Blood Brothers

by Deanne Stillman

  At the time, there was turmoil in the Dakota Territory—although nothing like what would be coming in the next few years. The second Treaty of Fort Laramie, in place since April 29, 1868, and named for the famous army fort in Wyoming where a so-called peace council was held, stated in its essence that the sacred Black Hills would remain in the possession of the Sioux Nation forever. In exchange, the tribes of this nation—the Brule, Oglala, Minneconjou, Yanktonai, Hunkpapa, Blackfeet, Cut Head, Two Kettle, Sans Arcs, Santee, and Arapaho—would agree to move onto reservations. Some natives in attendance at the council refused to sign the treaty, including Sitting Bull, who had spent the spring of that year raiding forts on the upper Missouri. Having his approval was critical to ending the Indian wars. Shortly after the council, General Alfred Sully sent a delegation of Indians who had signed the pact to Sitting Bull’s camp on the Yellowstone River. The group also included a prominent Catholic priest, Father Pierre Jean de Smet, known to the Indians as “Black Robe.” He carried a personal invitation from Sully. At the camp, the men met with Hunkpapa leaders, including Black Moon, Four Horns, Red Horn, No Neck, Crawler, Gall, and Sitting Bull. In response to de Smet’s request for peace, Sitting Bull—a warrior at the age of forty-one—said this:

  I hardly sustain myself beneath the weight of white men’s blood that I have shed. The whites provoked the war; their injustices, their indignities to our families, the cruel, unheard of, and unprovoked massacre at Fort Lyon [Sand Creek] of hundreds of Cheyenne women, children, and old men, shook all the veins which bind and support me. I rose, tomahawk in hand, and I have done all the hurt to the whites that I could.

  Today you are among us, and in your presence my arms stretch to the ground as if dead. I will listen to your good words. And as bad as I have been to the whites, just so good am I ready to become toward them. . . .

  Listen my friend. I have a message for the Grandfather. I do not want anyone to bother my people. I want them to leave in peace. I myself have plans for my people, and if they follow my plans, they will never want. They will never hunger. I wish for traders only, and no soldiers on my reservation. Wakan Tanka gave us this land, and we are at home here. I will not have my people robbed. We can live if we can keep our Black Hills. We do not want to eat from the hand of the Grandfather. We can feed ourselves.

  Later that day, lest his views were somehow unclear, Sitting Bull added some details. He told the visitors that he did not want white men to cut down his tribe’s timber, “especially the oak. I am particularly fond of the little groves of oak trees . . . they endure the wintry storm and the summer’s heat and, not unlike ourselves, seem to thrive and flourish by them.” Each statement was followed by one more emphatic statement, and Sitting Bull’s final remark could not have been more final. Yet there was one more thing he had to say in response to General Sully. “Those forts filled with white soldiers must be abandoned; there is no greater source of trouble and grievance to my people.” And then he suggested to Gall that he go to the council and find out what the white men had to say. “Take no presents,” he added. “We don’t want them. Tell them to move the soldiers out and stop the steamboats; then we can have peace.”

  But to Sitting Bull’s disappointment, Gall signed the treaty, and the steamboats were not stopped. Nor was anything else, including of course the soldiers. Sitting Bull continued his raids, incurring the wrath of one more Civil War veteran, Colonel Regis de Trobriand, now the commander of Fort Stevenson in Dakota Territory, perhaps the first to officially put a price on Sitting Bull’s head, calling him “one of the most dangerous and evil Indians in [the region].” As the frontier wars became more heated in the next few years, this was the sort of language that would be used by various army leaders in their characterization of Sitting Bull, and it was picked up by reporters who restated it in newspapers from the New York Times to lesser known periodicals across the land. To amplify his description and heighten the belief that Sitting Bull was a savage figure who needed to be eliminated, the colonel said that the “Dakota [Territory] has become the theater of his depredations and killings. [Sitting Bull] is bent on vengeance, he has always done us every harm in his power and is the spirit or arm of all the coups attempted or accomplished against us.” To some degree, this was true. Sitting Bull—and Crazy Horse and others—were indeed the spirit of all that the invaders wanted to squelch. They were not backing down, if that can even serve as language that explains the nature of a spirit or path.

  It was into this atmosphere that Grand Duke Alexis and his party were traveling by special train, accompanied by various railroad executives, an official Western Pacific telegrapher, reporters, and Russian and American military luminaries, including General Sheridan. The engine of the train was draped with Russian and American flags, pulling five Pullman cars of the duke’s imperial suite, and two private cars for Sheridan. The procession traveled at about twenty-five miles per hour, not fast, but a good clip for the time. On the evening of January 12, 1872, Alexis invited Sheridan and his party, as well as other prominent travelers aboard, to dine in his car. Sheridan was seated at the duke’s table and according to the Beatrice, Nebraska, Express, a fine Pullman feast was served.

  On the following day, the train arrived at North Platte station at about 7 a.m. After breakfast in the cars, members of the hunting party disembarked. The weather was cool, about 46 degrees, certainly not as brutal as it often was at that time of year—perfect for a winter hunt. They were met by Buffalo Bill. He was the picture of frontier adventure, in his fur-trimmed buckskin suit, accompanied by twenty saddle horses, a cavalry company, and horse-drawn ambulances or carriages. “Your Highness,” General Sheridan said, “this is Mr. Cody, otherwise and universally known as Buffalo Bill. Bill, this is the Grand Duke.”

  “I am glad to know you,” Cody said.

  Alexis and Sheridan took their seats in a four-horse open carriage, and the moment was recorded with much fanfare in newspapers such as the Lincoln Daily State Journal, which announced the morning arrival of the Grand Duke and his party. Later that and other episodes of the adventure were written about by Cody himself. “The whole party [dashed] away towards the south,” he said, “across the South Platte and towards the Medicine, upon reaching which point we halted for a change of horses and a lunch.” Lunch consisted of sandwiches and champagne, after which the celebrated posse resumed its ride, reaching Camp Alexis just before sunset.

  “As we ascended some rising ground,” wrote the New York Herald reporter, “we came in full view of a splendid military camp. The Stars and Stripes were seen flying from a towering flagstaff on a broad plateau. A cheer arose from every member of our party as this scene burst upon our sight. A few moments more and the band of the Second Cavalry was playing the Russian hymn.” The party gathered around a large campfire, and it soon became apparent that not everyone was there. Some important army officials were missing. Had they been waylaid in a skirmish with Indians? That was something that crossed the minds of a few of the hunters. In particular, where was George Armstrong Custer, that other American icon whom Alexis was expecting? Such hunts were really not official without him; he had a long history of not only sport hunting but of hosting hunts with visiting royals. With the possibility of commerce with Russia around the bend, Custer’s presence was critical.

  Just as Sheridan was about to send out a search party, there came the gallant horseman—on foot, carrying his buffalo rifle on his shoulder, striding down the hill, followed by the others. Five miles away, their ambulance had broken down and the men had had to walk to get to camp. It was probably not the way that Alexis had imagined Custer making an entrance—and nor do we think of him on foot today—but no matter; the camp was now ready.

  Camp Alexis itself, for all its splendor, was hastily concocted for the duke’s arrival. According to the trio of authors Douglas D. Scott, Peter Bleed, and Stephen Damm in their book Custer, Cody, and Grand Duke Alexis, it was situated on about four acres of a low grassy plateau at the junction
of Red Willow Creek and one of its small, frozen tributaries. The snow had been removed by a special crew after Cody had scouted the area in advance, selecting the site for a nearby buffalo herd and the ample space provided. The encampment included two hospital tents (used for dining), ten wall tents, and tents for servants and soldiers. Three of the wall tents had flooring, and the duke’s had a carpet. There were box and Sibley stoves inside the hospital and wall tents, along with what a reporter called “an extensive culinary outfit.” The dining area was festooned with flags. Under the dazzling constellations of a clear Great Plains night, the men toasted each other and their enterprise with fine wines, and dined on several courses of local game, including a prairie chicken that had been shot in the head by Custer, to satisfy a request from the Grand Duke to taste the indigenous fowl.

  By today’s standards, Custer would be considered bloodthirsty—and even by yesterday’s. He was known for his hunting prowess, but also for the extensive menagerie of stuffed animals that he had felled—elk, bear, buffalo of course, and numerous other creatures; his voracious hunting appetite was something that some of his colleagues noted, and visitors were sometimes taken aback when they viewed the numerous specimens of caged wildlife at his Kansas headquarters. He was also hard on his horses. While lowering his gun at a buffalo during his first hunt, his horse shied and the bullet hit his horse in the head, killing it instantly and sending Custer into the path of the bull. This became an anecdote for the dinner party circuit—along with numerous other stories of horses that had died in Civil War charges with Custer in the saddle. The hunt with Alexis would provide one more such story for the frontier joke arsenal, involving another ill-fated horse. By contrast, fellow equestrian Buffalo Bill—though known for the vast number of buffalo that he had killed—viewed horses as true partners, much as the Indians did—and in fact the horse, one in particular, would become a critical part of his friendship with Sitting Bull.

  Day one of the hunt, January 14, was the twenty-second birthday of Duke Alexis. Custer, Cody, and Sheridan wanted to provide him with a fitting experience. After all, he had chosen to spend this birthday in America, with the elders of a celebrated hunting and military tribe, and his hosts would make sure that it was one for the Russian history books. Early in the morning, Cody left to scout for buffalo, returning just before ten to report that a herd was about fifteen miles away on the divide between Red Willow and Medicine Creeks. Sheridan wasn’t feeling well and did not hunt that day. Cody, assigned as tutor, gave Alexis a quick lesson in buffalo pursuit, and he was given Buffalo Bill’s famous buffalo horse, Charlie Almost Human, as his mount. When asked about his weapon of preference, Cody explained that the Grand Duke could use either a gun or pistol. For the occasion, Alexis had brought the revolver that he had received at the Smith & Wesson factory, a special gift, crafted with him in mind. It was a Russian model with an engraved and carved pearl grip, sought after to this day on gun forums.

  En route, Custer further instructed Alexis in the way of hunting the buffalo. When the trio reached the herd, Custer charged through, singling out a bull for the Grand Duke, having promised him the first kill. At the right moment, he signaled Alexis, who then rode in and fired his gun—perhaps the Smith & Wesson. But he was firing wildly, Cody later said, so he rode up to Alexis and gave him his “old, reliable Lucretia”—his favorite weapon.

  “I advised him not to fire until he could ride directly upon the flank of a buffalo,” Cody later wrote, “as the sport was most in the chase. We dashed off together and ran our horses on either flank of a large bull, against the side of which the Duke thrust his gun and fired a fatal shot. He was very much elated at his success, taking off his cap and waving it vehemently, at the same time shouting to those who were fully a mile in the rear. When his retinue came up there were congratulations and every one drank to his good health with over-flowing glasses of champagne. The hide of the dead buffalo was carefully removed and dressed, and the royal traveler in his journeying over the world has no doubt often rested himself upon this trophy of his skill on the plains of America.”

  On day two of the hunt, to the delight of the Grand Duke, Spotted Tail and eight Brule warriors joined the hunting party as they had promised Cody before Alexis had arrived. They ranged across fifteen miles of rough terrain to find their quarry, and then killed a total of fifty-six buffalo, including eight by Spotted Tail and his band, who put on their own Wild West show for Alexis. Displaying their hunting methods, they surrounded a herd and—in an act that dazzled onlookers—a warrior named Two Lance shot an arrow straight through a buffalo. Then another Brule, bearing a lance with a one-foot-long steel head, singled out a gigantic bison while racing full speed alongside it, and thrust his lance right through the animal’s heart. “Considerable skill was necessary to apply the momentum of the horse in just the right way to send the stoke home,” Cody later wrote, “it being necessary for the hunter instantly to let go of the lance or be pulled from his steed.”

  As the party returned that evening, they fired their guns in celebration and the camp threw up a cheer. It had been a grand day of hunting, though not without casualties beyond the buffalo. One soldier’s horse had foundered and was led back to camp. And not widely reported was the fact that Custer had ridden his horse so hard that it collapsed and died upon reaching Red Willow.

  Yet the show must go on. There was a sumptuous feast and the men, especially Alexis and Custer, flirted heavily with “red-skinned maidens” as newspaper accounts of the time recorded. Then Spotted Tail and his band of several hundred, bedecked in war paint and feathers, enacted a war dance, with “outlandish contortions and grimaces, leaps and crouchings, their fiendish yells and whoops making up a barbaric jangle of picture and sound not soon to be forgotten,” in the words of Helen Cody Wetmore years later.

  As the evening concluded, Alexis gave the warriors $50 in silver half-dollars, twenty blankets, and a cache of hunting knives with ivory handles. In return, Two Lance presented Alexis with the arrow he had used to fell the buffalo earlier that day.

  The grand finale of the hunt came on the following day. General Sheridan wanted the Grand Duke to have a stagecoach ride. “Shake ’em up a little, Bill,” Sheridan said as the party headed back to the train depot, “give us some old-time driving.” Buffalo Bill cracked the whip, and the horses broke into a run. With a light load to pull, they increased their speed over the divide that led down into the valley of the Medicine. There was no brake and Cody couldn’t stop them. “All I could do,” he said, “was to keep them straight in the track and let them go down the hill, for three miles.” They made it in six minutes, the rear wheels periodically striking a rut and then not touching the ground again for fifteen or twenty feet. “The Duke and the General were kept rather busy in holding their positions on the seats,” Cody said, “and when they saw that I was keeping the horses straight in the road, they seemed to enjoy the dash which we were making. I was unable to stop the team until they ran into the camp where we were to obtain a fresh relay, and there I succeeded in checking them.” The Grand Duke asked Cody to take it easy on the rest of the drive.

  Back at the North Platte station, Alexis invited Buffalo Bill into his private car and showered him with gifts, including a diamond and gold stickpin, a Russian fur coat, and jeweled cuff links and studs. The fanfare at the farewell departure of the Grand Duke was well deserved, for Cody, along with Custer and the U.S. Army, had put on a grand show. But the superstar in the constellation was Cody, as everyone knew, and as the extensive press coverage inscribed. From then on, the stagecoach ride back to the station was an official moment, known as “Shake ’Em Up, Bill.” And it was destined to be enshrined in the Wild West show—a carefully managed event that would be reenacted many times, one of various episodes that when replayed, turned American history into scripture and transformed it into a hall of mirrors.

  With the hunt concluded and the Grand Duke winding up his birthday celebration, the curtain fell on this band of bro
thers. The men dispersed to points west and east, with Custer accompanying Alexis to Colorado for more hunting outside Denver, and Cody heading back east for a possible military commission and the welcoming arms of the nation’s capital. Could the American enterprise have been any more golden? Custer and Cody, standing in for citizens everywhere, dominated a savage terrain and helped advance an alliance with an important new ally, Russia. Their parts had been played well. And behind it all, there was the thing that bonds warriors: secrets had been passed on by way of animal sacrifice and although the killing was wanton, for the buffalo were not eaten or partaken of in a way that honored them, the ritual most certainly drew the men close as they faced off danger and watched the blood flow. Elsewhere, warriors in different garb and skin of another color were waging their own hunts, including Sitting Bull himself, possibly coming upon evidence of the festivities at Camp Alexis and noting that once again after these invaders had moved on, there was so much waste and pointlessness, you see, all these buffalo parts had been left behind, the carcasses had been picked over for souvenirs like hooves and tails and of course their hides, but that was it, not like the way his people engaged with the animal, their life source and spiritual font, and quite possibly he thought yet one more time about what he could do to stop the advancing wasichu.