by John Foxjohn
A long pause followed while both remained alone with their thoughts. Hand knew how many white people lived in the east, and more arrived from across the ocean.
Hand startled when Crazy Horse spoke.
“See Hand, they have lied to us.”
“What do you mean?”
“They have brought us together…at Fort Laramie to talk peace, but while we’re talking, they’re bringing in…more soldiers. They’re going to get what they want no matter what.”
“What’re we going to do?”
“We’re going back to camp…to warn our people.”
* * * *
Later that night, Hand and Cat strolled to Worm’s lodge. Now large with child, she glowed like a ripe plum—more beautiful than before.
The two seated themselves in the lodge and refused the offer of food. Scratching on the tent stopped the banter between Little Hawk and Crazy Horse. Little Hawk, furious that they wouldn’t let him go to the council, had become angrier at his older brother’s teasing.
Mans Afraid stepped into the lodge when Worm called to enter.
“Ayiee, my friend, welcome to my lodge. Have a seat,” Worm said, motioning toward the seat of honor.
“Thank you,” Mans Afraid said.
“Would you like something to eat?” Worm asked.
“That’s kind of you, but I’ve already eaten.”
“You appear troubled this evening.”
“Ayiee. I’ve come to speak to Crazy Horse.”
“Would you like for us to leave the lodge so you can speak in private?” Worm asked.
“No. This is your lodge and I wouldn’t put you out. It’s not private. It’s a favor that I would ask of him.”
Crazy Horse spoke for the first time. “You’re my hunka…also my teacher and friend. It would be a great honor to do Mans Afraid a favor.”
“Thank you. I’ve decided to go to the council with Red Cloud.”
No one knew what to say to this unexpected news.
“You think going to the council…will do any good?”
“No. I think as you do. It’ll be a waste of time.”
“Why go?”
“I go because I think it’s best for the Hunkpatilia. I don’t want Red Cloud there by himself speaking for our people.”
“Ayiee,” Worm said. “You don’t trust him either.”
“No. I don’t trust Red Cloud to speak. I believe what he says is true. We have to stop the white man now before they take everything. But I can’t leave something this important to Red Cloud.”
“What’s your favor?” Crazy Horse asked.
“I’d like for you to go with me. I may need someone to watch over me among these white men, and I can’t trust the Bad Faces.”
Silence ensued as Crazy Horse stared into the fire, his hands busy trimming an arrow shaft. “I think it’s a waste of our time…to go to this meeting. We need to be putting…up winter meat, for it’ll be a cold one. If we don’t…get it done, the people…will suffer, but it’s a great honor for you…to ask me to go with you.”
“You’ll go?” Mans Afraid asked.
“Yes. How could I refuse you…on this?”
Mans Afraid rose to leave. “It’s good of you to go, and thank you.” Mans Afraid looked at Worm. “We have done well in our teachings of this young man. I foresee a time when the name Crazy Horse will echo through these great hunting grounds of ours.”
* * * *
Under an overcast sky and a drizzle of rain, the warriors left for Fort Laramie the next morning. The trip wouldn’t take long since the women, children and lodges stayed behind. Crazy Horse let Little Hawk, Lone Bear, and Hand go too, but with a strong warning to Little Hawk. “You’ll let the leaders do all the talking or take whatever actions they’re going to take. You’ll say nothing and do nothing, or you stay here.”
Little Hawk agreed, but he didn’t like it. He liked the idea of staying back even less.
After setting up a crude camp outside Fort Laramie as the sun descended the next day, Hand sat outside with Crazy Horse as other Indians arrived—more than he’d ever seen in his life. Spotted Tail made the circle trying to talk everyone into signing the treaty and living in peace. Hand found this strange since he was Crazy Horse’s uncle, and he said so.
“He used to be great among our people,” spat Little Hawk. “He is an old woman who wants to live in the shadows of the whites. He is scared of them.”
Hand turned to Crazy Horse, who had not said anything. “Why does Spotted Tail want peace so bad? Can he not see the whites lie to us?”
This brought a laugh from all at the fire.
“You forget, Hand, you’re white, too,” Lone Bear said.
“I might have been born white, but I’m a Lakota now. At least I know how to keep my loin cloth up,” Hand said.
Crazy Horse and Little Hawk laughed as Lone Bear faked anger.
“He got you with that one,” Little Hawk said through the laughter.
“Hey, that wasn’t funny,” Lone Bear said, but he laughed, too.
After the banter settled down, Crazy Horse said, “It’s true…that Spotted Tail was once a great warrior, but his daughter’s spirit…was taken over by the white man. The white man baptized her…in their water, and she’d even considered marrying a soldier, but she died…of the white man’s coughing sickness. Before she died, she made Spotted Tail promise…he’d bury her at the white man’s fort…and live in peace with them. He kept his promise.”
Without a cloud in the sky, the next morning was clear and bright and Hand realized a hot day awaited them. White people stood around, gawking, whispering. Many women and children stood on balconies. Hand’s gazed fixed on a girl standing between a man and woman. Sunlight sparkled off her gold hair. He frowned as his gaze shifted from the girl to the man, and back to the girl who stared at him. He glanced away, telling himself that she wasn’t looking at him. When he glanced back over his shoulder, they locked eyes and a frown creased her forehead. She said something to the man next to her and pointed, but he shook his head.
Hand adjusted himself on his horse. He didn’t know any white people. No white person would recognize him. He decided she must have been curious because he looked white with his blue eyes and his size, but she did look familiar to him—her father, too.
A wooden platform full of chairs diverted his attention. White agents from Washington sat watching the Indians gather. They believed their task easy. Military leaders had told them the Indians were ready to sign the treaty and live in peace.
Through an interpreter, one of the older white men spoke to the gathering about all the presents that they would give, and if the Indians needed anything, all they had to do was to come to Fort Laramie to get it. All they asked of the Indians, allow the whites to travel through the country peacefully on the Holy Road they called the Bozeman Trail.
A small group of soldiers rode up, interrupting the white man’s talk. After dismounting, a small soldier strode forward and handed a paper to the white man who had been speaking.
“This is good news,” the peace man said to all through the interpreter. “This is Colonel Carrington, and he has arrived from the Great White Father to build three forts along the Bozeman Trail to protect it and you. Do you want to say anything to our Indian brothers, Colonel?”
Before the white chief could speak, Red Cloud leaped to his feet. “Lies. All this is lies the white man wants us to believe. They send us presents and ask us to sign the peace treaty, to give them the Holy Road, but they don’t wait until we say yes or no.” Red Cloud spat the words like they left a bad taste in his mouth. “He sends this little soldier chief to take the road from us if we don’t sign. We can’t believe these people. If we don’t sign, they’ll try to take it.”
The soldier had a stunned look as if he thought they’d already signed the peace treaty.
Mans Afraid jumped up with Red Cloud. “I have eyes and ears,” he yelled, his face turning crimson with anger. “Our people aren’t stupid
. We can see the lies. We can hear the lies. Before this day, we heard and saw nothing of the forts and the coming of the soldiers. Yet here we sit, waiting, watching the white man’s tongue wave like a snake with his lies. We should be hunting and putting away meat for the winter. It’ll be a long winter, this one, for us and all the white soldiers.”
Red Cloud turned to the gathered warriors. “Can you see the white man’s trickery?”
“Hoye. Hoye.” The chant went up.
Red Cloud’s chest heaved and his face flushed with anger. “It’s plain to see what they’re doing here, and if we sit back and let them, we deserve what we get.”
Red Cloud turned to the stunned white men on the platform. Now, many of them trembled with fear. Soldiers started to move closer, and Hand saw Crazy Horse move to protect Mans Afraid. He had a robe on with his hands inside, and Hand knew Crazy Horse had a gun. Many of the warriors had their hands inside their robes. Hand put his in too, and caught the stock of the rifle. Crazy Horse hadn’t asked him, but Hand would protect him while he protected Mans Afraid.
Red Cloud spoke to the government white man, ignoring the soldier chief. “We won’t allow these soldiers to build their forts on the Holy Road.” Every word he spoke, spittle formed at the corners of his mouth. The words spewed out of Red Cloud’s mouth in short, sharp barks.
Mans Afraid stepped up again with venom in his words. “You have heard what Red Cloud has said. I, Mans Afraid of his Horses, give you this solemn promise. Before three moons pass, we’ll run off all your horses and those small funny looking buffalo you bring with you. We’ll take your scalps one by one or a hundred at a time. This is my land and I’ll die to keep it, but many of you will die too. I have spoken.”
* * * *
On a hill overlooking Peno Creek, Crazy Horse, Hand, He Dog, Little Hawk, and Lone Bear watched soldiers unload logs to build their big lodges.
“Do you really think they intend to build it here?” asked He Dog.
“Looks that way,” replied Crazy Horse.
“It sure is a dumb place to put a fort,” Hand said.
Everyone glanced at him, and it embarrassed him that he’d spoken up.
“Why is that?” asked Lone Bear.
Crazy Horse must have seen his uneasiness, because he answered for him. “Hand is…right. Look. They build the fort in the low valley…with hills all around. They’re also a long way from the wood…they’ll have to cut for the fort and to warm themselves. They’ll have to send parties out…to do this. This is what we can hit.”
“Ayiee.” cried Little Hawk. “Let us hit them.”
“No,” Crazy Horse said. There aren’t enough of us.”
“But we could catch them by surprise.”
Crazy Horse looked down and slowly shook his head. Everyone looked at the scenery, and not at Little Hawk.
Hand hated to see the day when Little Hawk led his own raid. He was too impulsive. He would attack the two hundred whites in the fort with just the five Lakota. How could they catch that many by surprise?
“No,” Crazy Horse said at last. “There are too many…for us, but I do have a plan.”
“What plan?” asked He Dog.
“You’ll see. Hand gave me the idea.”
“I gave you a plan?”
“What is it?” asked Little Hawk.
“You’ll see,” was all he’d say.
The group rode east away from the fort for several hours and crossed the Holy Road. As they rode to the tree line butting up against the white man’s talking wire, Crazy Horse stopped and brought out a couple of long lengths of rope. When he threw them over the wire that ran from pole to pole, He Dog asked, “What’re you doing?”
“Getting ready to kill some soldiers,” Crazy Horse said.
Hand knew what he had planned. This was why Crazy Horse asked him the question about the telegraph.
“Little Hawk, get a hold of this rope,” Crazy Horse said. “Lone Bear, you take this one.”
Little Hawk tilted his head. “What do we do with them?”
“Tear down the wire.”
Both boys took off and the wires broke like snapping fingers.
“OK, how is this going to help us kill soldiers?” asked He Dog.
“You tell them, Hand.”
“The soldiers will come to repair the wire.”
“Really?” asked He Dog.
“Yep. They won’t know why the wire is down, but they’ll need to repair it. They won’t be suspecting a trap.”
Time dragged by as they waited in the bushes close to the downed wire that night, and into early morning, but no one showed up. When the sun reached three hands over the horizon, He Dog, who had been watching, raced back. “Here they come.”
“How many soldiers?” asked Crazy Horse.
“There are ten soldiers and two other white men driving one of the big, slow wagons.”
“It’s good, let’s…hit ’em.”
“Ayiee,” everyone cried, ready for the attack.
“Hoyhe,” cried Crazy Horse, “it’s a good day to die.”
The wagon bumping over the rough trail and the creak of leather warned the waiting Indians of the closeness of the whites. They looked at the wires and did not pay attention to their surroundings.
Soldiers outnumbered them two to one, but the ambushers could take them by surprise.
Crazy Horse set up the ambush perfectly. With the broken wires hidden until the wagon turned the corner in the trail, the soldiers would be in the center of the ambush before they saw the wires. Hand hoped they stayed bunched up.
Crazy Horse fired the first shot, taking out the officer who acted as if he was in charge, and the rest fired soon after. Caught off guard, only one of the soldiers got off a shot. One in the far rear fired, but He Dog charged, swinging his axe, and almost took his head off.
Crazy Horse didn’t care about the wagon’s plunder. He wanted to kill whites, not take plunder or scalps.
It wasn’t the first time Hand wondered why his brother had saved his life instead of killing him. He’d meant to ask him many times, but Crazy Horse didn’t respond well to direct questions. If he didn’t want to answer, he responded with silence.
Without many spoils, they did find a couple of interesting articles in one of the soldiers’ bags. This was the first time the Indians had seen themselves in mirrors. Not interested, Crazy Horse continued to examine the guns while the other boys passed the mirrors around, laughing, making faces.
The mirrors bothered Hand—something his father had told him. The thought stuck in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t get it out. As one of the mirrors flashed the sunlight in his eyes, it clicked—signals. Soldiers had used mirrors to signal in the war his father fought against the Mexicans. If they could do it, why couldn’t his own people?
After Hand explained the signal mirror concept to Crazy Horse, Little Hawk and Lone Bear didn’t think much of the idea, but Crazy Horse did.
“We’ll explain this to Mans Afraid…and make up our own signal codes. This should help us…keep track of what the white man is doing.
* * * *
After setting up camp on the Tongue River, Red Cloud sent messengers to all the friendly Indians, and the camp swelled with people. Most believed as the Hunkpatilia, that they had to run the whites out of the country now or like the chokeberry bushes, they’d take over.
As usual, the leaders held a huge council. “So far all we’ve done is small raids on the white soldiers,” Red Cloud said. “Now, we all agree that we need to have one big battle with them to drive them from our hunting grounds. I’ve spoken with many of our leaders and it’s agreed we need to lure the soldiers out of the fort—a lot of them—so we can kill them all.”
“When we hit their slow wagons,” Mans Afraid said, “they always send out soldiers for protection. If we send decoys to hit the slow wagons, get the soldiers to chase them, we may be able to kill many at once.”
“Ayiee. That sounds good,” Black
Shield of the Miniconjous said. “We’re ready to fight together.”
Cheers rang out from the warriors at the council.
Roman Nose of the Cheyenne rose to speak. “One big battle and we’ll never need to fight the white man again,” his voice rose in the big lodge.
Cheers reverberated in the lodge, “Let’s drive the white man from our land.”
Hand listened to this talk. He had a wife and a child to consider and believed that the Lakota way of life was better to raise a child. But this talk of one battle to end the war worried him. They didn’t know how many white men would come. They also didn’t understand the white man’s way of thinking. It hadn’t taken him long to realize the Indian thought in terms of a battle—the whites in terms of campaigns. He remembered Mr. Thule saying this. They also had not seen the great weapons the whites had.
Red Cloud rose to speak but waited until all the cheers had died down. His voice cracked like a rifle shot on a cold morning and sent chills down Hand’s spine. “The first day after the next full moon we’ll lay an ambush with all our warriors, attack their slow wagons and lure them to their death.”
Black Shield stood. “Who among us will get the honor of leading the decoys to bring the soldiers into our trap?”
Excited talk circulated around the council, but all voices stopped when Mans Afraid rose. “Brothers,” his voice rang out like the white man’s hammer on steel. “There is but one among us who should be given this great honor.”
Hump stood. “I agree with Mans Afraid. He should lead the decoys.”
A great cheer went up. Not a single warrior held everyone’s respect like old Mans Afraid of his Horses.
Mans Afraid raised his hand for quiet. “I’m thrilled you would want to give me this great honor, but I wasn’t speaking for myself. In my younger days, this would be good, but my bones are tired and this will need a younger man.”
“Who is better qualified than you?” asked Hump.
“Yes,” agreed Red Cloud, “none is braver than Mans Afraid.”
“There is another among us who should lead these decoys—his bravery and daring drive all of us.”
He pointed at Crazy Horse, “He shall lead the decoys, lead the soldiers to their deaths.” Crazy Horse, who sat in the back, dropped his head, as cheers and chants of “Crazy Horse, Crazy Horse,” echoed throughout the council lodge.