But you will go and take the two women with you?
He thought on that; then he sensed what he had to answer, although his spirit guardian would already know.
“I don’t think I will ask the trader’s daughter to go,” he answered. “I will send her to visit her family for a night, so she won’t be around when we go away in darkness.”
Half her blood is white, so you realize that if you asked her to go north with you, she might decide she would tell her family. And her wasicu father would likely tell the soldiers, so they would come to make a prisoner of you before you could escape. In the end, the army would send you away to the Hot Place.
“Where they sent Little Wolf and Morning Star, and their Shahiyela,” he answered, remembering how they were led away from the agency by a soldier escort, ordered on foot to a new home in Indian Territory far to the south, where the waters were hot and the earth so dry it grew parched and cracked. “No, I will take only Black Shawl with me. Perhaps Little Hawk will bring his family too. Red Feather will want to come because of his sister, I am sure—”
“Crazy Horse!”
He opened his eyes, jerking at the raspy, whispered call coming right through the lodgeskins. “Who is there?”
“You are awake, Crazy Horse? I heard you talking—”
“Is that you, Little Big Man?”
“Yes. I come early because I have news to tell!”
“Wait, and I will come out there to talk with you.”
He gently pulled away from her, slipping from under the blanket, and dragged on his trader-cloth shirt. Quickly he stepped over and stood for a moment looking down on the trader’s daughter, staring at her one bare leg protruding from under her blankets. How childlike she looked in sleep. Crazy Horse sighed with disappointment and ducked out of the doorway, letting the flap slide back in place.
“Ever since yesterday,” Little Big Man said the moment Crazy Horse emerged outside in the rosy light of sunrise, “the white man’s talking wire has been crowded with the name of Crazy Horse!”
“Why?”
“Perhaps because you told the White Hat you would not talk anymore,” Little Big Man surmised.
“So I am important to them only because I refuse to talk.”
“Every time you won’t come to a council, or every time you refuse to do what Three Stars or the wasicus say you must, you make trouble for yourself—can’t you see?”
“This is what you came to say? That I am making trouble for myself?”
Little Big Man nodded grimly. “The soldiers believe the old woman talk from Red Cloud and Spotted Tail now. You made them believe you really are going to break out with our people and run for the North Country.”
For a moment he thought of asking his old friend to come along. One of the few friends he had ever trusted. Even though Little Big Man had grabbed his arm when No Water had jumped inside that lodge and fired his pistol at Crazy Horse, he had meant well by it. Little Big Man was one of the few he felt he could trust with his life.
“That is what the little chiefs are saying?”
“The talking wire is buzzing with words to and from Three Stars,” he said. “I hear this from the half-blood who does not want to see our people hurt.”
He knew Little Big Man was speaking of Billy Garnett. “These soldiers have nothing better to talk about?” He started away from the lodge, afraid these whispers might frighten Black Shawl if she should awaken. “What old women are these soldier chiefs—”
“There is word from the Pa Sapa too,” Little Big Man interrupted as they moved away to the nearby trees bordering the riverbank. “The earth-scratchers there, they are offering a big bounty for Indian scalps, Lakota or Shahiyela.”
“Aiyeee,” he whispered low. “Money for Indian hair? All those earth-scratchers left in the Pa Sapa who are afraid of dying, eh? They cower in their settlement towns, their hearts turned to water because we have killed too many of them when they are out scratching alone.”
“You have killed too many, Crazy Horse,” Little Big Man said. “Over this summer, with all the rumors of Crazy Horse breaking away from the reservation, those wasicus are very scared of your people coming to the Pa Sapa to kill all the whites you can find and drive the rest out.”
“Lately, I have started to think that Three Stars does not want the Hunkpatila to go north with him to fight the Nez Perce.”
“Why?”
Crazy Horse said, “I am thinking Three Stars really wants us to scout for our old comrade, Sitting Bull.”
“That can’t be!” Little Big Man whispered in disbelief. “Why would Three Stars have us go after Sitting Bull when the Hunkpapa have already escaped across the Medicine Line?”
“Because everyone knows that Three Stars always pits one tribe against itself. The way he used Lakota to hunt Lakota. Shahiyela to hunt down Shahiyela. This is why Three Stars is trying to trick me into hunting down my old friend, Sitting Bull.”
“I recall hearing the reports that Sitting Bull’s men have been coming back across the Medicine Line to raid for horses,” Little Big Man said thoughtfully. “Some of the soldiers think Sitting Bull will come south again to join up with the Nez Perce and drive the white man out of that country for all time.”
“That is why Three Stars believes he should go after Sitting Bull,” Crazy Horse declared. “To keep him from joining up his warriors with the Nez Perce.”
For a long time Little Big Man was deep in thought; then he said, “Now it’s easy to understand why you don’t want to scout for the soldier chief.”
Crazy Horse considered it a moment, then told the akicita, “Still, I have been thinking of going north, my friend.”
Little Big Man looked at him quizzically. “So, you’ve changed your mind again? Now you are going to scout for Three Stars?”
“No! They are such fools, not letting us have a little when we ask for a hunt, asking only for our women to come along on the scouting.”
The muscular man’s eyes narrowed. “Even though you won’t go with Three Stars … you said you were wanting to go north?”
Quickly looking around for the ears of any who might be going into the bushes to relieve themselves early of the morning, he whispered, “I won’t take all the people. I do not want to bring trouble down on the heads of everyone.”
Little Big Man wagged his head, clearly confused.
“A few of us can slip away, my friend,” Crazy Horse explained. “Just me and you and some of the other old friends—”
“I can’t go—”
“Each man can bring his wife and—” Then Crazy Horse stopped abruptly. “You said … you can’t go?”
“No, I can’t.”
“They won’t come looking for so few of us.”
Little Big Man wagged his head again. And pulled at the tails of his blue soldier shirt. “They probably wouldn’t come looking for me, or Red Feather, or even Little Hawk … but one thing is for certain: they will come looking for you.”
“Am I that important for them to keep me penned up here like an unbroken horse in a pole corral?”
“Yes, Crazy Horse. And”—it was clearly hard for Little Big Man to say this—“the agent and soldier chiefs would make me come after you too.”
“Even you?”
Staring at the ground, Little Big Man confessed, “Yes. You know I have a new life now. How I have taken up wearing the metalbreast for the agent. They will tell me I have to go after you because you are supposed to stay here … and I will have to come after you and bring all the people back to this reservation.”
He felt relieved by that, saying to his old friend, “But I am not going to take the People with me when I go! I have given my word to the White Hat and to the agent too. I promised not to lead the Northern People away from here. But that does not mean that a few of us can’t drift away one night soon. One lodge at a time. The wasicus won’t miss one lodge each night. We would all go north to the White Mountains, where we can meet again on Goos
e Creek in the Moon When Leaves Fall.”
“A few others might not be missed at all,” Little Big Man admitted. “But … the little chief and the agent would miss you. I would have to come and bring you back.”
“You … would?”
“I am sorry, my friend,” he said, and his eyes spoke their apology. “But I would come after you because it is my new responsibility, and I am a man of honor. And … because I would want to be sure none of Red Cloud’s friends shot you down.”
“Ah, my friend—even when we are taking different trails in life, you would protect my life with your own.”
Little Big Man smiled. “Yes, old friend. Even though I am a metalbreast, even though I would obey my orders, I would do everything I could to keep others from killing you.”
“But … will you tell the wasicus that I might slip away?”
“Don’t,” Little Big Man warned sadly. “Please don’t make me have to come after you.”
“What if I decide only to go visit my uncle’s people on Beaver Creek?” Crazy Horse asked. “You would come after me if I went to visit my father on Spotted Tail’s reservation?”
“If you are supposed to stay here, then I would have to bring you back here.”
Crazy Horse smiled. “What if I resisted, and struggled with you to get away?”
With a laugh, Little Big Man grinned. “You would not get away from me, old friend! Look at you, so small! And me, I am much stronger than you!”
He grinned too. “Yes, it would be a fierce struggle between us—”
“Crazy Horse! Little Big Man!”
They turned to find Red Feather approaching with his young son, hand in hand.
“My brother!” Crazy Horse said to Black Shawl’s younger brother. “Go call the rest of the men together. I have something important I must tell them first thing this morning.”
Red Feather glanced at Little Big Man, his eyes regarding the soldier coat, and the shiny badge pinned to it; then he looked at his leader. “You have decided something, Crazy Horse?”
“Yes,” he said with enthusiasm. “I want to tell our men that they are to stay home.”
“We are not to obey Three Stars?”
“No,” Crazy Horse said. “I want to tell our men that we are not going to hunt for the Nez Perce.”
After Red Feather swept the young boy into his arms and started away, Crazy Horse slapped a hand down on his friend’s shoulder, pressing against the wool of that soldier shirt. “Little Big Man, my faithful friend—so you would use all your strength to protect me from Red Cloud and his betrayers?”
The stocky warrior nodded, pressing the flat of his palm against Crazy Horse’s heart. “This I swear to you. I will do everything in my power to keep others from hurting you … even if that means I must prevent you from doing something foolish that could bring you harm.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
2 September 1877
BY TELEGRAPH
Another Indian Fight in the Black Hills.
DEADWOOD.
Another Desperate Fight Between Miners and Indians
DEADWOOD, August 25.—The party of two hundred persons who left here about two weeks ago for the Little Missouri river, returned to-day, and state that last Tuesday evening the party discovered Indians close to them. They selected high ground, dug rifle pits, and had been digging about thirty minutes when nearly five hundred Indians appeared on the bluff opposite, about four hundred yards off, and commenced firing at them. The fight lasted nearly four hours. Thos. A. Carr, quartz recorder of the Deadwood mining district, was shot through the head and killed. Twenty-seven horses belonging to the miners were also shot. After dark the Indians withdrew and the miners escaped, being obliged to walk one hundred and fifty miles to reach the city.
“Who is that coming?” General George Crook asked of those around him as he leaned out from the front of the army ambulance he was riding in the moment his driver began to slow down their two-horse hitch.
Just ahead of the ambulance rode Lieutenant William Clark and his pair of interpreters, all three of them having stopped the moment a lone Indian on horseback broke from the trees farther up the trail, racing toward their party.
Clark turned in the saddle. “The one called Woman’s Dress.”
“Whose Indian is he?” the brigadier general demanded as he clambered down from the seat, onto the front wheel of the ambulance, and stood in the middle of the narrow trail.
The lieutenant replied, “He’s one of Red Cloud’s closest and most loyal.”
“Ah, I can see now,” Crook said. “He’s wearing a soldier’s blouse.”
“Yes, General,” Clark said. “One of my scouts.”
Crook glanced at the second, and older, of the two interpreters, Baptiste Pourier, more well known as “Big Bat.” This half-blood son of a French trader, who had served Crook throughout the Sioux campaigns, only nodded in recognition as he and young Billy Garnett came out of the saddle. The general turned, watching the solitary rider approach. “Why would he be out here all by himself, and not at the council grounds?”
That bothered Billy too. Why this winkte, the Lakota man-woman with a very sacred personal medicine, a man who often dressed and acted like a female, would show up out here on the trail that was taking the soldier chiefs and their escort to a scheduled council with the chiefs and headmen of the various agency bands.
Three days ago when Crazy Horse walked out of that council with Lieutenant Clark, bluntly telling the officer that he would be leaving the reservation, both the agency and nearby Camp Robinson began to buzz with dangerous talk. With his patience worn down to the most slender of threads, Clark wired Crook about the worsening situation. Early the following day, 1 September, Crook had telegraphed orders to have Crazy Horse arrested, and to disarm all of the disaffected Northern Sioux. But because Clark and Bradley, on the scene, didn’t believe they had enough men to make the arrest and seizures with any certainty of success, they convinced Crook to rescind his orders.
The telegraph continued to hum with all the trouble the white men saw coming. Not only Clark and post commander Bradley, but General Sheridan himself back in Chicago. He ordered Crook—who had just arrived at Fort Laramie, on his way to Camp Brown on the Shoshone Reservation to put together his final preparations for starting the march after the Nez Perce—back to Camp Robinson to solve this nettle-some matter of Crazy Horse’s refusal to allow any of his men to serve as scouts on the forthcoming campaign, and his threat to flee the reservation.
Crook had rolled in that very mid-afternoon, grumpy, tired, and sore from the long ambulance ride up from Fort Laramie. He was clearly in no real mood to entertain any guff from the Lakota leaders who had surrendered months ago. Not long after his arrival, the general sent riders to the various camps to instruct the chiefs and headmen that he would meet them in council some two miles southeast of the fort, in a well-known grove of cottonwoods on the banks of White Clay Creek.
Next, he called a meeting with Bradley, Clark, and Lieutenant Jesse M. Lee, military agent up at Spotted Tail Agency, who had hurried down to Camp Robinson on this most urgent business. Before all these officers, Crook had young Billy Garnett explain how Grouard must have simply made a mistake in his translation of Crazy Horse’s words. In turn, Billy told the general that Crazy Horse was upset because the promise of the hunt had been broken and his own agency had been taken from him too. Still, Crazy Horse had given his word and would not take his people north to make trouble. And Agent Lee agreed. The two of them believed that Grouard had not only made a mistake, but had defamed Crazy Horse and his people by purposefully mis-translating the chief’s words and intent.
But Clark was quick to protest, saying that for some time he had had the feeling Crazy Horse was a born liar and had only been biding his time before he could get his hands on guns and ammunition before breaking out.
“A leopard never changes its spots, General,” the lieutenant declared.
Billy saw how Cro
ok had one voice of reason in one ear, a voice of distrust and suspicion in the other. To settle the matter, Crook said he would listen to everything the chiefs had to tell him in council; then he would decide what was the truth about Crazy Horse. In that way, everything would be straightened out so he could get moving after the Nez Perce, reported to be heading north for the Yellowstone country.
Now in the heat and stifling dust of that late-summer afternoon, Crook quickly glanced back at his escort of soldiers halted around the ambulance, all of them awaiting the approach of that lone Indian loping up on horseback, his flowing cloth garments captured by the occasional breeze, sunlight glittering off the engraved silver buttons that were sewn down the outer seam of his dark blue leggings.
“I come to talk with Three Stars,” Woman’s Dress announced breathlessly as he brought his pony to a halt right in front of the two interpreters.
“He has a council to go to now,” Pourier snapped impatiently.
Woman’s Dress looked directly at Crook now. “Tell Three Stars that what I come to tell him is a matter of his life.”
“What bad story are you carrying now?” Garnett demanded suspiciously.
The winkte’s eyes glowered at the half-blood with undisguised contempt. “Maybe you stand too close to Three Stars’ enemies to know the truth when it stares you in the eye.”
“Just tell us what you have to say,” Pourier declared, shooing a big deerfly away from his face. “We’ll tell Three Stars what your talk is, then be on our way to the council.”
Turning his haughty gaze to Pourier, Woman’s Dress hissed, “Three Stars can’t go to the council. You tell him that. Crazy Horse is planning a trap for Three Stars!”
“A t-trap?” Billy sputtered, half wanting to laugh. “You have hated Crazy Horse ever since you were children—back to the days when you were called Pretty Fellow!”
“How would you know, little boy!” the winkte growled haughtily. “You weren’t even born yet!”
Turn the Stars Upside Down: The Last Days and Tragic Death of Crazy Horse Page 25