Turn the Stars Upside Down: The Last Days and Tragic Death of Crazy Horse

by Terry C. Johnston

  Clark

  1Lt.2d. Cavalry.

  Lieutenant Jesse M. Lee heard the clatter of hooves out front and went immediately to the window to have himself a look at those riders reining up in the early light.

  “Who is it, sir?” called his cook, from the small apartment attached to the back of his office.

  “It’s … Crazy Horse,” he answered in wonder, pulling the big watch out of his vest pocket, looking at the time—just past seven A.M.—then bringing it to his ear. Nothing wrong with its reassuring tick, and he clearly remembered winding it this morning upon rising, as was his habit of many years.

  The gray-haired cook was at the doorway leading to their apartment that next moment, tying the long muslin apron around her dress. “I thought you told him to be here at nine?”

  “I did,” he said with a bewildered shrug. “I can’t put my finger on an earthly reason why he’d show up so early.”

  “You’re going to make time for breakfast before you start for Robinson, aren’t you, sir?”

  “Count on it,” he said. “I-I’ll be back in a moment.”

  Lee opened the door and stepped onto the plank porch, struck with the cool fragrance of the early morning. One day soon autumn would make its arrival known, crisp and cold. But for now, these mornings on the high plains were like a sweet prelude to the coming closure of winter.

  “Crazy Horse,” he said in English, stepping off the porch and into the talclike dust. He stared a moment at the man dressed in a dark blue shirt to match the dark blue trade-wool leggings. His moccasins were brightly beaded and the Oglala leader had that ever-present bloodred blanket draped over his lap. “Wait here. Let me get an interpreter.”

  As Lee started across the compound, he vividly remembered the conversation he and Captain Burke had shared in the ambulance while on their way back into the agency yesterday afternoon, just before the tense showdown between the two Sioux warrior bands had threatened to erupt in violence.

  “I agree with you, Captain,” Lee had said as they rumbled along. “I too think Crazy Horse could become a great leader among his people. If … if he’s only allowed to.”

  “For what reasons do you agree with me, Lieutenant?”

  “Because he’s never been trained—not like those old chiefs, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail—never trained to use diplomacy and persuasion to gain advantage over another. My experience has been that when he speaks, it is straightforward and honest. That said, I think he can be depended upon to keep his promises.”

  “My hunch tells me that what promise Crazy Horse makes you,” Burke continued, “he will take pains to keep.”

  “But, sir, the bitter truth is,” Lee had replied, “so many of those around him, both Sioux and whites too, aren’t anywhere as committed to keeping faith with the truth as he is.”

  Once he found Bordeaux having breakfast with some other employees in the agency canteen, they both hurried back to the office, coffee cups in hand. Lee motioned Crazy Horse, Touch-the-Clouds, and a third warrior to follow them into the office, where they settled on the floor in front of his desk. For a moment Lee remembered the note he had received from William Clark yesterday afternoon, mentioning the reward for the capture of Crazy Horse … and he wondered which of these two Minniconjou would now claim the 200 dollars.

  He leaned back against his desk, set his coffee aside, and asked Bordeaux, “I know Touch-the-Clouds well … but who is this man? I don’t know him.”

  “Name is High Bear. A close relation to Touch-the-Clouds. So he is old friend to Crazy Horse.”

  Lee nodded to the man, then turned on Crazy Horse, saying, “You are early. That means you must be eager to go back to Red Cloud and get your words said to the soldier chief there?”

  Crazy Horse didn’t appear sullen or withdrawn this morning, his face a mask to his innermost feelings. Instead, Lee could plainly see that the Oglala leader was tense, fidgety, perhaps even trembling at times while Bordeaux translated the words into Sioux.

  “No, he comes early because he did not sleep any last night,” the interpreter declared. “Crazy Horse comes to the little agent—you—asking that you give him back his promise.”

  “What promise?”

  “That he goes to Red Cloud with you,” Bordeaux said. “He wants you to go to the soldier chief for him instead. Tell the big soldier chief of Crazy Horse’s words, and get permission so he can live here at Spotted Tail’s agency.”

  That took Lee aback a moment. Stalling for time, he picked up his clay coffee cup and moved around the desk, settling in his narrow chair. It seemed unusually hard beneath his buttocks this morning. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Crazy Horse.”

  “Why?”

  “The soldier chief is expecting you at Red Cloud.”

  He thought about the letter from Clark, how it had given the impression that everyone seemed to know that Crazy Horse would be placed under arrest once he reached Camp Robinson … everyone except Crazy Horse. Perhaps the Oglala chief did know how things would be played out with his being put in custody, whisked away to the east, even to a sentence in prison.

  “You can tell him Crazy Horse stays here,” Bordeaux continued for the Oglala. “He will cause no trouble for Spotted Tail or Touch-the-Clouds. He’ll live here now.”

  Clutching his cup between his two palms, Lee said, “We have given our word to one another, you and I. Now we must both see this thing through.”

  “There is no other way?” Bordeaux asked.

  “No. Our feet are on the path to getting these matters made straight, Crazy Horse.”

  Bordeaux’s eyes darkened with worry as Crazy Horse told him something in a near whisper, then the interpreter translated, “It has been told to him that something bad will happen there at Camp Robinson … when he returns.”

  “Bad?” Lee asked, his belly tightening in a knot, realizing what Clark and Bradley had planned for this man. Crazy Horse knew his return could not be good. “What bad thing could happen to you when you are under my protection, and the protection of the army? None of Red Cloud’s scouts will get near you, I promise.”

  “He is sure something bad will happen, so he wants to stay here.”

  Eventually he convinced Crazy Horse that he must hold to his promise, that he could not remain behind in the camp of Touch-the-Clouds with his ailing wife. Once again the Oglala leader committed himself to accompany Lee to Red Cloud’s agency, but only on certain conditions. First of all, neither of them, Lee nor Crazy Horse, would wear pistols that day. In addition, Crazy Horse asked Lee to promise that he would tell the soldier chief all that had gone on here in the last two days, especially that Spotted Tail had agreed to let the northerners live on his reservation if the soldier chief allowed it. As well, Lee promised Crazy Horse that he would get the chance to tell the soldier chief at Camp Robinson how his words had been twisted, and how he had never threatened to kill any white men.

  “Beyond that, tell Crazy Horse that I can’t promise him that General Bradley will allow him and his people to live here with Spotted Tail,” Lee admitted sadly. “Explain to him that such a decision is made by a higher authority than I : the district commander.”

  He waited a moment as Bordeaux translated and Crazy Horse stared unflinchingly at the lieutenant’s face. Then Lee continued. “But … you will have your chance to talk to him,” he vowed as the rumble of a wagon and the squeak of a brake were heard outside the office. “And I feel certain that when you have made your case, your people will be allowed to move and live here.”

  Crazy Horse turned to gaze out the open doorway at the ambulance a soldier had just brought to a halt. He stared for a long moment, and when he turned back, his face was even sadder, stonier still. Quietly, he whispered something to Bordeaux.

  The interpreter said, “Crazy Horse wants to ride horseback. Says he does not want to go back to Red Cloud’s place in the white man’s wagon. He is a warrior of his people … and he’s always lived on horseback.”

 
To ride in that wagon would mean he’s admitting he has become a prisoner, Lee thought as he stood and moved around the small desk, presenting his left hand to the Oglala leader. Standing, Crazy Horse did not hesitate to take the hand, and they shook.

  That was all right about the horse, he told himself. But Jesse Lee could not bring himself to promise a thing about Crazy Horse’s hope of coming back to his uncle’s reservation. After all, that might well turn out to be an outright lie. For now, the army had plans to clamp the man in irons and scuttle him off to prison. And Lee could not bring himself to shade or color the truth simply so he could wash his hands of this prisoner.

  Maybe I can convince Bradley that Crazy Horse ought to be given a reprieve, the lieutenant brooded as he gazed at the Oglala leader’s scarred lip and cheek. He never said he was going north to kill white people—only Grouard claimed that. And Crazy Horse never plotted to kill Crook. How absurd to think that a warrior of such renown would stoop to such a dastardly act! If only I can convince Bradley to wire Crook, asking for the general to commute the man’s sentence.

  Sentence? That’s a good one on me! Lee thought. Crazy Horse has been tried and sentenced, about to be shipped off to prison—all without the benefit of a damn trial!

  “Louis,” he said as he held the war chief’s hand. “Tell Crazy Horse I know him as a man of honor. Yes, he can ride back to Red Cloud on a horse.”

  Cheyenne, Wyo., Sept. 5, 1877.

  Colonel Bradley

  Comdg. Camp Robinson

  Accept my thanks for the successful termination of your enterprise and convey the same to Lieut. Clark and others concerned. Send Crazy Horse with a couple of his own people with him, under a strong escort, via Laramie to Omaha. Make sure that he does not escape. Keep up your efforts until you get every Indian in, even if you have to follow them up to Powder River.

  George Crook,

  Brig. General.

  The morning sun felt like a prayer against the side of his face as the small party wound its way along the wide, worn trail taking them southwest to Red Cloud’s reservation. There were moments when Crazy Horse thought he could almost drift off to sleep on the back of this pony Spotted Tail had given him … but every time he would remember what he was about to face—and he was jolted awake again.

  Just ahead of him the soldier wagon rattled and squeaked. Inside on benches sat the little agent from Spotted Tail, the half-breed translator, and two of his uncle’s most trusted associates: Black Crow and Swift Bear. With the leather shades rolled up and tied, one or the other of those Sicangu headmen had his eyes on him all the time, soldier carbines resting on their laps, ready.

  A threat to him, Crazy Horse, warrior of the North Country! Who were these little men who had chosen to be coffee-coolers, loafers in the shade of the soldier forts … while the Northern People were defending Lakota hunting ground and their ancient way of life?

  On either side of Crazy Horse rode two trusted Mnicowaju friends, fellow warriors: Touch-the-Clouds, and High Bear. Men who had sat through the long, dark night with him rather than closing their weary eyes to sleep. At times he wondered if his uncle doubted his promise not to flee the camp. But he had a sick wife, after all. And where could the two of them go that the friendlies could not find them quickly? Not to mention the soldiers who would follow. Gone like winter breathsmoke were his dreams that just a few of the Hunkpatila and Touch-the-Clouds could slip off alone, taking different trails, later to meet in the shadow of the White Mountains before the first snows flew. He sat rigid with self-doubts in the light of the small fire that turned their faces red, listening to Black Shawl’s deep and troubled breathing when she eventually fell asleep. A tense and foreboding quiet had descended upon the night.

  As soon as it grew dark, disembodied voices came to whisper to him through the lodgecover, too-quiet footsteps coming and going. Later, a new voice came to offer its advice.

  “Crazy Horse!” the whisper would come through the taut canvas near his ear. “You must run!”

  “Go now to the Land of the Grandmother!” said another.

  “Escape to Sitting Bull’s people!”

  Touch-the-Clouds listened too, as had High Bear, while the three of them sat through that long night without sleep. But there could be no escape for him now. A sick wife, and what with everyone watching him. Even more important: he had given his word—he had allowed Touch-the-Clouds to give the agent his personal guarantee. There was no running now. His only chance lay in getting the agent to give him his promise back come morning.

  He had prayed that he could have slept, and therefore dreamed—allowing himself to drift into the Real World of dream, fleeing the bleak hopelessness of this Shadow World. Without sleep, without a chance to dream, he could only sit and listen to the disembodied warnings from the darkness.

  Strange how the Mnicowaju were worried enough about Crazy Horse to warn him of the danger he already knew waited for him back among Red Cloud’s Bad Faces. Strange … because his own Oglala people had spread lies about him behind his back, had followed him around wherever he went, Red Cloud’s spies sniffing in his tracks like predators with the scent of blood in their nostrils.

  They were cowards, afraid to confront him in the open. Instead they huddled in groups that made them feel more powerful, like these ten agency Indians who followed a little distance behind him, making sure that his seven faithful friends from Touch-the-Clouds’ camp would not somehow permit him to flee. Sicangu men like Good Voice and Horned Antelope, whom the agent called “reliables,” good agency policemen who had surely been ordered to prevent his escape at all costs.

  More than a third of the way back to Red Cloud’s agency, where the trail entered a narrowing of the White River valley, a double-handful of horsemen suddenly appeared on one of the surrounding hills.1 The riders waited on the crest for the ambulance to pass, and Crazy Horse too, then angled down the slope and joined the tail end of the procession with the other Sicangu men. A few of them even dared to ease up on either side of him—not real close but near enough that he could see them without turning his head—where they rode near High Bear and Touch-the-Clouds. But these were not his Mnicowaju friends. These were Spotted Tail’s agency men, all of them wearing their blue coats with the shiny buttons. Soldier coats like the one Little Big Man loved to parade about in all the time now.

  “Do not let this trouble your heart, brother,” Touch-the-Clouds said quietly as the sun warmed the back of his neck. “These are petty men, far beneath a man of your stature. Know that there are so many of them … because they are so afraid of you.”

  Crazy Horse said nothing, not for the longest time as they rode on, the dust spinning up from the four iron wheels on the white man’s wagon where the two Sicangu with their soldier guns watched him with dark, feral eyes. Farther on,2 even more of Spotted Tail’s scouts rode out of the trees and joined their march. Now these horsemen were arrayed in long columns spread on either side of the wagon, stretching back to the rear of the formation. Crazy Horse was wondering what they would do if he suddenly bolted and reined away. But he held himself in, fighting down the impulse, and did not bolt away.

  Not until early in the afternoon, that is—when another party of scouts joined them. Now there were enough of Spotted Tail’s agency men that they dared to inch their horses closer and closer to him. Crazy Horse turned to look this way, and that, slowly making a count of these Lakota who made themselves prison bars around him. He stopped counting when he reached more than six-times-ten around him, while only that handful of Touch-the-Clouds’s faithful Mnicowaju rode right behind Crazy Horse.

  “Steady, my brother,” his uncle cheered soothingly. “They won’t dare do a thing as long as you keep your promise.”

  Promise? What good was his word to the soldiers, good at all to these agency Indians who had filled their bellies with too much flour and pig meat, every one of them forgetting that they were Lakota?

  Ha! They aren’t Lakota anymore, he decided as his pony
carried him on, step by step, toward the Soldier Town. These cowards had been living beside the wasicus too long, eating wasicu food, and obeying wasicu laws to truly be Lakota anymore.

  Surprising himself, Crazy Horse suddenly slammed his heels into the flanks of the spirited pony Spotted Tail had sent to Touch-the-Clouds’ lodge after the stars had winked into view last evening. “Keee-yiiii!” he cried to the animal as it shot into a gallop beneath him.

  “Aiii-eee! Crazy Horse!” Touch-the-Clouds roared in surprise. “Come back, nephew! They will shoot you!”

  But even as he heard their snorts of shock and anger, heard them yell to one another and their horses, Crazy Horse knew they would not shoot him. Only two men would ever have that much fury in them—and neither man was in this party that had him surrounded. Not Pretty Woman, who had nursed that humiliation to his boyhood pride for all these many winters. Neither was No Water, a man who suckled himself on a private rage so intense that few men would ever experience such passion. Only men like No Water and Crazy Horse, these two who felt things far, far deeper than most men—be it love for a woman, or hate for the man who had taken her away from him—only they truly understood each other. Both men had tasted the seduction of that very same passion. But … No Water was not here to shoot him in the back. Only Spotted Tail’s agency police. And Crazy Horse knew none of them would have the nerve to shoot a man of his stature in the back.

  Besides, his vision and Chips’s powerful medicine had prescribed that he would never fall to a bullet. Death would only come from a knife, and only when the hands of his own people reached out for him, grabbed him, held him prisoner. These agency scouts have little chance of doing that!