Bill Dugan

by Crazy Horse

  Turning once more to look uphill, Sitting Bull climbed the last two hundred feet and sat on the grass beside Crazy Horse before saying a word. He was only seven years older than the young warrior, but he seemed almost ancient. It was not that his physical powers had begun to desert him. Far from it, they were at their peak. Not even forty years old, he was still vigorous, his broad shoulders and solid trunk almost like a slab of granite. He seemed so much more powerful than his young friend.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” he said, by way of opening the conversation. They sat this way often, when time and duty permitted, and talked about whatever crossed their minds. Most of the talks had to do with the plight of their people, because neither man could afford to let his thoughts wander far from the impossible bind in which the Sioux had found themselves.

  “The village looks so small,” Crazy Horse said. “When I was a boy, I used to make tiny tipis out of willow branches and scraps of buckskin. I could hold three or four in the palm of my hand, like a tiny village. I could make it float high above my head, where nothing, not even the dogs, could get to it.”

  “We are in a greater palm,” Sitting Bull said. “Wakan Tanka holds us in his hand. But sometimes I worry that he will forget that we are there and clap his hands together to kill a fly, or roll his hand into a mighty fist. Maybe it will be something simple, as simple as a wave to a friend. But whatever it is, it will be the end of the Lakota people.”

  “I worry more about the white man. I can’t interfere with what the Great Spirit will or will not do,” Crazy Horse said. “But the white man can be stopped.”

  “I have heard that he is building another iron road. There are soldiers, too. Many of them. They are coming into the Yellowstone country, and soon there will be too many of them to stop or to drive away.”

  “I have heard that, too. I think it is time we tried to do something about it.”

  “The young men have their heads full of foolishness. It is hard to teach them to do things in a way that the white man won’t understand. They have no discipline. And Long Holy is filling their heads with his nonsense.”

  “Long Holy has strong medicine.”

  Sitting Bull nodded. “I know he does. I understand medicine. You know that. But I don’t think he knows what he is doing. He tells the young men he can make them bulletproof. “

  “I have heard that he gave a demonstration.”

  “He did. I saw it. He shot a gun again and again. And the young fools tried to catch the bullets in their palms.”

  “And what happened?”

  “The bullets bounced off. They made bruises, but did not break the skin.”

  “But you don’t believe his medicine is powerful?”

  Sitting Bull snorted. “Always, the young men want to think that they are bulletproof, or that a knife cannot cut them. They want to think that their heads are so hard that a war club will not break their skulls like melons. And that is a good thing. It is important to believe that you are powerful, that you have strong medicine to protect you on the warpath. It lets you do things that you would not do if you were afraid of getting hurt. But Long Holy’s medicine is a fraud.”

  “You said the bullets bounced off.”

  “They did. But I know it is because we do not put as much powder in our bullets as the white man does. If there is not enough powder, the bullets don’t hurt. You have seen it yourself, how sometimes we shoot a bluecoat or a Crow and he does not bleed. That is because we don’t have enough gunpowder, and we weaken the bullets. But the white man has all the gunpowder he needs. If the young men ride in front of his guns thinking they will not be harmed, they will be killed.”

  “Have you told them this?”

  Sitting Bull shook his head. “I have told them. But they don’t listen. They hear me and they smile and they shake their heads. Then, behind their hands, they say ‘Sitting Bull is jealous of Long Holy.’ I am not jealous. But I am not a fool. I know what I know and what the young men do not know.”

  “Maybe it is better that they believe in Long Holy’s medicine.”

  “Sometimes I think so, but then I think what it will be like in the lodges when the women learn that their young men were wrong …”

  Crazy Horse nodded his head. “Hou!”

  Sitting Bull stood then, and started down the hill. It was a long walk, and Crazy Horse watched the medicine man every step of the way. He felt a great weight on his shoulders and noticed that his friend’s shoulders, too, seemed to sag under some invisible burden.

  When Sitting Bull started across the flats toward the village, Crazy Horse looked out across the valley. He saw the herds of ponies, their heads bowed as they tugged on the lush grass. He saw the dogs lapping at water by the river’s edge. He saw the children running along the riverbank, sometimes falling, sometimes slipping into the water and kicking great silver arcs of spray into the air with their bare feet. The sight made him sad, and he wondered if it could be saved or if one day the valley would be full of the white man’s white-painted buildings, with the white man’s fences carving the earth into tiny squares. He didn’t know the answer, and it frightened him.

  As he got to his feet, he noticed some movement on the ridge across the valley. One, two, then three riders broke over and down, pushing their ponies at a full gallop. Crazy Horse started to run. Soon he was going so fast that he dared not stop for fear of falling over. The effort made his lip hurt where the bullet scar was a ragged slash of lightning, and his lungs felt as if they were full of fire.

  Something was happening, and he raced to the village, reaching the first lodge as the riders slipped from their ponies.

  The riders were scouts, and they were beside themselves. “Bluecoats,” they shouted. “Many bluecoats. On Arrow Creek.”

  The word spread rapidly, and the Sioux warriors were infuriated by the invasion of their territory. Crazy Horse looked for Sitting Bull, and saw him on the opposite side of the circle thickening around the excited scouts.

  Slipping through the throng, he eased in beside the medicine man. “We should make a good plan before we ride out to meet these soldiers,” he said.

  Sitting Bull nodded. “We should, but I don’t think the hotheads will listen.”

  “We can make them listen.”

  Sitting Bull shook his head. “No, all we can do is go with them, and try to save them from themselves. You’d better get your rifle and pony.”

  The ride took three days. Each night in council, Crazy Horse pleaded for restraint, for careful planning, for an understanding of the white man’s way of fighting. And each night there was an argument. Sitting Bull argued on the side of Crazy Horse. Other warriors, too, like White Bull and Two Bows, were in favor of planning the attack. But the younger warriors, even Lone Bear, were too agitated to listen and to learn. Long Holy had filled their heads with his ideas, and they wanted to test his medicine.

  On August 14, the word came back from the advance scouts. There were many bluecoats, horse soldiers and foot soldiers, maybe four hundred, maybe more. Crazy Horse tried one more time to create a reasoned attack, but the younger men were not to be restrained. They urged their ponies ahead and all Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull could do was follow them.

  The vanguard swept over the last ridge above the mouth of Arrow Creek, a mile from where it met the Tongue River, and thundered down on the bluecoat herd. They succeeded in driving off some American horses and some beeves, but the attack was too spontaneous to have much impact on the soldiers. Under the command of Maj. E. M. Baker, they quickly mounted a defense. Their superior weapons drove off the attackers with little to show for their efforts, and with all chance of a surprise swept away.

  When the attackers fell back to rejoin the main body of Sioux, Long Holy announced that he and seven of his followers were going to ride up to the bluecoat defenses and circle around them four times. He told the warriors that all eight of them would return unharmed. “Maybe then,” he challenged, “you will see that what I have been
saying is true. Maybe then you will believe.”

  With that, Long Holy climbed onto his pony and led a charge. Long Holy had taught his followers a song, and they bellowed it at the top of their lungs as they circled Baker’s men. A hail of fire poured out from the defensive positions. One by one, the circling warriors were hit until four of the eight were wounded.

  Sitting Bull, unable to bear it any longer, charged into the open space between the Sioux and the white soldiers. “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop this foolishness! You’ll all get yourselves killed.” He saw the blood streaming from the four wounded Sioux and could not restrain his contempt for Long Holy and his pride.

  But Long Holy was not ready to give up. “I brought them here to make war,” he shouted. “Let them do it!”

  Sitting Bull paid no attention, and argued with the young warriors. Frightened by the results of their first foray behind Long Holy, and more than a little in awe of the great Sitting Bull, they obeyed.

  For two hours, the two sides exchanged shots at long range, neither side causing much damage. Then, in an attempt to provoke pursuit, Crazy Horse drove his pony down toward the bluecoats and rode slowly across the entire width of the soldiers’ line. But no one came out to chase him. Instead, the bluecoats blazed away to little effect, and when he returned to the Sioux line, Sitting Bull was annoyed. He felt that Crazy Horse was getting too much attention for his heroics.

  Dismounting, he took his pipe and walked slowly across the open field until he was about midway between the opposing lines, at the edge of the effective range of the bluecoats’ carbines, then sat down. Using a flint and steel, he lit the pipe and casually puffed away, until a wreath of smoke swirled around him. Turning to look over his shoulder, he shouted, “Anyone who wants to join me in a smoke, come on.”

  Several warriors took the dare and came out to join him until six or seven were arrayed in a line. Sitting Bull handed the pipe to White Bull, who puffed hurriedly, then passed the pipe along. The others smoked as fast as they could while bullets whistled and sang around them, swarming like bees, but hitting no one.

  When the pipe had finally made its way back to him, Sitting Bull took one more puff, and, when the others who had smoked had scampered back to safety, he got out his cleaning stick, scraped the bowl clean, and put the pipe into its beaded sheath. Then, slowly, he got to his feet and walked back to join the others, a broad smile on his face. The whole war party was in awe. This was certainly the bravest thing any Sioux had ever done, they thought. Admiration spread like a flood among the warriors.

  Then Crazy Horse played his trump card. Springing onto his pony, he called to White Bull, “Let’s make one more pass,” and he was off, charging across the open field toward one end of the bluecoat line. White Bull was behind him as he galloped the full length of the line, every soldier firing at him as he raced past. At the far end of the line, he turned back toward the Sioux, with White Bull, who had not gone as close, now in front of him.

  Crazy Horse was almost home when a bullet caught his pony, killing it outright under him, and spilling him to the ground. Scrambling and crawling, he raced back unhurt, his face wearing a smile even broader than that of Sitting Bull.

  The medicine man nodded his approval, and returned the smile. “That’s enough for today,” he shouted. He might not have been outdone, but he had certainly been matched.

  Chapter 25

  August 1873

  CRAZY HORSE WAS GROWING more and more withdrawn. His moods were deep and black, and there was not much that could overcome them. His friends were worried. They knew there was much on his mind, and they knew how much each of those things hurt. But they also knew that he had to let go of the sorrows. The loss of Hump, the loss of Black Buffalo Woman, the loss of Little Hawk—each one a blow from a heavy hammer, and each one had done its share to flatten him, to pound him down as if he were a piece of soft metal.

  He Dog was probably his closest friend now that his kola and his brother were gone. He thought long and hard, trying to find something, some idea, no matter how wild, that could help cheer Crazy Horse a little, that could bring back the friend who seemed to be slipping away from him.

  On an overnight hunt with Red Leaf, He Dog stayed up late, poking the campfire with a stick, watching the swirling sparks swarm like fireflies. Red Leaf, too, was close to Crazy Horse, and he knew what was on He Dog’s mind.

  Joining his friend at the fireside, he grabbed a stick of his own and started to poke the coals.

  “What are you doing?” He Dog asked, looking up after a moment.

  “The same thing you are,” Red Leaf told him. “Looking for a way to lighten Crazy Horse’s heart. He is gloomy too much of the time.”

  “His heart is broken,” He Dog said.

  “I know that. And I know why. He misses Little Hawk.”

  “And Hump.”

  “Yes, and Hump. And Black Buffalo Woman.”

  He Dog snorted. “She had another baby, I have heard. And the baby has light skin like his. And light hair.”

  “Does he know?”

  “He knows. How could he not?”

  “What will he do? Will he try to take the baby to his own lodge?”

  He Dog shook his head. “No. He knows it would make trouble again, and he doesn’t want that.”

  “He needs a woman. He needs someone he can talk to about those things he keeps between his heart and his ribs, those secret things that we talk to our women about.”

  Red Leaf was right, and He Dog had been thinking the same thing, but one couldn’t just decide to get a friend married and then make it happen. Or could he?

  “Your sister is about his age, isn’t she?”

  “Black Shawl? I don’t know. I suppose so.”

  “And she isn’t married, either.”

  Red Leaf laughed. “She has a strong back and a will to match. No man is good enough for her. Or that’s what she thinks. It’s how she acts, anyway.”

  “She is a good-looking woman.”

  Red Leaf was skeptical. “You’ve seen the way the girls look at Crazy Horse. They follow him with their eyes when he goes past. They stop working, sometimes their hands hang in the air like hawks, barely moving, until he disappears, then they start working again just as if they had never stopped. Crazy Horse could have anyone he wants.”

  “Except Black Buffalo Woman.”

  Red Leaf nodded. “Yes, except Black Buffalo Woman.”

  So it was decided. No one bothered to tell Crazy Horse until the arrangements were well under way. If he was pleased, he didn’t show it. If he was annoyed, he didn’t show that either. His expression barely changed when He Dog gave him the news, and then there was just a momentary flash, as if a fleeting pain had stabbed somewhere deep in his body. He Dog knew it was a memory of Black Buffalo Woman, but said nothing.

  The marriage was low key, and Black Shawl seemed happy with it, as if the right man for her had somehow fallen out of the sky, despite the fact that he had been there all along.

  Crazy Horse settled into the match, and it wasn’t long before Black Shawl was expecting. Crazy Horse spent the long evening hours by the fire, playing with the village children, as if preparing himself for impending fatherhood. He had always liked children, and had never been too busy to take time out to spin a tale or give a lesson.

  Now, though, he seemed to relish the role of teacher. His hunts were not so solitary as he took one or two of the boys with him, teaching them everything he knew about the habits of the deer and the elk, the rabbit and the duck and, of course, the buffalo. He taught them to make bows and how to fashion arrows, fixing the points perpendicular to the feathers for use in war, so they could slide more easily between a man’s ribs, and parallel for hunting.

  In the evenings of the long winter, the boys gathered in his lodge, sitting in a circle at his feet as he told them tales of the heroes and of times long ago, those times he was trying so desperately to preserve for them. The children never seemed to get enough. On
e of them, a boy named Black Elk, seemed to pay special attention, as if he were not just listening to the words, but soaking them up, absorbing sound and meaning through every pore.

  And finally the baby came. She was a girl, and he named her They Are Afraid of Her. She seemed to fill the huge void in him the loss of friend, brother, and lover had created, one small, frail child to take the place of three people, and yet she was enough.

  Black Shawl watched him cuddle with They Are Afraid of Her, and smiled as she worked with skin and bead. She made moccasins and shirts, breech-cloths and buffalo robes. Her mother had come to live in the lodge, and she helped with They Are Afraid of Her, leaving Black Shawl free to tend to the tipi and the food. According to Sioux custom, Crazy Horse was not permitted to look at his mother-in-law, but it presented no problem since the older woman was used to the tradition.

  Hunting as always, and as always providing for those who had no one else to care for them, to supply them with food and horses, Crazy Horse seemed even more the shirt-wearer now that the title had been taken from him. He still went on occasional forays against the Crows and, sometimes, led small war parties to harass the bluecoats down on the Yellowstone, where the iron road was growing like a snake that had no head and no tail, just stretching every day longer and longer, winding its way through the valleys. The Northern Pacific was another nail in the Sioux coffin, and Crazy Horse seemed to realize it, but for the moment he was content to be the family man.

  Sometimes at night he would wake up suddenly, jerking his arms as if some invisible force were holding them. He would hear Hump laughing or see Little Hawk lashing his pony to get out ahead of his older and more famous brother, anxious to catch up, to build a reputation as great as Crazy Horse’s own.

  And sometimes, not often, but sometimes, he would wake up crying. Black Shawl knew that it was those times when he missed Black Buffalo Woman, but she said nothing, contenting herself with wrapping her grieving husband in her arms and helping him forget. She loved her husband, and knew that he had come to love her, too. That helped ease the pain, but didn’t expunge it altogether. Time would do that for Crazy Horse, she thought. And sometimes she prayed that time would work its magic soon.