Big Contrary: A Buffalo Soldier Among the Cheyenne

FROM SLAVE TO SOLDIER TO PEACEMAKER

In the 1860s, on the violent, windswept plains of the expanding United States, one man is faced with the challenge of his life…saving native people from annihilation. Marion Ross, freed from the fetters of slavery after the Civil War, joins the army to make something of himself. As a member of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, his duty is to hunt down Indians and force them onto reservations to make way for settlers and the railroad. But his life takes an unexpected turn. He is captured by Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, a warrior society with a separate, radical identity, and the last holdouts on the central plains. Accepted by them, Ross is torn between his respect for their lifeways and his awareness of what they face. To holdout too long invites destruction, while to surrender means losing that precious freedom that he himself has only recently gained.