Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 03

by Sitting Bull

  Roving bands of nontreaty Indians began to pour into Sitting Bull’s camp, swelling it to hundreds of lodges, then to more than a thousand. It became a flood as some bands of treaty Lakota, off the reservation for a buffalo hunt made necessary by the near starvation they suffered on the agency’s meager rations, joined the Hunkpapa and Oglala hostiles. By early June, Sitting Bull knew that the fight would be soon, and that its outcome might very well determine the future of his people.

  This was the chance Sitting Bull needed to impress upon his allies the need to organize their forces in a way that would enable them to fight more effectively against the Long Knives with their centralized command structure. But such an understanding could not be accomplished by an act of will. It was necessary to persuade, cajole, even bargain—whatever it would take to make the other chiefs see things as he did.

  It was nearly time for the sun dance, and Sitting Bull wanted to have his ducks in a row before the great ceremony. A council was called, and a huge council lodge erected by combining several dwellings. All the great nontreaty chiefs were there: Crazy Horse and Low Dog from the Oglala, Lame Deer and Black Moon from the Miniconjou, Spotted Eagle and Black Eagle of the Sans Arcs, Four Horns and Black Moon from the Hunkpapa. The Cheyenne were represented by Two Moon, Ice, and Little Horse, and there was a sizable contingent of warriors from Spotted Tail’s Brules, as well as Two Kettles, Blackfeet Sioux, and Yanktonais. Even Inkpaduta was there with his Santee Sioux.

  Once the pipe had been smoked, Sitting Bull took the floor. He looked at Ice and smiled. “Our Cheyenne brothers are here with us, and we welcome them. As our guests, they should have the honor of choosing their leader for the coming war before we choose our own leader.”

  The Cheyenne chiefs did not hesitate. Two Moon, whose camp had been hit by Crook’s column in March, was named the war leader for all the Cheyennes. Now came the difficult moment of choosing an overall leader for the Lakota.

  One after another, each Lakota chief spoke his piece. Crazy Horse, in his intense way, seemed to set the tone. He was not in a mood for wasted oratory. “The man to lead the Lakota is the man who called us here,” he said. “Sitting Bull.” And he sat back down without another word. Four Horns agreed, and Black Moon merely added his own endorsement. When all the Lakota chiefs who wished to speak had spoken, there was still only one name under consideration.

  Two Moon got to his feet then and said, “It does not seem as if you will have trouble making your decision. You have the right man—the man who called us here. He is your war chief, and you follow him where he leads. I don’t see any reason for you to choose another. It is Sitting Bull.”

  The vote was unanimous, and word spread like wildfire among the warriors. There was some grumbling among those who were affiliated with some chief other than Sitting Bull, but no one seriously objected. Sitting Bull was well known to them all, and his reputation was formidable. The consensus seemed to be that if they had to follow one man into a battle that might determine the future of their people, they had the man they wanted to follow.

  It was time to prepare, and Sitting Bull set to work immediately. He sent the warriors out in every direction with instructions to gather horses. He cautioned them to be conservative, taking just a few head at any one location. He did not want his men to be caught, and he knew that bands of Lakota were seldom followed for a handful of stolen horses. Any raid large enough to draw the attention of the army might accidentally reveal the existence of the huge camp and compromise the war plans before he was ready.

  And he told each and every band of warriors dispatched for horses the same thing: “If you meet a white man, kill him. Spare no one. Let not one live. Not one.”

  Some of the treaty bands were getting nervous and wanted to leave, but Sitting Bull could not permit it. The Blackfeet Sioux chief Kill Eagle approached Sitting Bull one evening a few days after the election, and Sitting Bull scowled at him. “I know why you are here,” he said. “You and your people want to go home. But you cannot. No one can leave. We cannot let the Long Knives know what we are planning, and you know that if you are allowed to leave, someone in your band will talk. Word will get out no matter what you do.”

  “But my people are afraid of the Long Knives, they …”

  Sitting Bull cut him off with a glare. “If the Long Knives come, it will not be your people alone who will die. And if the Long Knives learn of our plans before we are ready, we cannot win. This is our last, best chance to send the white man back where he came from. I won’t allow you to take that chance away from us.”

  Kill Eagle started to bluster. “I am a free man. I go where I want. I …”

  Sitting Bull gave him a baleful smile. Then he shook his head. “No. You are not a free man now. You and your people will stay. Until I say you can leave.” And before Kill Eagle could object, Sitting Bull dispatched akicitas from the Strong Heart Society to see to it that the Blackfeet stayed put.

  Sitting Bull was now the most powerful war leader on the plains, with more men under his direct command than any other war chief before or since. And he knew that he could not afford to be soft. What he did from now on would determine whether the Lakota lived free or as prisoners on the reservation. The odds were against him, overwhelmingly so, and he knew it. But he’d never backed down from a fight, not with the Crows or the Shoshone or the Hohe. And he was not prepared to shrink from the challenge of the Long Knives, either.

  Chapter 25

  Rosebud River Valley

  1876

  FOR SITTING BULL, NO ENDEAVOR as significant as the coming war could be undertaken without supplication to Wakantanka, and there was no better way to solicit assistance than the sun dance. Sitting Bull resolved to hold the greatest sun dance ever, with participation from all of the allied tribes—not just the bands of Lakotas, but the Cheyennes and the Arapaho as well.

  He planned to dance himself. He had done so before, but never when so much was at stake. It seemed to him that sacrifice was in order. Once more, he turned to his friend Crazy Horse for counsel, and the two men went off alone, ostensibly to hunt, but really because Sitting Bull felt that he had to get the best advice he could—and there was no better man for that than Crazy Horse. Four Horns wanted to come along, but Sitting Bull forbade it. “Someone has to be here to speak for me until I get back,” he said. “The people know you and respect you. They know that words from your lips come from my own.”

  The two great Lakota chiefs rode all day long and camped well up the Rosebud, in a broad valley surrounding a winding creek. Far up either slope, thick pine forests turned the hills a green so dark it was almost black. They built a fire and settled down for the night, not expecting to sleep, but to talk.

  “You have never danced the sun dance, have you?” Sitting Bull asked.

  Crazy Horse shook his head. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I am not really a holy man like you. I know only what I know, and I am willing to wait for tomorrow to come to see what it brings.”

  “Is it because you don’t believe in Wakantanka? Is that why you have never danced?”

  “No. I have visions, just as you do. When I was a boy, I made my vision quest, just as you did. I was so hungry for it that I did not go through the usual preparations. I went off by myself without studying with a holy man, and without going to the sweat lodge for purification first. I stayed on a high rock overlooking a lake for three days. And I was out of my head with thirst and the blazing sun. I was beginning to think that I had done something wrong, that I had offended Wakantanka, and that because of this I would not have a vision.”

  Crazy Horse fell silent for a long time, and Sitting Bull waited patiently for him to continue. While he waited, he watched the clouds high overhead.

  One great black mass rushed toward the valley, and in the early evening sun, Sitting Bull could see its huge shadow spreading over the grass, darkening it, and as the wind picked up, seeming to flatten its blades under a
n invisible weight.

  Looking up at the cloud again, he saw it catch fire at its edges as the sun was hidden behind it; then a single blade of brilliant light burst through its heart and swept like a burning sword across the valley. A moment later, the cloud began to disintegrate, its fragments swirling as they separated.

  Only when the cloud was gone did Crazy Horse resume, and Sitting Bull realized his friend had been watching the cloud as intently as he had. “I wish,” he began, “that the war would go away so easily, but I know that it will not.”

  Then, as if he had never changed the subject, Crazy Horse picked up where he had left off. “My vision has never failed me. And for some reason that I don’t quite understand, I know that it is enough. It is for other, better men to speak to Wakantanka on behalf of the people. I am here only to do what I can do to feed them and to protect them.”

  It was Sitting Bull’s turn to grow silent. He understood what Crazy Horse was saying, and there were times when he felt the same way. But he knew that his path and that of his friend were very different, and he had to do what his heart told him to, just as Crazy Horse did. It was not a matter of what you thought, it was what you felt inside, and you ignored it only at great peril.

  “I will dance at the sun dance,” he said, breathing a heavy sigh. “I am not a young man, and it will be a hard thing, but I have to do it.”

  “I wish it was something I could take on my own shoulders, but I cannot,” Crazy Horse said.

  “I know that. And I know you would do it if it were the right thing for both of us … and for the people. But a man who picks and chooses what he is willing to do for the good of the people is no friend to them. I cannot say, ‘I will do this thing, because I don’t mind, but this other thing is too much, let someone else do it.’ I would not deserve to be a leader if I were to do such a thing.”

  “The war will be bad, we both know this,” Crazy Horse said, shaking his head slowly. “And we need strong medicine if we are to have a chance. I think the sun dance is powerful medicine, and I know that men who dance get close to Wakantanka in a way I have never been able to do. Sometimes I wish I were different, but I cannot change what I am.”

  “You should not wish to change,” Sitting Bull assured him. “Each man does what it is set out for him to do. You have done well for the Lakota people.”

  “You know,” Crazy Horse said, “that it has been foretold that I will not be killed in battle, but that I will meet death from behind, while my hands are being held by a friend. It was part of my vision, and I believe it.”

  Sitting Bull nodded gravely. “Yes, I know. I have seen things in my own visions, and all of them have come to pass except one. And that one I will not talk about to any man. But I know that when I dance the sun dance this time, I will see the future in a way that will be true, and what I see will come to be. I have never been afraid of any man. I have fought the Crows and the Shoshone, the Arikara and the Hohe. I have fought the Long Knives, and I have never turned away from a good fight. But I am frightened of what I might see now. I fear for the Lakota in a way I have never feared anything before in my life.”

  Crazy Horse clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Maybe you will see a good thing. Maybe you will see the Long Knives turning to dust and blowing away in a great wind off the plains. Maybe you will see the buffalo coming back, until they cover the earth as far as you can see in any direction. That would be a good thing.”

  Sitting Bull thought about the herd he had seen in his vision, the flesh melting like fat in the sunlight, turning to smoke and covering the sun with a great cloud, and he shook his head. “I hope so,” he said. “But I don’t think so.”

  Neither man slept, but neither said another word. They sat beside the fire all night long, each wrapped in his own thoughts, his own private terrors dancing in the shadows just beyond the reach of the firelight. The night was so black that the stars looked close enough to touch, and the wind hissed through the cottonwoods beside the creek, its whisper broken only by the hoot of a distant owl.

  When the stars began to fade and the sky turned gray again, they were ready for the long ride home. Before mounting their ponies, Crazy Horse took Sitting Bull in his arms. “We will do what we have to, you and I,” he said. “And it will be up to Wakantanka to decide if we have done enough.”

  It was near nightfall when they reached the camp on the Rosebud, and they sat on a hill overlooking the lodges that stretched out of sight in either direction. The camp was even larger than it had been the morning before, and the great lodge for the sun dance was already in place. Sitting Bull had things to do before his dance, and he wanted to get ready. As they rode down the hill, the two men separated; Crazy Horse headed for the Oglala circle and his own people, while Sitting Bull went directly to the Hunkpapa lodges.

  When he reached the circle, he rode directly to his tipi, where Four Horns was waiting for him. He searched his nephew’s face, looking for some indication that Sitting Bull had accomplished his purpose, learned something perhaps, or found some peace of mind. But there was no evidence of what, if anything, had happened in the immobile features.

  “Uncle,” he said, “I have vows to make, and I will need witnesses. Find White Bull and Jumping Bull for me.” At the mention of the second name, Four Horns grew solemn. The name was now used by the Assiniboin Sitting Bull had adopted, taken in honor of Sitting Bull’s father. As an afterthought, he asked for the son of Black Moon to join the party, too.

  When Four Horns had gathered the witnesses Sitting Bull had requested, the four men rode out of camp again, to a high butte, where Sitting Bull lit the ceremonial pipe and made an offering. Raising the pipe overhead, he pleaded with Wakantanka for assistance. “Have pity on me and my people. Bring the wild game for us to hunt. Let all good men be more powerful, so that they can have the peace that comes only from strength. If you do this, and grant my people safety and happiness, I will dance for two days and two nights and give you a fat buffalo in offering.”

  Sitting Bull then smoked the pipe and passed it to each of his three witnesses in turn. It was time to hunt now, and Sitting Bull was looking for the buffalo he had pledged. They found a small herd, and Sitting Bull succeeded in bringing down three large animals. With White Bull’s help, he chose the best, a fat cow, and prepared it for offering, rolling it upright and stretching its legs out to the four directions. Then he called upon Wakantanka to accept the offering in fulfillment of his promise.

  He returned to camp full of hope. It had been a promising beginning, and he was now starting to think that perhaps things were not as bleak as they seemed. He told Jumping Bull that he planned to offer one hundred pieces of flesh at the sun dance and asked his adopted brother if he would be willing to do the cutting.

  Jumping Bull, honored by the request, agreed. When Sitting Bull was ready, sitting against the base of the ceremonial cottonwood, Jumping Bull knelt beside him, a sharp metal awl in one hand and a razor-sharp, thin-bladed knife in the other. Starting at the wrist, he worked his way up one arm and down the other, raising pieces of flesh with the point of the awl and using the knife to slice them off.

  It was time for the dance now and Sitting Bull made himself ready. He approached the sacred pole, arms outstretched. Staring at the sun, he danced ceaselessly, pleading to Wakantanka to hear his prayers for his people. He was still bleeding from the wounds in both arms, and at the first intermission, the blood was wiped away with sage leaves.

  Four Horns was worried about his nephew. The sun dance was rigorous even for a man in the prime of life, and Sitting Bull was forty-five years old. The medicine man feared that Sitting Bull might be pushing himself too hard, demanding more of his body than it could possibly deliver. With the war coming, the Lakota needed him more than ever. It would serve no good purpose for Sitting Bull to prostrate himself, risking debilitation and even death, if it meant he would not be there to lead the people when he was finished. He knew that Sitting Bull was proud, so Four Horns
would not mention his concerns. And he consoled himself with the thought that Wakantanka would not let any harm come to a man who had always shown nothing but respect for the Great Spirit, and had never failed to place the needs of the people ahead of his own needs.

  When the dance resumed, Sitting Bull sprang to his feet and plunged back in. He was exhausted and he was thirsty, but he pushed aside any thought of stopping. Too much depended on him, and if he broke his vow, he would never be able to face his people again. Late into the night he danced on, and by the following morning he was nearly drained. But he would not hear of stopping, even though White Bull had whispered to him at an intermission that it might be a good thing. “You have danced enough,” he said. “You have kept your vow, as everyone can see. You should stop now.”

  Sitting Bull shook off the concerns of his nephew. When the dance resumed, he staggered to his feet and danced on. It was near noon before the next intermission, and Sitting Bull was nearly dead on his feet. White Bull and Jumping Bull carried him to the shady arbor and poured water on him to revive him.

  He was slow to respond, and only when he started to sputter and slap at the water skin, did they leave off.

  “Are you all right?” White Bull asked, kneeling beside his uncle.

  Sitting Bull nodded. “I am fine. Tired, but that is nothing. I have had a vision.”

  “What? What did you see?” White Bull asked, leaning closer.

  “Get Black Moon. I will tell him.”

  White Bull rushed off to find the holy man, and when Black Moon came hurrying back with White Bull, he knelt beside the exhausted chief and leaned close. “White Bull says you have had a vision,” he prompted.