As the moon rose that warm Monday evening, Lieutenant Jesse M. Lee, agent over at Camp Sheridan, learned by accident that in secret Clark had sent for chief Spotted Tail to come to Camp Robinson as quietly as possible. Barely able to contain his anger at this maneuver pulled behind his back, Lee demanded to see Colonel Luther Bradley so that he could ask the district commander to order Spotted Tail back immediately, where the chief might better control his own people when they learned that Crazy Horse had been arrested at the Red Cloud Agency. Receiving Bradley’s permission to depart Camp Robinson during this tense time, Spotted Tail and Agent Lee, along with his translator, Louis Bordeaux, prepared to depart at three o’clock on the fourth, right after moonset, their small escort well armed for what they believed might well be a perilous journey.
From the back of his horse in the dark that had swallowed the land, Lee looked down at Clark and the White Hat’s two interpreters, quiet in giving his advice: “Mr. Clark, don’t let Crazy Horse get away. He might make a break for it and run our way, to Spotted Tail’s agency.”
“There’s not a ghost of a chance of that, Mr. Lee,” Clark scoffed almost sarcastically. “Crazy Horse can’t make a move—he can’t sneeze or take a piss—without my knowing it. And I can damn well seize him any time I want him. I’ll send you news of our success in writing by a dependable courier when we have him in hand.”
With the coming of a rosy dawn on September fourth, Billy stood with a cup of coffee steaming in the cool air, watching the hundreds and hundreds of army horses moving back and forth across the parade, while almost 400 Lakota warriors waited in the background, and two Gatling guns were noisily rolled out by their nervous gun crews, hitched to the trained teams that would pull them down White River toward the Crazy Horse camp some six miles distant. Those agency warriors who had no guns were allowed to draw weapons and ammunition for the day’s dangerous duty.
Across the last day and a half now Billy had hoped that this plan of Crook’s and Clark’s would be pulled off without bloodshed. If overwhelming force was used, perhaps Crazy Horse’s supporters would decide not to put up a fight. Perhaps Crazy Horse himself would see there was nothing he could do but surrender. With such an array of might as this, Billy reasoned, the man could actually be captured without an outbreak of trouble. Then Crazy Horse could be shipped off to spend some time in prison … just as his uncle, Spotted Tail, had been. When he came back—like his uncle had eventually returned to his Sicangu people—Ta’sunke Witko would be a changed man too. Things would be better on the reservation. Better than if events continued in the direction they were headed right then … because to Billy it seemed a dead certain thing that someone would kill Crazy Horse by accident, if not on purpose.
“It’s almost nine!” Clark bellowed impatiently that Tuesday morning as he clomped out of the adjutant’s office. “We’re ready to go, Colonel Mason,” using the major’s brevet rank.
“Very good, Mr. Clark,” Major Julius W. Mason replied. He in turn mounted up and rode over to his cavalry, placing at the head of the column those three companies he had brought in from Fort Laramie only hours ago—D, E, and G of the Third U.S. Cavalry.
The horse soldiers turned neatly in form and moved out, starting down the east bank of the White River with Garnett along, the artillery rattling behind them. At the same time, Clark mounted up and led his agency scouts: the Oglala who swore allegiance to Red Cloud, American Horse, and Little Wound, along with a few Arapaho, and even a handful of friendly Cheyenne who had somehow managed to remain at the Red Cloud Agency when their chiefs and people were shipped off to Indian Territory. Among the Lakota moving down the west bank were men like No Flesh, Young Man Afraid, No Water, along with three Hunkpatila from Crazy Horse’s camp—Big Road, Jumping Shield, and Little Big Man—Oglala whose loyalty to the whites might be severely tested this very day. Because of this, Clark had Frank Grouard instruct the other, more steadfast warriors to stay together and be wary of those less than trustworthy should events come to a fight.
“Better to know who is at your side and at your back,” Clark had warned Grouard, “than to be sorry after the shooting starts.”
The column hadn’t put Camp Robinson far behind them when the first of the couriers sped away from Clark, carrying news to the village some six miles away that they were coming and did not want to stir up a fight by frightening the Crazy Horse people unawares. At five miles both soldiers and warriors in the long march were quiet, every man thinking on what was to come on this historic day. Four miles and the bright autumn sun warmed them. Then at three miles the first couriers came galloping back with a rumor that Crazy Horse must have fled, for they could not find him.
Downriver, through the shimmering distance, Billy fixed his gaze on a large, black object more than a quarter of a mile away. As he shaded his eyes in the morning light, Garnett thought he spotted a smaller piece of the object move to the side and disappear into the timber bordering the White River.
“I’m going ahead to see something!” he abruptly shouted to Lieutenant Clark as he jabbed heels into his horse’s ribs.
It wasn’t until he was a couple hundred yards away that he finally made out the shape of that large object. Reining up beside the carcass of a dead pony, he was gazing down at the many fresh bullet wounds in its chest and head when a figure slipped out of the brush.
“Hau! Half-blood white-talker!” the Hunkpatila cried as the startled Garnett leveled his carbine on him.
Billy caught his breath. “Looking Horse! You surprised me. I came to see what this was in the road—”
“Red Cloud’s friends killed my pony!” the Hunkpatila man cried as he started toward Garnett’s horse with a limp, favoring a leg.
“They shot it?” he asked, finally close enough to notice how badly Looking Horse’s face was beaten.
“And they pounded me up too,” he groaned, wiping some more blood from under his oozing nose.
Garnett saw how dusty and torn were the man’s shirt and leggings, bruises already starting to purple his cheeks and jaw. “They hit you with their hands?”
“Hands, yes—then guns and clubs,” Looking Horse said through swollen lips. “Because I am a Crazy Horse man.”
“Who of Red Cloud’s friends?” he demanded through gritted teeth, angry to think of any man being outnumbered and made to suffer such a terrible beating.
“Woman’s Dress!” he whimpered. “He did most of this to me. The bad one who shot my horse.”
“There had to be others.”
Looking Horse nodded, squinting with a swollen eye in the morning light. “Three others. I don’t know their names—because they were Red Cloud men, loafers. Never knew them before.”
“How did this happen?”
“They were coming to the Crazy Horse camp when they bumped into me. Woman’s Dress signaled with his arm in a friendly sign, and when I rode up to them, thinking everything was good, he suddenly shot my horse. As it fell down, the other three jumped off their ponies and beat me bad.”
“Didn’t you have any weapons with you?”
For a moment Looking Horse glanced on up the road to where the soldiers were approaching; then he explained through puffy lips, “I hid my rifle and pistol from the soldiers when we surrendered … but I lost them today when Woman’s Dress stole them from me.”
“Didn’t have a chance to shoot any of the men who attacked you?”
With a shake of his head, Looking Horse grumbled, “It is not right for Oglala to fight Oglala. I could never kill one of my own people … the way Red Cloud and his kind will do.”
“What are you going to do now?”
Looking Horse quickly glanced up the road again, concern filling his eyes. “I will hide in these bushes again. That’s what I was going to do when I saw a rider coming, but soon I noticed it was you. I will hide again and let all the soldiers go by.”
“There are a lot of agency men coming too,” Billy warned.
“Red Cloud’s?”
“American Horse’s men too.”
“Thank you, white-talker,” Looking Horse said with real gratitude as he turned and hurried away at a crouch for the thick undergrowth on the bank.
He watched Crazy Horse’s friend disappear into the brush, then wheeled his horse around and started back for the head of the column. By the time he arrived back among Clark and his most trusted scouts, Little Big Man had grown visibly upset. The moment Garnett rode up, the metalbreast started chattering, asking Billy to tell the White Hat that he wanted permission to race ahead to the Crazy Horse camp.
“Why does he want to do that?” Clark demanded.
“He’s getting really worried now that his old friend will do something that might get him killed. Maybe he can say or do something to convince Crazy Horse that it would be for the best to allow the arrest to take place … instead of fighting it and getting a lot of men killed.”
Nodding, the lieutenant gave his permission, and Little Big Man bolted off.
“It is a good thing,” Billy said. “Maybe we can do this without anyone getting hurt.”
It wasn’t long before Little Big Man loped back to Clark, in the company of some of the other couriers who had already gone to the camp. The White Hat called Billy over to translate.
“Crazy Horse has gone,” Garnett translated for the lieutenant. “He took his full-blood wife.”
“Black Shawl, yes,” Clark said impatiently as the columns on either side of the river continued to move along at a steady pace.
“But he has taken some friends with him,” Billy continued his translation.
“Ah-ha!” Clark said with certainty. “I knew he would gather all those hot-bloods around him! So they’ve prepared to make a stand of it, eh?”
“No,” Garnett explained, “only two chose to go with the chief.”
“On-only two?” the officer echoed.
“Lieutenant!”
At that cry from Mason across the river near the mouth of White Clay Creek, Clark and the others peered at the nearby hillside where the major and some of his men were pointing. On the brow of a rounded knoll some six hundred yards from the cavalry column, more than seventy warriors had assembled. Clark and his 400 Indians immediately turned into the river and began their noisy crossing. As they splashed onto the east bank and loped in two directions along the halted cavalry, one lone horseman spurred his pony off the top of that hill, making for the soldiers.
“Who is that?” Clark demanded.
“They don’t know,” Garnett announced after listening to the Oglala around them. “Only that he’s from the Crazy Horse camp.”
“Tell the scouts to stand aside,” ordered the lieutenant. “It’s likely the others have told him to surrender because of his young age.”
As the hundreds watched in silence, the youth galloped through the ranks of scouts and brought his pony up when among some of Young Man Afraid’s Oglala. They began to talk quietly among themselves.
Clark turned to Garnett, saying, “That proves just what I feared, Billy. Crazy Horse does have his agents among our Indians at this very moment. We better watch our backs if this comes to a fight.”
“But Crazy Horse has gone,” Billy argued.
Wagging his head, Clark said, “I’ll wait to see for myself.”
“This is not good,” Billy warned, pointing at the ceremonially dressed warrior starting down the long slope, riding away from the rest of the Hunkpatila on the brow of the hill.
“Anyone know who that is?”
“I don’t,” Garnett said, shaking his head, noticing that the advancing horseman was dressed in his finest war regalia, including a showy double-trailer war bonnet that spilled off the rear flanks of his prancing pinto. Concerned that someone was going to get shot, he asked for advice from Little Big Man.
“Name is Black Fox,” responded Little Big Man. “He’s a Crazy Horse man, and dressed for war.”
Of a sudden Black Fox kicked his horse into a spirited gallop, riding straight for the soldiers until he was almost fifty yards away, and suddenly veered to the left, racing along the line of march, shouting out his challenge to Lakota and soldier alike as he shook a Springfield cavalry carbine in one hand and a Colt revolver in the other—both weapons taken from the Greasy Grass battlefield.
“What the hell is he saying?” Clark demanded.
“‘I have been looking all my life to die,’” Billy translated, listening carefully as Black Fox approached, yelling at the top of his lungs. “‘I see only the clouds and the ground. I am all scarred up.’”
“What does that mean?” asked the lieutenant. “All scarred up?”
“He has seen many battles,” Garnett said, watching the middle-aged Black Fox take a skinning knife from the scabbard at his waist and put it between his teeth as he rode even closer to the Indian scouts. “He’s survived many fights before—was in the Custer battle. This is a very brave man—riding right toward the bullets that can kill him. A very brave thing to do—”
“We must stop this bad show!” American Horse cried as he pulled his horse up with Clark’s and Garnett’s.
“Go do what you can,” the lieutenant pleaded. “If we don’t have to, I don’t want anyone killed.”
Nodding, American Horse immediately advanced his horse several paces as he pulled his own pipe from a beaded pouch slung over his shoulder. With this held in one hand, he stretched out his arm and began to shout to the onrushing warrior.
“Think of the women and children behind you!” American Horse yelled above the noise of those around them. “Come straight for the pipe, Black Fox! The pipe is yours to take!”
Gradually the warrior began to slow his horse, then reached up and took the knife from between his teeth. In moments he had halted his pony right before American Horse and the agency scouts. “Hau!” he cried to the leaders of the agency scouts.
“The pipe is yours,” American Horse repeated. “Let’s smoke.”
It did not take long for Clark and a half-dozen of his leading scouts to dismount and seat themselves on the ground in a small circle with Black Fox. While they loaded and lit the pipe, beginning its path around the ring, Mason’s cavalry waited in formation and the Hunkpatila cautiously rode down from the top of the hill, parading back and forth across the gentle slope in a drill, watchful and staying very close to their leader.
“Crazy Horse is gone,” Black Fox said when he had smoked and passed the pipe to his left. “He has listened to far too much bad talk about him. I told my friend that we had come in to the reservation for peace, to stay here in peace … but he listened to all this bad talk about him. Now he has gone and the people belong to me. I came out riding to die this morning—but you saved me, American Horse.”
“Gone?” Clark demanded as Garnett was giving a running translation. “Where’s he gone? Is he fleeing north?”
“No, I don’t know where he will go now,” Black Fox said, then turned and hollered to his warriors, “All over. Go back to camp now.”
With Clark, Billy watched in surprise as the Hunkpatila horsemen immediately turned their ponies around, started up the hill, and eventually disappeared from sight.
“We were coming to take Crazy Horse and his weapons,” American Horse explained to Black Fox. “But since he is gone, it is up to you to bring the people closer to the agency.”
“Yes. This will be good to do,” Black Fox agreed. “You saved my life. It is a good notion to bring the people in closer now that Crazy Horse is gone—”
“Look!”
Everyone seemed to be yelling at once, soldiers and warriors both. Most of them pointed at the four figures visible in the distance, just emerging from behind a faraway knoll and racing to the northeast … in the direction of Spotted Tail’s agency.
“The scouts think that must be Crazy Horse!” Garnett yelled above the hubbub.
Clark was digging in his saddlebag for his field glasses as he demanded, “Who’s that with him?”
�
��Little Big Man already told us that a few minutes ago,” Billy said sadly. “Only his wife and two trusted friends are fleeing with him … vowing to stay with Crazy Horse to the death.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Canapegi Wi
MOON WHEN LEAVES TURN BROWN, 1877
“They are coming!” shouted the youth as he came tearing into the nearly deserted camp. Shell Boy had some strands of his long, black hair plastered to the sweat on his face. “And they have two wagon guns with them too!”
Crazy Horse drew in a long sigh as he looked at his wife. “We can’t take anything.”
“I don’t need much, husband,” Black Shawl said, turning toward her horse, to which she had already tied two small parfleches of her most precious personal belongings. “We … never have had much, besides each other.”
On all sides of them the last of the most faithful were finishing their frantic labors of tearing down the lodges, loading the covers onto travois, packing up children and belongings. Some of the women had begun to stream out of camp, their men starting back toward the agency and Soldier Town to do what they could to delay the attack. But most had already gone before dawn, when riders told Crazy Horse that few were already making a break for the north. Instead, his people were fleeing the danger and hurrying for the safety they believed they could find in Red Cloud’s camp.
His heart had grown more and more hollow as he looked all around him, seeing how they were deserting him in this moment. Rather than escaping north into the badlands together, rather than fighting together as they always had … the Hunkpatila were scattering, abandoning their leader.
But—he thought—that was all right now. He did not want to force any of them to choose between escape and staying behind, between life and death.
Turn the Stars Upside Down: The Last Days and Tragic Death of Crazy Horse Page 28