Yellow Rock 2011

Black Feather, the great-grandson of Angry Wolf and the last of his tribe, opens the tale with the image of a group of Native riders crossing the plains. The narration sets a stark, timeless moral: the white man carries a disease the Indigenous people cannot catch, and there are values far more precious than money when those other things are stripped away.

Five men ride into the eerie town of Yellow Rock in search of a family member and his lost boy. The leader, Max Dietrich, hires Mountain Man, Tom Hanner, to guide them into the Black Paw Tribe territory. Hanner agrees only if they obtain permission from the Tribe to enter their lands, a concession helped along by Dr. Sarah Taylor, who tends to the Indians and makes her home within the territory. The roughnecks who accompany them are Cobb, Farley, Billy Boy, and Roscoe.

When the group arrives, Sarah helps the reluctant members understand Hanner, and the Tribal Elders, led by Chief White Eagle Feather, grant permission to traverse the wild lands in their search. The expedition moves forward as the team splits to cover ground, with Tom appearing trustworthy while the others carry questions. Broken Wing joins the journey and cautions them not to enter sacred burial grounds—the warning they choose to ignore. Crossing those thresholds awakens an old Indian legend of a curse, and the party becomes besieged by fever for Yellow Rock, hostile terrain, and the dangers of wild animals, all while tensions rise among the travelers themselves.

Divine justice, in time, arrives for the Black Paw Tribe, allowing them to live once more in peace—at least for now, until the next wave of outsiders arrives.