LITTLE WOLF & DULL KNIFE GO HOME

In 1878 the Northern Cheyenne left the Indian Nation, broke out, I should say, because going off reservation was forbidden. Leaders Dull Knife (Morning Star) and Little Wolf led the small party north, pursued by soldiers who would pick off stragglers wherever they could. For six moons (months) they traveled by foot. There is in all mankind a desire to "go home." It was more so ingrained then than now, for too many people were taken from their homes by force, rather than leaving by choice.

This was the story of the Northern Cheyenne. All they wanted was to return to their home in the land of the yellow stone. What we today call Yellowstone Park. But the whites wanted all Indians contained on reservations which they had chosen for these "savages." What is today Oklahoma was not a good substitute for their home, no more than it was for the Cherokee, Osage and other tribes deposited there by force.

Little Wolf wanted peace, had not led his people in battle against the white man except once, and only once,  and that was to avenge the attack and massacre of his people at Sand Creek in 1865. Yet, fighting had occurred around their homeland and the surviving Cheyenne were herded south to Indian Territory after what the white soldiers termed an uprising following Sand Creek.

Gathered in this alien place, they soon began to go hungry because supplies promised were not forthcoming. Army contractors made millions out of all the starvation flights of 1877 and 1878, as Congress cut appropriations below treaty stipulations. The "Beautiful People" longed for their homeland, Among those who began the long trek under the leadership of Little Wolf and Dull Knife was Buffalo Calf Road, the Cheyenne warrior woman who had charged her horse into the horrendous battle at Rosebud (Little Big Horn) to save her brother. Many young people traveled with them as well, for they were the tribe's future. One young man I found interesting, and his presence kicked off my research and writing of Stone Heart's Woman. This was a light-haired boy called Yellow Swallow, the Cheyenne son of General Custer, who by then had been slain.

It was known among the people that Custer was fond of lying with the Cheyenne and Sioux women, while he spent his daylight hours killing members of both tribes. Women claimed that Yellow Swallow was not his only prodigy. This gave me a hero, one born of this brutal white General and a Northern Cheyenne woman. Raised white under his father's tutelage, one day he would be torn apart by the two worlds to which he belonged.

And so the stage was set when the people reached Fort Robinson only to be attacked in a horrible battle that would kill and wound many, including my hero Stone Heart, who had joined his mother's people in their struggle to return home. They would fight to the death rather than be sent back. And there my story begins.

                                                    Little Wolf & Dull Knife (Morning Star)
Stone Heart's Woman was released February 17 to Ebooks and is also available in paperback. To order this and other of my Ebooks, check out my Kindle Page. If you purchase and read any of my books, would you be so kind as to write a review on Amazon? Thank you so much for reading my work.