Synopsis
Lucky Luke is responsible for taking four scientists across the Black Hills to study colonization opportunities. Senator Stormwind, opposed to the project, sends Bull Bullets to fight the expedition. Lucky Luke and the scientists first take the train to Des Moines, Iowa. Bull Bullets is following them closely since he is taking the same train. He takes advantage of the absence of Luke to play poker with the four scientists and accuse them of being cheaters because they all have four aces (except Doublelap who has only three). They are kicked off the train but Lucky Luke forces the train back and resumes the journey with them. The Bull Bullets card game is reviewed and it turns out that it contains 48 aces out of 52 cards. The train resumes its trip to Des Moines. At the Chicago stop, Bull Bullets flies with the train while all the passengers have left to rest in the station. Fortunately, there is an emergency locomotive with only one car. All passengers are housed in this one and so Lucky Luke and the scientists reach Des Moines. Bull Bullets, who arrived before them, has chartered the stagecoach for Omaha (Nebraska) where they must go and he has rented all available horses. Lucky Luke asks an undertaker from the place to drive them to Omaha in his vehicle. The undertaker agrees, especially since he thinks he can find more work in Omaha, a rather anarchic city. Bull Bullets pays a killer named Nebraska Kid to get rid of the expedition.
When Luke and the scientists enter the saloon, Nebraska Kid jostles one of the scientists and provokes him into a duel. Frankenbaum, who says he is offended, says he has the choice of weapons and chooses the foil. The killer, who did not expect that, is beaten and, humiliated, must withdraw. The next day, Lucky Luke and the scientists rent horses and mules and depart to the Black Hills they reach a few days later. Bull Bullets, however, beats them there. He tries to get them down but they escape unhindered from his wiles and eventually arrive in Wyoming in the heart of Cheyenne territory. Bull Bullets goes to Cheyenne homeland to assemble them against Lucky Luke and the others, declaring that they want to seize their territory and that they will prevent them from drinking fire-water. The discontented Cheyenne take advantage of Lucky Luke's absence to capture the scientists. Luke tracks them to their camp and sees the scientists tied to poles. He also sees Bull Bullets inebriating the Indians. At night, Luke takes advantage of the Indians' sleep to free the scientists and to imprison the son of the chief. The latter, with his men, immediately sets out to find them and manages to make them prisoners. However, the son persuades his father not to hurt them because they showed him the dangers of fire-water. Bull Bullets tries to make them believe that these statements are only a sham but it is neutralized by Lucky Luke. Defeated, Bull Bullets admits he is the employee of Senator Stormwind who wanted to prevent the expedition because he feared that his sale of arms and alcohol to the Cheyennes would be compromised. Then it's back to Washington, the scientists being persuaded that Wyoming can open to colonization. A peace treaty is signed with the Cheyenne. Stormwind and Bull Bullets are sent to the same penitentiary as Billy the Kid and the Dalton brothers. These promise to make room by escaping.
The Arapaho are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.
Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the original routes of the Interstate Highway System; its final segment was opened in 1986. The second-longest Interstate Highway in the United States after I-90, it runs through many major cities, including Oakland, Sacramento, Reno, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Des Moines, and Toledo and passes within 10 miles (16 km) of Chicago, Cleveland, and New York City.
Lucky Luke is a Western bande dessinée series created by Belgian cartoonist Morris in 1946. Morris wrote and drew the series single-handedly until 1955, after which he started collaborating with French writer René Goscinny. Their partnership lasted until Goscinny's death in 1977. Afterwards, Morris used several other writers until his own death in 2001. Since Morris's death, French artist Achdé has drawn the series, scripted by several successive writers.
The Sioux Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and various subgroups of the Sioux people which occurred in the later half of the 19th century. The earliest conflict came in 1854 when a fight broke out at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, when Sioux warriors killed 31 American soldiers in the Grattan Fight, and the final came in 1890 during the Ghost Dance War.
The Powder River Expedition of 1865 also known as the Powder River War or Powder River Invasion, was a large and far-flung military operation of the United States Army against the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians in Montana Territory and Dakota Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Arapaho village and established Fort Connor to protect gold miners on the Bozeman Trail, the expedition is considered a failure because it failed to defeat or intimidate the Indians.
The Battle of Warbonnet Creek was a skirmish characterized by a duel between "Buffalo Bill" Cody and a young Cheyenne warrior named Heova'ehe or Yellow Hair. The engagement is often referred to as the First Scalp for Custer. It occurred July 17, 1876, in Sioux County in northwestern Nebraska.
The Battle of Powder River, also known as the Reynolds Battle, occurred on March 17, 1876, in Montana Territory, United States. The attack on a Cheyenne Indian encampment by Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds initiated the Great Sioux War of 1876. Although destroying a large amount of Indian property, the attack was poorly carried out and probably solidified Lakota Sioux and northern Cheyenne resistance to the U.S. attempt to force them to sell the Black Hills and live on a reservation.
A private in the Fourth Infantry, Charles Howard served as photographer for the Stanton Expedition in 1877, traveling throughout eastern Wyoming, western Nebraska and into the Black Hills of Dakota Territory.
Billy the Kid is a Lucky Luke comic book written by Goscinny and illustrated by Morris. It is the twentieth title in the original series. The original French-language version was printed in 1962 by Dupuis. It is the first in the English versions published by Cinebook Ltd.
Des rails sur la Prairie is a Lucky Luke comic written by Goscinny and Morris. It is the ninth album in the series and the first on which Goscinny worked. It is also the first in which Lucky Luke, moving away towards the setting sun at the last box, sings his song "I'm a poor lonesome cowboy ..." The comic was printed by Dupuis in 1957 and in English by Cinebook in 2011 as Rails on the Prairie.
La Caravane is a Lucky Luke adventure written by Goscinny and illustrated by Morris. It was originally published in French by Dupuis in 1964. English editions of this French series titled The Wagon Train have been published by Dargaud and Cinebook. The story was loosely adapted into the film Go West: A Lucky Luke Adventure.
Ruée sur l'Oklahoma is a Lucky Luke comic written by Morris. It is the fourteenth album in the Lucky Luke series. The comic was printed by Dupuis in 1960 and by Cinebook in 2009 as The Oklahoma Land Rush. The story is based on the historical Land Run of 1889.
En remontant le Mississippi is a Lucky Luke comic written by Goscinny and Morris. It is the sixteenth title in the Lucky Luke Series. The comic was printed by Dupuis in 1961 and by Cinebook in English in 2021 as Steaming Up the Mississippi. Both Goscinny and Morris were avid readers of frontier tales and particularly Mark Twain books. This album is culturally significant as it is connected with Mark Twain's experience as a Mississippi steamboat pilot before the American Civil War.
L'Empereur Smith is a Lucky Luke adventure written by Goscinny and illustrated by Morris. It is the forty fifth book in the series and was originally published in French by Dargaud in the year 1976 and in English by Cinebook in 2010 as Emperor Smith. The story is loosely based on the life of the historical Emperor Norton of San Francisco.
La Corde du penduet autres histoires is a Lucky Luke adventure written by Goscinny with Morris and illustrated by Morris. It was originally published in French in the year 1982. The album contains seven short stories.
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the desire of the US government to obtain ownership of the Black Hills. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, settlers began to encroach onto Native American lands, and the Sioux and the Cheyenne refused to cede ownership. Traditionally, American military and historians place the Lakota at the center of the story, especially because of their numbers, but some Native Americans believe the Cheyenne were the primary target of the American campaign.
The Big Horn Expedition, or Bighorn Expedition, was a military operation of the United States Army against the Sioux, and Cheyenne Indians in Wyoming Territory and Montana Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Cheyenne and Oglala Sioux village, the expedition solidified Lakota Sioux and northern Cheyenne resistance against the United States attempt to force them to sell the Black Hills and live on a reservation, beginning the Great Sioux War of 1876.
Porcupine was a Cheyenne chief and medicine man. He is best known for bringing the Ghost Dance religion to the Cheyenne. Raised with the Sioux of a Cheyenne mother, he married a Cheyenne himself and became a warrior in the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers.
Luke Murrin was an American politician who served as the 2nd Mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was the first following its chartering.
