June 17, 1876.

Eight days before the Little Bighorn.

General George Crook was moving north through southern Montana with approximately thirteen hundred men — soldiers, civilian scouts, and a contingent of Crow and Shoshone scouts who had their own reasons for opposing the Lakota and Cheyenne expansion in the region.

He was following Rosebud Creek northward, toward the valley where the great encampment waited.

He did not know how close the warriors were.

The Cheyenne and Lakota leaders had scouts of their own — far better suited to reading this landscape than any Army officer — and they knew exactly where Crook’s column was.

The night before, in the great encampment, there had been a council.

Some of the warrior leaders proposed an aggressive action: rather than wait for Crook to find them, they would ride out and meet him on ground of their own choosing.

Among the warriors who rode out that morning was Comes in Sight — Buffalo Calf Road Woman’s brother.

And among the people who rode with the warriors was Buffalo Calf Road Woman herself.