Preparing for the Worst

Late afternoon sunlight filtered through the thin veil of mist clinging to the valley of Talon Ridge, pale as an unfinished wash of color against the dreary gray sky.

Inside her small lodge set against the limestone wall, Elena unbuckled her field leather satchel.

Her long, slender fingers glided across its compartments, coming to rest against the smooth glass bottom of her last morphine ampoule—drained completely since the previous night. The bottle of Betadine disinfectant held only a few dark brown droplets clinging to its bottom corner. The titanium suture kit sat completely bare; its rolls of sterile white gauze were now mere memories left behind in a modern operating room.

The expensive medical bag—once her pride and fortress of intellect—now sat hollow, like a lifeless shell.

Elena drew a deep breath. The icy air rushed into her lungs, drawing out a sudden, wracking cough.

She had no time to mourn civilization.

With sharp, decisive movements, Elena pushed the satchel aside and leaned down to retrieve the clay jars Sarah had brought back.

Blood and artillery shells would not wait for technological mercy. If she lacked medical alcohol, she would rely on the high-proof liquor left behind by white traders. If sterile gauze was unavailable, she would boil coarse strips of deerskin and dry them beneath the open sun.

She scooped handfuls of dry, spongy forest moss—a natural material with astonishing absorbent and hemostatic properties—mixing it with raw forest honey that Sarah had gathered high in the hills for its antibacterial qualities.

Old Wind Woman—the tribe's senior healer—stood in the shadow of the lodge.

Her arms crossed over her chest, her cloudy eyes squinted from behind a web of deep wrinkles, watching every unfamiliar movement of the white woman.

Though she uttered no word, the heavy air of guarded suspicion emanating from her stooped frame filled the small space to near suffocation.

Elena did not turn around, her hands working rhythmically as she mashed the honey and dry moss in a wooden bowl.

"You don't need to look at me as if I were a ghost. Boiled spirits and honey will keep your men's limbs from rotting after the fight."

Old Wind Woman let out a sharp grunt through her teeth, turned, and exited the lodge, leaving the buffalo hide doorway rattling violently in the wind.

By mid-day, the open clearing before the tipis had transformed into an improvised field training ground unlike anything the Talon Ridge had ever seen.

Seven women—Sarah alongside six young villagers—sat in a circle over the dry grass.

Before them, Elena demonstrated the technique on her own leg. She wrapped a pliable strip of rawhide high around her thigh, inserted a short wooden toggle through the loop, and twisted it hard.

"Watch closely!"

Elena’s voice rang crisp and sharp, her eyes sweeping over their tense faces.

"This is a tourniquet. When a warrior is struck in an arm or leg and the blood squirts out in bright red jets, an artery has severed. If you do not bind this strap tight within three minutes, he will bleed to death before anyone can carry him back!"

Sarah watched intently, her voice ringing out in steady Lakota as she translated every phrase into their native tongue for the six women beside her.

Elena picked up two straight, smoothed wooden splints and pressed them along both sides of a young woman’s lower leg.

"When a bone breaks, never twist or rub it! Place these splints along both sides and bind them firm with leather straps! Wash the wound with boiled water that has cooled—and keep dirty mud off it completely!"

An old woman passing by caught sight of Elena holding the young woman’s leg. She spat onto the dirt, spitting out a raspy, venomous curse in Lakota.

Several women in the circle shrank back, their hands faltering as they hesitated over the leather bands.

"Keep your mouth shut!"

A small but fierce bark broke the silence.

Sarah stood straight up. The normally quiet, gentle girl held her back erect, her dark eyes locking onto the old woman without a trace of fear as she snapped in her native tongue:

"Her hands saved Kicking Bear! She kept Black Arrow from losing his leg! If you want your son to bleed out in the canyon, keep walking!"

The old woman froze, muttered another curse under her breath, and shuffled away in disgust.

Elena looked at Sarah, a rare softness flickering across her ash-gray eyes. She offered no verbal thanks, placing a light hand on the young girl's shoulder.

"Well done. Keep practicing."

Dusk began staining the eastern horizon in hues of deep crimson.

Elena leaned back against the stone wall, her hands aching from hours of carving wooden splints and repeating instructions.

A tall, heavy shadow stepped forward.

Running Deer.

The fierce warrior towered before her. The thumb on his left hand had swollen to the size of a ginger root, the flesh purplish-black and oozing with pus—exactly as Elena had warned two days prior.

He said nothing, his scarred face maintaining its stoic, obstinate set. He simply thrust his infected hand forward abruptly, turning his head the other way.

Elena looked at his swollen hand. She offered no mockery, nor did she demand an apology.

In her world, before a surgeon's eye, friend and foe alike were merely bodies requiring care.

She lifted a cloth soaked in high-proof spirits and cleansed the trail of pus from his digit. As the alcohol hit the open flesh, Running Deer’s muscular frame gave a hard, involuntary flinch, but he clamped his jaws shut without uttering a sound.

Using a small knife, Elena made a swift incision to drain the fluid, packed the wound with the honey-moss mixture, and bound it tightly in clean cloth.

Her movements were swift, precise, and cold.

Once finished, she released his hand and bent back down to pick up the wooden splints on the ground, treating him as though he were invisible.

Running Deer looked at his thumb—the throbbing pain noticeably dulled—then at the slender shoulders of the white woman. He let out a low grunt in his throat, spun on his heel, and walked off.

By late afternoon, as Elena returned to her tipi, she paused.

Directly before her entrance, someone had left ten neatly bound bundles of fresh medicinal herbs—rare flora that grew only on the highest stone peaks, gatherable only by the skilled riders.

No one stood nearby. No message was left behind.

A faint smile touched the corner of Elena's lips as she gathered the bundles.

The respect of these wild people did not reveal itself through empty words, but through actions as raw and coarse as the prairie grass itself.

Twilight set in.

Elena sat beside a small fire, boiling water.

Old Wind Woman shuffled slowly into the tipi. This time, the old healer did not come empty-handed. She set a small leather pouch down before Elena, containing a fine yellow powder Elena had never seen before.

Sarah hurried into the lodge, stepping up as the bridge between them.

Old Wind Woman did not look directly at Elena. Instead, she sieved a pinch of the yellow powder between her dry, gnarled fingers, making a motion as though crushing it and sprinkling it over an imaginary deep wound on her own forearm. She spoke in her ancient, gravelly Lakota tongue.

"Old Wind Woman says..." Sarah translated rapidly in a low whisper, "...this is crushed Yellow Root from the high peaks. Sprinkle it over a deep wound, and even if blood flows like a river, it will stop."

Elena raised an eyebrow. She took a pinch of the powder between her fingers, inhaling its pungent, bitter aroma. It was a native herb rich in natural alkaloids—what modern medicine would class as a biological coagulant.

Elena met the old healer's gaze. Reaching into her pouch, she retrieved a small jar containing a filtered alcohol solution, mimicking a wiping motion across an open wound before pointing toward a copper pot of boiling water and nodding to Sarah.

Sarah understood instantly, translating for the elder: "Elena says if you boil this spirits solution with willow bark and give it to those with fever, it will dull the pain and keep wounds from festering."

Old Wind Woman accepted the jar. Her cloudy eyes searched Elena’s face. The initial suspicion and hostility thawed, yielding to a quiet understanding between two generations, two worlds of medicine.

The old woman laid a hand—wrinkled like oak bark—over the back of Elena's hand, speaking a long phrase in her native tongue.

"She says..." Sarah smiled gently, her eyes brimming with faint tears, "...you carry the scent of a distant place, and the skin of the enemy... but your heart belongs to life."

That unspoken acceptance stirred a strange, unexpected warmth in Elena's chest.

Night fell, bitter and bone-chilling.

Elena stepped outside her tipi to draw air into her lungs. Her entire body ached, her back stiff from unrelenting labor since dawn.

In the distance, along the banks of the Powder River, a tall figure stood motionless as a carved stone monument.

Grey Elk.

The chief stood resting his back against a wooden post, his amber eyes following her every movement from afar. He had been there a long time, watching her teach the women to bind wounds, watching her treat his brother's hand, watching her drain her strength minute by minute.

He strode forward.

Elena stood her ground as the chief emerged from the shadows.

He uttered no word.

His large, calloused hand set a steaming bowl of wild bison broth down beside her.

Before Elena could speak, Grey Elk took another step toward her.

Reaching out, he took the edge of the deerskin cloak draped loosely over her shoulders, pulling it snug against her neck to block out the harsh wind sweeping down from the Bighorn peaks.

A small gesture—decisive and full of command.

His fingers brushed against the smooth skin of her neck. The warmth of his touch sent a sudden jolt through her pulse.

His amber eyes held her gaze for a second—deep, complex, holding a suppressed emotion she could not name.

He turned to leave, but—

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The frantic pounding of hooves tearing out of the southern canyon shattered the quiet night.

A scout burst from the riverbank, his horse dripping in sweat and white foam, collapsing before the central fire.

The rider tumbled to the ground, his breath rising in white clouds as he cried out in a voice cracked with terror:

"A-pó! The blue-coated cavalry... they have crossed the Powder River!"

The entire village of Talon Ridge fell into dead silence.

Grey Elk spun around, his eyes blazing with lethal intent.

"How many?" he roared in Lakota.

"Two hundred riders!" the scout wheezed out in his native tongue. "They bring five wheeled cannons with them! Their commander carries the silver eagle banner... Whitfield! They ride along the river... three days before they enter this valley!"

Three days.

The number detonated like an artillery shell in the air.

The silence that gripped Talon Ridge hung so heavy the wind howling through the cliffs sounded agonizingly clear.

Elena stood isolated beneath the moonlight.

The warm bowl in her hands sent up a thin plume of steam.

The seven women she had just taught, the fresh herbs on the ground, Running Deer’s bandaged hand, and Grey Elk’s gaze... all of them stood before the zero hour of an irreversible historical tragedy.

The battle for survival... was only three days away.