by Crazy Horse
His stomach churned, and he bent over. He tried to stop it, but he was powerless, and the churning erupted into a spew of vomit. He gagged, choking on the bitter bilge. Coughing and sputtering, he backed away from the body, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He could see the glitter of the blade in front of him, and shoved the knife back into its sheath. Movement behind him spun him around. He found himself staring into the eyes of another Sioux, Horned Owl, a friend of Hump’s.
Horned Owl looked past him, and Curly stepped sidewise, trying to get between the warrior’s gaze and the body of the young woman. But he was too slow. Horned Owl saw what had happened, and broke into a grin.
Then, his nose twitching in comic exaggeration, he said, “Weak stomach, Curly?” He laughed and turned away. Curly stood there for a long moment, ashamed to go out into the open. There was no prohibition of killing women, but it made Curly sick, and he wondered whether it was right, law or no. He would have to ask his father.
The battle was already over. The Omaha had abandoned the field, and everything they owned except the few horses and weapons they had managed to grab in their flight. Curly jumped back on his pony and rode toward the main body of Sioux. Already, Horned Owl was circulating among them, telling them of Curly’s achievement. The warriors who knew grinned at him, some lifting their hair and making a slashing motion across their foreheads, then giving vent to piercing whoops.
It was tempting to run, but Curly knew he could only postpone, not avoid, the teasing. Better to endure it now. The sooner he put it behind him, the sooner he could live it down.
After the raid, Spotted Tail decided that it would be a good idea to head north, and establish a winter camp near the Black Hills. All the way back, Curly was teased unmercifully by the older warriors. Hump tried to ease the pain, but Curly faced it head-on, letting the men say what they wanted. Part of him thought they were right. What had happened was funny. But part of him believed that he had been right to be revolted. The young woman had done no one any harm.
Had he known who he was shooting at, he realized, he might not have loosed the arrow. It would have been easier then to hide from the truth, because no one would have known, but he would have had an unanswered question eating at him. Such a question, and the uncertainty it bred, could get him killed.
Unknown to Spotted Tail or his people, things were changing fast. The government had appointed a new agent to the Sioux. Thomas S. Twiss was a West Point graduate with white whiskers worthy of a prophet, and a passion to see the Indian troubles resolved quickly and, by his own limited lights, fairly.
At the same time, a new military commander had been appointed by Jefferson Davis, the Secretary of War. William S. Harney was a giant of a man at six feet four inches. A gifted athlete, he was the fastest man in his command, and was known to challenge all comers, red and white alike, to footraces. On at least one occasion, he had challenged an Indian warrior, who had been convicted of some minor offense, to a race, promising him a hundred-yard lead, and that if the warrior won, Harney would spare him the punishment the warrior had earned by his conduct. The race took place on a frozen lake. At the last minute, Harney gaining with every stride, the wily brave spotted a section of thin ice, veered toward it, and Harney followed. The big man’s greater weight plunged him into the freezing waters. Harney lost the race. And kept his word.
But he was known for his intolerance for nonsense. He didn’t like fancy talk or unnecessary regulation. Given a job, he wanted to do it his way, with no interference from his superiors. More often than not, he got it done.
Now, in the aftermath of the Grattan massacre, he was expected to punish the Sioux. Anxious to avoid bloodshed, Twiss sent out runners, demanding attendance at a council at Fort Laramie. At the same time, the chiefs were advised to move their people south of the Platte River or face the army’s wrath.
Harney assembled a command of seven hundred men at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and began his march to Fort Laramie, following the Oregon Trail. He intended to inflict heavy damage on any Sioux he encountered along the way. Once at Laramie, Harney planned to turn northeast, and follow the road to Fort Pierre in Dakota Territory.
When Spotted Tail arrived in the vicinity of the Bluewater River a little more than a hundred miles from Fort Laramie, he found a village led by Little Thunder, a Brule chief. Little Thunder was widely considered to be a friend of the whites, but he was a powerful and courageous man, and Spotted Tail and his warriors decided to join the group. A large herd of buffalo was nearby, and the warriors managed to bring down huge numbers, enough to provide food for the whole winter.
Curly managed four kills on his own, and his hunting success enabled him to get over the embarrassment of the Omaha raid. Besides, with so much work dressing and drying the meat and preparing the hides, drying and tanning them, there was little time for anyone to tease him. By spring, he hoped, it would all be forgotten.
Most of the work was done by the women, and many of the warriors headed out again to raid along the Oregon Trail. They had not gotten news of Harney’s advance, or the size of his force. Even if they had, the young hotheads, still preening themselves on the success of the Grattan affair, would not have given it a second thought. They were, after all, Sioux warriors, good enough to stand up to anybody, red or white.
Curly was out hunting when a messenger from Agent Twiss reached Little Thunder’s camp. The chief, knowing that there was still much work to be done on the buffalo meat, that the hides still had to be tanned, and that if the work were not done immediately, the food and skins would spoil, was not willing to go.
“Tell the Agent Twiss that I am not unfriendly,” Little Thunder told the runner. “But my people have much work to do. We cannot come for many weeks. When the work is finished, we will come to Fort Laramie.”
The messenger, knowing that this was not what Twiss wanted to hear, insisted. “If you do not come right away, you will be considered hostile,” he told the chief. “Any soldiers who find you will have the right, even the duty, to make war on you.”
“But we are not enemies,” Little Thunder argued.
“I only know what I am told,” the messenger said, watching the chiefs face as he waited for his words to be translated.
But Little Thunder would not budge. The messenger went away only with the chiefs promise to come in within three months. When the messenger reached Fort Laramie, the news upset James Bordeaux, who sent a messenger of his own. He knew Little Thunder, liked him, and wanted to avoid bloodshed, which he believed to be inevitable if Harney should stumble on the Brule camp. But Little Thunder still refused to come in early.
The camp was not a large one, and with so many warriors out hunting or raiding the Oregon Trail, fewer than one hundred warriors were left to defend the village. But Little Thunder wasn’t concerned, since he knew he had nothing but peaceful intentions.
On September 2, Harney reached the Bluewater River. His scouts found Little Thunder’s camp, which was still peaceably going about the business of preparing for winter. Seeing an opportunity to make a point, a chance to vent some of the frustration building on the long, arduous and, so far, uneventful march, Harney drew up a plan of attack.
As far as he knew, the Indians had no idea they had been discovered. Regular scout runs kept him apprised of comings and goings while he deployed his troops. He had significant numbers of cavalry, infantry, and artillery. With his adjutant, Philip St. George Cooke, he went over every angle again and again.
“Captain,” he said, “I know what happened to Grattan. I won’t have that happen here.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about anything like that, General,” Cooke said. “We have twenty times the men. We are much better armed and, frankly, a lieutenant is hardly your equal in strategy and tactics, General.”
“Don’t you bullshit me, Phil. That’s not what I mean, and you damn well know it. I want to make sure the Sioux get the message. If we hit them hard, bloody their noses, they’l
l think twice before they hit another wagon train. There’s a lot we can teach these red rascals, but first we have to get their attention. I mean to do just that tomorrow.”
The general then proceeded to outline his plan, and gave Cooke command of a sizable cavalry unit. Cooke was to move his troops around to the far side of Little Thunder’s village. Harney hoped to provoke a reckless retreat, which would bring the disorganized warriors under Cook’s guns.
The troops moved out before dawn, but secrecy was critical to the plan’s success. Accordingly, Cooke took his men on an elaborate detour, making a very wide loop to avoid being spotted. Once he had gotten past the village, he had to double back to take up his position on the top of a steep bluff.
At dawn, Harney’s troops were very near Little Thunder’s camp. But Cooke was not yet in position. At almost the same moment, a small band of warrriors stumbled on Harney and his force, raced back to the village, and alerted the chief.
Little Thunder immediately mounted his horse and rode out to meet the general, Spotted Tail beside him carrying a white flag. Harney was grateful for the chance to delay his attack, knowing that it would be likely to fail unless Cooke was in position.
“I do not wish to fight you,” Little Thunder told the general. “Agent Twiss sent for me and my people, and I told him that I would come in to Fort Laramie as soon as we were done preparing our food and hides for the winter. We need the food or we will starve. Without the buffalo robes, my people will freeze to death.”
“Your warriors have been raiding the Holy Road,” Harney said. “Some of your men attacked a mail train and killed several innocent civilians.”
“I know about those things, and I have tried to stop them, but …” He shrugged. “You have your wild young men, just as I do. You know what it is like to try to break them, to put a bit in their mouths.”
“You mean Lieutenant Grattan, don’t you?” Harney asked. He’d read the report filed by Fleming, and by Fleming’s successor, Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman. “You mean you are not to blame for failing to control your young bucks, and I am not to blame for the mistakes my young soldiers make, don’t you?”
Little Thunder nodded. “It is hard to be a chief.
You must try to make your people see the right thing, but there is just so much you can do to make them behave the way they should. When they do, you receive praise, and when they do not, you are blamed. I am blamed, and I accept it. But these people here with me, they have bothered no one. They have attacked no whites, stolen nothing except horses from the Crows and the Pawnees, which is what we have always done.”
Harney was getting nervous. The scout from Cooke was overdue, but he dare not move on the village until he was certain Cooke was deployed.
“I don’t want any of your people hurt, but you should have thought of that before now, Chief. You know that Agent Twiss said any Sioux north of the Platte will be considered hostile. That means you and your people are to be considered hostile.”
As he waited for the chief’s reply, he saw the dust cloud of a rider approaching at a full gallop. Crossing his fingers that it was Cooke’s scout, he excused himself and moved aside to wait for the rider. It was indeed Cooke’s messenger. Everything was ready. He was in place and waiting for the expected retreat.
Harney spurred his mount back toward Little Thunder. The chief watched him closely, as if he suspected something.
“I came here to fight you, Chief. Those are my orders,” Harney told him. “And I mean to follow them to the letter.”
“But there is no reason to fight. We will go in when we are ready.”
“No, now, that isn’t the way it’s going to be. I came to fight and you must fight.”
Little Thunder looked at Spotted Tail, who shook his head as he listened to the interpreter’s words. As their meaning sank in, he let the white flag fall to his side, turned his horse, and headed back toward the village at a gallop.
Little Thunder looked sadly at Harney. “I will fight if I must, but …” He couldn’t finish, turned slowly, and rode back toward the camp.
Harney waited patiently until Little Thunder was almost at the edge of the village, then gave the order to charge. His men moved ahead with fixed bayonets. The field pieces opened up, showering explosive shells into the middle of the camp. Suddenly, like a hornet’s nest poked with a sharp stick, the place came alive. Sioux were everywhere, running in every conceivable direction. Most of them were women and children.
The advancing troops waited for the artillery to let up, then charged ahead, firing their rifles, stopping to reload, then charging ahead again. Over and over, they fired in ranks, leapfrogging and laying down an incessant hail of fire.
As Harney expected, most of the Sioux scattered. Unused to organized fighting, they were helpless in front of Harney’s onslaught.
Those who ran up the draw behind the village fell under Cooke’s guns. Many of the Indians tried to climb up the steep face of the bluff to get at Cooke’s men, but the artillery was brought to bear, and shell after shell thundered into the scrambling warriors.
It was over as suddenly as it had begun. The village was a shambles. Most of the tipis had been destroyed. Systematically torched, they spewed smoke into the sky until a pall hung over the battle site. The campground was littered with dead and dying Sioux, many women among them.
Harney’s men moved among the fallen. Women had their dresses yanked over their heads. If they were living they were raped and if dead, their pubic hair was cut out as if it were a scalp. The remaining Sioux who managed to escape ran for Fort Laramie, believing it was their only chance to survive.
Curly saw the smoke from miles away. He and Hump and Little Hawk lashed their ponies, fearing the worst as they sprinted for the village. As they drew closer, they could see the ruined lodges, some still blazing, others already reduced to ashes.
Dismounting on the edge of the silent, abandoned camp, they walked gingerly among the dead. One by one they checked the bodies, hoping to find survivors. The mutilated women lay everywhere. Curly choked back a sob, trying to control his rage. He thought of the young woman he had killed, and was glad that he had been unable to scalp her. Seeing the women of his own tribe brutalized this way convinced him that he had been right. Women and children should not be victims of the war.
Hump was calling for him to mount up, when Curly heard a sound from the far side of a tipi that lay on its side, the skin walls scorched but not burned through.
Stepping around the upended lodge, he saw a woman, a baby in her arms, lying on her side, curled into a ball. The baby was whimpering. He moved closer and knelt beside her, only to realize it was not the baby but the woman who cried so pitifully. He lifted the baby from her arms and saw that it was dead.
Trying to comfort her, he shouted for Little Hawk to make a travois. When it was ready, he wrapped the woman in a buffalo robe. Leaving Hump and Little Hawk, he rode out onto the prairie. Over and over, he asked her name, but she could only stare at him, strange, childlike sobs wracking her slender body.
That night, she was able to speak. She said her name was Yellow Woman. She was a Cheyenne, the niece of Ice, a great shaman, and had been visiting with the Brule.
“I’ll take you home,” Curly told her. She looked at him as if she did not believe him or worse, as if she did not care. She just sat across the fire from him, her eyes black as the sky overhead, swallowing the firelight as it danced between them.
Once more, he said, “I’ll take you home.”
And he knew she didn’t care.
Chapter 8
July 1857
THE NEXT TWO YEARS were hard ones. Curly wandered from place to place, sometimes with Hump, sometimes with Young Man Afraid, sometimes with both and sometimes with neither. Sioux and Cheyenne alike made him welcome, but something gnawed at him. It was as if he had swallowed a small, vicious beast that chewed on his insides, not to get out, but simply for the pleasure of tormenting him.
On his lo
ng rides across the plains, he said little, even to his kola. Hump respected the silence and did not press him. Both young men knew that things were changing in ways they could not see and could not understand even if they could see. The Sioux way of life was being bombarded from all sides. Soldier chiefs like Harney attacked them, some of the Sioux had given up, their spirits broken, and hung around the forts until the yearly white man gifts were distributed, then wandered off, their heads down, their hearts numb.
Curly envied them that numbness. He felt too many things, and wanted to feel none of them. Better, he sometimes thought, to feel nothing at all than to feel the empty ache in his belly. It was like the ache he felt when he watched Black Buffalo Woman carry water to her mother’s lodge, or when he would catch her staring at him as she sat in front of the lodge doing beadwork that everyone said was the best they had ever seen. She looked at him, and he looked back. And it seemed that that was all that would ever happen between them.
Yellow Woman’s uncle Ice understood these things. He was a wise man, like Curly’s father, a shaman who saw with more eyes than other men. He could see things they could not see, and knew things they would never know, no matter how many times they were told.
Like all shamans, he was custodian of the past and intermediary to the world beyond the plains and the endless blue sky. He could talk to Wakan Tanka. He could talk to the animals, and even to the clouds. He was less a man of the world than a man in it. He understood, too, that things were changing, and this understanding made him sad and silent. Often, he and Curly would sit together for hours, sometimes deep into the night, saying nothing.