Ration day was visiting time, the chance to see friends and relatives from distant camps. Every family collected the stringy beef, salt pork, coarse flour, brown sugar, and cheap coffee that had to last them for ten days. Then they made pan bread, cooked beef and salt pork in a big pot, and gorged themselves. “That’s how it was in the old days,” Culver observed, chewing on his pipe. “They’d go hungry until they had a successful hunt, then everyone ate all he could hold. Most of these families run out of food and go hungry for a day or two before drawing rations.”
When all were sitting around with full stomachs, Wright came and talked to them through a mixed blood intetpreter. “Like I’ve said many times, all I ask is that you build a cabin and tend an acre or two of corn. We’ll help with the cabin and supply a door, windows, and a cookstove for it.” The intetpreter called the stove a kettle on legs, the Lakota expression for it. “If you plant an acre or two of corn, the government will also give you a wagon and harness for a team, and a sewing machine for your wife.”
Each time, Billy noticed, four or five families accepted the agent’s offer, while other nonprogressives glared at them. Their wives enviously watched the gleeful women receive their sewing machines, then scowled at their husbands. At later ration days Billy saw some of these same nonprogressives agree to build cabins and plant com, while their wives stood by smiling. Wright’s methods were successful, but they aroused the resentment of the die-hard nonprogressives.
Billy watched for Mollie Deer-in-Timber on ration days but seldom saw her, and she rarely accompanied her mother to the trading post. Whenever he thought of her marrying a Wasicun he felt sick. Then he realized that what hurt wasn’t that the man was a Wasicun, but that she was marrying someone else.
In March 1886 Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts introduced a bill for alloting Indian reservations, giving each family 160 acres. Dawes told reporters that in the bill he tried to safeguard the tribes in every way, but it had been changed over his protest. The provision requiring the majority of men in any tribe to approve of allotment before it could be applied to them had been dropped.
“If my land in severalty bill should become law,” Dawes added, “it will depend entirely on the character of the government agents who execute its provisions whether it is a success or failure. If it is entrusted to men of unflinching honesty and broad views, the Indians will be secure in the possession of the best lands of the reservations, but if it is entrusted to dishonest men the Indians will be cheated out of their lands.” That means we’ll be cheated, just like that candy they promised us.
Under the bill, when the President decided to have a reservation surveyed, allotments could be made only to Indians who voluntarily applied for them. But after four years, those who had not applied could be forced to accept allotments. “If that bill ever becomes law and is actually put into effect,” Culver said, “it will be absolute disaster for most tribes. Let’s hope it fails.”
The nonprogressives watched with growing ire as others were rewarded with wagons and sewing machines. The wife of Wooden Knife, a crusty old nonprogressive with a missing front tooth, grumbled about wanting a sewing machine so loudly she finally stirred him to action. That provided a little excitement and broke the monotony of reservation life for a few days. Wooden Knife came to the trading post one day and lisped to Culver, who turned to Billy.
“He needs to talk to the agent and wants an interpreter who won’t twist his words. Go with him and see if you can help him.”
In the agent’s office Billy translated Wooden Knife’s request, while the old warrior stood like a statue, with arms folded and head high. “He says that you should give his wife a sewing machine like other women have.”
“Tell him that if he wants her to have one, he must agree to build a cabin and plant corn like the others have done,” Wright replied, stroking his beard. “When he does that she can have one, not before. That’s the rule. Tell him it’s up to him.”
When Billy relayed this, Wooden Knife was furious. “We’ll get them our own way,” he growled as he stalked out. Billy didn’t translate that remark.
On the next issue day, when most of the Brulés were at the agency as usual, Wooden Knife and his friends rode up.
“Everything in the warehouse belongs to us!” he shouted. “It’s ours for the lands the Wasicuns stole! They can’t make us work for what is ours.”
Those with him shouted “Hau!”
“You interpret for me,” Wooden Knife told Billy. His friends crowded into the agent’s office behind the two. Billy sympathized with Wooden Knife—what he said made sense—but the habit of obedience to white officials drilled into him at Carlisle made him regard the old warrior as wrong and likely to be punished for defying the agent.
Shouting threats, Wooden Knife and his friends backed Wright into a comer while Billy did his best to translate their noisy demands. Wright shook his head. “No!” he thundered.
Yelling “Kill him! Kill him!” Wooden Knife and the others ran out, loudly complaining to anyone within hearing about the bad treatment they’d received from the agent. Crow Dog, the killer of Spotted Tail, took them to his cabin. Billy remained at the agency and didn’t hear what Crow Dog told them, but when they returned late in the afternoon they were still angry.
In the meantime, Wright had summoned the Indian police, and after seeing them and shouting more threats, the troublemakers withdrew. They soon reappeared, this time waving their Winchesters and singing war songs. Realizing they were in a mood for killing, Billy and others ran out of their way. They must have lost their heads—willing to fight over sewing machines. What has happened to the Brulés?
The council hall was soon jammed, with Wooden Knife and his excited warriors on one side, the police and friends of the agent on the other, howling into one another’s faces. Several police elbowed their way through the crowd to the door of the agent’s office. Wright opened it and held up his hand for silence. Finally the shouting ceased, while Wooden Knife bared his remaining teeth and his friends glowered at the agent, menacingly fingering their weapons.
“If anyone wants to speak as a friend,” Wright told them through Billy, “I will listen to him.”
Wooden Knife pounded on the floor with his war club. He shouted that the Great Father had told them if their agent didn’t treat them right they should throw him out, and that was what they had come to do. While Billy translated, a fierce-looking warrior named Eagle Pipe grabbed the agent by one arm and pulled. The police held fast to the other, and Billy feared they would tear Wright apart. Many were shouting “Kill him!” but they waited for someone else to do it. More police struggled to the agent’s side and pushed him through the door into his office and out another door into the yard, with the angry crowd close behind. The police finally escorted Wright to safety. He appeared flustered but not fearful.
The aroused warriors circled the agency, still shouting threats. Finally the chiefs arrived with a band of former Akicita, or tribal soldiers, who were armed with whips and whose authority was still respected. Most of the shouting died down for the moment. Then the crowd broke up into small groups and began quarrelling furiously, all trying to talk at once. A few crowded around the Indian police, shoving and threatening them.
This kept up until sunset, when the warehouse clerk happened by on the way to his cabin. Three of Wooden Knife’s warriors grabbed the frightened clerk and took his keys to the warehouse. Then all rushed to the building, unlocked the door, and in the dark helped themselves to whatever they found. Wooden Knife emerged triumphantly bearing a sewing machine, when the chiefs and the Akicita returned and ordered the crowd to leave. Taking their loot, Wooden Knife and his friends happily departed.
The Brulés called this the “night issue,” for it was the only time that items in the warehouse were ever distributed after dark. Wright treated it as a small matter and made no attempt to recover any of the stolen goods. He merely demanded that Wooden Knife apologize, which he willingly did. To the Tetons at
every agency the night issue was a great event, and after tempers cooled, the Brulés also loved to talk about it. They had manhandled the Great Father’s agent, nearly tearing him to pieces, and they hadn’t been punished. Whenever anyone mentioned the night issue, all roared with laughter. And in the winter count showing the major events of 1886, the bearded agent was depicted as being pulled out of his office.
A few days after the affair Wright came to the trading post, and Billy heard him ask Culver what he thought about it.
“It tells me that although the Brulés appear to be settling down and farming, under the surface they’re seething, ready to explode. If one shot had been fired they might not have stopped until a bunch of whites and Indian police had been killed. Should the government do anything else they consider unjust, like taking their land, there’s likely to be big trouble.” Wright stroked his beard but said nothing. That same year his term ended, and he turned the agency over to George Spencer. Wright’s son George remained as clerk for the new agent.
As the months passed, Billy’s hair grew long enough to tie at the back of his head with a piece of cord. Julian visited him occasionally, but he seemed uncomfortable with anyone whose presence would remind others he had been to Carlisle. Billy tried to convince himself that Julian looked more and more like other Brutes, and that the same transformation must be happening to him. At least Julian’s braids now reached his shoulders and didn’t look so ridiculous. Mollie Deer-in-Timber seldom came to the trading post, but when she did she wasn’t talkative, and Billy felt tongue-tied.
The Dawes bill finally passed, and in February 1887 President Cleveland signed it into law. Nothing more was heard of it for a long time, for no attempt was made to put it into effect among the Sioux.
“Will I ever look enough like a Brulé to satisfy my father?” Billy asked, touching the hair at the back of his neck. “I still don’t feel like a real Brulé, and I wonder if I ever will. The fullbloods ignore me unless they need an intetpreter or someone to write a letter. I doubt if anything will change when my hair reaches my waist.”
Culver removed his pipe from his mouth. “I wish I knew, Billy. Only time will tell. Even though there’s no catpenter work for you, it would be a shame to throw away all you learned and go back to being a blanket Indian. You’re helping by what you do for them, and when you’re older you should be able to do even more. They’ll come to appreciate you for what you know.”
There had been a drouth the previous summer, and the winter had been more severe than any that the oldest warriors could remember. Cattle died by the thousands all over the northern plains, and hundreds of white ranchers were ruined. The Sioux cowboys worked hard to save their cattle and held their losses to thirty percent, less than half the average white losses.
Billy turned eighteen in 1887, and at the agent’s urging chose a place for a cabin near a creek a few miles from the agency. White workmen helped him build a snug one-room cabin of squared pine logs, with door, windows, and cookstove the government supplied. An assistant of the agency fanner plowed an acre of land to be planted with corn. Billy couldn’t look at the cabin without thinking of sharing it with Mollie Deer-in-Timber.
In late spring Billy planted the corn in neat rows, then watched almost eagerly as the green shoots pushed up through the dark earth. A fat progressive named Bull Bear rode by the cornfield one Sunday afternoon while Billy was hoeing weeds between the rows. Bull Bear, who had married two sisters, stopped his pony and looked at Billy with an expression of disapproval on his chubby face.
“It isn’t right for a man to work like a woman. If you were a real Brulé you’d have a wife to do your planting,” he said, then rode on.
Billy leaned on the hoe and stared after Bull Bear. He’s right, of course. I’m still too much Wasicun, and I don’t even realize it. He thought of the rich fields and orchards around Carlisle and remembered the roasting ears he’d eaten in the summers. They’d be a welcome change from the ration issue; he looked forward to harvest time. Every day he gazed up at the cloudless sky hoping for rain.
In mid-July he rode out to check on his corn. His heart sank, for from a distance he saw nothing green. He stopped his pony at the edge of the plot and dismounted. His stunted corn had given up the struggle. He’d blistered his hands keeping down the weeds, and now this. Sick at heart, he glumly walked among the shriveled stalks that rustled pitifully in the hot wind, kicking at the brick-like clods. He wanted to strike out violently, but there was no visible, tangible enemy. Only grass and weeds will grow here. The Wasicuns are making fools of us, telling us to plant corn. That some month Mollie Deer-in-Timber married her white man, an agency employee.
In the fall Billy read that Dawes had introduced a new Sioux land purchase bill. Why doesn ’the leave us alone? We have troubles enough already. Under the new bill each tribe would have its own reservation and the rest of the Great Sioux Reserve would be declared surplus and sold to whites. When a reporter questioned Dawes about his Sioux bill, he replied, “There’s so much pressure in Dakota Territory for Indian land I’m afraid that twenty-five thousand Sioux can’t hold out much longer against five hundred thousand whites. I would rather see them part with enough land to satisfy the Dakotans than to risk losing all.” Billy felt a chill when he read that. Will the Wasicuns ever be satisfied? Or will they keep on until our land is gone and we are no more?
The new Dawes’ bill became law on April 30, 1888. Under it the educational provisions of the 1868 treaty were extended. Each family would be given a wagon, a yoke of oxen, two cows, farm tools and seed, and twenty dollars in cash. Everyone but Dr. Theodore Bland was certain the Sioux would be delighted with such a generous offer. Of all the Indian reformers, Bland was the only one who visited the agencies to learn what the Sioux wanted and needed. The Friends of the Indian ignored him because he disagreed with them, so he had founded the Indian Defense Association and published The Council Fire.
As Billy learned, the trickery of the Edmunds commission, as well as broken treaty promises, had united the Sioux in bitter opposition to any land sale. The squawmen of each band read the papers and alerted the chiefs to the new threat. They worried about the progressives and others who might be persuaded or cajoled into signing the new agreement. “The whites promised rations and clothing when they took our land before,” old Two Strike said. “We don’t need another agreement. And who cares about schools? If they didn’t use the police to round up our children there’d be no schools here.”
When the Brulé chiefs learned that the bill had become law, old Two Strike came to the trading post. “You can write like the Wasicuns?” he asked Billy.
“Yes.”
“Write to Grass at Standing Rock and Big Foot at Cheyenne River for me. Tell them to bring the chiefs and headmen here to decide what we must do to keep our lands.” Billy wrote the letters, and before long delegations from other agencies began arriving at Rosebud. The Brulés were so excited at the coming of famous chiefs and warriors from other Teton tribes they abandoned their farms and hung around Rosebud to watch and listen. The chiefs held council to decide on the steps all should take to block the commission. Agent Spencer repeatedly urged them to return to their farms, and finally sent the police to break up the council. The chiefs simply rode off to distant camps and continued their talks.
“What can I do to make them get back to work?” Spencer asked Culver, stamping his foot in frustration.
“The word I get is that there’s great excitement at all the agencies,” Culver replied, puffing on his pipe. “No one else is doing any farming, so don’t worry about it. There’s nothing you can do anyway. They’ve been expecting another land grab attempt, and now that it’s on the way they’re naturally up in arms about it. My advice is to leave them alone.”
The chiefs agreed they would simply say no to the land sale and refuse to discuss it, then they returned to their agencies. “I’ve never seen the Sioux so determined,” Culver said. “I wonder if they can hang together.”
“I hope so,” Billy said. “We’ll soon know, I guess.”
“Look at this,” Billy said a few weeks later, tapping the paper he was reading. “The Friends of the Indian say that Captain Pratt is the ideal man to head the commission to persuade his friends the Sioux to sign the agreement. His friends the Sioux!” Billy’s voice was almost shrill. “And he’s actually been appointed. Wait till they see how many friends he has here.” He put down the paper. “What do you think will happen?” he asked, looking worried.
“United the Sioux can hold out a while longer, maybe a few more years at most. If the government would ever admit that they can support themselves only by raising cattle, it would be clear they need most of the Reserve for range. But if it ignores that and sets aside just enough land to provide a farm for each family, it will feel justified in taking the rest, one way or another, like it took the Black Hills.”
Thinking of the thousands of whites in the East, Billy knew the Sioux were helpless. There’s no hope for us. The Wasicuns are determined to take our land and destroy us. I’ll never see my father.
Chapter Five
Snaggle-toothed Joe Smith brought Culver a note one day. He read it, then beckoned to Billy. “It’s from Spencer. He says there’ll be a flock of reporters at Standing Rock, which is the commission’s first stop, and they want to hire the best interpreters from each agency. He wants you to go if I can spare you. I can, and it’s a chance for you to earn a little extra money, depending on how long it goes on. You can also see Captain Pratt in action, and tell me all about it. Will you go?”
Billy felt the ends of his hair tied together by a string at the back of his neck, wondering if he would look even sillier with short braids like Julian’s. He thought of watching Pratt browbeating the Hunkpapas into selling their land and then gloating about it, and shook his head. “I couldn’t stand seeing him make them do what he wants. I saw enough of that.” He put his hand on his stomach. “Just the thought of it makes my stomach churn.”
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