Fort Reynolds, Colorado: 1868.

Fresh from West Point, Second Lieutenant Marcus Cavanaugh arrives with a platoon of recruits from the East into territory seething with Indian trouble. Two Eagles and his renegade band of Cheyenne warriors have broken the peace, raiding railroad crews and wagon trains, slaughtering men, women, and children, then disappearing into the hills.

Scouting for Two Eagles' war party, Cavanaugh, at last, discovers their winter village, barely escaping with his life to report back to the fort. But nothing in his military training has prepared him for the savagery and danger he encounters as he leads his men against hostile braves in the bloody battle known as the Oushata Massacre.