Stone Song

by Win Blevins

  Each of these men would have a stake in the decision. Like Clark himself, each would see himself as gaining or losing influence, showing strength or weakness, rising or slipping in the eyes of the public. The new President especially would view it that way, a man who had nearly become the first Republican Presidential candidate since the start of the War between the States to lose an election to the Democrats.

  How enviable for these Indian leaders before him, to have the consent of your people and to speak for them directly, saying exactly what you mean.

  Well, Crook would have the welfare of these Lakota people at heart, at least in part. He would want to keep whatever promises he made to them. But as the question went higher and higher, the men in power would care less and less. Some of them, in fact, would be in the grip of the fever to avenge Custer.

  Therefore, knowingly, Lieutenant Clark said that he would pass the request of the headmen for an agency on Beaver Creek or Goose Creek on to Three Stars, with his personal support.

  They all understood that the question of Crazy Horse’s going to Washington, D.C., was left hanging.

  Clark said that a week’s rations were in the wagons outside, plus blankets, pants, shirts, and cloth. He would dispense them now. Perhaps it was not enough, he admitted. The agent would be getting more freight soon.

  The leaders suppressed smiles. They had heard that story before—more rations soon.

  SURRENDER

  In Pehingnunipi Wi, the Moon of Shedding Ponies, which the whites called May, horsemen waited on the white, cedar-dotted bluffs above the White River. They watched, silent and motionless as the cedars, looking impervious to weather and time. They were Lakota, agency Indians, followers of Red Cloud or Spotted Tail.

  Below, spread along the river valley, waited thousands of Lakota people, mostly of Red Cloud’s agency. The sense was in the air, the knowing. Like the feeling of springtime renewal in the earth, people could sense it in the wind, in the sunlight, in the way their feet felt on the earth, in a dozen ways they did not name. Something big was happening today.

  Fort Robinson sat in the wide valley below the cliffs and the agency a little way on down the river, to the east. Everyone was looking up the river, up the lodge trail that came this way from Powder River country.

  The sentinel horsemen sat on the cliffs, and below thousands of Lakota watched for their signal. Others watched, too—white soldiers, some Sahiyela, Mahpiyato, and members of other tribes. They were all watching for the great event to begin. Tasunke Witko, Crazy Horse, the man they thought of as the one true leader of the last free Lakota, was coming in to the agency today.

  It had begun a month ago, when he had started moving his village this way from Powder River. Yes, it had been anticipated—over a hundred lodges had already come in from his camp in the past quarter-moon, those with stronger ponies, those without too many of the weak and helpless. Yes, it had been partly accomplished three days ago, when Crazy Horse met Clark and shook his hand in surrender. The left hand, people said, because it was the one closest to the heart. And they looked into each other’s eyes with the sense of something momentous taking place, and hope and despair and love all at once, and sometimes envy and rivalry and even hatred. Many Lakota had shed tears quietly last night, off to themselves. Some would shed them openly today, when they saw their Strange Man walking quietly behind the soldiers.

  Today would be the occasion. Today the heart of the Crazy Horse people would come in, with all the shirtmen and war leaders, roughly a thousand people. When they got here, they would first give up their ponies, that was the agreement. Then they would hand over their firearms.

  Though the wild ones had promised, people wanted to see them actually hand over their horses and guns to the soldiers. Some people thought that at the last moment they would refuse and a big fight would start, and plenty of killing. But most people said that if the Strange Man agreed and gave his hand on it, he would do it.

  When the free Lakota had surrendered those two strengths, their only way to travel and so their only way to hunt and their power to fight, it would all be over, truly over.

  Now two horsemen at the west rode their horses in a circle, the traditional sign meaning, “Many people are coming.”

  Clark and Red Cloud rode first, with some of the principal agency Oglala alongside their leader, the one-time Pretty Fellow, now called Woman Dress. Alongside them his brother Standing Bear, White Twin, and his brother No Water.

  Red Cloud’s eyes glinted with a kind of pride. The people regarded their chief with two minds. One said, This is not a man of honor—he is the murderer of Bull Bear, he schemes for himself instead of the people, he would do anything for attention and status—see, even now he pretends to be bringing in the Strange Man, though that is not truly his accomplishment. The other said, This chief and Spotted Tail are the only ones who understood long ago that we must make accommodation with the whites. They saw the only road that could be walked. Through every kind of difficulty, and with sorrowful hearts, they have kept us on the road. They deserve our gratitude.

  “Where is Spotted Tail?” some people said. They thought His Crazy Horse’s uncle, his mother’s brother, should be the one bringing him to the agency. Many of them said it was Spotted Tail’s words that had changed the heart of the Strange Man, and Red Cloud went out only later. But the soldiers had made a deal, the people whispered. Red Cloud was to appear to bring the free Lakota in. In return he would be restored to chieftainship. That was good, thought most of the Oglala. They needed one of their own as leader, not Spotted Tail. So the Sicangu stayed home today.

  Behind Clark and Red Cloud rode Clark’s detachment of bluecoats, and behind them the Indian police. The people looked at each other with knowing eyes. To be a tribal policeman, that was an honor, well, a sort of honor. The akicita men had always been important to the people, enforcing the discipline needed to act as a group, whether moving the village or conducting a big buffalo hunt. Akicita men made people follow the rules, but that was for everyone’s protection. It was the same now, in a way. Except that these Indian police were responsible to Clark, and so to the whites. Now they enforced the white men’s rules. “It is the only way,” most people said reluctantly. Other people said bitterly, “It is the white man’s way.”

  The only way.

  A way of death.

  The only way.

  Behind the Indian policemen there seemed at first to be nothing but a cloud of dust. Then, after a long space, the front rank of the last free Lakota.

  When the first watchers saw them, voices raised in song.

  At the front of the traveling village rode a rank of its leaders, not only Crazy Horse but one of the ones he called ate, Little Hawk, along with Little Big Man, He Dog, and Big Road. They were impressive-looking men, strong, physically vital, proud, conscious of position. As befitted a ceremonial occasion, they were outfitted in the regalia of rank. They wore the emblems that showed their status, the shirts of the shirtman, the staffs of honor and leadership in warrior societies, the signs of coups, the scalps of their enemies, and full-length bonnets of eagle feathers. With paint, feather, and fur they spoke their personal achievements and their rank in the tribe.

  Except for Crazy Horse. He did not wear the sign of a single achievement. Among his resplendent lieutenants, he looked small, thin, barren, poor, almost nude. To the many agency Lakota who had never seen him, he looked less like a great leader than a boy among men.

  A teenage girl who had stood on her tiptoes and craned her neck to see him cried, “Hinu, hinu!” in astonishment, then looked with shame at her mother.

  More than one young man wondered if he could not outshine this man, and wondered where he’d gotten his reputation.

  “Our Strange Man,” people murmured throughout the crowd, and many saw some of its meaning for the first time.

  Perhaps it was worse because most of the people were dressed poorly today, as they were every day. The women were wearing calico dresses
or even dresses made from stitched-up flour sacks. Men wore breechcloths not of blanket or buckskin but scraps of cheap cloth crazy-quilted together.

  The whites, especially the women of the fort, thought these clothes were an improvement. “At least they’re wearing cloth,” one army wife said. “They’re out of animal skins,” agreed another with a droll smile.

  But the people did not feel that way about it. Who would prefer cloth to buckskin? Cloth would tear on the first bramble. Hide would last for decades. Who would prefer the white man’s calico to quillwork done patiently over many long evenings—which one showed more love? Who would rather have the calico pattern than decoration in quills and beads and paints and furs? Who would rather have the impersonal figures of a manufacturer on his clothing than the tale of his own life and his own medicine?

  They wanted to see the leader of the wild Lakota looking splendid. Instead they saw what they feared was their future, not simplicity but poverty.

  Yet the people knew. Everyone knew who this man was, what he had done.

  They responded with every kind of feeling—adulation, excitement, a sense of glory, pride, admiration, curiosity, envy, rivalry, and fear.

  A few of the people, understanding the event, had decorated themselves as best they could in paint, feather, and fur. Their minds and spirits were not debased, and they wished to salute a great occasion. Many of them, hungry, had still traded food for a little paint or some bright cloth.

  These were the ones who sang. They did not sing together, some great chant of lamentation or acceptance or a new vision of peace and harmony. Each sang his own song, reflecting the meaning of this occasion in his own life.

  Red Roach, for instance, stood close to the lodge trail at the far west. He was one of the first to see the free Lakota coming and the first to sing. In front of his scalp lock he was wearing the roach that gave him his name. It signified that he had attacked an enemy while the enemy was protected in some way.

  He was also painted with the long story of his life of many winters. His face, arms, and trunk were yellow, showing that he was a member of the Kit Fox Society. His legs and feet were painted red, indicating that he had danced a sun dance. The red on his hands declared that he was in compliance with Lakota ceremonies, and so entitled to touch sacred objects. Horizontal lines of red on his yellow arms and chest showed the exact number of battles he had been in, six. Dabs and dots of red said that he had been cut by knife, arrow, and spear twelve times.

  He wore many other small signs of his accomplishments, all of them clear to an initiate but a mystery to the whites, who neither understood nor cared.

  His membership in the Kit Fox Society was also bespoken by the fox skin that dangled from his right hand. This society had been formed to aid the poor and helpless. One of a member’s models was the activity and cunning of the kit fox. The eagle feathers on the skin showed that he was a leader in the society and the red feathers that he was a leader in war.

  Red Roach’s face also told a story. It was hardened and burned by sun and wind and deeply crevassed. His clear eyes spoke a long transit on the earth, much living, much gladness, and much sorrow. On this day, as the last of the leaders of the old way surrendered, his eyes were springs, and their tears flowed down his ancient cheeks. From his mouth flowed a song, and its words spoke the time-honored pledge of the Kit Foxes:

  “I am a Fox.

  I am supposed to die.

  If there is anything difficult,

  if there is anything dangerous,

  that is mine to do.”

  Over and over he lifted this song to the sky. Though he no longer possessed much strength, he promised what he had to the people, today and forever.

  Another warrior, much younger, was a wolf, and wore the four stripped feathers of his office. He had painted his upper face red to say that he was in compliance with Lakota custom. He had painted his trunk and arms yellow to show that he was ready to go to war. He sang for Crazy Horse an honoring song:

  “Tasunke Witko,

  He whose heart for greatness is known.”

  It was simple in words, heartfelt, tender, and gently eloquent in its melody. He sang it in a beautiful, high voice, repeatedly, from the first moment he could see Crazy Horse until the Strange Man was out of sight.

  Several men recognized the end of an era here, and so sang their death songs. Blue Hawk sang an honoring song of the Strong Heart Society, a beautiful melody in a minor key with the feelings of a slow, sad march:

  “His Crazy Horse,

  Take courage.

  A short time you live.”

  Crazy Horse and his main leaders so passed down the lodge trail toward the fort and the field beyond where they would give up their possessions, and surrender to a future they could not see. Behind them rode nearly a thousand Oglala, first the older warriors, then the pony drags, alongside these the women and children and the aged, and behind them the herds, nearly two thousand horses. Like the ponies, the people were skinny and run-down, showing the effects of a hard winter. They needed more of the food promised them by Clark, needed it immediately. They also needed the blankets, awls, hatchets, tobacco, and cloth. They were poor.

  But this noon they were proud, too. They walked into the Red Cloud Agency through a corridor of song, of feelings given voice, of hearts lifted to the sky. In the many voices they heard honor, praise, lament, and acceptance. In every voice they heard the sense of the sacred, throbbing.

  A group of officers, most of them young, stood outside Fort Robinson to watch the rebel leader give up. This was a great moment for the army. For a year and a half the soldiers had chased these people desperately and had gotten whipped too damn often. Then there was the one whipping so disgraceful you seldom mentioned Custer’s name.

  They mostly just watched, these officers, with feelings even they hardly knew—rage, admiration, regret, celebration, doubt, savage satisfaction. They could not, dared not, speak their real emotions.

  Sometimes one would make a sarcastic comment. There were several remarks about the goddamn devil music. Yet they were all mesmerized, entranced by the spectacle and the sound. They were beholding the ending of an age.

  After the soldiers and police came the wild Indians. The officers coughed and sputtered and looked strangely at each other when they saw the leaders and the slight, insignificant-looking man at the head of all. They knew that somehow this man had raised in his people a spirit no one thought they had, not even themselves. Most of the officers just gawked, stupefied. The brightest marked Crazy Horse down as someone to study, someone to learn the true nature of leadership from.

  The songs reached a new intensity as Crazy Horse passed in front of the fort. Every soldier’s eye was on him, every man held by his simplicity, the eloquence of his posture and his carriage. Just as the Strange Man drew even with them, one officer said out of the side of his mouth to another, “This is not a surrender. It’s a goddamn triumphal procession.”

  Crazy Horse did not feel triumphant. He saw that people were curious about him and his fellow holdout leaders. He saw that some admired him. He knew others envied him. He noticed that the people used this occasion to celebrate the way the Lakota had lived for hundreds of winters. To celebrate it, and to say a tender and regretful good-bye to it. He shared those feelings. He knew that he personally and the brave men who rode beside him were merely the vessels of the feelings.

  To be such a vessel seemed to him an honor, and it touched him.

  Yet in his heart was muted, melancholy music. As he accepted this honor offered, he would have to accept the envy, jealousy, and rivalry that would come his way tomorrow and every day from now on. That was the nature of being a chief. He was weary of it, deeply weary. It was past time to lay leadership down.

  Many arrangements needed to be made. He might have to go to Washington to see The One They Use for Father. He needed to obtain an agency back in Powder River country for his people, so they could be away from the Red Cloud people an
d the Spotted Tail people and all the maneuvering and manipulating that came from being too close. Besides, they wanted to live in their own homeland. He needed to get back enough ponies to hunt, and some ammunition. Perhaps he had the power with the people and the soldiers to get these things done, and that would be the last.

  Below those commitments, those awarenesses, pooled desolation in his heart. As he looked around at the agency Indians, dependent, destitute, spiritless, it was clearer than ever that an agency offered no life to him and no prospect for the return of Hawk. The people might be able to live here, he didn’t know. Hawk would never come to him here, and he would die. And until his death, live gutted of spirit.

  He walked his pony and felt in its hooves the pulse of the drum, tapping the earth. Maybe that beat would help him against his melancholy. Soon he must go to the hills alone and listen for Hawk. He felt the meaning of the song Hawk would sing without words. He deliberately did not think of the high hills and the secret, lonely places, not yet. For now he had to sink into this cold bleakness, a body at the bottom of a lake. He hoped that, later, Hawk would lift him from the waters of desolation.

  SPIRIT CATCHERS

  Lt. William Philo Clark of the Second Cavalry declined another cup of coffee with his hand. Crazy Horse poured himself one. The chief was very fond of coffee, the lieutenant had noticed, and with lots of sugar in it. Sometimes it was the small things that converted a barbarian to civilization, the lieutenant thought—something sweet to eat or the small luxuries women liked, like needles, soft cloth, or bright ribbon.

  Tonight Clark had made Crazy Horse a gift of an army coffeepot, three pint tin cups, two filled with roasted coffee beans and one with sugar, and a tin coffeepot. He was at once pleased and ashamed of his gift. Pleased because it was politic, and they really did appreciate it. Ashamed because the coffee offered no nourishment, and the Crazy Horse people were half-starved.