by Andy Conway
He filled a pipe methodically, taking a great deal of time, as if the filling of the pipe were the entire ceremony itself. I watched him, hypnotized, as he first used a small knife to peel curled strands of kinnikinnick from strips of red willow bark, then mixed it with tobacco — no doubt from that gift brought by They Fear Even His Horse last year — and gently thumbed it into the clay bowl. After an age, he lit and passed it to me.
He did not speak for a long time as we smoked, and I wondered if it was my role to speak first, but he eventually sighed and said, “Do you know the story of White Buffalo Calf Woman?”
I thought for a moment he was referring to Buffalo Calf Road Woman, the Cheyenne who had saved her brother at the Rosebud, but he meant another.
“No, I do not.”
“White Buffalo Calf Woman was a strange spirit who appeared one day on the plains. She was beautiful and dressed in white buckskin. Two braves saw her appear. One of them lusted after her and tried to molest her, and for this she turned him into a pile of bones. The other brave saw that she came with a message from the buffalo spirits and gave her respect. So she came to the camp and gave the Lakota their sacred pipe, instructing them in the ceremonies of smoking. When she left them, walking away across the plain, she transformed first into a red and brown buffalo calf, then into a white buffalo, and finally into a black buffalo before she disappeared. It is said that she will return when the Lakota nation is at an end.”
I presumed Sitting Bull only mentioned this because we were smoking the sacred pipe and he wished to instruct me in its history.
We smoked for a while more and he asked, “What are your thoughts on the Battle of the Rosebud and the stone markers you were charged with leaving behind?”
I reported everything to him, sparing no detail, until by slow degrees, like a gentle river winding its way through hilly landscape, I was able to tell him of the column of soldiers coming from the east, as in his vision.
He seemed unsurprised, only nodded. It had been foretold to him by the spirits and it must come to pass.
Eventually, I talked of my own vision, of the Little Bighorn book, describing it merely as a dream and nothing approaching a divine revelation given to me by the spirits, for I was not a medicine man.
Seen by the Nation snorted her disgust and chuckled to herself from her seat to the right of the lodge’s entrance, but Sitting Bull looked me square in the eye, probing my soul.
“You are fallen from the sky,” he said. “There is wakan in your soul, and it is fearful to many of my people, for they see you as an evil spirit.”
I shrugged. What did I care for how people saw me?
“But there are some who say you are White Buffalo Calf Woman, who has returned to us.”
My mouth must have fallen open with shock, for he chuckled to himself, pleased with the effect of his words, and his wife snorted more disgust.
The pieces of the myth fell into place. A mysterious woman who appears on the plain, not dressed in white, but her skin all white. She possesses great magic, or wakan, and is pure, refusing the advances of the first man to lust after her. I too had not taken a man since I had been here. And everyone knew that since I had arrived, the end of their free life on the plains was near. The buffalo were dwindling, the white men were taking their land and their soldiers were coming to wipe them out. I could see how they might think I was White Buffalo Calf Woman, even though the thought horrified me.
“White Buffalo Calf Woman was a native,” I said. “And she had black hair, and wore white buckskin.”
“White Buffalo Calf Woman changed her appearance three times when she first came to us,” he answered. “And made no promise of what she might look like when she returned.”
“I’m not a spirit,” I said, “good or evil. I’m just a woman who’s lost and has no memory of how to get home.”
He laughed. “There is wakan about you. It is strong. That is what I know.”
I bowed my head in respect. “I don’t want to be anyone’s myth. I’m a woman.”
“The spirits choose our destiny, not us.”
“I am not her.”
Both of his wives looked up sharply, and his teenage daughters, shocked at the disrespectful tone of my voice. But Sitting Bull did not seem concerned or offended, only sad.
“And yet,” he said. “When I look at you, I see the end of my people.”
I didn’t know what to say.
If Sitting Bull, the greatest of them thought this about me, what hope did I have of convincing anyone otherwise? He had announced me to the tribe as a friend and now I knew he had seen something else too: I was the harbinger of doom.
I thanked him for his hospitality and excused myself. “Long Hair is coming. He will ride into this camp and kill many. It might be today.”
“I thank you for your vision,” he said. “I have seen it myself. My scouts report the soldiers coming from all sides. One has even reported that Long Hair and his soldiers have desecrated one of our burial grounds from our winter camp by the Yellowstone river. They took the bodies from their scaffolds, unwrapped them, threw them in the river, and divided their properties among themselves like thieves.”
Sitting Bull’s mother, his wives and daughters, even the twins, all fell silent at this.
“This I have heard,” Sitting Bull continued. “And for this desecration the Great Spirit shall deliver them to us. When they fall into the camp the spirits have promised their scalps to us. I have warned my people that they must not take anything from the bodies of the soldiers, or forever be cursed to starve at the white man’s door, seeking his possessions. The soldiers will come when they come,” he said. “But tonight we shall dance. Celebrate with us, Bright Star Falling, and think no more on it.”
He shifted his weight, trying to make himself more comfortable, his body still suffering from his hundred cuts. It seemed inconceivable that a man so weak in body might be on the eve of his greatest ever victory.
I bowed my head once more and stepped out into the light, where the joyful camp continued in its blissful ignorance of the coming storm, even though it had been foretold to them.
Song of the night
GREASY GRASS RIDGE, JUNE 24TH, 1876. There was a celebration for the Suicide Boys that night and everyone cheered when they entered. Little Star looked on enviously, but could not hold back his tears of admiration, applauding with the rest.
They did not look like The Men who are Talked About to me. They looked like men who were either too old or too young for fighting; men who would die quickly. It made a bad taste in my soul, so I turned away from the dancing and walked through the camp.
There were other gatherings here and there, with people huddled around fires, telling stories, and dancing too. It wasn’t all about the Suicide Boys.
I was still so scared of what was to come I could not join in their merriment. Neither, apparently, could Sitting Bull.
As the village danced and sang their songs, Sitting Bull and a small band of followers walked through the camp. They paused at the ford by the Miniconjou camp and talked for a while, pointing up at the bluffs that overlooked us, and I wondered if they had seen what I had seen: a giant yellow snake coiling down the deep coulee and sliding into the camp.
Perhaps they had seen the shape of the battle to come and were discussing how it might be fought.
And at this moment I wondered if what I had seen was a vision or simply something I had thought about; an idle daydream. I had not actually seen the snake, only imagined it. But was that not also a vision?
They crossed the river at its shallowest point and tramped across the muddy flat on the opposite bank, which seemed boggy and treacherous, but they struggled on and disappeared in the dark hills.
I followed, stumbling in the dark, but always aware of their voices ahead of me, and climbing in their footsteps. Eventually, I emerged to the summit of a great ridge.
The sight stole my breath.
There was but a bare sliver
of a moon, but up there, above the smoke of the camp, the stars hung in the vast black heaven like a great buffalo blanket inlaid with a thousand silver beads. When I turned back to look down at the camp I saw too its own majesty, stretching along the river bank for as far as the eye could see, lit by the giant camp fires and the dancers gathered around them, and bright flames from inside the tipis, which stood like lanterns, the whole camp shimmering golden.
I had seen something like this before. I felt a memory from my past steal my heart: gazing down from the sky at the black earth below and seeing the glowing lights of giant cities. It was impossible, but perhaps I had been granted the memory of an eagle flying above the plains.
This vision entranced me.
I was woken from it by the sound of a lone voice singing out from somewhere over the bluffs to the north. A bright glow flickered atop a high hill. Sitting Bull and his entourage had walked some way from me and he was now praying to the spirits.
His frail chant sailed across the night air and merged with the snatches of song and drumbeats fluttering to me on the warm night breeze.
I watched the great panorama of the camp as Sitting Bull prayed for them, and wrapped my blanket tight around me, and wondered how anyone could deny these people their right to this majesty.
Gall
LITTLE BIGHORN, JUNE 25TH, 1876. I knew that this was the morning Custer would come. I knew it like you know that it will rain this day, or like you know it’s going to be a day where nothing goes right for you. And even though I knew he was coming to kill us all, I still fell into a deep sleep in the tipi I shared with Little Star. I slept long into the morning, as did everyone, for the night of dancing and celebration had lasted till the rising of the sun.
The moment my eyes fluttered open, I kicked off the buffalo blanket, sweating in the morning heat, seized by a terrible dread.
The camp slumbered, even though the sun was rising in the sky and past the point the whites call noon. Only mothers and grandmothers surfaced, poking at the embers of last night’s cooking fires.
I rushed this way and that around the camp, wanting to shout to everyone that the soldiers were coming, but I did not, for fear I would look foolish.
To the south, all along the valley, the pony herds grazed. I had never seen so many horses in my life. A group of boys were racing up and down the benchland.
To the north east, boys and girls swam in the river. All were safe, as far as I could see. When the soldiers attacked, would the boys and girls be close enough to rush to the safe embrace of the camp?
Up the river, to the east, a good half a mile from the camp, I could see a small group of women and children.
Little Star came to my side, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and asked what was the matter.
“Why are they out there?”
“They’re digging for wild onions and turnips,” he said, peering out through the heat haze. “It’s Gall’s wives and children.” He giggled at this. “You remember the little one, I named it Two Dogs F—”
“We have to get them back here. Now.”
“Why?”
“The soldiers are coming. Long Hair is coming.”
“They’re safe,” he yawned. “And anyway, there’s a parade for the Suicide Boys. I’m going to go watch them.”
He left me and trotted back into the camp. I could hear a crier calling, “Mark these boys well! They will not return from the next battle! The camp will not move this day, the elders have decided!”
Gall’s family were out there. I could see a cloud of dust heading for them. I ran further out of the camp, ready to scream a warning.
Then, even with my poor eyes, I could see they weren’t soldiers but Indians. Sweet relief flooded my heart.
The presence of our braves so far out there made me feel Gall’s family were safe. But something about his name made me scared. I felt I must still warn them to come back to the camp.
I set off towards them, across the expanse of sagebrush, knowing that, even if our braves were close by, the battle might be upon us at any moment, and those women and children out there would not know it. I might embarrass myself being wrong, but I had to tell them.
There was something about the approaching band of braves that felt wrong. It was the speed at which they approached. I wondered if they had spotted the advance of the soldiers and we only had minutes left. Not just that, but it was also in the direction they rode. They were not riding to the camp but heading straight for the cluster of women and children. Both women had stood to watch their approach, shielding their eyes from the sun.
They saw it before I did. The women flinched and rushed to protect their children, and I did not know why, even though I broke into a run.
Too late, I saw what they were.
Not Hunkpapa nor Oglala, not Miniconjou nor Sans Arc, not Blackfoot nor Brule, not Two Kettles nor Cheyenne.
Arikara.
The same Arikara scouts that had snarled at us like a pack of coyotes that day in the Black Hills. They were Custer’s attack dogs and they had come to kill. And I knew that Bloody Knife was among them.
They were on the women and children in a moment and did not slow as they rode into them, swinging hatchets. Gunshots echoed out, obscene.
The children fell.
My feet grew roots and I was a tree, unable to move, as the band of Arikara slashed at the women, now shrieking in terror, and in a flash of silver they were dead and cried out no more.
I screamed but no sound came.
Perhaps the spirits stole the sound from my mouth to save me, for if I had managed to scream the horror I felt, those Arikara scouts would have butchered me too. Perhaps the spirits really had turned me into a willow by the banks of the Little Bighorn and they simply did not see me, for they left the butchered women and children and sped across the benchland where the giant herd of ponies grazed.
The herd stretched along that flatland for miles, and the Arikara were only at the westernmost tip. They would steal many horses.
I knew I must turn and run back to the camp to warn everyone that the fight had begun, warn Gall that both his wives and all his children were lying dead.
I couldn’t move.
I could only watch as a great cloud approached. This time I could see the blueshirts riding towards us. I heard their cheers and the thunder of the horses’ hooves, and knew a tidal wave of death was about to sweep over me and roll right into the village.
I only had time to wonder at their courage, or their stupidity. There were a hundred men on horses, riding into a village of thousands of braves. Did they know its size? Did they not care? Surely they could see this was greater than any Indian camp they had ever attacked before.
No sooner had I thought it than they seemed to sense danger. I saw them halt and dismount as I crouched down. Every fifth soldier took four or five horses and led them to the timber grove that edged the river.
But three riders didn’t stop. They charged headlong, straight out of the cloud of dust, straight for me.
My feet still rooted to the earth.
I thought this must be the end of Katherine Bright Star Falling. They would cut me down with their swords, or shoot me where I stood. It was impossible to outrun them. I would never make it to the protection of the camp before they ran me down.
One of the riders swerved his mount to the side, edging it round in a great arc, and I caught his panicked face and knew he’d lost control and could only try to steer it in a great circle to loop behind his platoon.
The other two stampeded for me, and I saw the wide blue eyes of the riders, their faces red, mouths open with terror. They pulled back at their reins with both hands, only trying to stop their horses from charging into the camp.
They thundered past and I felt the wind on my face as they galloped into the great arc of Hunkpapa lodges.
I knew the braves would kill them.
Sitting Bull’s vision had come true. The soldiers were falling into the village.
&
nbsp; The earth let me go. I ran after them, not looking back, but knowing the dismounted soldiers were forming a skirmish line, loading their guns, ready to fire into the village.
Every breath I took as I sprinted into camp I thought would be my last, expecting the thunder of rifles to end my days.
I threw one look over my shoulder and saw the men marching forward in a line, rifles in their hands. Their flag bearers planted their standards.
The thunder beings danced in the sky.
Hot bullets fizzed past my ears like angry hornets.
I ran and ran and in a moment was dodging between tipis.
Braves rushed for their weapons, women screamed, gathering up their children.
I ran through the chaos, heading only for my own tipi, bullets cracking on lodge poles.
Little Star emerged, looking this way and that, assessing the situation. In that moment, despite his winyan dress, I saw his true courage, as I’d seen it that morning at the Rosebud when he’d ridden out alone to face the enemy. In that moment he was the wild brave he longed to be.
I didn’t need to tell him the soldiers were firing from the south-east. They’d edged around the camp following the loops of the river.
The whole camp sensed it. The women, children and old people were rushing west through the camp and circling towards the south-west where they could climb the hills to safety. It was as if we all knew the danger would come from the other side of the river.
“You should go with the women and children!” Little Star shouted.
“No!” I cried. “Buffalo Calf Road Woman didn’t run. I’ll fight!”
He held me close, kissing me fiercely. “Sweet sister, I don’t want to lose you! Go with the women!”
He ran towards the guns and I waited a moment, watching the women fleeing south. There were braves fleeing in that same direction too, but only to get their horses. Others stood between the lodges, dressing for battle, the bullets whizzing around them.