Greasy Grass

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “Stop acting recklessly, Custer,” General Terry snapped. “Don’t make me sorry, sir, that I helped the president change his mind and let you join this expedition. Without my intervention, you wouldn’t be here at all.”

  Tears filled my brother’s eyes, and suddenly I no longer felt the joy of vengeance. I felt bile. Shame. Anger for this pencil-pushing commander with the audacity to chastise my brother. General Terry had no business leading this campaign. Autie was the Indian fighter. Autie was the hero. Autie was the bravest man I ever knew.

  “General Terry,” Custer said mildly, “with your permission, I will remain with, and exercise command of, the main portion of the regiment. For the rest of the campaign.”

  “Don’t forget that, Custer.” The general saluted, and returned to his tent.

  Tom and I followed Autie to his.

  “That Terry,” I said, quietly defending my brother, “has a highly exalted opinion of himself.”

  This campaign had three prongs. The Wyoming Column, commanded by General George Crook, marched north from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming Territory. The Montana Column, led by Colonel John Gibbon, came east from Fort Ellis near Bozeman. Heading westward came us, the Dakota Column, commanded by General Terry when it should have been led by Autie.

  Tom opened a flask, and drank. Autie sat on his bunk, scratching the ears of one of his hounds, while, outside, Autie’s striker, quiet, dumb but loyal Private John Burkman, prepared our supper.

  “Don’t be hard on Terry,” Autie said.

  “But you should be leading this campaign,” I countered. “Not him. If you were in command, this campaign would be a success. Of that I am certain.”

  “If not for the general,” Autie said, “I would be at Fort Lincoln, writing orders of the day, sitting at a desk, bored beyond my senses.”

  I knew what he meant. President Grant, who despised my brother, had relieved Autie of his command, citing this lame excuse that Autie had left Washington, DC, without permission of the president or General Sherman. In reality, our president was smarting over the fact that Autie had the courage and integrity to testify before the Senate and condemn Secretary of War William Belknap and those rascals and cheats who call themselves Indian and army traders. Autie, as honest as George Washington, had joined the myriad voices attacking the president and his corrupt regime.

  So Grant, a bitter, vindictive man, knew how to hurt my brother the most. He would not allow him to accompany his command on its greatest campaign.

  On the way back to Dakota Territory, Autie stopped in St. Paul to plead, with tear-filled eyes, with General Terry. Knowing Autie to be the best—the only, I dare say—man to lead this expedition, General Terry gladly helped Custer write a note of contrition to our steaming president. The last words of that letter, however, came directly and solely from Autie:

  “I appeal to you as a soldier to spare me the humiliation of seeing my regiment march to meet the enemy and I not share in its dangers.”

  Chapter Two

  Sitting Bull

  Before I came into this world, I knew my destiny: To be a wicasa wakan, a holy man, to guide the Lakota people. While still in my mother’s insides, I saw what was happening. I saw the spotted death that killed my people. I saw our sacred hills, Paha Sapa, saw the eagle sitting on the rocks high above the blue lake. I heard the eagle sing to me:

  My father has given me this nation;

  In protecting them I have a hard time.

  I saw the tatanka and the pte, the great shaggy beasts that give us life, that covered the land like grass. I saw them slowly disappear.

  I saw the People of the Buffalo Nation dying.

  And I saw the wasicus, those strange pale eyes. I saw Mila Hanska, the bluecoats who slash and kill with their long knives.

  I saw many of my own people leaving the freedom of the Buffalo Nation, to live among the wasicus, to do as the wasicus tell them to do. To abandon Wakan Tanka.

  More than forty-five summers have passed since, and I have traveled far. I have seen these things I saw before I was born come true. Now I have been asked to see again.

  To other Lakota bands, and our Sahiyela allies, I have sent word. We must talk about the wasicus, those white eyes who keep coming into Lakota land. This spring, the Lakotas and our friends have come, first to the Chalk Buttes, then to Ash Creek. A few in number in the beginning, but like grasshoppers and rabbits, those numbers grew. Two hundred. Five hundred. One thousand. Five thousand. Now six thousand. More arrive each day.

  It is good.

  Even in dark days, it is good to see friends. It is good to be part of the Buffalo Nation. It is good to sing songs.

  They have asked for the Wiwanyang Wacipi. The Sun Dance.

  This Sun Dance is held maybe during the Thunder Moon, or the Moon of Black Cherries, but in these days of uncertainty, the People have asked me to do it now, during the Moon of Green Leaves.

  It is right.

  It is good.

  I sit on a buffalo robe and lean against the sacred tree. To Wakan Tanka I have promised a scarlet blanket, so Jumping Bull comes to my side, awl in hand. Above my left wrist, he begins to cut and slice and carve, up to my shoulder. Fifty times he does this, and now my arm flows red. I raise my head, and pray to Wakan Tanka.

  I pray for peace. Not just peace for the People, but peace for all, even the Long Knives, even our enemy the Crows.

  I sing out for food, so our babies do not grow hungry, so that our old women and old men have full bellies.

  I cry out that all we want is to live undisturbed.

  Jumping Bull has moved to my right arm, and his awl cuts away my flesh, my gift to Wakan Tanka. I feel nothing but the blood flowing down to my fingers, dripping onto the hide. A sage wreath has been placed over my head.

  When my prayer is finished, I stand.

  As I stare into the sky, the sun blinds me. I begin to dance.

  Day becomes dark.

  I dance.

  I hear the song of the whistle.

  I dance.

  Night brings cold.

  I dance.

  Dawn arrives.

  Still I dance.

  The sun becomes blistering.

  I dance. Then … then … I see …

  The sky has been clear blue, but now comes this white cloud, large, fluffy, like the tail of a doe. In this cloud, I see the lodges of the Lakotas. No, no, the cloud is made of many Lakota lodges. It is a village. A large village. Mountains, with snow still on their peaks, guard one side of this encampment to the west.

  Now, I see something else, coming from the rising sun, a brown stain on the sky. The dust of a storm of stinging sand borne by the wind. It moves at great speed, and I find myself caught in the middle, covering my eyes from the blinding sand, tasting the grit, and hearing … hearing …

  The whinnies of horses … the pounding of hoofs … the rattling of the armaments of Mila Hanska.

  This is no dust storm. It is the dust from hundreds of charging horses.

  I hear the People singing, “The Long Knives are coming! The Long Knives are coming!”

  The dust cloud roars past me, and, turning, I watch as it charges for the white cloud, charges for the village of the Lakotas.

  With a deafening crash, the brown cloud smashes into the large white one. Lightning flashes, blinding me. Thunder rumbles. Rain blasts my face. I open my eyes to see.

  The white cloud stands as it has, but the brown cloud has vanished, washed away everything, cloud, dust, soldiers, horses, all gone.

  My eyes close. I hear the sounds of hoofs again.

  Again, I open my eyes to see.

  This is clearer. The sun is high, bright, burning. Long Knives, but armed with firearms and not their silver knives, gallop on their horses. There are many, many bluecoats. Some Indians ride with them, not Lako
tas or Sahiyelas, but wolves for bluecoats.

  They are not on the ground. They ride in the air. Then they fall, dropping like locusts, falling upside down into the village.

  A voice whispers to me, “These soldiers have no ears.”

  My eyes close.

  When they open, I feel the pain in my arms at last.

  The scene now before me is blurry. Water trickles onto my face, onto my parched tongue. I blink. I see a face. Another. Jumping Bull asks if I am all right. Someone rubs grease onto my arm wounds. Black Moon bends his ears close to my mouth.

  “I have had a vision,” I tell him.

  * * * * *

  After I drink water, after my wounds have been treated, after we have all smoked a pipe, I tell Black Moon, Jumping Bull, Crazy Horse, and the others what I have seen. I tell them what it means.

  “The Long Knives will come from the east. They will not listen, for their ears have been cut off, so we must teach them a lesson. The People of the Buffalo Nation will be victorious.”

  Excitedly they shout out to all what I have seen, what it means. Yet another voice reaches me, something I heard in my vision but until now have forgotten.

  “Wait!” I yell. “There is more. It is a warning. The People will defeat the Long Knives, but we must not take anything from the dead. Anything belonging to a dead wasicu must stay. It is wrong for the People to take the things the wasicus use. We must not claim the spoils. We must not claim any spoils.”

  I yell this again. I rise, hurry to Black Moon, I tell him this is a warning from Wakan Tanka. Nodding, he walks away, but soon stops, slapping a jubilant Sahiyela warrior on the back, smiling, joking, already preparing victory songs. Others dance.

  I yell for them to hear me, but they dance and sing, joyous to learn of the great victory that is to come.

  My head drops. My heart feels heavy.

  Sometimes, the brave warriors of the People of the Buffalo Nation have no ears, either.

  Chapter Three

  Red Cloud

  I am Lakota.

  My eyes do not see as once they did, for I have grown old. I would like to see more clearly into the eyes of the bluecoat wasicu who sits in this dark cabin with the government man. I would like to be able to look into his eyes, to see if he speaks the truth. It does not matter. I do not need to see his eyes.

  “As I have told the man in your great city to the east,” I say, “I have been wronged. This I know. The words of the Great Father never reach me, however, and my words never reach the Great Father. So why do we persist in talking? There are too many streams to cross before my words reach the Great Father.”

  The man who smells, scratches, and spits speaks my words to the Long Knife and the agent. I wonder if he tells them what I have said, or what he thinks the wasicus want to hear me say. Once, wasicus and I spoke with our hands, but my eyes no longer read the signs very well.

  It is difficult to be an old man. By the measures of the wasicus, I am not even that old, but living as a Lakota … well … I have lived a long time. I have fought in eighty battles. I have led my people. I have tried to live the Lakota way.

  The bluecoat starts to say something, but I raise my right hand, and he does not speak. “Have you looked around this a-gen-cy?” I speak the wasicu word “agency.” It is one of the few wasicu words that I know.

  My words are again spoken in the wasicu tongue. The bluecoat nods. He is younger than the last bluecoat to visit me only one moon ago. That wasicu I gave the name, Gray Fox. Others call him Three Stars. To the wasicus, he is Crook. A funny name for that wasicu, for he seems to me to be one of the few Long Knives who I can trust, who speaks plainly, who speaks words of truth, and wisdom. Yet even Gray Fox had foolish ideas. He came to this agency, this place where I have lived at peace with the wasicus for many summers, to ask Lakotas to serve as wolves for Mila Hanska. To help track down the Lakotas who do not live in the agency, who do not want peace with the wasicus, who merely want to be left alone.

  Gray Fox left without any Lakotas. The only person—other than the treacherous Arikarees and Crows—who joined Mila Hanska was the wasicun sapa who took a Hunkpapa woman for his wife. This black white man, with hair like a buffalo in summer, lived at the Standing Rock Agency far to the north of my agency. It was thought, with his darker skin, that he would remain one of us. But Mila Hanska lured him away with money, this man we call Teat. He did not go with Gray Fox, however. He went with Pehin Hanska. Long Hair.

  Long Hair does not understand our people. Even Gray Fox does not understand the Lakotas. And this bluecoat who speaks to me now? Even though I cannot see his eyes with clearness, I think not.

  He is different than Gray Fox, this bluecoat called Merritt. Gray Fox wore a funny hat and did not dress like a soldier. This one not only wears the blue, and carries a long knife, but sits erect, speaks firmly. He even rides a horse well. Were I a younger man, I would have liked to have raced a horse against him.

  “I do not believe in the ways of Sitting Bull,” I tell the bluecoat, and the agent, Mr. Hastings. “I do not think Crazy Horse is good for our people. But we are all Lakotas. In the end, we desire the same thing.”

  “Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse,” Mr. Hastings says, “are the biggest Sioux problem we have today. They are the worst Indians on these Northern Plains.”

  When the words are translated again into the Lakota tongue, I laugh. “Once,” I tell them, “you called me ‘the biggest Sioux problem.’ Once, I was ‘the worst Indian on the Plains.’”

  These words silence the wasicus for a moment. These words bring back long-forgotten memories to me.

  Six winters ago—no, much longer than that—wasicus built a road through the land of the Lakotas, the land of the Sahiyelas. They put up soldier forts to protect all these strange people heading through Lakota country, wanting to dig up the yellow rocks that make wasicus crazy. This was not right. This was our land. We made marks on papers at Horse Creek, but the wasicus never kept their word. The wasicus have never kept their word. So we fought the wasicus. We defeated Mila Hanska, who were fools. We wiped them out in the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand. The blood of Mila Hanska froze in the snow. All of the wasicus were killed. A dog that had followed the Long Knives was alive for a moment. A Lakota brave, I do not remember who it was, said, “Let the dog take back the story to the Long Knives at the soldier fort,” but the Sahiyela known as Big Rascal yelled, “No, kill the dog. Not even a dog shall be left alive!” So, the dog was shot dead.

  Crazy Horse … that was the fight that earned him much honor among our people. He proved his bravery. He helped lead Mila Hanska to their deaths.

  Yet now, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull, they do not see what the future holds. Their eyes may remain stronger than mine, they may not walk slowly for fear of falling, but they are blind in many ways. We Lakotas must learn to live with the wasicus. To resist them, to fight them, will result in death.

  That is a hard thing for me to admit. It is hard for my people to understand. But these are hard times for the Lakotas.

  “You have seen this agency?” I ask again.

  Again, they nod.

  “My people starve here,” I tell them. “I cannot keep my people here. To starve? To rot? We were promised many things to stay at this agency. What has happened to those promises?”

  “And what of yours?” the bluecoat Merritt asks. “We believe many of your young warriors have gone to join the hostiles. I have heard reports that powder and percussion caps have been found here on the agency. That means that some of your people are working in conjunction with the hostiles. This is not proper. This is not what I would expect from those who follow the great Sioux chief, Red Cloud.”

  It takes a while for the man who stinks, scratches, and spits to say those words to me.

  “I am told that my braves leave the agency,” I answer after a moment’s thou
ght, “to hunt buffalo. So they might have meat to feed their wives, their children. Besides, we are Lakotas. We are hunters. Young men do not want to accept …” I pause, trying to remember the wasicu word, “cha-ri-ty.”

  It is not a lie. That is what I am told. Of course, as I think of something else, I cannot help but smile. That is what I have been asked to be told.

  Before Hastings can say something, my hand raises. Hastings talks—he is not as respectful as the bluecoat—but my voice is louder, and soon he must be quiet and let me finish.

  “Paha Sapa!” I shout. “Paha Sapa!”

  Let them think of that. The Black Hills belong to us, yet the wasicus have invaded our sacred country to search for the yellow rocks, the yellow dust. Now, Mila Hanska let the wasicu invaders stay.

  “You ask me to send word to those free Lakotas. You say that they must come in or you will fight them. You give them a …” again, I speak the wasicu word, “dead-line.” Now, it is my turn to spit into the shiny bowl that the man who stinks, scratches, and spits keeps missing, staining the floor with his nasty brown juice. “Deadline. Long Hair, Gray Fox, even this young Long Knife who sits before me now … even the Great Father … you all knew this could not be done. In the dead of winter? When it would be hard for even a Lakota to find a winter camp? Bring my people in? So they might starve like the rest of us?”

  I have to stop to catch my breath. My heart pounds against my chest. I wish I were not old.

  “You wanted war,” I say after a long while. “Now … soon you will have it.”

  “Gray Fox,” the bluecoat Merritt says, “does not want war. I do not want war.”

  “And Long Hair?” I ask.

  He starts to answer, stops, and shakes his head. “Custer wants what’s good for Custer.”

  The words are translated to me, and I cannot help but think, Sitting Bull wants what’s good for Sitting Bull.