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

by Terry C. Johnston

  More than ten agency men charged in from the edge of the crowd, their soldier pistols drawn, forced to swing their weapons side to side, trying to take careful aim at the two wrestlers.

  Atop his pony, Red Cloud shook a fist and hissed at his scouts, “Shoot low! Shoot to kill!”

  As Little Big Man struggled to get a powerful hand around his right wrist, Crazy Horse felt his old friend’s hot words behind his ear: “Stop fighting, my friend! They will harm you if you fight!”

  From the crowd a woman shrieked in horror, “His arms! His arms!”

  Another woman screamed, “See? They are holding his arms!”

  Off to the side he saw the soldier chief appear, rushing into view as he wrenched his long knife out of its shiny scabbard, waving the long blade at Red Cloud’s and American Horse’s agency men—clattering its deadly weight down against the barrels of their army pistols.

  A coward runs!

  “I am not a coward!” he roared in anger at his sicun.

  Stand and fight them as a man!

  “Don’t you see? I am the last warrior!”

  “No war to fight! No war to fight!” Little Big Man shouted in his ear, beginning to squeeze and twist Crazy Horse’s right wrist painfully. “Stop fighting and you will not be hurt, my friend!”

  He would never be able to throw off the strong one who held him in such a painful vise, two powerful arms squeezing around his middle to make breathing impossible.

  “Drop your knife!” Little Big Man ordered, catching Crazy Horse’s right wrist, immediately wrenching downward on that hand gripping the sharp weapon. “Drop it before they hurt you!”

  “Let me go, my friend!” he snarled back at his old comrade of the war trail. “Let go of me!”

  They grunted against each other, wrestling as they had when they were mere boys. But this was different now—both men knowing who was the stronger … both friends knowing who would remain the warrior unto death.

  Inch by inch his right arm was pushed down, then suddenly drawn back by Little Big Man. It was an old fighting tactic to catch your opponent off-guard by using his power against him. So for an instant Crazy Horse let that right arm go limp, which caused his friend to relax but a heartbeat.

  This was his only chance at escape, his only road to freedom now.

  Show them how a warrior looks death in the eye!

  His legs bent slightly, Crazy Horse raked downward through the air with the knife, felt it strike something more than air, but slashed onward.

  “Arrggg!” Little Big Man shrieked, his hands suddenly flying free.

  Heaving upward, Crazy Horse threw his right shoulder into his old friend, flinging the bigger man backward. He raised his face to the red-tinged sky, shouting his most stirring battle cry: “Strong hearts to the front! Cowards and weak hearts to the rear!”

  “Private, stab the bastard!”

  He sucked air into his lungs, still in a crouch as he cried at the crowd, “It is a good day to die!”

  “Stab him, goddammit!”

  Little Big Man spun away, blood flinging from his opened wrist, clutching the wound tightly in his right hand as he stumbled backward, staring at Crazy Horse with wonder and pity in his eyes.

  No! Crazy Horse’s mind burned. I only meant to free myself—not to cut you!

  “Stab the son of a b—”

  His ears rang with the angry wasicu words he could not understand, interrupted by a loud clunk of metal against wood.

  “You stupid Mick bastard!”

  The women’s screams began to ring even louder in his ears.

  “Dammit—you heard my order: Stab the son of a bitch!”

  Behind you! Remember that death will come from behind you, Ta’sunke Witko!

  With a mix of sorrow turning to horror, Little Big Man called out, “Look out, my friend—”

  From his left he felt the movement rushing toward him, more than seeing the approaching danger. Remembering his youthful vision received on the great rock in the middle of the prairie: danger approached from behind.

  Out of the corner of his eye as he began to whirl, Crazy Horse caught the blur of blue, the glint of oiled wood and dulled steel lit with the crimson of sunset.

  Then sensing the long blade pierce the small of his back, just above the left hip, sliding on below the bottommost rib—a sudden, painless shock coming from the realization that he was staring into the eyes of the old white man who had him impaled on the end of his long gun. The soldier’s weary, red eyes did not show anger, nor sadness either. In that instant he found their souls touching, the wasicu’s eyes said nothing.

  From the circle of red and white faces around him issued a gasp of utter shock.

  For another heartbeat his eyes gazed over his shoulder at the old soldier—saw the blank eyes just then widening with recognition. Then Crazy Horse felt the long blade slowly pulled from his back as his knees weakened, unable to hold him up any longer. The hands of all those reaching out to grab him, to hold him back, suddenly flew from him.

  In his chest as he slowly collapsed, Crazy Horse felt his heart labor, pumping blood through his unresponsive limbs. Felt the desperate flutter of wings as his spirit guardian struggled beneath his breast.

  The moment his knees struck the ground, an icy white heat exploded from the long river of pain low in his back. Slowly, Crazy Horse rocked forward onto his hands, barely able to keep his eyes open, the pain was so great. The sort of agony that could easily make a man lose himself and wet his leggings. He fought to stay awake. Gritting his teeth, angry and despairing of ever rising again—feeling his strength ebb from him.

  Stand and fight them to the end, Ta’sunke Witko!

  But he knew he could not. It was the sort of wound that took all of a man’s fighting strength from him with one breath. He might not die for some time … but he had been dealt a death blow.

  “I-I can … not,” he whispered, flecks of spittle collecting at the corners of his lips. “He … he has killed me now.”

  As he gazed upward at all the hundreds of blurry faces dancing back from him, mouths open, aghast at what they had just witnessed, he drew in one mighty breath, hoping it would be enough to allow him to stumble back to his feet … but his legs were leaving him, like water seeping through the crack in a worn, old kettle.

  “My friend,” the familiar voice said quietly in his ear.

  He looked down at the hand on his shoulder, saw the bright blood dripping off the fingers. Then raised his eyes to gaze into the face of Little Big Man.

  Through teeth he had clamped together in an angry, crimson agony, Crazy Horse grunted, “Let me go!,” then drew a second breath that sent a wave of renewed pain through his belly. “Let me go.… Can’t you see you have got me hurt enough?”

  He blinked, his eyes unable to see so well now. It reminded him of the black silk handkerchiefs the traders sold. Gloom seeping through him, only some tiny pinpricks of light shooting across the inky void. Surely they must be the earliest stars of an evening—but for the moment there were more than any one man could ever count … all of them turning, turning, turning upside down high above him.

  Yet … that star road of fallen warriors was no longer where it had always been, where it should be, to guide him on his final journey. Instead … the star road had turned upside down and was now sweeping its great arch lower and lower. Closer and closer it sank toward earth, descending for him. All the better to gather him up in their mighty arms.

  Here at last he would join the immortals.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  September 5, 1877

  Seamus could not believe his eyes!

  Witness to that obedient old soldier bounding up while the officer shouted for him to stab Crazy Horse, seeing how Gentles missed with his first wild lunge—striking the doorjamb instead because of the way Crazy Horse was wrestling with another, much more muscular Indian in a blue scout’s tunic. With a grunt the old private yanked his bayonet free of the wood and immediately s
ent it home with his second lunge. The moment he did, the crowd of yelling, shrieking Sioux jumped backward with a collective gasp.

  “The wolf’s let out to howl now!” he roared above the noise to the physician standing at his elbow, near the corner of the porch attached to the adjutant’s office.

  McGillycuddy turned to stare at Donegan with a mix of horror and dread. “I gotta do what I can.”

  He gazed over the doctor’s shoulder at the muscular Indian who knelt over Crazy Horse the moment the injured man crumpled to his knees. Donegan turned at the sound of angry voices, watching the giant of an Indian hunch out of the low office doorway and quickly survey the scene outside the adjutant’s office. He knew the tall one had come with Crazy Horse, perhaps a captor. But from the wounded look that came to the Indian’s eyes, Donegan could instantly tell they were more than friends.

  “I’m going to help!”

  He wheeled around at the cry from McGillycuddy, finding that the surgeon was bounding off the porch, into the crowd, tearing his way through them with his hands, shoving Indians this way and that without giving a thought to his own safety. An instant later the towering Indian shoved his way through the stunned officers on that same porch, bumping past Donegan as he leaped onto the ground, shouting in Sioux at the thousands of onlookers. A hundred or more fell away from him like wheat parted by the wind until he caught up with the shorter white man. Both McGillycuddy and the tall warrior reached what small open ground remained in front of the guardhouse door where Crazy Horse raised one arm and pushed away the offered hands of the muscular Indian.

  All Donegan could think about was how those howling Indians were going to tear up the doctor friend right before his eyes if he did not help. Without an instant’s hesitation, Seamus leaped into the crowd, shoving his way through the screaming, wailing hundreds—every step of the way praying none of them would jab a knife between his ribs as he carved a path toward the horrendous scene. The officer of the day was waving his sword in the air and shouting orders. From somewhere soldiers gathering, officers with pistols drawn, sentries with their Springfields lowered, those terrifying bayonets ready to impale the first of any attackers who came bolting out of the surging crowd. Behind their protective crescent stood old Private Gentles.

  Donegan’s eyes found the Irish soldier’s for a heartbeat. In them rested a weary fear—not so much a fear for his own life because he had just stabbed this famous Sioux chief right in front of his people … but more so a fear that was beginning to sink in for what he had done. Slowly, Gentles’s eyes fell to stare again at the blood that glistened the full length of the bayonet, a crimson stark and shiny against the dull steel. Then Gentles was nudged back even farther by his fellow soldiers, guided toward that open guardhouse door as the protective knot of frightened soldiers retreated inch by inch. All the while that captain waved his sword menacingly at the crowd, bellowing orders across the parade, where more men in blue were swarming out of barracks and offices, forming up, shouting among themselves in confusion.

  Between them and this tiny patch of empty ground where Crazy Horse had collapsed milled several thousand Sioux about to erupt.

  Muscling his way through the innermost ring of Indian onlookers, Seamus recognized the clicks of at least a hundred hammers when he found himself standing over McGillycuddy and the tall Indian—both of them crouched over the bleeding man. The ground beneath Crazy Horse was already blackening with blood as he writhed in the dust and the grass, gritting his teeth, eyes clenched in torment. Moaning the wordless agony of the dying.

  As he quickly looked around him, it became clear that the Sioux weren’t really pointing their weapons at that double-guard of twenty soldiers who continued to inch back onto the porch and start through the doorway. Instead, the Indians had divided themselves into two forces, one large and armed with the finest of army carbines and pistols, the other side pitifully small, those wild Northern warriors who gripped more clubs and tomahawks than firearms. What illegal guns they had pulled from under blankets and shirts were now cocked and aimed at Red Cloud’s men. With unrequited fury both sides shouted their challenges back and forth, willing to turn this into a bloodbath.

  “Doc,” he cried as he leaned over McGillycuddy, reaching out to grip the physician’s shoulder.

  McGillycuddy desperately pressed both of his bloody hands against the large patch of crimson that was spreading across the back of Crazy Horse’s blue-cloth shirt. He glanced up at the Irishman, saying only, “He has a death wound, Seamus.”

  “Then we gotta get ’im outta here,” Seamus whispered urgently. “Get you outta here.”

  As a trumpeter blew the first notes of Boots and Saddles, McGillycuddy leaped to his feet immediately, glanced down at both of his hands wet with blood. Without a word he darted toward Kennington.

  “Captain!” he raged as he jolted to a stop before the wide-eyed officer shaking his ceremonial sword at the scouts who were brandishing pistols as they screamed. “The man is going to die! I’ve got to get him to the hospital to put him at ease—”

  “You forget yourself, Doctor!” Kennington interrupted. “You are a soldier. My orders were to put that prisoner in the guardhouse, so into a cell he will go.”

  “You’re a mule-headed son of a bitch!” Donegan growled as he came up behind McGillycuddy protectively.

  Kennington glanced at him, then back at the physician’s face. “We have our orders, Doctor. You take a leg, I’ll take the other, and we’ll have a guard take his head—”

  “Not to the guardhouse, for God’s sake!” McGillycuddy protested.

  “We’re not going to stand out here till someone else gets killed for what’s already been done!” Kennington growled, jamming his sword back into its scabbard. “Help me, Surgeon! That’s an order!”

  They quickly knelt and started to raise the wounded man off the ground, but the tall Indian suddenly clamped his big hand on McGillycuddy’s shoulder and shook his head ominously. Except for the wailing of the women, the crowd grew quiet.

  Through the knot of soldiers arrayed against the guard-house stepped a white-faced Baptiste Pourier. “For God’s sake, Captain!” he yelled in fear. “Stop! Or we’re all dead men!”

  Both white men gently laid Crazy Horse back in the dirt and trampled grass, and that giant Sioux took his hand from the surgeon’s shoulder.

  In panic the doctor turned to glance back over his shoulder as American Horse, still perched imperially on his pony, pushed his way through the crowd, inching toward them. But it wasn’t the chief, McGillycuddy pointed out now. “Look, Seamus! It’s Grouard.”

  McGillycuddy raised his arm as American Horse came to the edge of the menacing, noisy mass of Sioux. Seamus spotted the dark-skinned scout peeking around the corner of the nearby commissary. Rising to step away from Kennington, the doctor impatiently waved for Grouard to come. But the interpreter shook his head and disappeared from sight.

  “God-blamed coward!” Donegan snarled, while the trumpeter blew Boots and Saddles a second time on the warm air of that late-summer’s eve.

  “There!” McGillycuddy said, pointing in another direction. “Johnny! Johnny Provost! Come help us!”

  For the briefest moment Seamus stared over the heads of the crowd at the commanding officer’s quarters. Bradley stood in the midst of a few of his officers, watching from that safe distance, arms folded across his chest as a man might watch a cockfight. “Seems your post commander ain’t gonna do a thing to help you, Doc.”

  McGillycuddy glanced up as interpreter Johnny Provost reached his side, long enough to recognize that Colonel Bradley was refusing to become embroiled in the near riot threatening to erupt. “Johnny, stay here. I’m gonna need you to translate.” Then he darted away.

  “Where you going, Doc?” Donegan cried.

  He looked over his shoulder to shout back at the Irishman, “To make the man act like a leader.”

  Damn little chance of that! Seamus thought to himself as he stepped behind the
tall Indian who was still crouched over the writhing, groaning Crazy Horse. Bradley was a coward who would always stay behind the safety of fort walls when civilians were attacked, or out of harm’s way when it seemed certain a general Indian war was about to flare up.

  Sprinting back in minutes, McGillycuddy huffed, “The general repeated his orders to put the prisoner in the guard-house.”

  “Then it’s our duty to obey those orders, Doctor,” Kennington declared.

  “You realize what’ll happen?” McGillycuddy shouted. “This chief is related to Crazy Horse. He doesn’t want us to move him. So what do you think will happen if we attempt to move him into the guardhouse?”

  “I say you go ask the friendly scouts,” Seamus suggested.

  “Yes,” McGillycuddy said, hope back in his voice as one of the Indians at the edge of the crowd began shouting, pointing at the sky as he seemingly trembled with fear.

  Around him more and more of the Sioux turned their faces at the evening sky, some of them putting their hands over their mouths as that Indian continued to shriek.

  “Who is that, Johnny?” McGillycuddy asked of the interpreter.

  “Name’s Black Crow. One of Spotted Tail’s friends.”

  Donegan grew irritated with how the man was working on the crowd. “What’s he saying to ’em?”

  Provost listened for a moment more, staring at the sky too. “He says that cloud up there, the big one—‘Look! Look!’ he says, telling the others it looks like a man riding a white horse. Most of these people remember Crazy Horse always rode a white horse.”

  “So now they’re getting spooked?” Seamus asked, grimly preparing for the worst.

  Grabbing Johnny Provost’s arm, McGillycuddy sprang away toward American Horse, who sat stoically atop his pony at the edge of the innermost ring of agency police, his army carbine cocked, positioned across his left arm.

  Seamus watched how the surgeon implored the agency leader through the interpreter, how American Horse shook his head in refusal. That hit Donegan as a contradiction: that this agency leader would not give his permission to have Crazy Horse moved into the guardhouse—even though he was no friend to the dying man.