Lieutenant William Rosecrans said, “Crook kept after him, hammering all the time. Giving Crazy Horse only two choices: fight or surrender. The last of the Sioux fighters have knuckled under to us.”
“I’m not so sure as I was this morning,” Clark admitted as the voices swelled around them and the screaming crowd began pushing in close around the leaders of that long two-mile column. “Crazy Horse may be surrendering the way we want him to surrender, but I’ve got an itch that our troubles with that one are far from over, gentlemen.”
Rosecrans turned to ask, “What do you mean by that, Clark?”
He pursed his lips in reflection, then answered. “I don’t think Crazy Horse sees what he is doing as a surrender. Certainly not the way we regard the surrender of those we have defeated or vanquished.”
“But he’s come in, for Christ’s sake!” argued Lemley. “The man is now under the muzzle of our guns and the glint of our bayonets!”
“Maybe he has complied with what Crook ordered him to do,” Clark said. “But … look there at him now and you’ll see for yourself. Is that the face of a man who is capitulating to those who have vanquished him?”
“No,” agreed Kennington as they all watched the Oglala headmen pass on by the adjutant’s office, where they stood on the narrow porch, out of the midday sun. “That one had all the appearance of a man who has suffered no loss of leadership. Just listen to the hero’s welcome Red Cloud’s people are giving—”
“Damn him!” Clark growled. “These are Red Cloud’s people. And Red Cloud is our leader. It’s plain to see this Johnny-come-lately to the reservation is going to add a dangerous ingredient to the mix here at Red Cloud’s agency.”
Rosecrans turned to look at his fellow officer. “Why, Clark—it sounds as if you’ve already changed your mind about Crazy Horse.”
“No. I made my mind up a long time ago,” he admitted, his eyes narrowing as he glowered at the passing throng. “That Indian killed more of our soldiers than any of his kind. From Fetterman, down through Custer—and even turned back Crook at the Rosebud a year ago June. I’m going to have to get him under our thumb and be quick about it.”
“He could well arouse some war fever,” Kennington replied. “Get their blood running hot again.”
“I think we must disarm them here and now,” Clark asserted. “Without delay.”
Lemley agreed. “By all means. Before Crazy Horse or any of his chiefs come up with any of their own ideas about how things are going to work.”
“Exactly,” and Clark nodded. “I like the way things are right now, the control I have with Red Cloud, how well he listens to the army. I don’t want Crazy Horse upsetting this applecart.” His eyes searched the civilian bystanders, and found the half-breed. “Billy!” he cried over the tumult.
Garnett wheeled about as if slapped on the shoulder, saw Clark waving him over, then hustled to that patch of shade where the group of officers stood watching the triumphant entry.
“You know that flat ground south of the agency?” Clark asked the translator.
“About a mile?” Garnett asked.
“That’s the place,” he said. “Go to Crazy Horse—before his village gets any farther and ends up camping near the other bands. Tell him you come from the White Hat, that you’ll lead them to the ground where the White Hat says they can camp in peace.”
The half-breed tugged down the front of his broad-brimmed hat and turned away without another word.
Rosecrans asked, “Is that where you’re going to do it, Clark? The flat a mile south of the agency buildings?”
As the interpreter threaded his way through the milling, noisy throng, William Clark waited until he saw Garnett reach Crazy Horse’s side. “Yes, that’s where we’ll take their guns and ponies away from them.”
* * *
Billy Garnett was tense and edgy every moment of the nerve-wracking ordeal.
The moment the Crazy Horse village had reached the camping ground where Clark ordered them to camp, the women had begun to tear at their travois packs, lashing lodgepoles together and raising the buffalohide covers. Happy chatter, children’s laughter, the barks of the camp dogs, along with the booming voices of the men as they ordered the herders here and there with all those ponies … about the time Clark showed up with his escort of agency scouts and two companies of soldiers.
Good thing he dismounted those soldiers, Billy thought, so they didn’t look so damned menacing, perched there on the edge of camp. But that really wasn’t what made the half-blood sweat. Trouble was that the Crazy Horse warriors out-numbered Clark’s soldiers more than two-to-one. Those odds made Garnett pucker all the way through that afternoon’s council. No telling how things would have gone if it had come to fighting. The only thing certain is that Billy Garnett would have been a loser either way.
His father was Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett, who, during his ante-bellum service as commander of Fort Laramie, had taken an Oglala wife named Look At Him. Born near the post in the spring of 1855 at the confluence of Saline Creek and the Laramie River, Billy wasn’t quite yet six years old when his father abandoned the U.S. Army and went home to fight for the Confederacy. The general became a Southern war hero, killed in Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. Without a father, the boy grew up among the camps of Old Smoke and the Bad Face bands, even saw Crazy Horse become a Shirt Wearer. But he nonetheless kept on learning American talk, becoming good enough that Agent James J. Saville hired him as a translator at the Red Cloud Agency some two years back. And the moment the Sioux War exploded, Garnett found himself recruited by the officers at Camp Robinson, not only as an interpreter, but as a guide and a scout. Even after the last battle had been won against Lame Deer’s hold-outs on Muddy Creek up in Montana Territory, Billy continued as a translator—working hard to do a good job for the army and the whites. But he never expected he would be part of anything like this day.
“Tell them they must bring their firearms and lay them on this spot,” William Clark instructed Garnett, pointing at the ground near the toes of his boots. “All the rifles, carbines, and pistols too. Every firearm they possess.”
When the half-breed translated that order into Lakota, Crazy Horse did not speak. Instead, he merely turned and gave a gesture of his hand to the others. Quietly the word was passed among the more than 200 men of fighting age who had gathered to witness this epic event.
Some of those headmen who were seated around Crazy Horse laid sticks on the ground, saying, “This long one is my gun. And this little one is my pistol. I will send to my lodge for them.”
The warriors began to drift off, slowly moving back into the village. Over the next half hour they came and went, a few at a time stepping through the stony-faced crowd to lay their firearms on the ground near Clark’s feet. It wasn’t an impressive collection at all: some out-of-date army guns, ancient muzzleloaders, a few well-worn lever-action carbines, and a handful of cap-and-ball percussion revolvers.
By the time Clark had Billy ask if that was all they were turning in, the lieutenant and his fellow officers looked over the collection with unvarnished skepticism before they had the soldiers scoop up the weapons and throw them into the bed of an empty freight wagon.
“Do they really believe we don’t know better?” Clark groused suspiciously. “Only thirty breechloaders! Why—there were more than two-hundred-fifty army carbines taken from the Little Bighorn itself!”
And those thirty-five old muzzleloaders the warriors just turned in couldn’t have done a bit of damage at the Rosebud, Slim Buttes, or Wolf Mountain either. Still, most of the thirty-three revolvers were serviceable weapons, to be sure. Cavalry issue: .45 caliber, single-action. Of all the dead men who had been wearing their Colt’s revolvers when they followed Custer to the banks of the Little Bighorn, only thirty-three were turned in. Billy had felt his stomach do a flop again, worried that Clark would accuse Crazy Horse and his warriors of hiding weapons, demanding more from the Lakota and thereby forcing a con
frontation even though this part of the surrender had been understood … because Red Cloud had explained to the Hunkpatila war chief what was to happen and why.
Crazy Horse himself had turned in three Winchesters, and his uncle, Little Hawk, laid two at the White Hat’s feet. Still the lieutenant glared at the small pile of weapons with unveiled anger in his eyes.
“I figure they cached the good weapons out there on the prairie,” Clark complained to his fellow officers, his back turned to the Oglala leaders. “Many days ago and north of here, after Red Cloud told them this was going to happen—”
American Horse, Red Cloud’s own son-in-law, suddenly emerged from the crowd at their side, stepping up beside Clark, then whispering in Lakota to the half-breed interpreter. In turn, Billy whispered into the lieutenant’s ear. Clark nodded to the scout leader with approval; then American Horse stepped back to rejoin his agency men.
Clark studied Crazy Horse, He Dog, and the other faces in front of him a moment before he turned to Garnett.
“Billy, tell these men that my scouts have seen some of their warriors slipping off with weapons, doing their best to hide them in the brush, or beneath the dresses of their women.” Clark spoke flatly, the way a man would as he tried to hold his temper when scolding a child. “Tell Crazy Horse I am going to order American Horse and his men to take those weapons away from those men who are without honor.”
“W-without honor?” Billy repeated.
Clark gazed at him sternly. “Yes. You tell these men that they have surrendered to me, and that means they must turn over every firearm. No hiding a single weapon. Nothing—tell them not one rifle or pistol—must be kept back.”
Sucking in a breath, the half-breed translated those harsh words, watching their harshness register on all the faces but one. Crazy Horse remained unmoved by the news that some of his warriors had attempted to hide their weapons. Without speaking a word, he turned to look at He Dog and made a simple slashing gesture with one hand.
With that it was done.
He Dog got to his feet and moved away into the crowd, speaking the sentiments Crazy Horse wanted known. These soldiers did not understand He Dog’s words, but Billy sure did. Their chief was telling them that they must give up all their firearms to the agency scouts. To American Horse’s men. Their chief had given his word to the White Hat. They must do nothing to weaken it.
One by one American Horse’s scouts moved through the crowd of Crazy Horse people, confronting those warriors they had spotted attempting to conceal their weapons. And one by one the rifles and pistols were handed over without a struggle, without so much as a protest now. Each new firearm was dropped upon the ground before the White Hat until there were sixteen more good breechloaders in the pile.
“One hundred–fourteen weapons in all,” Clark sighed as if he were still far from satisfied, but just when Garnett feared a showdown was at hand, the lieutenant surprised him when he said, “Now they will turn over their horses. Tell them my men will lead their horses away.”
“All of them?” Garnett asked after He Dog had posed the question to him. “Even their hunting ponies?”
“Yes. All of them,” Clark replied firmly. “We will take every one, but give some back in a few days.”
Billy had believed that would rile these warriors, these men who had been raised on the back of a pony—hunting, raiding, making war—riding all their lives … but the Crazy Horse people accepted this part of their surrender without complaint. It was almost eerie how none of it seemed to register on the pale, scarred face of their famous war chief.
“I want to have a talk with Crazy Horse,” Clark said now that some of the herder boys had moved off with two dozen of his soldiers to start the Lakota horses toward a distant meadow.1
Billy felt the tension rise. “A talk?”
After he had settled himself before Crazy Horse and his headmen, the lieutenant explained, “I want to tell him about how we’re going to register his people. Put them on the rolls, by heads of families. Explain that we’ve done this very thing with Red Cloud’s people, and the Northern Cheyenne who already came in and surrendered.”2
Garnett swallowed, stepped over closer to the war chief, and explained that the White Hat wanted a serious talk. No preliminaries, and no need of the pipe. Just a little matter of importance to the ways of the white man. He didn’t know right then which side he felt was more scared—his Lakota blood, or his white.
“Hau,” replied He Dog after Crazy Horse had spoken.
Clark rubbed his hands together. “Tell them I want Crazy Horse and some of his headmen to go to Washington City with Red Cloud very soon.” Clark blurted it right out, not content with preliminaries. “As soon as we have all his people registered, it would be a good thing for the chiefs to go see the Grandfather back east. It will be helpful for them to see just how mighty is our strength. How great are our numbers.”
Garnett translated that as best he could into Lakota. For some moments the chiefs were quiet; then Crazy Horse murmured to the others, and He Dog spoke up.
“My chief, he says there will be a time to talk about this journey you ask him to make with the others, to see the white man’s grandfather. But first, White Hat must arrange for the Crazy Horse people to have their own agency. Just as Three Stars promised if we brought our people here.”
“His own agency?” Clark demanded, his eyes narrowing as if he had been caught off-guard by the question.
Billy translated, “Yes—just as the Three Stars promised them.”
“Crook?”
“Yes,” Garnett answered, turning back to Clark. “That’s what they call the general.”
Clark rubbed his chin. “Crook promised them an agency of their own?”
When he had He Dog’s answer, Billy explained to the lieutenant, “When Spotted Tail came to ask Crazy Horse to come in, he carried word from Crook. Promised an agency in their own country.”
Distinct displeasure grayed Clark’s features. “So the general promised them this?”
“An agency in the north,” Billy answered.
After a long, disgruntled sigh—the sort a man who felt himself backed into a corner he believed he had no business being in would make—Clark finally asked, “So tell me: where does Crazy Horse want his agency?”
“In the Powder River country,” Billy explained after He Dog disclosed the details. “There’s a nice patch of flat ground up west of the headwaters of Beaver Creek.3 Crazy Horse wants his agency built right in the middle of that flat.”
“He does, does he?” Clark replied sourly while Crazy Horse went to talking directly to Garnett for the first time that afternoon.
Billy watched the Oglala leader move his hands slightly, one over the other, almost in a gentle, peaceful manner—not the crude and coarse movements of sign language every frontier interpreter knew by rote. No, it was as if Crazy Horse were feeling that land in his hands, letting it seep through his fingers, perhaps even crushing some sage between his palms and bringing it to his nose the way a man might experience a piece of ground with all his senses.
Then Garnett turned to Clark with his translation: “‘The grass grows good there. Thick and tall as the belly of a horse in the bottoms. Buffalo too.’”
“Buffalo?” Clark said abruptly, as if his mind had been somewhere else rather than listening with his full attention.
“Lots of buffalo still in that country,” Billy explained.
“All right,” the lieutenant said brusquely, gesturing with both hands for the talk and the translation to cease. “Tell Crazy Horse we can discuss all that later. Another day. Right now, the most important thing for him to do is to go to Washington City, where he can meet the Great Grandfather. Tell him the government wants to move these two agencies east to the Missouri River. Three Stars knows the new Grandfather, President Hayes—so Three Stars wants the chiefs to go with him to Washington City so they can convince Hayes not to move the agencies to the Missouri. And when Crazy Horse gets ba
ck … that’s when there can be talk about his own agency.”
This talk of moving the agency came as a surprise to Garnett. Worried, Billy whispered his question: “Why are they going to make the Sioux move to the Missouri? So far from their own country?”
Leaning toward his translator, Clark explained, “Easier to transport the rations, the annuities too. Going to be a lot cheaper for the government to bring the goods upriver, rather than freighting them all the way out here across the prairie.”
While Billy was whispering to the lieutenant, Crazy Horse began whispering to He Dog. Then He Dog spoke on behalf of his chief in those snappy phrases as he attempted to catch the essence of what Crazy Horse was saying.
“‘If Three Stars says we can’t have the land up around Beaver Creek for my agency,’” Garnett translated, “‘then there is another place we can live—’”
Billy began to feel the tension tightening within the lieutenant beside him. Not from any palpable danger he was sensing, but more so from the way Clark and He Dog were talking to each other so quickly—without really allowing another to finish. The words were coming fast and sometimes Garnett squinted his eyes so that he could finish translating without having to turn his mind to another speaker, a different language.
“Another place?” Clark bellowed, wagging his arms in protest. “We’ll talk about that when it’s time to talk about it. When Crazy Horse gets back from—”
Garnett turned to the lieutenant, finishing up He Dog’s words, “‘Up at the forks of Goose Creek,4 where you will find a flat of ground up against the White Mountains.’”5
Clark’s face was growing splotchy with anger. “No more talk of an agency for him. Nowhere. There won’t be an agency until he gets back from his trip to Washington—”
“But Three Stars promised them,” Billy argued. “Said they’d have their choice if he surrendered down here to General Crook—”
Turn the Stars Upside Down: The Last Days and Tragic Death of Crazy Horse Page 5