It worked.

The Northern Cheyenne who survived the Dull Knife Fight were broken in a material sense — unable to continue resisting militarily.

Many of them surrendered in the following months.

And then they were sent to Indian Territory.

And then they walked home.

The courage of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus — the courage that carried three hundred people, including those who had survived the Dull Knife Fight just months before, a thousand miles north through Army-patrolled territory — can only be fully appreciated when you understand what they were leaving behind.

Not just a reservation they disliked, but a place that was literally killing them.

And not just a place they were walking toward, but a homeland — the only homeland they had ever known, the place their oral traditions placed them since the beginning of time.

Buffalo Calf Road Woman was part of this Exodus.

She walked that walk, or rode it, or carried her child through some part of it, in a community of exhausted, determined, grieving people who refused to stop.