In this extraordinary work of journalism, bestselling and award-winning author Larry Colton journeys into the world of Montana's Crow Indians and follows the struggles of a talented, moody, charismatic young woman named Sharon LaForge, a gifted basketball player and a descendant of one of George Armstrong Custer's Indian scouts. In Native American tradition, a warrior gained honor and glory by "counting coup" -- touching his enemy in battle and living to tell the tale. Counting Coup  tells the story of a modern hero from within this tradition, but it is far more than just a sports story or a portrait of youth. It is a sobering exposé of a part of our society long since cut out of the American dream. Along the banks of the Little Big Horn, Indians and whites live in age-old conflict and young Indians grow up without role models or dreams. Here Sharon carries the hopes and frustrations of her people on her shoulders as she battles her opponents on and off the court. Colton delves into Sharon's life and shows us the realities of the reservation, the shattered families, the bitter tribal politics, and a people's struggle against a belief that all their children -- even the most intelligent and talented -- are destined for heartbreak. Against this backdrop stands Sharon, a fiery, undaunted competitor with the skill to dominate a high school game and earn a college scholarship. Yet getting to college seems beyond Sharon's vision, obscured by the daily challenge of getting through the season -- physically and psychologically. Larry Colton is the author of several notable works, including Counting Coup, Goat Brothers, and No Ordinary Joes . He has written for Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and the New York Times Magazine . A former pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, Colton himself played in the Southern League in 1966 for a farm team in Macon, GA. Counting Coup A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn By Larry Colton Warner Books Copyright © 2001 Larry Colton All right reserved. ISBN: 9780446677554 Chapter One Tar paper shacks, abandoned junk heaps in front yards, rutted and littered streets-all the outward signs of people living on the margin. Down the block from where I park, a pack of mangy dogs mosey across the street, pacing themselves in the heat of this August day in Crow Agency, Montana. The only sign of energy in the town is the ubiquity of basketball hoops ... on telephone poles, sides of houses, scrawny trees. These hoops aren't fancy Air Jordan NBA specials purchased at the Rim Rock Mall in Billings-they have rotting plywood backboards and flimsy rims drooping toward the hardened dirt. Rare remnants of net, shredded by heavy use and the fierce winds that blow off the prairie, hang loosely. At the park in the center of town-a luckless patch of dried grass with a well-used outdoor basketball surface in the middle-Norbert Hill, Paul Little Light, and Clay Dawes, three seniors on the Hardin High varsity, are playing a lazy game of half-court crunch. I know their names because I studied their photos in the showcase in the lobby of the high school gym. These are the guys I've traveled to this remote corner of southeastern Montana to write about, the athletic young men who carry the hopes of the Crow Tribe on their shoulders. In the heat, they move at half speed. I sit down to watch. A burgundy Mercury Cougar riding out of the dusty Montana summer eases to the curb, and a young woman-I guess her to be seventeen-grabs a basketball from the back seat and walks onto the vacant end of the court, dribbling the ball between her legs with a casual ease, her eyes fixed on the guys at the other end. She shyly waves to them, then throws up a halfhearted shot from the free throw line, the ball sailing perfectly through the netless rim, hitting the support pole and bouncing onto the dead grass. Slowly, she retrieves it, picking it up with a tricky little flick of the foot, then returns to the court. Tall and slender, she has a quiet beauty-high cheekbones, dark hair, mahogany eyes-yet she is not a celluloid Pocahontas or a black velvet rendition of an Indian princess. Her appeal is subtler. It is the way she moves, a grace, languid, fluid, sexy. All without effort. She seems mysterious, detached. From the other end of the court, one of the boys beckons her to come play some two-on-two. He is Paul Little Light, a charming, handsome, crew-cut seventeen-year-old who dreams of Hollywood. He'll be a movie star with a Beamer, a Benz, and a mansion. She rolls the ball off the court and walks to the other end, silent, serious. Her teammate will be Norbert, a young man slated to be captain, star player, and class clown. Twenty years earlier his uncle Darrell Hill had also been a star player at Hardin High, good enough to win All-State honors. After the season Uncle Darrell and his brother got into a fight outside a bar in Hardin with two men from another clan wit