Black Hills

by Dan Simmons

  It is intolerably hot and humid, and though the sunset has thrown long shadows from the occasional cottonwoods and tipis and horses and grasses, the twilight brings no relief from the heat. Storm clouds move heavily in the south and north and east. Even though the sides of the tipis are raised as high as privacy and propriety allow, almost a grown man’s full arm length at Limps-a-Lot’s lodge, no cooling air moves beneath the heavy painted hides.

  Paha Sapa is surprised to see that his interrogators consist only of Crazy Horse, one of his lieutenants named Run Fearless, their own leader, Angry Badger, the holy man Long Turd, old Loud Voice Hawk, and Limps-a-Lot. The women have been sent away. Even though it’s widely known that Crazy Horse loves his privacy and often goes off by himself for days or weeks at a time, there hasn’t been a moment so far in his visit to Angry Badger’s tiyospaye when the war chief has not been surrounded by his bodyguards, other chiefs, warriors, and Angry Badger’s people. Somehow the fact that it is only Crazy Horse, Run Fearless, Angry Badger, Long Turd, Loud Voice Hawk, and Paha Sapa’s tunkašila makes the boy even more apprehensive. His legs are shaking under his best deer-hide trousers.

  Limps-a-Lot makes the introductions—although Paha Sapa was briefly introduced to Crazy Horse at the Greasy Grass—and then the six men and the boy sit in a circle. The tent hides have been rolled lower for privacy and sweat drips from the men’s noses and chins in the thick, still air.

  There is no pipe, no ceremony, no prelude. Crazy Horse scowls at Paha Sapa as indifferently and apparently as disgustedly as he did on the battlefield more than two weeks earlier. When he speaks, the questions are directed directly at Paha Sapa, and the war chief’s voice is low but peremptory.

  —Long Turd and others tell me that you can see people’s pasts and futures when you touch them. Is this true?

  Paha Sapa’s heart pounds so wildly that he feels lightheaded.

  —Sometimes…

  He wanted to add an honorific to his answer, but Ate, Father, does not feel right with this fierce stranger. He leaves it off and hopes he does not receive a closed-fisted cuff for insolence.

  —And is it true that a Wasicun’s ghost came into you near where I saw you lying and flopping around during the battle at the Greasy Grass on the day we killed Pehin Hanska?

  —Yes, Tasunke Witko.

  Paha Sapa prays that using Crazy Horse’s name with the proper tone of deference will be as respectful as an honorific.

  Crazy Horse’s scowl remains the same.

  —Was it Long Hair’s ghost?

  —I do not know, Tasunke Witko.

  —Does it speak to you?

  —It speaks to… itself. Especially at night, when I hear it best.

  —What does it say?

  —I do not know, Tasunke Witko. It uses many words and all in a harsh rush, but the words are all in the tongue of the Wasicun.

  —You do not understand any of them?

  —No, Tasunke Witko. I am sorry.

  Crazy Horse shakes his head as if angered by Paha Sapa’s apology.

  —Are there any words that the ghost whispers more than once?

  Paha Sapa licks his lips and thinks hard. Outside, thunder rumbles from the direction of the Black Hills. Somewhere a child laughs and two women squeal as if they are playing a game. Paha Sapa smells horseflesh and horse manure heavy in the thick summer air.

  —There is the word… Li-BEE… Tasunke Witko. The ghost says it over and over. Li-BEE. But I have no idea what it means. It is as if he is saying it in pain, as though it were the source of a wound.

  Crazy Horse turns to Run Fearless, Long Turd, and Loud Voice Hawk, but neither the chief nor holy man has heard this wasichu word before. Angry Badger also shakes his head while looking irritated at Paha Sapa and this entire conversation. Crazy Horse’s fierce glance moves to Paha Sapa’s tunkašila, but Limps-a-Lot only shrugs.

  Crazy Horse barks to Run Fearless.

  —Go bring in the Crow.

  When Run Fearless returns, he is shoving and dragging along a Crow captive. The man’s hands are tied in front of him and his legs are hobbled like a horse’s. Paha Sapa guesses at once that this is one of the Crow scouts for the Seventh Cavalry whom Crazy Horse’s warriors captured and kept alive at the Greasy Grass; he has heard in campfire talk that there were three, but only one has been kept alive. This man is wearing torn and bloody clothes. His face is swollen with bruises, one eye looks to be permanently battered shut, and someone has been playfully torturing him—three fingers on his right hand are gone, two fingers on his left hand, and one ear has been cut away.

  Not for the first time (or the last), Paha Sapa feels a strange reaction deep inside—a wave of disgust or disapproval, perhaps—but it is not his reaction. The Paha Sapa of almost eleven summers feels no compassion for this captured enemy. And it is certainly not his ghost’s reaction—Paha Sapa receives no emotions or thoughts from his ghost, only talk, talk, talk in the wasichus’ language. No, it is more as if there is another, perhaps older, but definitely a different Paha Sapa within Paha Sapa, always watching and reacting to things somewhat differently than does the boy named Paha Sapa. The effect is disconcerting.

  Crazy Horse is speaking.

  —This is one of Long Hair’s scouts. I only wish we could have captured those four who were closest to Long Hair—Curly, White Man Runs Him, Goes Ahead, and Hairy Moccasin. This one’s name is of no importance.

  The Crow grunts as if in recognition of the other scouts’ names. Paha Sapa sees that all of the man’s front teeth are missing.

  Crazy Horse turns to Run Fearless.

  —Ask him in Crow language if Long Hair knew anyone called…

  He looks back at Paha Sapa.

  —Did you hear a wasichu name in your ghost dreams? What was it?

  Paha Sapa’s heart is pounding wildly.

  —Li-BEE.

  Run Fearless asks the question in Crow. Paha Sapa recognizes a few of the words—the languages of the Lakota and the Crow are not so dissimilar—and then Run Fearless repeats the question in different words.

  The Crow slowly smiles, showing the dark gaps and broken stumps of teeth. He speaks a short sentence that leaves Run Fearless looking dissatisfied.

  Crazy Horse is impatient.

  —What did he say?

  —He says—Why should I tell you anything about Long Hair? You will just continue to torture me and then kill me.

  Crazy Horse removes his long knife from its beaded sheath.

  —Tell him that if he answers truthfully and with everything he knows, he will die quickly, like a man. If he does not, he will have no manhood to die with.

  The Crow’s smile disappears as he listens. He barks a sentence, and Run Fearless repeats…

  —Li-BEE.

  Seemingly despite his pain and position, the Crow smiles again. Through his swollen lips and gums, he mushes out several sentences.

  Run Fearless stares at the man for a second before translating.

  —He says that this word was heard a lot at the fort and on the march. This Li-BEE was Long Hair’s woman… his wife. Elizabeth Bacon Custer. Long Hair called her Li-Bee.

  All the older men in the room, including the Crow, are silent for a long moment. They are looking at Paha Sapa in a new way.

  Long Turd breaks the silence a second before renewed thunder rolls across the village. The noise is so deep and so loud that the tipi hides vibrate like the skin of a drum.

  —Black Hills carries the ghost of Long Hair Custer.

  Crazy Horse grunts and speaks softly to Run Fearless.

  —Take the Crow out and kill him. One bullet. In the head. Tell him that his body will not be mutilated but left in a proper burial scaffold. He has earned a warrior’s death.

  The Crow appears to have understood Crazy Horse’s words and is mumbling his Death Song to himself as Run Fearless leads him hobbling out.

  Limps-a-Lot motions to speak.

  —Surely you do not believe that man, Tasunke
Witko. The Crow has every reason to lie to you. Why would a lesser scout know the name of Long Hair’s woman?

  Crazy Horse merely grunts at this. From outside the tipi there comes the short, flat sound of a single pistol shot. The constant noise of the village—as common and reassuring and unheard as the inevitable buzz of grasshoppers in late summer here on the plains—silences itself for a moment. Crazy Horse continues to stare at Paha Sapa.

  —The rest of you go outside now. I want to talk to the boy alone.

  Paha Sapa sees Limps-a-Lot’s reluctance to leave and notes the look his grandfather gives him—he sees it but cannot understand what the holy man is trying to say with the look—but Long Turd, Angry Badger, Loud Voice Hawk, and Limps-a-Lot stand and file out, closing the tipi flap behind them.

  Paha Sapa looks into Crazy Horse’s eyes and thinks—This man may kill me.

  Crazy Horse slides closer and grabs Paha Sapa by the boy’s upper arm. The grip is ferocious.

  —Can you see into a man’s future, Black Hills? Can you?

  —I do not know, Tasunke Witko. I believe so. Sometimes…

  Crazy Horse shakes the ten-year-old until Paha Sapa’s teeth can be heard rattling like seeds in a gourd.

  —Can you, damn you? Do you see a man’s fate? Yes or no?

  —I think sometimes, Tasunke Witko, that I can…

  Crazy Horse shakes him again and then grabs Paha Sapa’s bare forearm so fiercely that the boy can feel the bones bending.

  —Fuck “sometimes”! Tell me now one thing I must know. Will I die at the hands of the wasichu? Just yes or no, Paha Sapa, or I swear to Wakan Tanka and the Thunder Beings whom I serve that I will kill you this very day. Will I die at the hands of a Wasicun, of the wasichu? Yes or no?

  Crazy Horse pulls Paha Sapa’s open hands up toward the warrior’s scarred, heavily muscled chest and sets the palms of those small hands hard and flat against him.

  Paha Sapa shakes as if lightning has struck him. The air inside the tipi suddenly stinks of ozone. The boy’s eyes roll back under his fluttering eyelids, and he tries weakly to pull away from the man, but Crazy Horse’s grip is too strong. From a great distance Paha Sapa hears the roll of actual thunder and the equally low growl of Crazy Horse’s demanding voice….

  —Will I die at the hands of the wasichu? Will the white man kill me? Yes or no!

  IT IS LIKE THE OTHER VISIONS Paha Sapa has had—flashes of images, explosions of sounds, a strange lack of color, lack of context, lack of control, lack of understanding of what is happening when or where—but this black-and-white image is stronger, faster, and more terrifying.

  Paha Sapa tastes Crazy Horse’s fear and desperation. He recognizes faces and remembers names through Crazy Horse’s careering, terrified, defiant, leaping thoughts.

  They are in some sort of wasichu compound—a fort, a camp, an agency—but Paha Sapa has never been in such a place and does not recognize it, nor do Crazy Horse’s increasingly desperate thoughts reveal the location. The heat is that of summer or very early autumn, but Paha Sapa cannot guess the year. He sees through Crazy Horse’s eyes, but he also is above the shoving crowds, looking down on Crazy Horse and the others as if he, Paha Sapa, were staring through the eyes of a soaring raven or sparrow, so he can see that Crazy Horse looks much the same age as he does at this very instant, as he continues shaking Paha Sapa and pressing Paha Sapa’s suddenly freezing-cold palms flat and hard against the warrior’s chest and…

  —Am I a prisoner? That is Little Bordeaux Creek, fifteen miles out, where the scouts joined the rumbling, rocking ambulance; there is stock grazing at Chadron Creek. Lakota on horseback. Now they are in the camp, amid the log buildings, two hundred, three hundred Indians, Lakota but also Brul´e and others: Big Road, Iron Hawk, Turning Bear, the Minneconjou Wooden Knife, a Wasicun—the sounds Cap-tain Ken-ning-ton thud into Paha Sapa’s brain like tomahawk strikes—and more Brul´es: Swift Bear, Black Crow, Crow Dog, Standing Bear—Bordeaux, the interpreter Billy Garnett—and Touch the Clouds and his son there with Fast Thunder—Crazy Horse is being led, men are shouting, Crazy Horse is being pulled into one of the wasichu fort structures—where blue-shirted soldiers stand guard….

  —What kind of place is this?

  Is it Crazy Horse shouting? Paha Sapa cannot tell. He whirls above the masses of heads; black braided hair; wide-brimmed, sweat-stained hats; feathers; and now he is down behind Crazy Horse’s eyes again as Little Big Man and Cap-tain Ken-ning-ton keep pulling Crazy Horse forward, toward and into the little house.

  —I won’t go in there.

  Shoving. Shouting. A scout screams Go ahead! I have the gun! Do what you want with him! Crazy Horse is pulling away from grasping hands, leaping forward, away from the darkness, toward the opening and the light. Little Big Man is screaming Nephew, don’t! Don’t do that! Nephew! Don’t! Don’t do that!

  —Let me go! Get your hands… Let me… go!

  Blades are rising; rifles are rising. They are wasichu bayonets on rifles held by wasichus. Crazy Horse pulls out his blade for slicing tobacco, cuts Little Big Man’s flesh between the thumb and forefinger. As the older man shouts, Crazy Horse slashes Little Big Man’s forearm while he imagines cutting long strings of flesh away from a deer’s white bone.

  —Kill the son of a bitch! Kill the son of a bitch! Kill the fucker! Kill him! Kill him! Kill the son of a bitch! It is Ken-ning-ton screaming. It is the language of Paha Sapa’s ghost, and Paha Sapa still cannot understand it. But he sees and feels and understands the spittle striking Crazy Horse’s face as the Wasicun continues to scream at the blue-coated soldiers and guards with their rifles and bayonets raised.

  Perhaps the wasichu soldier-guard behind Crazy Horse only means to prod with the bayonet, but Crazy Horse is pulling violently backward at that second, losing his balance, and the blade possibly meant to prod tears through Crazy Horse’s shirt just above his left hip and keeps moving forward, piercing the war chief’s lower back, Crazy Horse’s own weight and movement driving the long steel blade deeper between his kidneys and into his bowels. Crazy Horse grunts. Paha Sapa screams but still hovers both as a bird above, beneath the roof but hovering, but also behind Crazy Horse’s own eyes.

  Redness descending, Crazy Horse grunts in pain. The wasichu guard pulls the bayonet out, the butt striking the log wall of the inside of the guardhouse, then—as terrified as all the others but gifted with terrible action—by the drill—one, two, and three, but silently—thrusts the rifle and bayonet forward again, the point going deep into Crazy Horse’s lower back, between ribs, up into Crazy Horse’s wheezing left lung—depriving the chief of wind and words for a moment—then the guard is grunting and pulling the long blade free again, the steel sliding slickly and obscenely out of Crazy Horse’s bleeding flesh.

  —Let me go now.

  It is Crazy Horse, speaking softly amid the shouting and bedlam and shoving and screaming.

  —Let me go now. You’ve hurt me.

  The wasichu sentry circles, rifle extended, and lunges again, from the front this time, toward Crazy Horse’s belly. But the steel misses under Crazy Horse’s arm and embeds itself in the wood of the door frame. Little Big Man is holding Crazy Horse’s other arm and is screaming for the wasichu to do something—to stab him again?

  Crazy Horse’s Minneconjou uncle Spotted Crow grabs the stuck rifle, pulls the blade free, and drives the butt of the long gun into Little Big Man’s belly, sending the short traitor whoofing into the dust on all fours.

  —You have done this before! You are always in the way!

  It is Spotted Crow screaming this as Crazy Horse falls backward into the arms of Swift Bear and two others. One of those three is saying haughtily, insanely, to the wounded warrior—

  —We told you to behave yourself! We warned you!

  Crazy Horse groans and finally leans, sags, and falls. The motion seems to take long minutes. Cartridges are being chambered and hammers clicked back on wasichu rifles all around. Crazy Horse holds both
his bloody palms out toward the men around him, Indian and white man alike.

  —See where I am hurt? Do you see? I can feel the blood flowing out of me!

  Closed Cloud, a Brulé, brings a blanket to spread over the dying chief, but Crazy Horse grabs at the Brulé’s braids and shakes the warrior’s head back and forth even as Crazy Horse jerks his own head back and forth in agony and fury.

  —You all coaxed me over here. You all told me to come here. And then you ran away and left me! You all left me!

  He Dog takes the blanket out of Closed Cloud’s hands, crumples it into a pillow, and sets it under Crazy Horse’s head. Then He Dog takes his own blanket from his shoulders and spreads it over the fallen man.

  —I will take you home, Tasunke Witko.

  Then He Dog walks away across the parade ground toward a building there.

  PAHA SAPA SHUTS HIS EYES, inner and outer, so that he cannot see more. But he does see more. He screams so that he cannot hear what he is hearing.

  He awakens to Crazy Horse bending over him on one knee, just as he did at the Greasy Grass—the warrior’s face even more fierce than that time yet similar to the expression of disgust he showed weeks earlier. Crazy Horse is flicking water from a wooden bowl into Paha Sapa’s face.

  —What do you see, Black Hills? Do you see my death?

  —I don’t know! I can’t… It isn’t… I don’t know.

  Crazy Horse shakes him harder, snapping Paha Sapa’s teeth together with the violence of the shaking.

  —Will I die by the hand of the wasichu? That is what I need to know.

  Crazy Horse’s shaking and slapping have hidden those final memories from Paha Sapa in a way that closing his eyes and covering his ears failed to do. The boy feels like sobbing. It’s not enough that he has become infected with a ghost that gibbers and mumbles all through his nights; now Paha Sapa knows that the flood of sensations and twice-removed memories that have poured into him during the contact with Crazy Horse almost certainly constitutes all of that weird warrior’s memories, from his earliest childhood perceptions to those of his death just moments or seconds beyond what Paha Sapa has just witnessed. There is no doubt that the white soldier’s wounding of Crazy Horse by bayonet thrust will be mortal.