Reap the Whirlwind (7 page)

This time it would be different! was the oft-repeated rallying cry. This time they would not wait for the pony soldiers to attack their camps. Now they planned on confronting
the soldiers, man for man, gun for gun—to stop the white man’s army, turn it around, and drive it out of this last great hunting ground. And those soldiers the warrior bands could not cower and drive off, the Lakota and Shahiyena would slaughter.

Their blood would nourish these hillsides that provided food for the antelope and elk, deer and buffalo that in turn provided meat and hides, clothing and shelter for this growing camp of wandering peoples, all come to gather around the mystical shaman called Sitting Bull. In every camp were the proud war chiefs who kept their scouts riding out every day, watching to the south for the soldiers, roaming to the north along the Elk River
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for more of the white man’s army. Revered and acclaimed war chiefs like Crazy Horse, White Bull, Little Wolf, Iron Star, Low Dog, and Crow King.

Surely, the soldiers would have to be crazy, touched by the moon to come looking for a fight with this encampment.

But then—Wooden Leg knew the white man had never been known for having good sense, for doing the smart thing.

For now Wooden Leg and many of the other young Shahiyena warriors would watch over the great pony herds. Most of the mares were dropping foals in the new grasses that nourished their winter-gaunt animals. The people celebrated and danced, feasted and coupled. There were weddings and births. And there were deaths as the old ones went to walk the long Star Road to Seyan, where they would join their ancestors.

Even the old ones could die at peace, content, perhaps even happy in their final days at having seen so great an encampment that swelled in size nearly every day. No man then living had ever witnessed so grand an event as this gathering. Surely it would bring joy to an old man’s heart to cast his tired, rheumy eyes on the ever-widening camp circles—at long last to know that when he took his last
breath, his people had truly reached the zenith of their power.

There likely was never to be another summer like this.

“
Hopo!
Wooden Leg!” a friend called out from the lodge circle, waving as the young warrior rode slowly past. Chief Comes in Sight said, “You go to the herd?”

“My ponies, I’ll take them down to water.”

“I’ll join you. Perhaps even bring my sister, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, and her friends, yes?”

“Yes!” Wooden answered, his voice low, but the grin on his face nonetheless speaking with a great volume of joy.

Now reaching young manhood this spring, Wooden Leg sensed his heart swell again as he rode through the camp of Northern Cheyenne on his way to the herds grazing along the benchlands of the Tongue. The pretty girls looked at him from behind their dark eyelashes, and he again felt his loins stir with the wonder of life. How he marveled on the mysteries that brought a man and woman together. How would he know what to do when the time came? Would the time ever come? How soon? Would it be this summer?

Oh, how Wooden Leg wanted it to be this summer!

Two moons had waxed, then waned, since the soldiers had attacked the camp of Two Moon and Old Bear on the Powder. A long, cold, agonizing march north to find the Hunkpatila of Crazy Horse. Then three long days of talks before it was decided to press on with the Oglalla for Chalk Buttes. North and east of the Powder River, every day they plodded through mud that froze each night, marching to the camp of Sitting Bull, where his Hunkpapa fed and housed those who had been stripped of everything by the white man’s army.

“These Shahiyena have been made very poor by the soldiers!” cried an elderly camp herald riding slowly among the lodges. “Everyone who can give a blanket, can give a robe—everyone with a lodge or meat to spare—come give your gifts to our guests!”

The Hunkpapa were wealthy in all that the wandering tribes would ever need. For generations they had avoided the white man, seeking to stay as far away from the soldiers as they could. But now, sadly, the Hunkpapa people believed
they were being forced toward a great confrontation with the
wasichu.
He was building his railroad, pointing it like a lance at their last, great hunting ground. He was attempting to buy back the sacred Paha Sapa.
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His soldiers allowed the white miners to invade the land the grandfather’s government had granted them at the end of Red Cloud’s war.

With all this, was it not understandable that the young men should want to ride out to find the soldiers, instead of waiting? Waiting?

But for the time being, the Shahiyena and Hunkpatila of Crazy Horse would wander with the Hunkpapa of Sitting Bull, taking pains to stay out of the path of the white man and his soldiers as they crisscrossed the Lakota hunting ground. For the time being, the Hunkpapa would share all that they had with those who had lost everything to the soldiers on the Powder River.

A young girl of perhaps ten winters had dragged a heavy buffalo robe through the village and dropped it at Wooden Leg’s feet. Such a sour ball of fierce pride had clogged his throat that the young warrior had been unable to do more than nod his head in expressing his thanks. Yet there in his heart, Wooden Leg vowed on his life that he would give the gift of his body to protect his people in the coming fight with the soldiers.

Everyone knew the big fight was coming.

A few suns later Wooden Leg rode with a small hunting party that discovered a lone white man dressed in shabby clothing that appeared to have belonged to a Lakota. He had looked hungry and in need of a good meal. When asked what he was doing dressed in Lakota leggings and war shirt, the white man said he had belonged to a band of soldiers but had decided he did not want to fight Indians. He had run away from the soldiers and found the body of a dead warrior. Not wanting to be discovered in Indian country wearing a soldier’s uniform, the man explained, he had stolen the leggings and shirt from the body.

Still, he had kept his soldier pistol and cartridge belt. It
was that pistol one of Wooden Leg’s companions coveted. But the others disagreed, saying that they shouldn’t kill the white man, and were turning to ride away when the lone Shahiyena shot the white man. In going over the body, they found a leather parcel lashed to the dead man’s belt. In it they discovered some charred chunks of horse meat that had been cooked over an open fire.

Wooden Leg felt sorry for the white man who had wanted to be an Indian. Hungry and on foot alone in a strange land. Forced to eat stringy horse meat. It would have been one thing to kill one of the soldiers who had driven the Shahiyena from their village on Powder River, putting women and children and old ones afoot in the middle of winter. But it was an entirely different matter to kill a solitary, starving white man who so wanted to be friends with that band of young warriors.

From that campsite the three lodge circles had moved slowly north to headwaters of Sheep Creek, where the Sans Arc joined them about the time the new grass began to poke its head above the prairie. Within seven more suns the slopes of the hills had turned as green as most could remember them ever having been. Here a number of Santees and more Cheyenne from the agencies wandered in to join the great encampment at the mouth of Mizpah Creek on the Powder River. West to the bottomlands, where Pumpkin Creek dumped itself into the Tongue River, the Shahiyena led the camp circles, followed by the Hunkpatila of Crazy Horse. Behind them camped the Miniconjou. Bringing up the rear was the Hunkpapa camp of Sitting Bull. The combined tribal councils knew they would have to move their camps frequently as their numbers grew: sufficient grazing would have to be found for the immense pony herds; game would be driven quickly from the countryside by so large a village; the bands needed not only to follow the buffalo herds, but as well they sought the nomadic herds of antelope for meat and soft hides.

In the early days of this Moon of First Eggs far-ranging scouts had first spotted a soldier column marching out of the west along the Elk River. For three days the wolves kept an eye on the soldiers plodding east. Then some half a
hundred warriors made their first raid on the white men, discovering that it was the troops of the Limping Soldier.
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Unhurried and unpursued by the army, the great village moved its encampment up the Tongue River three days later. It was during this time that the Blackfeet Lakota joined the main procession. They camped closest to Sitting Bull’s circle, as did the Santee, or Waist, Lakota, who had few ponies—only big dogs to help them pull their few belongings. As the sun rose and fell in succession, a few Assiniboine lodges, and a handful of Burnt Thigh lodges, all came in to join the summer’s hunt. Each night the great village grew more festive in its continuing celebration of life, of the hunt, of living the old ways.

In leading the entire march, the Shahiyena kept scouts out in the van, the Oglalla and Miniconjou maintaining scouts on the flanks, while the Hunkpapa saw to it there were scouts watching their backtrail. At their camp at the mouth of Ash Creek after three more sunrises, another large band of Shahiyena under chief Lame White Man arrived. One more move took the great gathering still farther up the Tongue. It was from that camp that Wooden Leg had joined the others in a second and even more daring raid on the Limping Soldier’s troops.
^†

And just today the whole valley buzzed with the news that their huge encampment had been spotted by a scouting party sent out from the soldiers who were being supplied by the smoking houses that walked on the waters of the Elk River to the north. Most of the young men from the gathered bands wanted to set out immediately, to again strike the soldier column—this time in great numbers. Wooden Leg, like most of the others in whose veins flowed blood hot for making war on the enemy, was sorely disappointed when the old men and chiefs decided it best for the great encampment to avoid the white men.

“Raiding the soldiers to steal their American horses, making war on the soldier camp—all of this only wastes the energy of our warriors,” the old ones decided.

Another added, “Our young men must put their energy
into hunting for meat and the hides we need for shelter and clothing.”

“For now we will avoid the soldiers,” concluded another.

So it was that the people continued to celebrate and sing, to dance and feast on the bounty of the hunt provided by the Everywhere Spirit of the Shahiyena, the Great Mystery of the Lakota bands.

For this young warrior who had daringly rescued nearly half of the village herd during the heat of battle on the Powder River, for this young Shahiyena who had been blooded in that fight with the soldiers in the brutal cold of the Sore-Eye Moon … the time to make war would come again. The fight of every warrior’s dreams would be at hand. Patience, the old ones counseled. That fight is promised you: the young warriors who protect our nations.

But for now they would wait.

The young men could only clean their guns, sharpen their knives, fletch more arrows, and watch their war ponies grow strong and sleek on the new grass.

One day soon the fight would come.

“
D
amn their savage souls!” George Crook roared as he stomped into the small quarters given over to him at Camp Robinson at the Red Cloud Agency.

John Bourke quickly slammed the rough-hewn door shut on its wrought-iron hinges and threw the bolt into its hasp. He watched the general seethe, pacing the length of the tiny room in three strides. “We can still count on the Shoshone and Crow tribes, General. Don’t forget them.”

Hammering a fist into his open palm, Crook replied, “I bloody well can’t forget them now, John! I’ve got to wire Fort Ellis up in Montana Territory—asking them to enlist some Crow auxiliaries for us. See that the commander over at Camp Brown is sent my wire as well: get him to sign on a hundred or more of the Shoshone. Those warriors are my last hope. They’re our salvation now that these goddamned Sioux refuse to provide me any scouts. In the morning I’ll telegraph ahead to have those steadfast allies sent down to meet me on the road north. By God, I vow to fight Indians with Indians—however I can!”

Late the day before, Crook’s party had arrived at the agency, accompanied by Frank Grouard and Louie Reshaw. That evening they had conferred with Captain William H. Jordan of the Ninth Infantry, commander of Camp Robinson, setting plans to meet with some of the minor chiefs in the morning despite what the agency’s assistant clerk had already done to dissuade the tribal leaders from having anything to do with the visiting soldiers. After breakfast Crook did have an audience with some of the Sioux subchiefs in preparation for that evening’s major council with Red Cloud and Agent James S. Hastings, along with some of the other headmen from the various bands.

During that first informal meeting, Sitting Bull of the South and Rocky Bear agreed that even if no other chief in the tribe assisted Three Stars, they would still gather as many young warriors as they could to send along on the army’s campaign to drive the hostile Sioux back to the agencies. An elated Crook and Bourke had whiled away the rest of the afternoon, initially assured of success.

But by the time the formal evening conference began, it soon became clear that the local agent had worked some magic on his chiefs: Blue Horse, Little Wound, American Horse, Three Bears, and Old Man Afraid of His Horses.

With the stoic Hastings present for this major council, and while Grouard translated, Crook had proposed to hire as many of the old chief’s young warriors as wanted to go along.

“I will pay your scouts a good wage, feed them, and supply them with the weapons they will need when we hunt down the winter roamers,” Crook had explained.

Red Cloud and the other chiefs listened, each man of them clothed in what had become known as “agency dress”: loose wool trousers of dark-blue cloth, likely some surplus from the Civil War, moccasins covered with beads, and around every shoulder a dark-blue blanket transversed by a wide band of rosetted quillwork from which hung scalp locks or tinkling tin cones fashioned at the ends of narrow thongs. Shells from the distant ocean and large African beads hung from their necks, brass rings hung from their ears or coiled about their wrists.