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

by Terry C. Johnston

  They posed as a family: Seamus perched on a stool in front of a painted canvas backdrop hung from the side of the photographer’s wagon, little Colin supported on his lap, and Samantha standing beside her husband, one hand on his shoulder, the fingers of the other barely touching her infant son. It took two tries before Donegan managed to hold the boy still enough for the photographer.

  Then Seamus had stood, backed away, and asked Sam to plant herself on the stool, taking Colin into her lap, propped there for a much more informal sitting.

  “You’re sure this is what you want?” asked the photographer.

  He saw how the boy gazed up at his mother with such love, his little fingers knotted around one of the many buttons running down the front of her bright blue dress. Diffused sunlight poured through a canvas awning, giving a blush to her cheeks.

  Seamus replied, “Oh … yes. This is just the way I want to remember them, sir.”

  Those two photographs he would carry, having left a copy of the family portrait with Sam to remember him by … along with his taking along that big turnip watch she had purchased for him back at John Collins’s store, Fort Laramie. Whenever he would hold the watch against his ear—she had instructed him—the tick would be the beat of her heart, drumming out her love for him while he was so many, many miles and so many, many days away.

  “How about Sam and our boy bunking in with the two of you till I’m back come November?” he asked Valentine McGillycuddy as they sipped at coffee in the dark that Thursday morning, September 7.

  “I thought I’d already made a decision on that,” the doctor replied, blowing across the surface of his coffee.

  “You talked it over with Fanny?”

  “She’s the one came up with the idea,” McGillycuddy admitted with a grin. “I think it’s a fine idea. Women belong together, Seamus. It’s men like you and me can do without company for long stretches of time.”

  His eyes misted a little as he peered at the doctor. “Especially a fella like me. I’m in your debt, friend.”

  “Oh, you will be by the time you get back!” McGillycuddy snorted. “I’m keeping account of how much Sam is going to eat!”

  Reaching way down into the deep front pocket of his canvas britches, Seamus pulled out a thick roll of army scrip. Seizing hold of McGillycuddy’s empty hand, he filled it with the roll of paper money, then closed the physician’s fingers around it. “You keep this for me, and take what you need to feed the three of you while I’m gone north to fight with Miles.”

  In stunned disbelief, McGillycuddy stared down at the wad of neatly rolled bills tied up with a soiled piece of string. “My god! How much money is this, Seamus?” he exclaimed in an astonished whisper.

  With a shrug, he answered, “Don’t rightly recollect how much I’ve got left now, after trading off for new horses, guns, cawtridges, and all. But … if I don’t come back … want you to see that Samantha gets all that’s left.”

  Valentine quickly stuffed the money down an inside pocket of his morning coat. “I’ll make sure Sam gets every last dollar of it, Seamus.”

  For a moment, he could not speak, staring as he was into the eyes of this friend. “Th-thanks, Doc. You’ll watch over ’em for me?”

  “Like they was my own, Seamus. Like the two of them was my very own.”

  All too soon it was time for him to step away from that officers’ barracks and fetch up his horses, lead them over to the tent where most everything he was taking was buried under their blankets. With the animals saddled and ready to go, he put his new pair of binoculars into the off-hand saddlebag and buckled the three straps. Sighed, and led the horses back to the porch where McGillycuddy waited with Touch-the-Clouds, the two women, and his little boy.

  She stepped down from the low porch as he dropped the reins and moved toward her.

  “Sh-sh,” he whispered in her ear as he took both of his loved ones into his arms. “There’s nothing else we can say. Got it all said last night.”

  And when Samantha pulled back a few inches and looked up into his face, she set Colin in her husband’s arms and then went to wiping the damp tears from Donegan’s ruddy, bristly cheeks, already furry with a three-day growth of new beard.

  “We’ll be waiting here, Seamus,” she said softly.

  “By Thanksgiving,” he vowed. Then thought better. “No later than Christmas.”

  “Then we’ll be staying for the winter?”

  He stroked her hair for a moment. “Unless we get a stretch of fair weather and can strike out for Deadwood. Here, or up there, we’re not going to make it to Last Chance Gulch before late spring now.”

  “These are good people,” she said, trying hard to smile.

  “No finer people to look after those I love.”

  Then she pressed herself against him, flinging her arms around both of her men, quietly sobbing. “I knew this was what you were when I married you, Seamus. A soldier. A fighting man … a warrior. But just knowing doesn’t make the parting any easier.”

  “Long as there’s Injins running over the land, killing white folks ’cause so many white folks has killed them and stole their hunting grounds … I can’t take you two north with me.”

  He felt her nod her head against his thick wool shirt. Leaning down, he kissed her forehead before she stepped back. Then he raised Colin up to the full length of his arms and gently rocked the boy side to side.

  “Take good care of your mama now, son. You pa’s going away for a few weeks to do what he can to put things right again. Till then, I don’t want you learning to say a single word or take a single step, neither one … not till I get back to bounce you in the air meself.”

  Gradually bringing the boy back down to his own damp and upturned face, Donegan smothered Colin’s face with a dozen tiny kisses. Then turned him back over to his mother.

  At her ear, he whispered, “You both are all I’ve ever had to care about.”

  Then briefly pressed his open mouth against hers, quickly turned, and stuffed a big boot in the leather-wrapped stirrup. Dragging a coat sleeve beneath his nose, he touched his heart with his fingertips, blew her a kiss, and reined both horses around in a tight half-circle, jabbing the saddle animal with the blunt ends of his brass spurs.

  Don’t look back, he told himself over and over as the horse carried him away. Just don’t look back.

  There were friends he owed his allegiance to up there at the mouth of the Tongue River. Fighting men and comrades-in-arms.

  And there was a wide swath of Montana Territory he had to see was put back to rest. Only then could he come back to Samantha and Colin with a heart not burdened by duty to his adopted country, not fettered by loyalty to old friends.

  Only when the flames of this Nez Perce War were snuffed out could he come back to family, and once more take up their search for a home.

  Notes

  Prologue

  1. Among the Lakota, the spirit guardian, or sicun, represented the power of Wakan Tanka embodied in a human being. This spiritual essence served to guard the person against evil spirits, often forewarned of danger, distinguished right from wrong, and controlled other humans. Raymond DeMallie states that we might call the sicun an individual’s conscience or will.

  2. What he wore were the two perfectly matched feathers every eagle is born with, found bilaterally positioned in its tail.

  3. Sioux is the French term the earliest of wasicus or white men, gave to these people of the northern plains, while Lakota is the word they use to refer to themselves.

  4. This vision was experienced on top of what is today called Scott’s Bluff, in southwestern Nebraska.

  Chapter One

  1. Because of Lakota militancy in the region, this post was established in February of 1874 when the agent Dr. James J. Saville called for army protection at the nearby Red Cloud Agency.

  2. Trumpet on the Land, vol. 10, the Plainsmen Series.

  3. This moment is said to have happened one day after Crazy Horse made first c
ontact with Lieutenant William Rosecrans.

  Chapter Two

  1. Despite his being the man Crazy Horse surrendered to, Clark’s greatest fame would come from the release of his comprehensive and exhaustive book, Indian Sign Language, published just after his death.

  2. For some time now, Spotted Tail had been receiving a salary from General George Crook—the only Lakota chief who ever received the esteem of a government salary. While it would be most interesting to know how much he was paid, and why, critics of this most famous Brulé chief have no grounds on which to claim that he was benefiting himself at the expense of his tribe, since it is on the record that he insisted that the government pay him in one-dollar bills so he could then distribute the entire amount to the poorer families on his reservation.

  3. With him, Crazy Horse brought a total of 899 people, of whom 217 were warriors, 312 women, 186 boys, and 184 girls, along with more than 2,000 horses and mules.

  4. This is not Crazy Horse’s half brother (same father, different mother), who had been killed by some white miners when only twenty-three summers old. Instead, this is his mother’s brother, who will play a minor role in the coming drama and tragedy of these final days of his nephew’s life.

  5. He Dog is Red Cloud’s nephew, a family connection that will soon exert all the more strain on his close bond with Crazy Horse.

  6. The Maka Blu Wakpa, or Powder River.

  7. The Tatonka Ceji Wakpa, or Tongue River.

  8. The Onjinjintka Wakpa, or Rosebud Creek.

  9. The Peji Sluta, or Little Bighorn River.

  Chapter Three

  1. The army drove those Northern ponies down to Fort Laramie, where they were auctioned off for a fraction of their worth. The government held onto that money, earmarking it for the use by the Sioux in such vital matters as agriculture and education. With the way the Oglala leaders detested any talk of turning them into farmers, any mention of educating their children in the ways of the white man, just knowing that the money from the sale of their herds was to be used for that had to infuriate those chiefs beyond imagination.

  2. Article Ten of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 provided for the issue of rations and annuities to those Indians who complied with the treaty’s terms. In order that the government’s Indian Bureau could more closely estimate what was needed in the way of issue items, Article Ten further stipulated: “It shall be the duty of the agent to forward an exact census of the Indians.” Every head, every mouth, was to be counted.

  3. East of present-day Gillette, Wyoming.

  4. Near present-day Sheridan, Wyoming.

  5. Bighorn Mountains.

  Chapter Four

  1. Lakota for the Northern Cheyenne.

  2. More commonly known as Dull Knife to the white man. See A Cold Day in Hell, vol. 11, the Plainsmen Series.

  3. Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma.

  4. Traditionally spelled Minniconjou by the white man.

  5. Ashes of Heaven, vol. 13, the Plainsmen Series.

  6. This is the Lakota name for this band, while the white men have always called them by their French name, Brulé.

  7. This was the chief of the Minniconjou Lakota, not to be confused with the Oglala Lakota leader by the same name, the agency chief who will figure prominently in the undoing of and the treachery worked against Crazy Horse in this story; see Trumpet on the Land, vol. 10, the Plainsmen Series.

  8. The Crow tribe or Psa—while Psatoka means “Crow enemies.”

  9. Trumpet on the Land, vol. 10, the Plainsmen Series.

  10. Blood Song, vol. 8, the Plainsmen Series.

  Chapter Five

  1. In his book written about these years among the Indians, Dr. Valentine T. McGillycuddy diagnosed Black Shawl as having tuberculosis.

  2. Blood Song, vol. 8, the Plainsmen Series.

  3. Some of the most recent historical research tends to corroborate Grouard’s claim that he was born in Tahiti, on the isle of Taiarapu.

  4. Yellowstone River.

  5. At the time of this story, even in mid-1877, many in the U.S. Army still did not realize, or perhaps did not want to admit, that they had not attacked Crazy Horse’s village at all, but a village of Northern Cheyenne, who were on the move south to the white man’s reservations, accompanied by some eleven lodges of He Dog’s Oglala people, which might have accounted for Grouard’s mistake identifying this Cheyenne camp as the village of his nemesis, Crazy Horse.

  Chapter Six

  1. This shooting took place on the upper reaches of the Powder River, sometime in the late summer of 1870, as the white man dates things.

  Chapter Seven

  1. Battle of Powder River, Blood Song, vol. 8, the Plainsmen Series.

  2. Battle of the Butte, Wolf Mountain Moon, vol. 12, the Plainsmen Series.

  Chapter Nine

  1. Trumpet on the Land, vol. 10, the Plainsmen Series.

  2. Reap the Whirlwind, vol. 9, the Plainsmen Series.

  3. The Grattan massacre.

  4. The Fetterman massacre.

  5. The Shoshone.

  6. The Crow.

  7. The Black Hills, what the Lakota called the Heart of the Earth.

  8. Among the Lakota in general, and the Oglala in particular, Chips was renowned for imbuing objects and charms with special protective powers for those who wore them.

  9. The scourge of cholera came west with the emigrants traveling the Holy Road in 1849. And in 1850 a new epidemic of smallpox burned its way into Indian country.

  Chapter Ten

  1. The people of the northern plains.

  Chapter Eleven

  1. The Lakota camp police, in charge of maintaining order in camp or on the hunt.

  2. Mnisose, the white man’s Missouri River.

  Chapter Twelve

  1. He was one of the more well-known of the Lakota winkte (literally meaning “a man who wants to be a woman”), those men who dressed like a woman and preferred a woman’s role, beading and cooking, to making war or stealing horses. In their youth, they usually played girls’ games. In adulthood, it was not unusual for a winkte to become a warrior’s consort, although there is some ambivalence in Lakota culture concerning the propriety of a man having sex with a winkte. Theirs was a powerful medicine, so strong that they were often asked to give secret nicknames to newborn children, the sort of ribald and often obscene names that were rarely uttered in public. Some of those more earthy names were censored, or changed, when the Northern People were enrolled following their surrender at Red Cloud Agency.

  2. A Cold Day In Hell, vol. 11, the Plainsmen Series.

  3. 27 July 1877.

  4. Irwin, a civilian, had become agent on July 1, ending direct military control of Red Cloud Agency.

  Chapter Sixteen

  1. Meat mixed together with fat and powdered bone meal.

  2. You will recall that He Dog is Red Cloud’s nephew.

  Chapter Seventeen

  1. On 13 August 1877, Private William Gentles was court-martialled for “unauthorized absence from his company.” He was sentenced to twenty days at hard labor, in addition to his forfeiture of one month’s pay ($12.00). Although he was not released to return to his duties as sentry until 3 September, I have taken license here to have him meeting our fictional hero, Seamus Donegan, here at Benjamin Paddock’s saloon at Camp Robinson the last few days of August.

  2. Red Cloud’s Revenge, vol. 2, the Plainsmen Series.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  1. According to the record left by Lieutenant William P. Clark, he did indeed enlist the help of one of his Indian scouts, asked to commence a liaison with a Hunkpatila girl who resided in the lodge right next to that of Crazy Horse, simply so he could monitor the chief’s intentions and the comings and goings of the chief’s allies. Clark himself never did reveal the name of this Indian scout, but in his interview with Judge Eli Ricker, He Dog stated that both Lone Bear and Woman’s Dress were spying on Crazy Horse’s lodge for Clark.

  2.
April 11, 1873: Reverend Eleazar Thomas and General Edward R. Canby were murdered by Modoc leaders during a peace council in the Lava Beds. See Devil’s Backbone, vol. 5, the Plainsmen Series.

  3. According to the thesis of James H. Gilbert, author of “The Death of Crazy Horse,” which appeared in the scholarly Journal of the West (January 1993), “General Crook had previously been targeted for death under similar council meeting circumstances prior to the surrender of Crazy Horse, only to be saved from murder by an Indian informant.” None of Gilbert’s assertions am I able to substantiate in Crook biographical materials.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  1. Those placed at this meeting were Red Cloud, Red Dog, Young Man Afraid, Little Wound, Slow Bull, American Horse, and Yellow Bear, along with interpreters Frank Grouard, Baptiste Pouier, and William Garnett.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  1. Lieutenant Jesse M. Lee, military agent at Spotted Tail Agency, estimated that by the time they moved their discussions inside his office, there were more than 500 armed and infuriated warriors ready to fight at the drop of a hat, right there on the agency grounds, while Captain Daniel Burke had just under 100 men to muster at nearby Camp Sheridan.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  1. Where the agency trail crossed present-day Bordeaux Creek.

  2. As the procession neared present-day Chadron Creek.

  3. It seems likely that this incident occurred on or near Dead Horse Creek.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  1. The total number of Sioux comprising this throng was estimated at the high end by Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy at more than 10,000 Indians, while other—and more conservative—estimates put the number somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 Sioux. You have only to visit old Camp Robinson (not the more modern Fort Robinson across the road) to see firsthand how even the lowest estimate would have made for a dramatic and potentially explosive situation.

  2. Usually a private who served as a personal attendant to an officer of high rank.

  Chapter Thirty

  1. In September of 1877, the one-story Camp Robinson guardhouse was composed of two rooms. You entered the building through a lone doorway at the east side, on the north wall. An awning extended along the full length of that north, or front, side.