Thousands of people — warriors, women, children, elders, horses — assembled in the valley of the Greasy Grass River (known to Americans as the Little Bighorn) in what is now Montana.

This was not simply a war camp.

It was a community — one of the largest gatherings of Plains peoples in living memory, united by a combination of cultural solidarity, desperate necessity, and the spiritual authority of Sitting Bull, whose Sun Dance vision of soldiers falling into the camp had been understood as a promise of victory.

Among those who came to this gathering were the Northern Cheyenne, including Buffalo Calf Road Woman, her husband Black Coyote, and her brother Comes in Sight.

The campaign that the Army launched against this gathering included three converging columns — a classic pincer strategy designed to trap the coalition between multiple military forces.

One column came from the east under General Alfred Terry, which included Custer’s Seventh Cavalry.

One came from the west under Colonel John Gibbon.

And one came from the south under General George Crook.

It was Crook’s column that would encounter Buffalo Calf Road Woman first.

SECTION 5: THE BATTLE OF THE ROSEBUD — WHERE THE GIRL SAVED HER BROTHER