Grim News

BOOM!

The Bighorn Range seemed to shudder beneath the heavy heel of an iron monster. A column of black smoke at the southeastern horizon billowed up into massive, turbid clouds, rolling relentlessly to lick at the pale, faded blue of the autumn sky.

The wail of a bison-horn trumpet instantly tore through the air—guttural, wild, and piercing, like the roar of a beast whose territory was being eroded.

The entire valley of Talon Ridge erupted into a human earthquake.

Women shrieked in terror for their children, tent guy-lines snapped taut with violent jerks, iron clattered against stone, and warhorses stamped their hooves in a wild frenzy upon the hard-baked earth. Bare-chested warriors, their torsos painted with streaks of dark black, surged out of their tipis like raging waves. They vaulted onto the backs of bareback warhorses, brandishing Springfield rifles and long lances high in the air.

Elena instinctively crouched low toward the rocky outcrop, her feet moving fast across the dry grass. But the moment she leaned out, a calloused, ice-cold hand clamped tightly around her wrist and yanked her back.

"Stay right there, Elena!"

White Feather growled through clenched teeth. His long hair whipped sideways in the wind, half-obscuring a face tight with strain. His hand pinned her shoulder down, hard as a wooden stock.

Below the outcrop, a jet-black warhorse shot past like a bolt of lightning.

Mounted upon it, Grey Elk sat imposing and motionless. He wore no feather warbonnet—only a single ash-gray eagle feather tucked behind a braided lock of hair. He hauled back hard on the rawhide reins, and the black stallion reared onto its hind legs, uttering a sky-shattering neigh.

The instant the horse brought its hooves down, Grey Elk’s amber eyes snapped around, locking straight onto Elena’s position on the ledge.

It was a look so brief it lasted less than a heartbeat, yet it was ruthless and bottomlessly deep. The roar of the cannon had echoed back at the exact second this white woman uttered her "omen."

Such a coincidence, in the eyes of a prairie chief, was nothing less than a dagger driven into their backs.

"A-pó!"

Running Deer rode up alongside Grey Elk. He pointed the razor-sharp tip of his lance toward the ledge where Elena stood, his voice roaring above the frenzy of pounding hooves.

Beside Elena, Sarah gasped in sheer terror, her voice trembling violently as she hurriedly whispered the translation of Running Deer's enraged Lakota shouts into Elena's ear:

"He... he says you spoke of winter! You spoke of cannons! And then the shells exploded right behind them! He says you are no messenger—you are a storm-bird released by the white soldiers to rot the faith of the tribe... He is telling Grey Elk to slit your throat now!"

Grey Elk did not answer. He did not nod, nor did he wave a hand in dismissal. He simply snapped the reins, driving his black stallion into a gallop southward, pulling a trail of blinding red dust and dozens of wild horsemen behind him.

Elena stood stranded in the biting wind, her wrist still marked with the deep red imprint of White Feather’s grip. The autumn wind lashed her face, freezing cold, but colder still was the chief's ruthless glance. She knew that in the eyes of these people, her knowledge was no longer sacred.

It had turned into a curse.

Dusk.

The sun fell behind the Bighorn Range like an open, bleeding wound, staining the entire Powder River a dark, murky red.

The line of refugees returning from the southeast emerged like staggering ghosts out of the toxic smoke. Roughly thirty Cheyenne—those fortunate enough to have escaped the federal army’s raid—dragged themselves into the Talon Ridge camp. The sight before them made even the most hardened warriors fall silent.

This was not a defeated army. This was a mangled heap of human flesh.

Women clutched soot-caked infants, their lips dry and caked with dried blood. Old people had their entire backs scorched, their skin blackened and twisted like burnt bark. Muffled groans, heart-wrenching sobs, and the sickening stench of charred flesh hung thick in the twilight air.

Elena didn't hesitate. The instinct of a cardiothoracic surgeon drove her straight toward the crowd.

"Sarah! Bring all the clean water, gauze, and jars of rubbing alcohol over here! Fast!"

She dropped to her knees, her soft deerskin tunic instantly soaking into the red mud and blood. Her medical kit had been depleted since the previous two surgeries. No morphine. No Betadine. No dissolvable sutures.

She had only her hands and rough strips of cloth torn from tipis.

"E-le-na... this baby..."

Sarah ran over, her small hands trembling as she held a clay basin of water.

Before Elena knelt a young Cheyenne woman on the grass, clutching a toddler under two years old tightly to her chest. The mother wasn't crying; her eyes were vacant, hollow, and smeared with thick black soot across her cheeks.

Elena hurriedly reached out to take the child. But the instant her fingers touched that tiny skin, her heart skipped a beat.

The child's chest was no longer rising and falling. A jagged piece of shrapnel the size of a finger—a fragment from a Hotchkiss artillery shell—was embedded deep into the right flank, tearing through a portion of the diaphragm and liver. Bright red blood had congealed into a large, stiff clot on the deerskin swaddling.

"No... no..." Elena muttered.

The hands once praised as "blessed by God" immediately pressed down on the tiny chest. She began chest compressions.

One. Two. Three.

"Breathe! Please breathe!" she shouted in English, her voice cracking above the din of the village.

She leaned down close, pushing a breath into the tiny, ice-cold lungs.

One. Two. Three.

She pressed down again. The dried blood on the child's wound stuck to her palms, wet and cold.

"Elena... stop..." Sarah burst into tears, tugging at her sleeve. "The baby... he's gone. He went to find the Great Spirit along the way..."

Elena froze. Her hands, still pressed against the small chest, swelled with tension.

The flatline ECG from Operating Room 4 in the 21st century flashed through her mind. And now, here in the 19th century, amidst a wild prairie with no heart monitors or sounding alarms, this child had drawn his last breath right in her hands.

Her first death in this world.

Not a battle-hardened warrior dying on a field of blood, but a child under two years old, killed by a stray piece of iron from the cannons of those who claimed to be "civilized."

The Cheyenne mother slowly extended her emaciated hands, taking the cold corpse of her child from Elena. She didn't curse, nor did she wail; she merely buried her head into the animal hide, lifting her voice in a soft, choking funeral song that sounded like wind howling through rock crevices.

Elena slowly rose to her feet. Her hands were caked in the child's deep crimson blood. As the autumn wind blew past, the blood dried on her skin, tightening and stinging like thousands of needles pricking her flesh.

Inside the ceremonial lodge, the crackling firewood cast flickers of light across the somber faces of the survivors.

White Feather sat beside an elderly Cheyenne man—a survivor of the disaster. Sarah stood behind Elena, trembling as she translated the refugee woman’s halting words piece by piece.

"The morning mist hadn't even cleared..." Sarah translated, her voice a whisper as if afraid to disturb the recently departed spirits. "They... they didn't send heralds. They didn't raise a flag of truce. The black cannon barrels atop the eastern ridge... they fired straight into the tipis while everyone was still asleep."

White Feather clenched his fist tightly: "Who commanded the attack?"

"A banner bearing a silver eagle..." The Cheyenne man coughed up a spit of dried blood. "The white commander... his soldiers called him Colonel Whitfield. He gave orders to take no male prisoners. He intends to burn the valley to the ground."

Whitfield.

That name struck Elena's eardrums like a bucket of ice water. Her brilliant brain spun.

Colonel Thomas Whitfield?

In her historical memory, the commander of the Powder River valley campaign should have been Colonel Ranald Mackenzie or General George Crook in late winter of 1876! Why Whitfield? Why was the raid taking place right now, in the middle of autumn?

History had shifted.

The temporal rift that pulled her here, or perhaps her very presence, had knocked the gears of fate out of alignment. These brutal events were no longer unfolding according to the dry pages of her textbooks. They were happening earlier, more unexpectedly, and far more mercilessly.

Elena looked down at her hands. The dried blood of the Cheyenne child was still caked beneath her fingernails.

She knew the future, but that future was actively mutating under her feet. The "knowledge" she had taken pride in, the "God's-eye perspective" she carried, turned out to be fragile and cruelly helpless against the gears of reality.

Complete darkness fell over the valley of Talon Ridge. A massive bonfire was lit at the center of the village. The tribal council assembled.

Hundreds of warriors sat in concentric circles around the fire. The tension was so suffocating that the crackling of burning logs sounded like the snapping of human bones.

Grey Elk sat at the highest position, his back resting against a wooden post carved with a broken-winged eagle. The crimson firelight illuminated his broad, bare chest and the faint scar across his neck. He remained silent, his amber eyes staring intently into the dying embers, his thumb lightly running along the rawhide wrapping on his lance.

White Feather was the first to stand, his voice echoing through the cold night:

"Colonel Whitfield has leveled the Cheyenne village. He has heavy artillery and five hundred cavalry. If we attempt to hold this valley, the Powder River will turn into a slaughterhouse. My proposal: pack up the tipis tonight, and move all the women and children up into the Bighorn northern cave system. Up there, their artillery cannot climb. At the same time, send messengers with fast horses to Fort Russell to gauge the possibility of negotiations."

"Negotiations?"

A furious roar cut White Feather off.

Running Deer leapt up from the rank of warriors. He took long strides into the center of the fire circle, his chest heaving violently. The long scar on his cheek twitched beneath the flickering flames.

Gesticulating wildly toward White Feather, Running Deer roared in Lakota. Sarah, standing tensely at Elena's side, hastily whispered the rapid translation:

"He says... negotiate with the ones who just slaughtered Cheyenne children? He says retreating into the northern caves is turning themselves into rats trapped in a cage... They are Talon Ridge warriors, and they must assemble all forces to ambush Whitfield's vanguard at White Rock Pass before they reach this river!"

Running Deer then spun around, facing Grey Elk, calling out in Lakota with a mixture of reverence and primal fury.

"My brother! A-pó of the Talon Ridge tribe! Do you intend to sit with folded arms and watch our ancestors' land get trampled by white soldiers?" Sarah translated softly, her breath catching at the words 'My brother'.

Standing on the outer edge of the council, Elena froze slightly.

Thanks to Sarah’s whispered translation, she finally realized their true relationship. Running Deer was not just a ruthless warrior. He was Grey Elk’s blood brother—the warrior representing total resistance, a man ready to drench every inch of land in blood rather than take a single step back.

The council began to stir into a frenzy. The thrumming of lances striking the earth (Thump! Thump!) echoed ominously from the young warriors supporting Running Deer.

Just then, White Feather turned, his eyes searching for Elena:

"There is someone here who holds the knowledge of Sacred Medicine (Wakan Winyan). She has seen the power of that weapon with her own eyes. Listen to what she has to say."

Every eye in the council instantly locked onto the dark corner where Elena stood.

Grey Elk slowly lifted his head. The chief's amber gaze pierced through the smoke and firelight, coming to rest on Elena's pale yet resolute face. He gave a faint nod—an ice-cold permission.

Elena took a deep breath. The dried blood on her fingers tightened. She stepped toward the campfire.

The appearance of this white woman, wearing a deerskin dress woven with clay beads, made the heavy air feel even more suffocating.

"I am not one of your people," Elena spoke in English, pausing after each phrase to let Sarah stand beside her and translate every sentence into Lakota. "But I have personally treated the wounds inflicted by artillery. I have seen a two-year-old child's chest torn open simply by a fragment thrown from hundreds of yards away."

She stared directly at Running Deer, her voice cold and mercilessly pragmatic as Sarah's voice echoed her words for the warriors:

"Whitfield's weapons are not arrows or personal rifles. They are weapons of mass destruction. If you gather your forces to negotiate or attempt a head-on ambush at White Rock Pass, his artillery will turn all of your warriors into mangled corpses before you can even get within fifty paces of him!"

"A word of caution: Do not engage that weapon head-on. Fall back, and evacuate the elderly and children first!"

"Coward!"

Running Deer roared in English—a single, harsh word he had spat countless times at invaders—and lunged forward until he was right in front of Elena. The distance between them was so close she could feel his burning breath.

"You treacherous white woman!" Running Deer pointed directly in her face, his voice booming as Sarah cowered slightly while translating his fierce Lakota tirade: "He says you came here to incite his brother to run away! You want them to kneel before Whitfield's soldiers! He says your blood runs white, and your heart bears the cowardice of an invader!"

"I am not inciting you to run!" Elena snapped back in English, her ash-gray eyes flashing with unyielding steel as she gestured forcefully to make her stance unmistakable. "I am protecting the lives that can still be saved! A tactical retreat is not cowardice—it is the wisdom of a commander!"

"Enough."

Grey Elk's voice cut in.

Not raised, not growling, yet that sharp, heavy sound instantly crushed all the surrounding noise around the fire.

Running Deer grunted and took a step back, but his eyes remained locked on Elena as if he wanted to tear her apart.

Grey Elk slowly rose from his chief's seat. He stood tall and imposing, casting a dark shadow over the firelight. He did not look at Running Deer, nor did he look at White Feather.

His gaze rested entirely on Elena.

In those amber eyes, there was none of Running Deer’s fury, nor White Feather’s calculation. There was only a profound, freezing disappointment—ruthlessly cold.

The disappointment of a warrior toward someone who would never understand why they existed on this land.

"Elena," Grey Elk said in a low tone, his voice gravelly as he spoke in halting, heavy English, each syllable dropping like ice water onto her heart. "At Talon Ridge... one who tells others to flee before hearing the sound of gunfire... is called a coward."

He stepped past the fire, not sparing her another glance, and issued an order to the entire council in his native tongue:

"The arrow has left the string. Talon Ridge warriors do not hide in caves like foxes. Tomorrow at dawn, assemble all horsemen. We meet them at White Rock Pass."

"A-pó! A-pó!"

The wild cheers of hundreds of warriors erupted, shaking the night sky over the valley.

Elena stood isolated in the roaring circle of fire.

Grey Elk’s look of utter disappointment before turning away pierced deep into her mind, heavier and far more painful than any insult from Running Deer.

He leaned toward resistance. He chose the proud death of a chief over the pragmatic survival she offered.

Elena slowly walked away from the council circle.

The Bighorn night wind whipped past, blowing her ash-blonde hair into wild disarray. In the skin-slicing cold of the 19th-century prairie, the cardiothoracic surgeon stood alone in the dark.

Her hands—the hands still caked in the dried blood of the Cheyenne child—began to tremble uncontrollably.