Joseph M. Marshall III

by The Journey of Crazy Horse a Lakota History

  When no enemies came, they resorted to games like the one called Knocking-Them-Off-the-Horses. Armed with thin willow or driftwood rods and sitting astride their horses, they faced one another, looking for the right opening to poke the opponent hard enough to force him off the horse. More often than not it was Lone Bear who fell to the ground. When they tired of that they would practice the wounded-man-drag. They fell from their horses pretending to be wounded, a long rope attached loosely around their chests and the other end around the horses’ necks. The horse was expected to drag the “wounded man” to safety. Sometimes the horses cooperated and other times they were more interested in grazing in a particularly lush patch of grass.

  But their favorite game was imitating a buffalo chase. First one, then the other, would be the “buffalo” and gallop away on his horse from the “hunter” who approached from the right side at a full gallop, a blunt arrow held to the bow string and aimed at the running buffalo. Even in the absence of a real herd thundering across the prairie, the game did present some of the real dangers of a buffalo chase. Uneven ground, unexpected obstacles, or a horse swerving unexpectedly could cause both riders to lose balance and fall. Of course, one tumble from a galloping horse was often enough to motivate the rider to keep his seat the next time, no matter what. Skinned elbows, knees, and faces, not to mention a roll through a cactus patch, were the wounds that turned playful boys into earnest men one game and one small adventure at a time.

  There were, of course, other amusements that were not as dangerous. Light Hair and Lone Bear often passed most of a quiet summer afternoon reclining on a grassy slope observing the land and the sky. Such episodes of seeming inactivity had purpose, however, because they provided intimate contact with everything around them that could be detected by any of their senses. It was this kind of connection that enabled a being like the wolf to become part of the land, not simply live on it. While boys didn’t have the wolf’s unimaginably keen sense of sight, smell, and hearing, they nevertheless like the wolf learned to connect with the land. That connection would make them skillful hunters and dangerous warriors. While the dangerous games were the substance of the preparation for the trials that lay ahead of them as the hunters and warriors they would be, moments of quiet introspection and observation would help them to understand why.

  Other groups of boys were learning by playing as well, but Light Hair and Lone Bear seemed to be a particularly odd pairing. Lone Bear, with his glistening black hair and dark brown complexion, was the total opposite of Light Hair, with his light brown hair and fair complexion. The others didn’t understand that the remarks and the teasing they hurled at the pair were helping to solidify a friendship that would be ended only by death.

  One of those who tried to be especially hurtful with his words was a soft-handed, always ceremoniously dressed boy who was given the name Pretty One by an uncle unhappy with the boy’s bent for fancy clothes. Pretty One was of an influential family with a father skilled in oratory and accomplished as a leader. The boy was certainly aware of his family’s status in the community and it was from that lofty perch, which he somehow perceived as based on his own merits, that he hurled verbal barbs at Light Hair and Lone Bear. Little did the two friends know that the immaculately dressed boy would always be like a bothersome pebble beneath their moccasin soles.

  But if Pretty One would be a growing problem, so would a place they had yet to see, a place called Fort Laramie. Lone Bear listened intently as Light Hair described the day he rode with High Back Bone to see for themselves the wagons traveling west along the Shell River. Many of those wagons stopped at Fort Laramie, it was said, and many Lakota were curious about them. There was talk among the old men, many of them suggesting that a closer look at what was happening at Fort Laramie might be wise, and to learn why the Long Knife peace talkers had sent out a call to meet with the Lakota, and others.

  So the encampment moved further south.2 For anyone who had never seen a white man, there was a strange anticipation, much like wanting a closer look at a rattlesnake but knowing there could be some danger involved. What were they like, many thought, these people living in wagons?

  Fort Laramie was several large buildings and a trading post near the Shell River. Soldiers in blue clothing were everywhere, some carrying the long knives. It was clear that the Long Knives were fond of the strange shape of the square—the wagons were of a similar shape—but the more astonishing fact was the number of whites.

  Lone Bear and Light Hair rode to a slight rise north of the fort, warned by Crazy Horse and High Back Bone not to go nearer. But it was a good enough vantage point to see the buildings and the surrounding area. A wide trail led to the fort from the southeast and away to the west. On either side of the main area of activity, which was among the light-colored buildings, and along the trail were what they could only assume were abandoned wagons. They resembled skeletons, most of them stripped down to the frames.

  Whites were everywhere, along with their horses, mules, oxen, and cattle. The occasional barking of dogs reached the boys’ ears. South of the buildings they could see the tops of several Lakota lodges. A few Lakota stayed near the fort from the days before the soldiers had taken over, in the days when it was only a trading town. Now, the rumors were, the soldiers had come to protect the travelers along the Shell River trail. They were afraid of the Lakota and the Blue Clouds to the south and the Snakes further to the west. Perhaps that was the reason the Long Knives wanted to meet and talk. The call had gone out as well, it was said, to some who were enemies of the Lakota, such as the Crow and the Blackfeet. Light Hair and Lone Bear sat on their horses and watched the town of white men busy with whatever was part of their everyday lives. The old men were hoping that the whites would keep going west. There was nothing wrong with trading, they said. They had tobacco and coffee and other good items, like butcher knives. Some old Lakota said the good things made by the white men were one thing, but the white men themselves were questionable.

  Light Hair and Lone Bear stayed on the hill until the sun sank low and sent shadows from the rolling hills across the gullies and meadows. As the days passed, they grew tired of watching the whites, and there was more talk of the Long Knives’ call for a great “peace” meeting. Peace talks when there was really no war seemed more than a little suspicious to many of the old Lakota who were children when the whites were only occasionally passing through, sometimes lost. Since then their numbers had grown steadily and a man needed only to spend a summer afternoon watching the Shell River trail to feel a cold fear in his belly from the sheer numbers of people traveling west. What if, some asked, they decided to stay?

  Lone Bear and Light Hair liked to lie next to the rolled-up sides of the council lodge to listen to the old men talk the evenings away, sometimes far into the night. If there was to be talk with the whites, the Lakota had to make certain their concerns about the wagons on the Shell River trail were heard, some said. Others were more insistent. The whites had to leave, give up Fort Laramie, and stay off the Shell River trail.

  The trail had quickly become marked by deep side-by-side ruts from the iron-rimmed wheels of the wagons. Strange-looking, strange-shaped items of wood and some of iron had been discarded along the way, according to some eyewitnesses—not to mention the rotting animal carcasses, and some human graves, too. Something had to be done before the land was killed for good.

  When the wagons first began to appear on the trail, they, and the whites in them, were regarded as little more than a curious occurrence. At first, there had been trading of small items such as knives, plugs of tobacco, and cloth. Both sides were understandably nervous and cautious, but there had been no outright conflicts. But when a few Lakota demanded payment to let the wagons pass, the whites’ nervousness turned into fear. And fear always clouded good sense. An old man reminded everyone about the incident when a few outriders from the wagons had opened fire on a few Lakota boys who had wandered closer to have a better look. One of the boys had been kill
ed. Now the Long Knives at Fort Laramie were saying the wagons had to be protected. The Lakota had to allow safe passage or the soldiers would punish any who harmed any person or animal traveling with the wagons. They started the trouble, some of the old men complained, and they threaten us because of it.

  But there was another consequence just as troublesome. Because of the yearly human travel along the trail, the seasonal movement of buffalo herds was changing. Buffalo scouts reported that many of the herds no longer grazed in the Shell River floodplain because the grass was trampled or cropped down by the oxen, mules, and horses of the wagon trains. And for two or three springs, though the rains had been good, the grasses didn’t grow as thick along the wagon trails.

  Movement was nothing new to the Lakota; it was a constant part of life. Such a thing was normal and reassuring. But not all movement was understandable, or welcome. The buffalo moving away from the Shell River trail was disturbing. These things the old men talked about in the council lodges in the Lakota encampments, and many people, young and old, stayed near to listen. There were no ready answers. Perhaps, one or two would suggest, the buffalo had the answer. Perhaps it was wise to move away from the trail until the wagons stopped coming altogether. The trouble with that, some replied, was that when one thing moved away from a place, something else often moved in.

  The consensus that rose like acrid smoke from the council lodges was to listen to what the Long Knife “peace” talkers would have to say.

  Five

  The Lakota called it the Council at Horse Creek. The white peace talkers called it the Fort Laramie Treaty Council of 1851. One of them, known as Broken Hand3 to some of the Lakota, had sent word beyond Lakota lands and gifts had been promised. Many of the Oglala camps were the first to arrive, since this was their territory. The Sicangu were not far behind. From the middle days of summer the prairies around Fort Laramie began blossoming with lodges. In the Moon of Dark Calves, others began arriving. Ancient Lakota enemies, the Blackfeet, came from the mountains to the northwest of the Elk River, and the Crow from the north. From the west beyond the Wind River came the Snakes. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara came from the Knife River country in the upper reaches of the Great Muddy. The Sahiyela and Blue Clouds, good friends of the Lakota, came from south of the Shell. And, of course, their close relatives the Dakota and the Nakota came from east of the Great Muddy, at least those who could make the crossing.

  Nearly eight thousand men, women, and children of all the nations gathered around the Long Knives. And there were fewer than three hundred of their soldiers.

  Old enemies put aside ancient animosity to pitch their lodges deep in Lakota lands—mostly because the curiosity about the manner of people who could audaciously talk to them as if they were children had to be satisfied. A bit of grumbling arose because the promised gifts were late, and some began to talk about breaking camp and heading back to more familiar territories. But the Long Knives assured them the wagons loaded with gifts were on the way.

  The horse herds quickly grazed down the prairies all around the fort, and the camps and the heavy smell of horse droppings soon became a constant annoyance. A few of the headmen met with the commander of the Long Knives and it was agreed to move the camps a day’s ride southeast to Horse Creek where there was fresh grass.

  The Long Knives pitched a long tent and invited the various headmen to parley. In between the horse racing and trading among the various camps, the leaders from each went to sit under the tent and listen to the white peace talkers harangue. The white peace talkers were surrounded by rows of warriors from the different tribes but it was the headmen who attracted the most attention. All of them were garbed in their finest feather bonnets and their keenly decorated shirts made from elk, deer, mountain goat, and big horn sheep hides. Such a colorful or powerful assortment of leaders had never before gathered together.

  It was mainly the forbearance of the old men leaders that kept the large gathering in order, for such a thing was not without its problems. The promised gifts were late in arriving, but the chief complaint was the lack of interpreters available to translate the peace talkers’ words into nine other languages. Delegations from the different tribes could not all clearly understand and agree on the intentions of the whites, but they could all agree that the white peace talkers seemed to be confused.

  Yet as the various people talked among themselves and sent messengers from one camp to another, they arrived at the consensus that the whites wanted three things. First, they wanted no more fighting among the people gathered. The Blackfeet and the Crow were called upon to live in peace with the Lakota and the Lakota were in turn to live in peace with the Snakes, and so on. (Tell the wind to stop blowing, some reacted, or the rivers to stop flowing.) Second, the whites seemed to want to say where the land ended and where it began by drawing a picture on a parched hide. Beyond a certain line was Crow land and behind it was Blackfeet, but who could find that line on the earth? some wondered. Third, the travelers on the Shell River trail must not be molested, they said, for they were traveling under the protection of the “great father” who lived in some city far to the east of the Grandfather River. The “great father” would know if his - people on the trail were harmed. The trail must be holy in some fashion, suggested an old Lakota man wryly. Thereafter, the Shell River trail became known as the “Holy Road.”

  For agreeing to these three things, the peace talkers said, the “great father” was empowering them to pay annuities4 that amounted to many, many thousands of their money in dollars. The annuities would be in the form of food (beef cattle, flour, and beans, for starters), and various other goods, such as plows, hoes, and other farm implements. There were many raised eyebrows and helpless shrugs at the listing of the “other goods,” but in the end they were accepted. Those who had seen such goods before described how they had melted down metal implements for lance points, arrowheads, and knives.

  The feasting and dancing and talking went on for days. Through it all, the solemn-faced, bearded white peace talkers acted like stern fathers while their Long Knife soldiers paraded around in lines and strange squares. To show their power, they fired one of their big guns mounted on a short wagon, the shell tearing up the ground and shattering trees. It was an impressive weapon, powerful and loud. But in between the loading of it, some fighting men observed, several good men on fast horses - could charge a small contingent of soldiers and wipe them out.

  Wagons filled with the promised gifts finally arrived: glass beads, small hand mirrors, butcher knives, blankets, and rolls of cloth, among other things—trinkets intended to soften the hearts of opposition. The old men leaders watched as their names were made in ink at the bottom of a paper with a feather marker. The paper held the words the peace talkers said were forever binding, once all the headmen from the various tribes touched the marker making their names.

  At first the camps began to leave in scattered groups as lodges were struck and columns of people with their horses pulling drag poles disappeared over the horizons around Horse Creek. But soon enough, hundreds of drag poles raised dust. And once more, only Lakota lodges dotted the plains around the island of whites at Fort Laramie and the lines of wagons.

  In time, the Blackfeet again raided the Crow, who, of course, had to retaliate. The Lakota raided Snake territory, and thus, the first condition of the binding paper of the Horse Creek Council was obliterated by the powerful winds of long-standing tradition. Try as they might, no one, not the Blackfeet nor the Lakota nor the Mandans nor anyone else, could ever find a line on the earth that showed where their lands ended and someone else’s began. It was always a mystery.

  As for the Holy Road, young Lakota men stood back and watched as the wagons pulled by oxen or mules slowly creaked into Fort Laramie, took on more supplies, and creaked off to the west to some unknown place close to the setting sun. The peace talkers had said the wagons needed no more space than the width of their wheels, but the trail—the Holy Road—had more than one line
of ruts because the wagons made new ruts each summer. The wagon ruts began to spread to several wagons wide. They lined the hills still, some of the young men watching with a growing anger at this strange intrusion into their lands and their lives, an uneasy feeling growing in the small of their backs. Some grumbled that it would not be difficult to gather enough warriors to turn back the wagons at the edge of Lakota lands to the east near where the Blue Water River flowed into the Shell. Then there would be no worry about how wide the wagons or ruts were then, and the land could begin to heal itself, and the buffalo would return to water in the Shell and graze along its banks. But, the old warriors counseled, remember the Kiowa and our Sicangu relatives and the sickness that killed thousands of them. How close does one have to be to the wagon people to catch one of their sicknesses? So beneath dark, angry scowls dozens and dozens of warriors watched the line of plodding wagons, keeping their hands on their weapons. The white men and their bullets they could confront, but the sicknesses that caused strong men to take to their deathbeds in a matter of days was another matter. So, for the most part, the wagons and their occupants plodded along unmolested, not because of words on a paper or the power of a “great father” but because of the fear of sickness.

  Fort Laramie and the Holy Road were part of Lakota life—bothersome realities that left wise old people scratching their heads and wondering how that had come to be. Perhaps when the people in the wagons had all arrived someplace in the west there would be no more Holy Road. No more Holy Road and no more need for Fort Laramie. It was a fool’s hope, some said. The whites won’t go away of their own accord. It was a fearful thought Lone Bear and Light Hair heard many old men utter, as if they had tasted spoiled annuity meat. In time they would see firsthand how prophetic those fears were.