It follows a U. Army cavalry officer in who must escort a Cheyenne war chief and his family back to their home in Montana.
The film had its world premiere on September 2, , at the Telluride Film Festival. It had a limited release in the United States by Entertainment Studios beginning December 22, , before going wide on January 26, In the New Mexico Territory in , settler Rosalee Quaid and her family are attacked by a Comanche war party, who kill her husband and three children.
Rosalee escapes by hiding under a rock outcrop. At Fort Berringer, soon-to-retire U. Army Captain Joseph Blocker is ordered by President Harrison to escort the cancer-stricken Cheyenne war chief Yellow Hawk and four members of his family back to their tribal lands in Montana. Blocker initially refuses, as Yellow Hawk and he are old enemies from the Great Sioux War of , but accepts under the threat of court-martial and loss of his pension.
Blocker challenges Yellow Hawk to a knife fight, but he refuses. The group comes across the destroyed Quaid house and Rosalee's dead husband.
They find a traumatized Rosalee and her deceased children. After some convincing, Rosalee agrees to join the company until their next stop-over in Fort Winslow, Colorado.
