Lieutenant Dunbar, severely wounded in battle with the Confederate army, is decorated a hero and sent at his own request to an abandoned fort on the western frontier. He befriends a lone wolf and attempts to make contact with a nearby Sioux tribe. He wins the favour of the wary Indians with information about an approaching herd of buffalo. His language problems are overcome by the widowed Clenched Fist, who was kidnapped by the Indians as a child of white settlers.
Dunbar, renamed Sioux Dances with Wolves, begins living in an Indian settlement. He takes a liking to their way of life, in which he finds meaning in continuing to exist. As he is about to marry Clenched Fist, Dunbar is captured by a troop of cavalry who treat him as a traitor. The Sioux free him and kill most of the soldiers, but Dunbar prefers to leave the tribe with Clenched Fist so as not to incur the revenge of the cavalrymen.
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