SYNOPSIS:

COVERAGE COMMENT from Steve Deering There is an uncommon elegance on display within the piece and it feels as though this script would be highly attractive to numerous directors and cinematographers, giving them a chance to play in a world that is rarely represented so faithfully and so unflinchingly. Many scripts promise to take people to a place they have never seen before. This one delivers on that promise. SYNOPSIS Set in the 1750s in the Great Plains (before white men), 40-year-old Owl Friend is had an opportunity to redeem his inability to provide for his family during a hunt. A warrior (Yellow Eye) from an opposing tribe passes by with stolen ponies from his Wolf Ridge tribe. Occasionally accompanied by Spirit Man, Owl Friend tracks the thief, attacks him without him knowing who did it, humiliates him. Owl Friend takes back the ponies and imagines the grand return to his tribe. His return doesn’t go as planned. Life settles in with the Wolf Ridge people until they trek to their new campground. They cross paths with Yellow Eye’s warring tribe. A powwow in the middle of the plains leads Owl Friend to let Yellow Eye know that it was he who humiliated him. Fuming, irate, and out-of-control Yellow Eye is barely controlled by his elders who tell him to back off and each tribe continues on to their winter grounds. Life with the Wolf Ridge people again settles—until Yellow Eye with a small band of warriors takes Owl Friend’s wife (Small Water). A storm is brewing when Owl Friend discovers her gone and takes off after her and her abductors. In a driving rain, Owl Friend tracks Yellow Eye and his abductors, finding Small Water staked out on a small rise, violated, and disemboweled. He forges on until his horse drops dead of exhaustion. He carries on by foot. Exhausted, starving, and near death, Owl Friend crawls into a cave, and covers himself with dirt to stay warm. As he awaits death, he has visions—the last of a warm fire and food. It’s Spirit Man. Owl Friend, with Spirit Man’s help, locates the abductor’s camp, takes one of their horses and crushes their lodge—killing all but Yellow Eye who he injures badly. A naked Yellow Eye is forced to walk back to the Wolf Ridge camp. Owl Friend leaves Yellow Eye staked to the ground and near death in front of Owl Friend’s lodge. Owl Friend collapses in his lodge fully broken, laying where Small Water used to sleep. Yellow Eye is set upon by Wolf Ridge women, leaving him blind in one eye and a whisper away from death. An unknown person comes to Yellow Eye at night and cuts him loose. Yellow Eyes musters what life he remains and crawls into Owl Friend’s lodge where he finds a knife, and in a final flurry, stabs in the chest. Owl Friend’s son, Feather, wakes to the chaos, drags Yellow Eye outside and kills him. Tribe elders crowd into Owl Friend’s lodge to witness his passing, his last wish to give his name to his son. The elders agree and Owl Friend dies, sparks from the fire passing into the night. In the hills above the Wolf Ridge camp, Spirit Man greets Owl Friend's spirit and makes him a promise that he will watch over those he leaves behind.