Final Preparations

The bone-chilling wind roared through the Bighorn ravine, carrying powdery snow that slapped incessantly against the dark gray limestone walls with a steady crunch... crunch... like fate counting down its final moments.

The entire valley of Talon Ridge was swept into a desperate, frantic, and suffocatingly cold rhythm.

Gone were the muttered whispers of suspicion. With the menacing shadow of the blue-coats' cannons drawing near, primal survival forced these wild people to wring out every last drop of their remaining strength.

The sound of iron hammers striking metal—Clang! Clang!—echoed continuously from the makeshift forge.

Black Arrow and his warriors hurriedly resharpened every war lance, pointed hundreds of stone-tipped arrows, and rubbed roasted bison fat deep into their bowstrings to prevent the bitter cold from making the tendons brittle.

Along the southern ledge, Running Deer led sixty warriors in erecting towering barricades of cedar stakes, packing snow tight against them to form crude defensive ramparts.

Women and children began evacuating their meager belongings deeper into the canyon caves.

Children cried softly from the bitter cold, footsteps trod heavy in the powdery snow, and the rich scent of burning wild sage mingled with the damp smell of cured hides... together forming a suffocating portrait of war on the eve of massacre.

Inside a shallow stone cave sitting right along the northern boundary of the camp, Elena rolled up her deerskin sleeves, her ash-blonde hair bound neatly behind her neck.

She was setting up the official field medical post for the coming battle.

There were no sterile operating tables, no shadowless surgical lights. Only dried buffalo hides spread flat across the cold stone floor, pots of water boiling over steaming fires, and Old Wind Woman's jars of bitter herbal medicine lined up in uncompromising order.

Elena pulled three strips of dyed field cloth from her bag, setting them down on a rough wooden table: red, yellow, and black.

Sarah and four Lakota women stood in a tight circle around her, their eyes filled with deep anxiety yet solemn respect.

"Listen to me carefully," Elena instructed crisp and clear in English, Sarah translating every word with a trembling voice:

"When the battle erupts, we cannot save everyone at once. We must perform triage."

She lifted the red cloth strip: "Red: for those suffering acute hemorrhaging, chest punctures, severed arteries... those who will die within minutes without immediate surgery."

She lifted the yellow strip: "Yellow: bone fractures, soft-tissue wounds, mild shock... those who can wait."

Finally, Elena lowered her hand, holding up the dark black strip dyed from dried tree bark.

The cave sank into an icy silence.

"Black..." Elena paused for a fraction of a second, her chest constricting ruthlessly: "...For those with severe traumatic brain injury, heart-piercing wounds, or total gangrenous necrosis. Those who cannot be saved by field medicine."

Sarah stared wide-eyed at the black cloth in Elena's hand.

The eighteen-year-old girl took a trembling step forward, tears welling in her eyes:

"Elena... Why bind a black cloth? Why... abandon them? If they are still breathing, if they are still holding our hands... why won't we save them?"

Sarah's innocent plea tore through the rigid composure Elena had strived to build.

Elena looked down at the black strip in her palm.

The brilliant mind of a twenty-first-century cardiothoracic surgeon reeled amidst the cold, unyielding rules of battlefield triage. She remembered her first lesson in the emergency department: on the battlefield, mercy divorced from triage logic turns into a cruelty that slaughters those who still hold a chance to live.

She looked up at Sarah, her voice dropping razor-sharp yet fractured with emotion:

"Because our suture thread is enough for only five operations. Because boiling water and clean gauze are not enough for everyone. If you spend two hours trying to save a man who is guaranteed to die... three men bearing red strips will draw their last breath outside this cave."

Elena turned her face away abruptly, refusing to let Sarah see the tear gathered upon her ash-gray lashes.

Tightening her calloused, cold-chapped hands, she resumed arranging the crude gauze strips upon the harsh stone floor.

Dusk descended rapidly over the Powder River.

The valley sank into a late orange light mingled with somber streaks of deep violet.

Amidst the hurried commotion of war preparations...

Grey Elk strode into the field medical cave.

He wore no leather armor, holding a small piece of deerskin crudely hand-stitched with bison tendon.

The chief paused before Elena.

He uttered no words, merely reaching out to take her slender hand, pressing the piece of deerskin firmly into her palm.

Elena carefully undid the bison tendon bindings.

Inside the deerskin wrapper... lay a delicate, frayed swatch of blue clay-beaded cloth, faded and worn by time.

The final keepsake of Dewdrop—his late wife who had perished in a massacre years ago.

Elena froze. She looked up at him, her ash-gray eyes trembling subtly.

Grey Elk said nothing.

His deep amber eyes locked onto her with absolute devotion, a silent oath carved deep into bone: he was entrusting her with his most sacred link to the past, because his present and his entire life now beat in total unison with her heart.

Tilting his head, he pressed a warm, dry kiss onto her cool forehead, then turned and stepped out to face the howling Bighorn wind.

Elena pressed the swatch of cloth tight against her rapidly pounding chest, a warm tear falling silently onto the dry leather.

Twilight faded behind the Bighorns, leaving deep violet clouds streaked across the sky like unhealed wounds.

Elena pulled her snow-fox fur coat tight, quietly stepping out of the field medical station.

She walked alone toward the upper cave along the northern ledge—where she intended to inspect the underground spring flowing through the limestone crevices, their final backup source of clean water should the camp be encircled completely.

At this altitude, powdery snow piled knee-deep, freezing and dense.

Every step Elena took into the snow made a solitary crunch... crunch... sound against a terrifyingly still void.

Mountain winds howled against her ears, biting cold against her pale cheeks.

As she cleared the entrance of the pitch-black cave, the howling wind outside abruptly hushed, yielding to the thick, heavy silence of the mountain interior.

Elena reached into her field bag, the small satchel she had carried from the twenty-first century.

Suddenly...

Beep... Beep...

A sound—infinitely faint, infinitely soft, yet crystal clear—sliced through the decaying silence.

Elena froze completely.

Her breath hitched, the surgeon's heart leaping violently against her ribs.

Trembling, her hand dipped into the bottom compartment of her field bag, drawing out the iPhone that had been completely powered off since the day she tumbled into this wild world.

The pitch-black screen that had remained dead for two months... was now flickering.

Two cold, white digital numbers glowed in the darkness:

00:00

The screen vibrated in soft, rhythmic pulses, casting an eerie blue-gray light across Elena’s chapped, soot-stained hands.

Buzz... Buzz...

The frequency of the phone's vibrations matched precisely with an invisible pulse throbbing from deep within the cave.

Elena walked forward as if hypnotized.

Her feet automatically treaded across frost-covered limestone rocks, advancing deep into the narrow, dark northern corridor.

The deeper she went, the less the air carried the cutting cold of the snowstorm. In its place lingered a faint electromagnetic field that made every strand of her ash-blonde hair stand on end, raising goosebumps across her skin.

She turned a corner past a jagged rock face.

And then... Elena's entire breath seized completely.

Right before her eyes, running along a deep fault fissure carved into the natural limestone wall...

A ribbon of deep violet light mingled with jade green was quietly flowing.

It made no sound, radiated no heat, merely pulsing and swirling like a silent river of light in the heart of the stone mountain.

The temporal rift.

The gateway that had cast her down into this valley in the autumn of 1876... now, under the influence of the early winter snowstorm and geological faulting, was slowly opening once more.

Elena took a step closer.

The electromagnetic warmth from the violet light brushed against her face, illuminating the exhausted, pale features of the surgeon.

If she took merely three more steps...

If she reached out her hand to touch that ribbon of deep violet light, she would escape the impending massacre, escape Whitfield’s artillery cannons, escape the starvation, cold, and annihilation decreed by fate for the valley of Talon Ridge.

She could return to a sterile operating room, return to the civilized, safe twenty-first century.

Elena’s heart constricted with unbearable agony.

The screen of the iPhone in her hand still flickered those two digital numbers: 00:00.

Elena slowly lowered her head, looking down at the small piece of deerskin hidden inside her coat pocket—where Dewdrop's faded, beaded cloth rested, handed to her by Grey Elk just hours ago.

The memory of the wild chief with his penetrating amber eyes, the searing heat radiating from his chest, and their silent vow amidst the snowstorm flooded her mind, consuming her soul.

The deep violet light continued to flicker and dance against the cold limestone wall, silently waiting for the final decision of the woman from the future.