Joseph M. Marshall III (35 page)

The breaks along the Big Horn River offered good shelter, usually a cut bank or a low bluff facing away from the wind. In such places, a man could sit and think. He could dig a deep pit to hold glowing embers after the flames of the fire burned down, and with a heat reflector opposite him a man could sit under a thick robe through the long nights, adding wood to replenish the coals. In such places a man could imagine that ghosts would come and sit as though warming themselves.

The living did find him. He Dog and Little Big Man came carrying the worry of his father and his wife. They saw that he was well, perhaps a little thin, but that his spirit was troubled. They joined him at the fire and talked of victories past, of good hunts, of good men, of the good life of the free, buffalo-hunting Lakota. In a voice barely louder than the crackling fire, Crazy Horse told them that, for the sake of the helpless ones, they must seriously consider going into the agency.

Crazy Horse returned to the encampment to learn that his life had taken a strange twist. Thinking to help settle his restlessness, his Sahiyela friends had arranged for him to take a second and younger wife. Unselfishly, Black Shawl agreed, but the young woman, whose family initially also agreed to the marriage, fled at the sight of Crazy Horse. He didn’t pursue her or take insult but thought it best to give her back to her family. He and Black Shawl did eventually take in a widow, a Sahiyela. She helped keep the lodge in order and performed the chores Black Shawl - could not. She, in effect, become a sister to them both.

The Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies were near the source of the White Earth River, fifteen to twenty days of travel from the Tongue River and Big Horn River region. Such a trip was not easy in warm weather, but certainly more bearable than traveling that distance in cold weather. And this winter was particularly harsh. Even so, another group arrived from the Spotted Tail agency—Crazy Horse’s uncle Spotted Tail himself, and a hundred people. They had come to convince Crazy Horse to come in to the agency.

There was fresh meat taken along the way by Spotted Tail himself, along with many gifts, and visiting with relatives not seen for several years. Not unexpectedly, the travelers from the agency spoke highly of it, carrying the promise from Three Stars brought earlier by the young White Hat Clark. If Crazy Horse came in, his people would be given food, clothing, and blankets, and they would be allowed to return to the Powder River country, which would be the Crazy Horse agency.

The visitors were invited into the lodges of their relatives, so over the days of visiting the same message was repeated: food, clothing, blankets, and their own agency. The buffalo were gone, the Black Hills were lost, and so was the old life. Crazy Horse listened to his uncle speak eloquently for the good sense to yield to the inevitable. Three Stars had sent a man he thought would have the greatest influence on him. Or perhaps Spotted Tail had taken it upon himself to talk to him. Either way, Crazy Horse knew he was probably seeing the last peaceful overture. If he refused, he was afraid the soldiers would come again and keep coming until they killed him or enough of his fighting men to make further armed resistance impossible.

But it was the unspoken thoughts that weighed on him the most, the thoughts not given the substance of words in his presence because his people knew he would be angry and hurt. Many, perhaps most, of them were thinking that the wise course would be to go into the agency. They were tired of being chased, tired of seeing their relatives die, and tired of always sleeping uneasily. Though those thoughts were not directly spoken, no caring person could ignore the pain of uncertainty in the eyes of the women who had lost a son or a husband or a grandson. Who - could forget how many of Dull Knife’s people would sit staring vacantly into a fire? Spotted Tail spoke quietly of these realities in the lodge of Black Shawl and Crazy Horse—the same kind of realities that he had to face and base his decisions on.

Spotted Tail was still an imposing figure in spite of the burdens of leadership for over twenty years. Crazy Horse couldn’t help but recall the troubles after the Grattan incident, when Woman Killer Harney had come with his Long Knives and carried out a sneak attack on Little Thunder’s camp on the Blue Water, and Spotted Tail had led the counterattack against the soldiers, killing several in one memorable hand-to-hand fight before he was seriously wounded. Then he had offered himself to be punished in the place of several men who had been unjustly accused by the Long Knives, and was sent to the Leavenworth prison. Something had changed him. Something that now compelled him to speak for the very people he had wanted to wipe off the face of the earth. Perhaps whatever it was would change them all.

Crazy Horse spoke quietly, feeling his own burdens. “When the snow breaks I will give you my answer.”

For the last time in his life he sought the comfort of solitude. But he found no peace, no answers for the turmoil that drove him to seek the shadowy places and the lonely, windswept ridges. Even the nearly endless view of mountains blending with the plains under a bright winter sun couldn’t hold back the darkness he knew lay ahead. One day flowed into the next like early morning mist on the water. His ignored his own hunger even as he took his mare to a bare hillside to let her graze.

The land seemed unchanged, but it had been. There were new trails or old ones with new tracks—tracks not made by moccasins, drag poles, or unshod horses. There were new tracks made by wagon wheels, the iron horse shoes, and the stiff boots of the soldiers. And there were the forts, little islands of fear and arrogance, like pimples on a clean face. What the land itself might think of such changes, he didn’t know.

Out of the swirl of windblown snow came an old man to sit at his fire. He was a holy man and a grandfather. He had come with a bag of pounded meat and questions in his eyes. Over the fire they sat through the night absorbing every bit of heat they could, surrounded by the melodious baying of wolves and the strident barking of coyotes. They talked of the past because they knew it and it validated who and what they were. They said little of the future because it was a visitor without a face. Sometime after sunrise the old man fell asleep. When he awoke he gathered his buffalo robe around his shoulders and rode away.

Crazy Horse watched the old man go. The holy man embodied all that the Lakota were, and he was riding away growing smaller and smaller in the distance.

In essence, the rattlesnake had come into the lodge and they - couldn’t crush it. Now they must live with it.

Twenty

 

Dust from hundreds of unshod hooves floated up in small swirls to form a choking brown cloud, partially obscuring the riders in the middle and rear of the disorderly mob of sixty or more. Lakota horsemen were nothing new among the rolling hills near the headwaters of the White Earth River. They rode into the hot, late summer afternoon, a procession of horses and stern-faced riders pushed along by circumstances beyond their control and hiding a dark purpose inside the dust.

Nearly a day’s ride to the south was the Running Water. Four or five days’ ride to the east stood the sharply rolling sand hills. This awareness of such familiar landmarks in Lakota territory was of no concern, however, to the mob. If the man at the center of the lead riders had any thoughts not connected to the heaviness of the moment, he gave no indication. His face, burned brown by the sun, appeared more relaxed than those around him, his light-brown hair unbound. His dark eyes were alert and intense, however. Most of the brown-faced, braided men riding near him wore the dark blue uniform coat of the Long Knives, and were armed with rifles and pistols.

Men and horses on either side hemmed in Crazy Horse solidly. On the opposite side rode Touch the Clouds. Directly ahead was Fast Thunder, who had pleaded with him to go back to Camp Robinson and speak to Randall, the man in charge who would listen and speak for Three Stars. Riding in a wagon were Swift Bear, Black Crow, and High Bear. They didn’t have the same feelings about Randall or Three Stars, but couldn’t talk Crazy Horse into staying away. There was nothing else that could be done. After he left Spotted Tail’s agency, the blue-coated riders had met him on the trail and he immediately knew they had been sent to bring him back to Camp Robinson. No one but Three Stars could have given that order.

The mob all around him was expecting trouble from him. The one man to depend on if any trouble started was Touch the Clouds. Swift Bear, Black Crow, and High Bear had sometimes sided with Spotted Tail against him. It was useless to think of fighting because even if they were all on his side they numbered less than the fingers of a hand. What could a handful do against sixty or more? They would be no more than leaves in a flash flood. Nearby was a man who wanted to be his friend, Lieutenant Lee. Next to him was the speaks-white, Louie Bordeaux, the son of old Jim, but perhaps not so trustworthy as his father had been.

 

To the west far beyond the sandstone bluffs on the edge of the pine-choked ridges waited the Powder River country and the Shining Mountains. Nearly four months had passed since the Crazy Horse people had arrived at Camp Robinson, 900 people in all, with over 1,500 horses. The soldiers had taken their horses first, and then their guns, and then their hope. In four months, the promise of an agency of their own in the north had turned into an impossible dream. He blamed himself partly because he could do nothing. Perhaps if he had learned to be an agency Lakota and put on the defeated smile in the presence of Three Stars and the other soldier leaders, none of this would be happening.

But the soldiers were not the only ones to cause the turmoil of the past four months. The finger of blame could be pointed at many Lakota as well. In fact, they were mostly to blame. The white agents and the army officers fanned the flames of jealousy and let little minds that could not think beyond the moment, and little men, who yearned for recognition and power, do the rest. There was no other way to look at it. In the end, the Lakota defeated themselves. They had the whites outnumbered and out-manned and did nothing. The entire garrison could have been overrun by enough determined Lakota fighting men with a good plan, if they truly wanted to return to living the old way in control of their lands and their lives. Instead, men stepped over each other to betray their own relatives in order to obtain the power handed out by the whites, a power they couldn’t get on their own.

 

So the disorderly mob of horsemen rode on, and soon the outer buildings of Camp Robinson could be seen. A large group of riders approached, one galloping ahead of the others over a low, grassy rise. It was He Dog. Ignoring dozens of threatening glances, he pushed his way through the front line of riders and took up a position beside Crazy Horse.

 

Black Shawl was with his father and mother in the Spotted Tail camp, and she would be safe there from whatever trouble might happen at Robinson. Crazy Horse had taken her there the day before. The coughing sickness had weakened her, but the medicine from the post infirmary seemed to be helping. She let herself be taken into the lodge of Worm, who had chosen to be with his wife’s Sicangu relatives.

Black Shawl was one reason Crazy Horse had gone to the Spotted Tail camp, but he had also hoped his uncle could help put an end to this foolishness of lies that turned friends against one another. For a time, He Dog had turned away from him and Young Man Afraid was still angry. Crazy Horse had no intention of accepting the power held out to him by the whites, because he didn’t want Spotted Tail pushed aside as headman of his own agency. But he did want his uncle to speak for him, to use his influence with the whites, especially Three Stars, to convince them that he only wanted to live in peace. But the lies had gotten to Spotted Tail as well, it would seem. Instead of reassurances he threw down scolding words.

 

 

A buffalo hunt had been promised. But there had been no hunt and Crazy Horse understood why. First, someone with more power than Three Stars had to say that the Lakota could go chasing buffalo. If given the opportunity, Three Stars reasoned, the hunters would keep going, perhaps all the way to Grandmother’s Land to join Sitting Bull. Added to that, some among the Lakota complained to Three Stars that if Crazy Horse and his young men were allowed to hunt buffalo, then everyone must be allowed. And it was a Lakota who warned that it was dangerous to put guns in the hands of Crazy Horse.

 

The unorganized procession came to the edge of Camp Robinson. Hundreds of Lakota were waiting, watching the riders approach. He Dog glanced nervously at Crazy Horse. The sun was near the western horizon and sending the shadows long and deep across the town.