A PROMISE TO KEEP
Synopsis: A young woman, Dakota, in 1910, is having a dream about playing with her mother in the wilderness. Dakota is awakened from her dream by the sound of the keys of the prison warden opening her prison cell in Virginia. When her estranged step-sister, Elizabeth, arrives to see her we learn she is in prison for assaulting a policeman during a women’s suffrage march. Her sister brings her a diary. A flashback takes us to the 1870s when Sioux tribes were being moved to reservations or killed for failure to comply. The young woman in these scenes, Sky Feather, is a proud, strong and skillful hunter. When she goes to the nearby fort to sell her furs she meets Rachel, the wife of the general in charge. Sky Feather later saves Rachel’s life. In Act II, Elizabeth, Rachel’s daughter, meets with Dakota in prison and talks about Sky Feather, the mother Dakota never really knew. We dissolve through another flashback to Sky Feather’s brothers meeting in the dark with other warriors planning to lead the soldiers into an ambush. A Colonel Hawthorne confronts Sky Feather and tries to assault her but he is stopped by Rachel. The ambush party is carried out with Sky Feather as the head of the decoy party.
As ACT III opens Elizabeth has secured Dakota’s release. Together, they head to Montana so that Dakota may realize her desire to see her first, real home. We are again transported to 1875 and the moments before the final battle between Sky Feather’s people and the soldiers.
