Eagle Flies is a prideful and reckless young man who is greatly angered by the injustices his tribe is subjected to by the Army, whom he has deemed dishonorable as they had been paid off by Leviticus Cornwall to force the Indians off the reservation lands, which are supposedly oil-rich. In response to these grievances, Eagle Flies came to believe that war with the Army is the only solution open to the tribe, believing in the glory in death and valuing the old warrior ways of the Wapiti.