WHITE APACHE

After heavy gunfire in a clash with some outlaw, a pregnant woman is the only survivor of a caravan. Found by the local Apache, the woman who is dying is brought to the village, where she dies giving birth to a child. The Apache name the child Shining Sky.

As Shining Sky grows, he catches the eye, and eventually wins the heart, of Rising Sun, one of his red neighbors. Alas, he's also judged by a lot of his red neighbors for being white. One day, during a joust, Shining Sky accidentally kills the redfellow he's jousting. The other Apache soon decide that it's about time that Shining Sky was reunited with the race of his birth. They warn him, though, to not tell them that he was raised by the Apache, for most whitefolk are biased against redfolk.

Among whitefolk, Shining Sky impresses a rancher, by subduing an ornery horse. This way, he wins a home and a job. He also catches the eye of a white noblewoman, who finds him attractive and mysterious...at first. In time, though, Shining Sky learns that the noblewoman he's fallen for is a codependent of all of the white men who hunt redfolk as if they were pronghorn. They have an argument...which ends in the noblewoman tearing her own raiment, and framing Shining Sky for having raped her.

The whitefolk hang Shining Sky from a tree and leave him there. In time, though, an Apache shaman passes by, and cuts him down. Soon after, whitefolk attack the Apache villages. Shining Sky is soon reunited with Rising Sun. While on the run together, they have a child.

White men torment, and eventually kill, Rising Sun, in a semi-successful bid to draw Shining Sky out. Shining Sky impales their leader with a spear. Dying, he crawls over to Rising Sun's dying body, and lies atop her, so he can be with her. All around them, the white men close in, to finish them off... Alas, one of them makes a signal, and they all flee.

The late couple has left their baby hidden near a rock. An Apache shaman comes by and finds the baby. He collects it in his arms and takes it to his village...thus presumably repeating the cycle of the movie's plot.

Shining Sky is reunited with Rising Sun but both are pursued and ultimately killed by white men. Their orphaned child is found and adopted by an Apache shaman, repeating the cycle.

The ending closes the narrative loop: the violence and prejudice that pursued Shining Sky and Rising Sun do not end with their deaths. Instead, their orphan child is taken in by the Apache, suggesting a grim cycle of identity struggles and cultural conflict that continues unabated. The film’s final moments reinforce its fatalistic take on race, revenge, and the American West’s inability to break free from its own bloody history.