The Day the Thunder Fell

A Novel Inspired by One Native American Oral History of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

This is a work of historical fiction.
It is not a historical record.
It is not a documentary.
It is a story—one rooted in the soil of memory, carried on the wind of oral tradition, and imagined through the eyes of a boy who stood where legends fell.

Inspired by one specific oral account passed down among Native families—an account in which General Custer was killed early near Medicine Tail Coulee, not on the hill of the so-called "Last Stand"—this novel offers a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, seen from the Lakota side.

Red Hawk is just fifteen years old when the bluecoats ride into the valley. His people—Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho—have gathered in peace beside the river they call the Greasy Grass. But the white soldiers bring thunder. What happens next has been told in many ways. This is one imagined version from the other side of the hill.

Told in five tightly woven chapters, The Day the Thunder Fell follows the build-up, collapse, and aftermath of the battle as experienced by Red Hawk. He witnesses the early fall of the buckskin officer the Cheyenne believe was Custer. He runs with warriors as the fight surges north. He watches confusion replace order among the soldiers. And later, as an old man, he returns to the coulee—remembering what was true even as the world repeats a lie.

“Custer didn’t die fighting on a hill.
He died before he ever gave the order to charge.
The land remembers. The river still speaks.”

This novel includes:

• A fictional narrative based on a real Native oral tradition
• Clean, emotionally rich storytelling grounded in cultural respect
• Inspiration drawn from the Real Bird family’s powerful reenactment near Medicine Tail Coulee
• A thoughtful depiction of Native characters with no romanticism or caricature

What it is not:

• It is not a replacement for historical research
• It is not a claim to represent all Native voices or histories
• It is not an attempt to glorify battle, but to explore meaning through one imagined life

This book is written with deep admiration for the oral storytelling traditions that preserve voices too often forgotten. It is a fictional tribute—to memory, to place, and to the truth that sometimes runs deeper than official history.