Sent to protect a US outpost on the desolate frontier, Lt. John Dunbar finds himself alone in the vast wilderness. Befriending the very people he's sent to protect the outpost from, the Sioux Indians, Dunbar slowly comes to revere those he once feared. But when the encroaching US Army threatens to overrun the Sioux, he is forced to make a choice, one that will forever change his destiny and that of a proud and defiant nation.

Rudy Yellow Lodge is both a resident and a police officer of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Dealing with the fallout and emotional burdens of reservation life in one of the poorest counties in the U.S., as alcoholism and poverty continually threaten the community, his family, and his own state of mind, Rudy finds himself taking the law into his own hands, with potentially tragic consequences.