms against the central pole, his amber eyes fixed intently on every lightning-fast, ruthlessly precise movement of the white woman.

Elena Marsh’s first battle against Death in the 19th century... had officially begun.