by Jory Sherman
Angry talk rose up among the outer circle of warriors and Crazy Horse had to calm them.
"Wait, my friends. There will be fighting pretty quick."
"Hoye!" they all roared, in approval.
"It makes my heart strong to hear you," said their chief. "But let every one of you think straight before shouting the Hoye. This is not the kind of war we fight against the Crows or the Snakes or the Pawnees. With the white soldiers it is killing every day. You cannot drive them off like a few raiding Crows or Snakes.
"These soldiers of the Great Father do not seem to be men like you. They have no homes anywhere. No wives, but the pay-women. No sons that they can know. Now, my friends, they are here in our country looking for us to kill.
"In this war, we must fight them in a different way from any the Lakotas have ever seen. Not with the counting of many coups, or doing great deeds to be told in the victory dance. We must make this a war of killing, a war of finishing, so we can live in peace in our own country."
Within an hour, Crazy Horse had a thousand Lakota warriors armed and mounted for war. Two parties of Cheyenne and three of Lakota would ride apart for a while, each under its own leaders.
Red Tomahawk painted for war as Blue Wing Teal made his weapons ready.
He rode with Crazy Horse, who looked at all the warriors with pride.
"Who can say when we will have another war party such as this?" he said. "Hiyapo!" he shouted, "Let us go!"
The fighting began when Crazy Horse's war party drove the Crow scouts back down to the Three Stars camp. The Lakota and Cheyenne fought bravely, with few guns and the short-range bows. The soldiers came at them in lines, and flanked them, their bugles blaring, their soldier chiefs shouting orders. Crazy Horse taunted them, acting as decoy to make them charge, while his warriors waited.
The Indians spread out along the creek and waited there in rock and brush where the ridge jutted out. But the Crows howled that this was a bad place and the soldiers circled, caught the Crazy Horse warriors from behind.
The Lakotas and Cheyennes fought until they ran out of bullets and arrows. They rode all night back to the great encampment with much ceremony.
"Eight good warriors dead," told the crier. "Some wounded. Many soldiers hurt."
Then, the scouts came in telling of Three Stars hauling away fifty-seven soldiers to haul away in the wagons, dead and bad wounded.
Red Tomahawk sat with Crazy Horse away from the celebrating camp.
"You fought well, my brother. You were strong yesterday in the fighting."
"If we had the repeating rifles. . ."
"Yes, that would be good. But we fought to kill and now Three Stars will wonder. The Crows will tell him that we fought like soldiers, not in the old way."
From the camp came the sounds of drumming and singing. The people would dance all night over the things done on the Rosebud against the big soldier chief.
"This was a big fight," said Red Tomahawk. "Bigger than the one on the Piney. We did not sneak and hide, but fought in the open where the soldiers could see our bravery."
"That is so. The soldier chief there was no warrior like Three Stars. This one, Crook, is worthy of our own warriors."
"What will happen now?" Red Tomahawk asked. "Is this part of Sitting Bull's vision?"
"No. Tomorrow we will move to the Little Big Horn. We have yet to know Sitting Bull's prophesy."
"Many Soldiers Falling into Camp," mused Red Tomahawk. "It is hard to believe."
"Come, let us join the celebration. The big fight is yet to come."
Red Tomahawk looked at Crazy Horse with keen eyes. He had never seen his leader so calm, so sure of himself. Crazy Horse seemed proud of their fight with Three Stars, but that was not the reason his heart soared, he knew.
Crazy Horse had already made Sitting Bull's vision his own.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Red Tomahawk and Blue Wing Teal, her belly swollen with child, splashed in the cool morning water of the Little Big Horn. He remembered a day when he was a boy, when Chalk Face was alive, and He Dog, Curly, Banded Eagle and some others swam in the Shell. He scooped up water, splashed his woman in the face. She laughed and made her palm flat, skidded it across the water. There were many other people bathing, laughing, talking about the celebration the night before.
Blue Wing was happy now that the fight was over and they were safe on the Little Big Horn. She floated on her back, rubbing her belly with pride as her man nibbled at her ear and whispered pretty little words that made her heart soar like the hawk.
Then, they all heard the dreaded cry.
"Soldiers are coming here! Soldiers coming here!"
The bathers stopped their splashing and listened in the silence to the crier to make sure they had understood his words.
"Soldiers coming here!"
Red Tomahawk helped Blue Wing Teal waddle from the water. Now, everyone was talking and shouting. The camp was in an uproar. Runners raced to all the camps with the news and warriors rushed out to the pony herds. The turnip-diggers were signaled to have them return to camp and the women began wailing that danger was close.
In the distance, they heard a bugle and the runners came back saying that soldiers, a blue line of them was approaching the Hunkpapa circle. Ree scouts had been spotted.
Red Tomahawk painted for war, gathered his guns, his powder and ball, his quiver, arrows and bow. He caught up his horse and raced to join the Lakotas streaming out of camp to enter the battle. His heart pounded in his chest as he realized that Sitting Bull's vision was coming true. Many soldiers were falling into camp.
He rode in with the first wave of Cheyennes, shooting and yelling.
"It is a good day to die!" he shouted and the Cheyennes yelled that soldiers were going down.
The first wave swept past them and the soldiers dismounted, began to fight on foot. The Indians cheered, feeling strong about this.
"Come!" shouted Red Tomahawk, when he saw Banded Eagle. "All of you." They followed him as he charged into the Rees, who had Hunkpapa horses with them. The Rees fell and fled, letting the horses loose, exposing the soldiers' flank. Only one stayed with the whites, a man the Lakotas knew as Bloody Knife, and they cut him down without mercy.
"Where is Crazy Horse?" someone shouted. "He should be here!"
They wheeled back to the Hunkpapa camp and saw that many of the lodges were shot up. Crazy Horse and Big Road, some other Oglala warriors, came riding in, shooting and yelling their war cries.
"I will follow you now!" shouted Red Tomahawk.
"We will go to the fighting," answered his friend. They rode up to the place where several hundred warriors stood shooting at the soldiers. There, were Sitting Bull, Black Moon and Gall, urging their warriors to kill and not take coups.
Crazy Horse, riding his yellow pinto, charged into the fray. He made a striking sight as, stripped to his breechclout, hailstone marks painted on his body, a lightning streak down his face and the red-backed hawk of his vision on his head, he led his warriors in a circling maneuver.
"Remember the rifles that jammed on the Rosebud," he shouted. "Be strong, my friends. Make them shoot three times fast so their guns will stick and you can knock them down with your clubs."
The Indians shouted for joy when they saw Crazy Horse riding into the fight.
Red Tomahawk watched as Crazy Horse again put himself between his warriors and the soldiers, riding back and forth to draw fire. Bullets rained about him like hail, but none touched him and a great sigh of approval rose up from hundreds of Indian throats.
Soldiers began to mount their horses and try to escape. Indians swarmed over them, knocking them down, shooting them. Some got away, but Red Tomahawk and some others went back to the hill and shot more soldiers who had been left behind. They began picking up the repeating rifles and bullets, taking up the soldier horses.
The fighting slowed and Red Tomahawk was ready to proclaim victory when a runner shouted.
"More soldi
ers coming!" The messenger pointed across the river. "They go to where the women and helpless are!"
The Cheyennes, looking through the soldier coats, got excited at the markings.
"It is Yellow Hair," they shouted, with bitterness. "He who killed our people on the Washita."
"Ah," shouted a warrior. "This day my heart is good!"
Soldiers lay in the river like dead buffalo, as Red Tomahawk chased after Crazy Horse to meet the main body of soldiers falling into camp.
Now, many had new soldier guns, and more Indians swarmed out of camp to follow Crazy Horse. He shouted to them in the Lakota way: "This is a good day to die!" and lifted his Winchester over his head in a sign of victory.
Red Tomahawk followed his chief, his heart singing the war song the drums played back among the helpless ones. They crossed the river, rounded the ridge where the soldiers marched, and rode up a ravine behind them to cut off their retreat.
He looked back and saw the column of Indians swell and thicken until it streamed out like a widening smoke. A huge dust cloud rose up in the air as Indians from the riverside drove the soldiers back to the crest of the ridge. Then, as the soldiers turned to flee, they rushed down on them, firing their arrows until the horizon was black with their shafts.
The soldier rifles sounded like fat popping in a skillet as hundreds of Indians, all screaming and yelling, killing with ease, circled and fired into the line of soldiers.
The soldier line broke as Crazy Horse and his warriors charged through them. A few Lakota horses fell and a brave or two was hit, but Crazy Horse brought his warriors around for another charge.
Red Tomahawk ran his pony right at a blue coat and saw the man lift his pistol to his temple and squeeze the trigger. A pink cloud of spray exploded from the soldier's skull as the bullet tore through his brain. He fell as Tomahawk wheeled and charged another soldier. The soldier dodged aside and took aim with his rifle. Tomahawk jerked his pony back on its haunches and turned to fire his pistol pointblank into the soldier's stomach. The soldier rifle went off, and the ball whistled harmlessly past Tomahawk's face.
In less time than it takes to skin three buffalo, the battle was over.
In the center of the fight, an island of dead soldiers lay in a heap among their horses. Some had been alive a few moments before, and had run to the river to try and escape. Red Tomahawk and Banded Eagle, with other warriors, ran them down and shot them like buffalo calves or clubbed them to death.
"It was so easy," he told Crazy Horse afterwards.
"I have seen it."
"We have beaten them. We have killed Yellow Hair. The fighting is done. For good." But Crazy Horse had looked off into those mists where his heart went, where no one else could go, and his eyes had filled with that sad look he had for his people.
"The war is not over," he said. "The people will brag about the Little Big Horn fight, but there will be more soldiers to take the places of those we
killed."
And Red Tomahawk knew this would be so.
* * *
Blue Wing Teal gave birth to a boy. He was light of skin, and yet had his father's strong eyes. Once she began nursing him, though, she changed toward her husband.
"I will go to the Spotted Tail agency," she said. "I do not want my son to be killed by the whites."
"You cannot do this. You belong in my lodge."
"I am leaving. Crazy Horse is still talking of war and they say the soldiers will bring him in."
"No," he said. "Never."
So Blue Wing Teal left, with many other weak hearts, taking their boy-child, Antelope Dream, with her. Red Tomahawk grew sick of heart and after many moons, when Crazy Horse was gone, he left for the agency.
Later, he heard that his own people had turned against Crazy Horse. Some Lakotas were following Little Big Man and Red Cloud, hoping to kill him so the bad talk about Custer would stop and the whites would leave the friendly Indians in peace.
Crazy Horse, however, eluded his pursuers and Little Big Man came back to the agency with anger on his face. He stalked straight to Red Tomahawk's lodge.
"You must put on the blue soldier coat," he said.
"No."
"Do you want Crazy Horse to live?"
"Yes."
Blue Wing clucked to the baby, nursing it at her breast. She looked over at her husband with pleading eyes.
"Then you must help him. He trusts you and if you wear the blue soldier coat, he will come in. He will see that you and your family are safe."
"Do this thing," said Blue Wing, "and I will never ask you another. Do it for our son."
Red Tomahawk rose from his white man's blankets and stalked from his lodge to be alone. He walked into the open air and breathed deeply. He thought of all the things that had happened. The whites had not let Yellow Hair die. They still thirsted for revenge. The Indians were all broken up now, with so many wearing the blue soldier coats, Little Wound's Oglalas, Blue Clouds, Cheyennes. Crazy Horse had been right. The Little Big Horn was not over. And, there would never again be such a battle.
* * *
Crazy Horse came in to the Spotted Tail agency, bringing only Black Shawl, Shell Boy and young Kicking Bear, a brother of Black Fox who smoked now with American Horse.
White Hat, the soldier chief had offered two hundred dollars to any scout who would bring Crazy Horse to him. He sent out thirty Indian scouts under No Flesh and twenty-five more under No Water.
Red Tomahawk went along, wearing the blue coat, but only to see that no harm came to his friend. He gloated silently as the scouts kept seeing Crazy Horse, but never came close enough to shoot him and collect the two hundred dollar reward.
At the agency, Red Tomahawk welcomed his friend.
"You wear the blue coat now," said Crazy Horse.
"Only so that my family and your family will not be hurt."
"That is good, Red Tomahawk. You have been a good friend."
Crazy Horse looked tired, worn out. When the soldier chiefs asked him to come to the soldier house, he went without grumbling. Red Tomahawk went with him, noticing the sad, faraway look in the great chief's eyes.
"Why did you leave your camp?" the soldier chief asked him.
"I stayed with my people until a great party of scouts and soldiers came for me with wagon guns. Because I did not want the helpless ones hurt, I went away. I offered my pipe to the great powers for everlasting peace. I was asked to fight the Nez Perce and at first I did not want to do this. I had offered my pipe against this. But I said I would do this thing and then the soldiers came again to take me away. So, I brought my sick wife to her relatives here at the agency where it is said there is peace."
The soldiers said he must go to another soldier fort and say these good things. They said they believed him. They said he must go to Robinson and that all would be well.
First, Crazy Horse sought council among his people. Many told him to ride north and stay away from soldiers.
"No, I made a promise. I will say the truth, that I want only peace."
Later, he told Red Tomahawk something that made his friend grow cold inside his heart.
"It is told me," he said, "that something bad will happen."
There was a great party to meet him at Fort Robinson. There were many of his enemies there to see what would happen to him. Little Big Man strutted like an important man and bragged and made it sound as though Crazy Horse was nothing.
One of the Indian police grabbed Crazy Horse's arm and said, "Come along, you man of no-fight. You are a coward!"
He spoke to Major Lee, who went to General Bradley with his words. Bradley said nothing could be done. Crazy Horse must be punished for what happened on the Little Big Horn.
Lee said only that he would not be harmed. "It is too late to have a talk with General Bradley."
So, they led Crazy Horse, not to a good house, but to an iron house, a jail. He went with the officer of the day, but was followed by Little Big Man on one side, two soldiers on th
e other. Red Tomahawk walked a few feet in front of Crazy Horse.
The Lakota chief drew his blanket around him. Then, he saw the soldier with the bayonet walking back and forth. He looked up and saw the iron bars.
He jumped back when he saw the men inside with the iron chains on their legs.
Little Big Man grabbed his arms.
"No!" shouted Red Tomahawk to the soldiers, to anyone who would hear. "He is holding the arms, the arms!"
Crazy Horse struggled.
"Let me go!" he panted.
The officer of the day yelled.
"Stab him! Kill the sonofabitch!"
The guard rushed up, lunged with his bayonet. He stabbed twice more and Crazy Horse sagged in Little Big Man's grip.
Red Tomahawk rushed up, pulled on Crazy Horse to get him away from being stabbed.
Crazy Horse looked up at the swarm of men and let out a sigh.
"Let me go, my friends," he said. "You have got me hurt enough."
* * *
Red Tomahawk visited Crazy Horse as he lay dying in his cell.
"I did not mean to hurt you," he said.
"I know. It was not you. Little Big Man put his hands on me."
There were others there, Touch the Clouds and Worm.
"Go, Red Tomahawk, and walk the white man's trail now. It is no use. I cannot help my people anymore."
Red Tomahawk left the iron house and he walked until the dawn gave him vision.
He ripped off his blue soldier coat and ground it into the dirt with his moccasins.
The keening and trilling of the women told him that Crazy Horse was dead, yet he felt his spirit strong in his heart. The sunrise was bright over the land and there was a trail to the north where the soldier chiefs had not yet gone.
He caught up his pony and rode back to the Spotted Tail agency. He sang a song to Crazy Horse as he rode, and he thought of Curly and the times they had lived so long ago when their people, the Lakota, were as one.
About the Author
Jory Sherman began his literary career as a poet in San Francisco’s famed North Beach in the late 1950s, during the heyday of the Beat Generation. His poetry and short stories were widely published in literary journals when he began writing commercial fiction. He has won numerous awards for his poetry and prose and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Letters for his novel, Grass Kingdom. He won a Spur Award from Western Writers of America for The Medicine Horn. He has also won a number of awards from the Missouri Writers Guild, and other organizations. Sherman was a book producer, packaging books for many major publishers. His CHILL series of mysteries, published by Pinnacle, appeared in 14 countries. He has published more than 400 books since 1965, more than 1000 articles and 500 short stories. In 1995, Sherman was inducted into the National Writer’s Hall of Fame. Literary critics consider Sherman to be among the top 5 of western writers, according to Dale Walker, historian. Warren French, former professor of literature at the University of Florida, wrote that: “Jory Sherman has a strange and powerful knowledge of language and an almost perfect ear.” Sherman continues to write novels and short stories as well as conduct writing workshops. He received the Western Fictioneers Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and is the 2013 recipient of the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature. www.jorysherman.com