Lakota

by G. Clifton Wisler

  "Ayyy!" Tacante screamed, rushing toward the enemy. Bullets struck the buffalo shield, peppered the ground around him, but they didn't strike flesh or bone. Tacante slammed the shield against the first soldier, then clubbed another with his rifle, and shot a third. Hokala drove the point of his Tokala lance into the wounded bluecoat chief, and the three remaining wasicuns, their nerve shattered by the Lakota charge, fled up the hill. They were swallowed up by a band of Sahiyelas.

  Tacante drew his knife and stabbed one of the senseless bluecoats while Hokala finished the other. Then the two kolas moved to Itunkala's side.

  "I killed an enemy of my people," the Mouse said.

  Hokala cut away the bluecoat's scalp and placed it in Itunkala's bloody hand.

  "It was a brave heart deed," Tacante told his brother as he cried inside. Blood trickled out of the young man's mouth, and the narrow chest that had seemed so small that morning at the river seemed even smaller pierced by a pair of bullet holes.

  "You'll send the scalp to our sister?" Itunkala asked. "You'll tell Hinhan Hota he had two brave sons this day?"

  "I'll tell them so that they may sing of you in the winter camps," Tacante promised, gripping the small hand of his brother.

  Itunkala then softly sang his death chant as a haze clouded his eyes. "I never grew tall," the young man muttered as death ended his suffering.

  "Ayyy!" Tacante screamed, turning in anger to seek out some enemy, but there was none. Already the firing on the hilltop grew faint, and the victory cries marked the end of the wasicuns.

  "Wakan Tanka!" Tacante called, cradling the head of his fallen brother. "Hold close this brave heart. Ayyy!"

  Tacante then slashed his chest, hoping the pain might somehow cast away the sorrow of his torn heart. Death hung over Little Big Horn like a cloud, for the wasicuns killed there were many. For Heart of the People, there was but one slain, though. He carried that solitary corpse in his bleeding arms, noting how light a burden it was. Here was a young man never grown tall, one who walked the hard road with a boy's name. There should have been a feasting that night, and Tacante would have given a warrior's name to the brother who had earned it.

  Now there would only be mourning.

  Chapter Twenty

  Tacante barely had tíme to wash his brother's body and dress it for burial. The bluecoats on the near hill remained, and many Lakotas were pressing them. Tacante had no more heart for war that day, and he devoted his time to treating the many wounded Oglalas and Sicangus. The wasicuns had not died cowards. Many a bullet had found its mark, and the wailing of the women echoed across Litde Big Horn like the eerie call of the great horned owl.

  There were shouts of triumph, too, for over two hundred soldiers lay dead under the summer moon. Many Rees and some Crows had also fought their last battle. Young warriors recounted their coups, and not a few proudly presented scalps to sisters and mothers. Many good guns and fine horses were taken, and a band of Sahiyelas proudly wore the blue shirts of their dead enemies.

  That night the women and boys prowled the battlefield, taking anything that was of use. Others cut apart the bodies in a savage manner, for there was litde love among the Sahiyelas for these wasicuns. Some who had survived the fight at Washita River said these were the men who had laid old Black Kettle low, for they carried the scissor-tailed flags with the number seven. It was even said Long Hair himself was among the dead.

  As Tacante cut bullets out of bone and muscle or sang the healing chants over cut thighs or bruised heads, he didn't think of the hogback ridge blooming with the strange white bodies. His heart was full of sadness for the brother who would never again ride at his side.

  Tahca Wanbli, Cetan Kinyan, and Hinhancika spoke little of the stiff body of Itunkala. Hokala had taken them amid the cottonwoods to cut scaffold limbs, and they had escaped long enough to visit the battle hill. Eagle Deer had recovered a fine leather belt and a box of Winchester shells from the body of a wasicun scout. The young boys contented themselves with snatching green picture papers and shiny buttons.

  Tacante greeted their return with stern words, for it wasn't right to accumulate possessions while mourning an uncle.

  That night, as Tacante lay on his buffalo hides, he noticed the children moaning in their sleep. Hinhancika thrashed about with his arms as if fighting back the enemy, and Flying Hawk, who was always the quiet one, screamed out in the night.

  "Ate, I saw a head coming at me," the boy said, clutching his father's side.

  "Brave up, Cetan Kinyan," Tacante urged. "It was only the dead head of an enemy." It took a long time to quiet his son's terrors, and Tacante knew the cause. Some of the older boys had taken heads of the enemy to kick around the camp. Better a rawhide ball had been used! It was wakan to strike the enemy, but to call down the ghosts of the enemy onto one's camp was folly.

  By morning the moans of the wounded and the sobs of the mourning were not the only sounds on Little Big Horn. Scouts called out alarm that more soldiers approached from the north. The air was full of evil odor, for the dead turned foul under the summer sun.

  "We must leave!" Waawanyanka cried. "There are no bullets for our good guns, and our arrows are all shot away."

  Tatanka Yotanka already had the Hunkpapas breaking down their camp. Sunkawakan Witkotkoke painted his face and tied up his horse's tail, but there were few with the bad heart for more fighting.

  "Tacante, you will come?" the Horse asked. "We'll decoy them into ambush and strike them down."

  "I cannot," Tacante explained, for he was in mourning, and he'd set aside his rifle. "I go to bury my brother."

  There were many dead to see to, and finally it became clear this new band of wasicuns faced no attack. Even the bluecoats on the near hill were safe from Lakota arrows. There would be no fighting that day.

  "Upelo!" a Sahiyela crier called out. "Upelo!"

  "They're coming to kill us!" women shouted.

  "They are still far away," Waawanyanka spoke in a calming voice. "Brave up, Lakotas. There is time to tend our dead."

  And so Tacante and his brother-friends took Itunkala deep into the hills. There they placed him on a scaffold overlooking the river. The distant Big Horn peaks seemed to watch over the young man, and Tacante made the many prayers and cut his chest again to take on the suffering of the traveling soul.

  Tahca Wanbli drew out a small knife and cut the skin of his chest so that blood flowed.

  "Itunkala was my father's brother, my father by blood," the boy said somberly. "I mourn him."

  Tacante watched with pride as the younger boys also made the giving up of blood. Then the Heart led the way back to the camp.

  Madness had now descended upon Little Big Horn. Everywhere people were tearing down lodge skins and packing up belongings.

  "Soldiers come," many said. And when Waawanyanka rode to see if it was true, he hurried back with the dreaded news.

  "They come like ants upon the plain," Watcher warned. "Many. We must ride hard."

  Tacante looked at the tall poles of good pine and sighed. It was hard work cutting new poles. But pony drags would slow the escape, so there was nothing else to do. He folded the tough buffalo-hide covering and tied it to a packhorse. He then gathered the other belongings and packed them as well. It was good to be a man of many horses, for even Hinhancika rode a pony by himself as they headed away from the stinking place. Little Big Horn was left to the wasicuns, but Tacante would always carry in his heart the memories of triumph and despair.

  It wasn't right to travel when in mourning, and Tacante led a small band of friends and relations into the Big Horn country. There they camped and sang the sad songs. Hokala killed a deer, and there was fresh meat to bring strength. Tacante erected a sweat lodge, and Inipi offered purification. But nothing cut away the sadness.

  The sun rose and fell three times before Tacante readied his small band for the hard trail. By then soldiers were everywhere, searching all the country for Lakotas. The bluecoats from the north set lo
ose armed parties of Crows, and Three Stars stopped his flight and searched Powder River. Tacante made camp in caves, making no fire for fear the Crows would catch the scent. Now was a running time. The Winchester knocked down elk or antelope to fill the hungry bellies, but the bullets grew to be few, and Tacante often made arrows.

  "Once we were a great host," Hokala grumbled as the chokecherry moon faded into memory. "Now we, who killed our enemies, run from them like hares chased by hungry wolves."

  "Ah, we are chased by wolves," Tacante said, gazing upon the wary eyes of his sons. "Hinhan Hota was right. There is no fighting the wasicuns. Kill two, and three come instead."

  As always in such times of great trial, Tacante climbed the mountain-side until he found a place where he was alone with the sky. There he prayed and starved himself until a vision appeared.

  At first the dream seemed familiar. There was Tatanka thundering across the plains. He seemed to bellow fiercely as he trampled beneath his hoofs many wasicuns. Then came a whirlwind of bullets, and Bull Buffalo fell, bleeding.

  "Cry for me, Tacante," the spirit whispered. "And for yourself. Our time is finished."

  Beyond the whirlwind rose the steep sides of Mato Tipila Paha, the sacred Bear's Lodge. When Tacante awoke from his dreaming, he knew it was the place they must go. There, in that sacred place, perhaps peace waited.

  So it was that Tacante led the way eastward, across the Big Horn Range, past Powder River, on through the yellow grass prairie once ruled by the buffalo. Bear's Lodge reached out to the fugitives, called them. There Tacante had joined the sun dance. Surely Wakan Tanka still dwelled in that holy place.

  They spent the rest of summer evading the wasicuns and the Ree and Crow scouts. The horses were exhausted, and the little ones weak and thin. Winter would come soon, and where were the stores of wasna to sustain them? Hardly a day did Tacante know the same camp, and cook fires were lit only in the daylight. Even then, no thought was given to drying meat. The risks of discovery were far too great.

  Then, even as Tacante's despair darkened his somber face, Waawanyanka's sharp eyes detected riders on the plain ahead.

  "Lakotas!" Hokala called.

  "Sunkawakan Witkotkoke!" Waawanyanka shouted. The Horse was there.

  Crazy Horse was glad to welcome the lost ones to his camp. This was not the great band of Oglalas that had camped at Little Big Horn. Many had returned to Red Cloud's agency even before the fighting, and others had gone afterward. Those who remained were far thinner than summer usually found them.

  "The wasicuns chase us hard," the Horse explained. "We would fight them, but we have no bullets for our guns, and arrows cannot find the dark hearts of the bluecoats from far away."

  Tacante thought, too, that more and more of the older warriors were turning their faces away from the death another fight was sure to bring.

  If Tacante's voice had carried weight with the Oglalas' council, the band might have erected their lodges at Bear Lodge. Sunkawakan Witkotkoke turned north, into the low hills, where many peaceful Lakota bands made their autumn camps. Scarcely had they stretched the lodge skins over such cottonwood and willow poles as could be cut than the sounds of gunfire carried across the hills. Tacante listened glumly to the faint noise, knowing surely here was another Lakota camp struck hard. It was bitter news, for that ground was part of the reservation set aside for the people at Fort Laramie long ago.

  Soon riders appeared with dread news.

  "Soldiers have attacked our camps. They killed American Horse and many brave hearts," a young man said. "Come, help us fight!"

  "Who will follow the Tokala lance?" Hokala cried, and many howled their eagerness to punish the wasicuns.

  It took a short time to paint faces and tie up the ponies' tails. Then Sunkawakan Witkotkoke led his Oglalas toward the threatened village.

  Tacante had hoped it was perhaps Crow scouts who had attacked American Horse's village. But as the Oglala riders approached the battle, it was clearly a big soldier force. Women and little ones fled over the rough ground that led to Slim Buttes, where American Horse fell. And when the Lakotas arrived, they saw to their disappointment that Three Stars and a wasieun army were busy burning the lodges and killing such Lakotas who remained to fight.

  "I am a fox," Hokala began to sing as he waved his lance high over his head. And even as he sang of the difficult things a Tokala must do, Badger led a charge against a party of horse soldiers.

  It was a hopeless thing, fighting so many with little more than bows and arrows to answer bullets. But a brave heart never hung back when his kola charged. Tacante followed, screaming a war cry and then blowing his eagle-bone whisde. The bluecoats turned and dismounted. They lifted their rifles to their shoulders and unleashed a wicked volley at the charging Oglalas. A young man called Rushes Ahead fell first. Then No Paint died. Hokala continued on, for his medicine bent the bullets from his chest. He struck the center of the bluecoats and pierced one soldier with the lance. Then his horse went down, and he stood alone among many enemies.

  "Ayyy!" Tacante screamed as he raced to rescue his friend. Hokala planted the lance, though, and he dove into the bluecoats with a slashing knife. They must have thought a demon was among them, for they fell back, stunned. Then one fired his pistol into Hokala's back, and another clubbed Badger's head.

  Tacante managed to drive the enemy back from Hokala, but the life had already left when the Heart lifted Badger's body.

  "Here is a brave heart!" Tacante shouted, taking the lance from the earth. But as he placed Hokala atop the horse and led it from the batdescarred village, Tacante wondered what such a good man had died for. The camp remained in the hands of Three Stars, and even Sunkawakan Witkotkoke's fiery words could not move the Oglalas to retake it. Too many, it seemed, had died already.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Not since Itunkala's death had Tacante known such pain. All the best and bravest among the warriors seemed gone now. Others would surely follow, for winter was a starving time. Now the Oglalas had more helpless ones to feed, and the good hunting moons were behind them.

  "There will be game on Tongue River," Sunkawakan Witkotkoke said confidently. "There we'll be beyond the reach of long knives."

  Tacante wondered. In their flight from Little Big Horn, the Lakotas and Sahiyelas had often set the prairie afire. With no grazing, the buffalo and elk had fled that good country. It was a long way to go, and the chill wind was already making itself felt.

  "I have a wife and daughter, and a brother's wife and son to watch over," Waawanyanka told Tacante when the camp started west. "I'm tired of running. My heart is sad for all the dead young men, for the slaughtered children. My fighting days are ended."

  Tacante gazed upon Watcher, the faithful one, he who was forever vigilant. Wakinyela and their little girl stood near, as did Sunlata and Hokala's boy. There was no fire in their eyes. Yes, the fight was over.

  "Hinhan Hota is at Sinte Gleska," Tacante told his brother-friend. They would be welcomed at Spotted Tail, given food and clothing. It wasn't such a far way.

  "Come with us," Waawanyanka urged.

  "I am the Heart of the People," Tacante answered. "I know the curing songs. I can't turn away from the sacred road."

  "Ah, my brother, can you be sure it doesn't lead you to your father's lodge?"

  "Yes," Tacante said, sighing. "It's never the easy path. It requires more suffering."

  If that was true, the suffering soon came. It was a long, difficult journey across the stump grass to Powder River and the Big Horns beyond. Never was there a time when the fear of attack was not heavy on the warriors' minds. Tacante prayed often for visions, but Tatanka was dying, and he spoke only of more dying.

  The winter moons found Three Stars Crook again prowling Powder River. While the deer were shedding their antlers, a new wasicun wolf swept down on Dull Knife's Sahiyelas. This was Mackenzie, he who had killed the ponies. In a fight against the southern people, he had captured a winter camp and shot t
he pony herd. This time his men shot mostly Sahiyelas, but they also burned the lodges, the blankets, even the winter meat. These Sahiyelas rushed to the safety of Sunkawakan Witkotkoke's Oglala camp nearby, and what was already in short supply was cheerfully shared.

  Tacante gazed sadly at his frayed lodge skins and ordered them cut apart. Three pieces were made, and two Sahiyela families also had protection against the wind.

  "Ate, our tipi is so small," Tahca Wanbli observed as he huddled with his mother, brothers, and father in the square hut stretched over willow limbs. "No longer can we burn a good fire."

  "We will stay warm," Tacante promised, avoiding the probing eyes of Hehaka and the little ones. "We have good elk and buffalo robes, and the lodge skin is strong against the snow."

  "And if the soldiers come?" Cetan Kinyan asked.

  "Then I will fight them and chase them across Powder River," Tacante boasted. "When did Sunkawakan Witkotkoke ever lose a fight to Three Stars?"

  The questions were often repeated as it grew colder, and the days were rare when there was enough to eat. Hinhancika grew to be a feeble shadow, and Tacante often held his little sons tightly and rubbed warmth into their frail bodies.

  Under the terrible moon the unthinkable occurred. Bluecoats struck the camp. It was the Bearcoat, Nelson Miles, who found the Oglala camp. Already he had punished Gall's Hunkpapas and sent Sitting Bull hurrying to the Grandmother country. Now he had come to kill Crazy Horse.

  They came out of a heavy mist. Horses snorted steamy breaths as the riders surged through deep snowdrifts. Bullets tore through lodges, striking the helpless. Terror flooded the land. Tacante threw on an elk robe and covered his face with ash from the fire. Then, using the old ash bow made in his youth, the Heart rushed out to greet the blue-coats.

  No buffalo shield bent the bullets, and no elk teeth blinded the enemy. Tacante was a lone Lakota standing in the open, ready to be killed. Three soldiers tried. The first took a bullet in the chest and fell bleeding into the snow. Tacante grabbed his horse and met the second enemy mounted. The wasicun tried to fire his pistol, but the ash bow knocked it aside. Then the bow delivered a hard blow to the neck, unhorsing the wasicun.