Lakota

by G. Clifton Wisler

  Hers was the only glad voice that day. The killing was great, with six white men slain and two women rubbed out, too. There was the trampled girl, too, and the boy killed by Wapaha Luta's lance. Already flames devoured several wagons, and the lumbering oxen were shot full of arrows. Then a line of wasicuns arrived from the front of the train, and they filled the air with their lead balls.

  Sunkcincala Najin, Standing Colt, whose sister was Red Lance's wife, fell first, pierced by five bullets. Then Sunka Sapa howled as a ball penetrated the neck of his horse and lodged in the fleshy part of his right thigh.

  Wapaha Luta, who did not know of his daughter's rescue, cried loudly as he hurled himself at the wasicuns. Bullets struck down the Lance's horse, then shattered his knee, broke his jaw, and severed three fingers from his left hand. Even so, the fiery-eyed warrior freed himself from his horse and struggled on. The whites drew back, but they managed to give the Lance two more wounds before breaking into flight. Only then did Wapaha Luta give up his life.

  "Look there," Hokala called then, and Tacante spied a pair of wasicuns sneaking toward Hinhan Hota from behind. Tacante shouted a cry, notched an arrow, and rode swiftly toward the ambushers. Hokala was only a hair behind him, and the two young men ran down the wasicuns. Hokala jumped down and fired an arrow through the first wasicun's chest, killing him instantly.

  Tacante took a bit longer dismounting. When his feet hit the ground, he found himself eyeing a thin-faced young man little older than himself. The wasicun fumbled with his pistol, and Tacante slapped it away. He then struck his enemy with the flat of the hand, and the young wasicun collapsed. His eyes were wild with fear, for he could see his companion lying dead a few feet away.

  "Don't come again onto our land!" Tacante shouted as he took the pistol and stripped the wasicun of his cartridge belt. "You understand?"

  The young enemy nodded. He attempted a smile, seeing that some miracle was allowing him to be spared.

  "Go!" Tacante shouted, and the wasicun scrambled to his feet and fled for his life.

  Now the fight was over. Warriors passed among the dead, counting coup or taking scalps. Only the hair of the trampled girl wasn't taken, for it seemed that Wakan Tanka had struck her down. In the distance the surviving wasicuns wailed as they watched their possessions burned and their companions marked with knives in the Lakota fashion.

  Finally the dead were tied atop horses, and Hinhan Hota led the Lakotas from the bloody scene.

  Chapter Eight

  Moons rose and fell, and Tacante found himself a warrior of eighteen summers. Much had happened since Wapaha Luta's fight against the wasicun wagon train. The bluecoats had won their war in the faraway land, and once more the red man had become his enemy. Old Black Kettle's band of Southern Sahiyelas, known also as Cheyennes, had been cut down at Sand Creek, slain by bluecoats of the Colorado Territory's army. Worse, a peaceful Arapaho village had been razed in the Powder River country by a new bluecoat star chief. For days after word of the attacks reached Hinhan Hota's camp, Tacante's dreams filled with recollections of Blue Creek.

  Great anger swelled inside the Lakotas. No longer did they ride out to scold the foolish wasicuns for trespassing onto land owned by the people. Bands of Sicangu and Oglala warriors painted their faces and tied up the tails of their horses. Sahiyela and Arapaho, too, joined the fight to keep the wasicun wagons from Powder River. Soon blood flowed freely.

  Those were hard days for all, but more so for Tacante. He felt tall and proud, a man in all important ways, but he looked upon a world torn by change. Each summer the buffalo herds dwindled. The roads were full of wasicuns. The singing wires that followed Platte River westward foretold the death of die free life.

  Once a young man of eighteen summers would only have concerned himself with hunting and perhaps searching for a wife. Tacante had fifteen horses, and there were girls among the Sicangus and Oglalas both who had ears for his flute and eyes for his shy grin.

  "Toskala is a pretty one," Itunkala, his brother, said. "I have heard her say she admires your skill with the bow. Her father would not want so many ponies, for he has many daughters to feed."

  Tacante gazed at his small brother's laughing face and pretended anger.

  "It's for me to choose!" he barked. "It's not good for a warrior, risking death each day, to take a young wife, to bring little ones into a dark time."

  "I, your brother, would look to them while you're gone," Itunkala offered, grinning mightily. Tacante gave his brother's scalp a yank in answer.

  But as the prairie grasses greened, Tacante was more and more preoccupied with the courtship practices. Sometimes he would sit with Hokala on the ridge above the stream and wait for the maidens to pass on their way to fetch water. Sometimes Hokala, who was far bolder, might notch a bird arrow on his bowstring and shoot a hole in a water skin or perhaps drop willow leaves into a girl's hair. The maidens would cry out and pursue their tormentors. Sometimes Hokala was rewarded with a stone in the back or a thrashing with cottonwood limbs. Tacante preferred to tease the girls, though once he dug a bear pit to trap Pehan, the Crane Girl.

  Mostly these games were for acquainting a young warrior with the maidens from whom he might choose a wife. After all, a girl changed greatly from the time she first entered the women's lodge. Once Tacante had thought nothing of splashing naked in the river with the girls of the tribe close by. Now the old women, who were forever watchful, would see such an act punished. Great care had to be taken with the hawk-eyed old crows about!

  Formal courtship was another matter. In the evening, a young man might appear outside a maiden's lodge with a blanket. If her father agreed, a maiden might sit beside her caller while he pulled the blanket over them. Perhaps the two would tease each other or carry on talk of the future. If the blanket enclosed them too long, a mother or aunt would pull the two apart and scold them for their misdeed.

  Tacante appeared with his blanket beside the lodge of Toskala, the Downy Woodpecker, but others were there, too, and her father hardly gave a glance to young Buffalo Heart. Once he did sit with Hetkala, the Squirrel, but she devoted their time to giggling and tracing her fingers along the old scar on Tacante's elbow.

  "Ah, how is it girls can make a man so crazy!" Tacante cried to his father.

  "There are mysteries never revealed," Hinhan Hota replied. "And this is a great one, indeed. Be patient, my son. There is always the hunt."

  That was surely true. But no sooner did Hinhan Hota's reunited band set out upon the buffalo range than a youthful rider appeared.

  "Hinkpila!" Tacante shouted as Louis Le Doux raised his hand in greeting. "Hau, kola!"

  "Hau, kola," Louis answered. "Welcome, my brother. Ate," he added, turning to the Owl. "I bring word of a gathering of the people."

  "What gathering is this?" Hinhan Hota asked, halting the hunters.

  "Wasicun chiefs come to talk of peace," Louis explained. "Too many have died on Powder River. All the Lakotas are coining in. Already the Oglalas and Minikowojus, the Hunkpapas and Sihasapas are there. Cheyennes and Arapahos, even some Crows, are camping together. Never have so many lodges blackened the plain!"

  "They talk of peace?" Hinhan Hota asked, shaking his head in confusion. "Already they send their wagons into our country. The star chief has built a fort beside Powder River. We know this wasicun way. He talks of peace while he sharpens the long knife to kill our children."

  "Red Cloud comes," Louis told them. "He has sworn to fight the road. Maybe the wasicuns don't understand."

  "A man with no ears to hear will never understand," Hinhan Hota replied. "But we will come and listen. And while we sit in council, the wasicuns will steal more of our country."

  Other bands said much the same, but even so, they came to Fort Laramie in great numbers that summer the wasicuns called 1866. Tacante shared his father's feelings, but the peace speakers distributed many presents. And it was good to pass days again in the company of Hinkpila, his kola.

  The brother-frie
nds rode the far hills in search of game for the kettles, and they shared many stories. Louis told of traveling east to the big wasicun village called St. Louis. Much of this journey was made riding inside the iron horse. Ah, this horse was faster than the swiftest Lakota pony, and it could ride for days with scarcely a rest. It ate cottonwood logs and breathed smoke.

  Tacante laughed at such an old woman's tale. Monsters that spit smoke and fire were for scaring little ones. Tacante had seen the blue-coat thunder guns!

  When not hunting or admiring maidens, the two young men joined in the many contests. Often in the evenings Tacante would join his Oglala friends as they displayed their horsemanship. Warriors would ride beneath the bellies of their horses or on one side. Some would stand on the back or rump of an animal, or even set one foot on each of two galloping stallions. Others jumped on and off their mounts, displaying amazing acrobatic talents. The peace speakers shouted their astonishment and proclaimed that surely the Indian was the most masterful of horsemen.

  The tribes warmed under such praise, and with their women satisfied with shiny-looking glasses and strings of trade beads, there was much good feeling for the wasicuns. The post traders exchanged new rifles for buffalo hides, and even the pitiful Arapahos, whose camps had been so recently destroyed, had fresh lead and powder for the summer hunting.

  "See how the wasicuns pay for their misdeeds?" some asked.

  But when the terms of the new treaty were revealed, those same voices spoke with bad hearts. The wasicuns, who had cut their road across the people's land, had killed so many Sahiyelas and Arapahos, now demanded a permanent road with forts full of soldiers in the heart of the Big Horn country.

  "You ask us to touch the pen to this paper?" Red Cloud asked. "You promise us presents and say these other lands will be ours forever. Many of us touched the pen before to a paper saying you would never come to Powder River, that you would make no roads and build no forts there. These promises you have broken. Your word is worthless. I will never give up these lands. Already the buffalo is gone from Platte River. You would take our last good hunting grounds. Some will fight you. I will lead them!"

  Red Cloud wasn't the only Lakota to speak. The warriors mounted their horses and rode around the fort, raising a great cloud of dust and frightening the peace speakers. Then, even as the tribes waited for blankets promised as presents, a large column of bluecoats appeared.

  "They've come to build the road and garrison the new forts," Louis told Tacante.

  "Then they've come to die," Tacante said, his heart sour with bitterness. "Never before have so many seen and heard the bad words of the wasicun. Here, while some speak of peace, others come to steal what they cannot buy!"

  Red Cloud and the other chiefs said much the same thing to the wasicun peace speakers. Only a few loaf-around-the-fort Lakotas agreed to touch the pen. The Crows signed, but they had no reason to object to the treaty; it wasn't their land.

  Soon the great encampment at Fort Laramie broke up. Bands went north or west, onto the plain or into the mountains. Some made a summer camp in some place of safety, then sent the warriors to Powder River. Red Cloud's Oglalas headed for the wasicun fort built near where Powder River's forks flowed into the main stream. Hinhan Hota followed the Cloud. Tacante rode at his side.

  "I want to be with my people," Tacante told Louis.

  "There is no use fighting so many," Louis argued. "I hoped we would hunt the buffalo this summer. Kolas should not be so far parted."

  "No," Tacante agreed, gripping his brother-friend's hands. "We should visit the maidens on their water walk by the river, wrapping ourselves in blankets with the pretty ones."

  "Yes. Maybe it will be a short war, and there can be peace again soon."

  "Maybe," Tacante said, not believing it for a moment. They both knew that soon the Heart of the People must be shooting arrows at blue-coat soldiers. And Hinkpila, whose high cheeks and brownish flesh marked him as his Lakota grandmother's kin, would sell goods to the new wave of wasicuns traveling Platte River, many of them headed up the stolen road toward the Yellowstone country.

  Soon the wasicun soldiers moved west. There were too many of them to fight at one time, so scouts kept watch, waiting for a chance to strike. Among the young men sent to look were Hokala and Tacante. They rode with a clever Oglala called Heca, the Buzzard. Heca possessed a yellow powder that he smeared on his bare chest before approaching the wasicun camps. The powder was powerful medicine, for it blinded the wasicuns from seeing Buzzard. He could come and go but never be seen. Hau, that was strong medicine, Tacante thought.

  Soon other scouts appeared to watch the wasicuns, and Tacante joined his father and a band of warriors sent to get meat for the starving moons of winter. Hunting was good, and by midsummer the wasna pouches were full. The Owl then joined his Oglala friends on Powder River. Tacante and Hokala rode to spy on the wasicun fort, for all the bluecoats had gathered there. A trader had left his horses to graze on a nearby hill, and the young Lakotas gazed upon the ponies with big eyes. In an instant they were riding up that hill, and before the foolish trader could raise an alarm, his ponies were running off to join the Lakota herds.

  A small party of bluecoats set out on Tacante's trail, but they soon halted. The Lakotas watched them from atop a ridge and shouted insults. An Oglala bared his backside in disdain, for here were wasicuns wearing war shirts who could not fight an old woman!

  The bluecoats paused but a short while at this fort. The half-starved soldiers already there went back down the road. Others replaced them. Then the rest of them moved north, into the Big Horns.

  For a time the Lakotas satisfied themselves with stealing a horse or raiding the wasicun gold seekers. Sometimes a few wagons crept up the road alone. They made fine fires. If the men escaped, it was not so bad, for they found the soldiers and told terrible tales to spread fear.

  On a place called Piney Creek, the wasicuns built a second fort. These forts were peculiar, for always before the wasicuns had put up rows of buildings in their crazy squares. Unlike the sacred circle of lodges that made up a Lakota camp, there were always big lodges and small ones, their size speaking of the importance the wasicuns placed upon the owners. The forts on the stolen road were different, for around the lodges the bluecoats built high walls of pointed sticks. It was hard to come and go, and the Lakotas laughed.

  "See how the wasicuns build their own cages!" Hokala exclaimed.

  Yes, Tacante thought. For soon these forts were jails. The Lakotas made it hard for even the small wood-cutting parties to leave. And not long after the wall was finished, the Oglalas made a raid on the pony herd, stealing a hundred horses and many mules.

  "Now they will stay here!" Hinhan Hota declared angrily. "Our helpless ones will be safe in their camps. When the snows come, these wasicuns will freeze here. There is not enough meat to fill their bellies, and we won't let them hunt. Hau! They will suffer like my brother."

  Such was the talk among the Lakotas. Even Tacante, who often watched the fort from the high ridge nearby, was eaten up with anger. Why had the wasicuns come into the Big Horn country, driving out the elk and the deer with their great noisy wagons? Why had they forgotten their promises? If all of them died, even the smallest child, no Lakota heart would sadden. For their hearts had turned bad toward the wasicuns.

  Chapter Nine

  Tacante and the other young Sicangus occupied themselves watching the wasicun fort. Many bluecoats slept inside the high walls, and Hinhan Hota warned of the folly in attacking such a strong place. Better to let the wasicuns come out and fight in open country.

  Mahpiya Luta, Red Cloud, was of the same mind. The Oglala chief was now looked upon as war leader, for he spoke with wisdom and determination. It was nothing to let the wasicuns sleep in their wooden cage. Let them grow cold and hungry with the approaching snows. But whenever the bluecoats emerged to cut wood or hunt game, the Lakota watchers sent word. Soon a war party was snapping at the soldiers' heels.

  T
acante, Hokala, Cehupa Maza, and their old friends Sunka Sapa and Waawanyanka were among those who joined in the raids on the wood-cutters. Tacante felt proud that five young men from his father's camp should strike at the hated wasicuns. A large group of Oglalas came as well, led by a light-skinned young warrior known as Sunkawakan Witkotkoke, the Confused or Crazed Horse. The Oglalas already sang of his bravery, for he had fought well against the Crows and the Snakes.

  He was a strange one, Tacante observed. Unlike his companions, the Horse wore few decorations into batde. He stripped himself naked save for a modest breechclout, and other than wearing a red-tailed hawk in his hair and painting numerous hailstones on his chest, he was little different from the untried boys who came along to look after the spare ponies.

  Once in a fight, though, Sunkawakan Witkotkoke was a man to notice. Often he led the charge, and he was always the last to leave the enemy. His medicine bent the paths of bullets so that he could ride unharmed, and those who followed such strong medicine enjoyed success.

  All this Tacante learned from the young Oglalas who followed the strange one toward the ridge where bluecoats were felling cottonwoods. Once the Lakotas grew near, the Horse called for silence.

  "Who will follow me to decoy the soldiers?" Sunkawakan Witkotkoke asked. "Hau! It's a good day to die!"

  The others shouted eagerly, and the Horse chose three Oglalas for the decoys. While the rest of the raiders hid themselves in a ravine and waited, the decoys cautiously approached the woodcutters and called out a challenge.

  These wasicuns knew little about fighting, for they quickly abandoned their work and began firing their rifles. The Horse was clever. He rode just beyond the rifles' range, shouting and taunting the soldiers. When five of them at last mounted horses and set off in pursuit, Tacante felt his blood rise.

  The big, grain-fed American horses were no match for plains ponies, and Crazy Horse often had to slow his pace so that the pursuing wasicuns would not lose heart and turn back. Then when the decoys passed the ravine, their companions emerged, firing arrows or bullets at the astonished wasicuns. One bluecoat fell immediately, and Hokala hurried to count coup on him. Another wasicun then turned and raced toward the unsuspecting Badger.