Joseph M. Marshall III

by The Journey of Crazy Horse a Lakota History

  In spite of the cruelty of the soldier leaders at Fort Laramie (Fouts and Moonlight), new Loafer camps were pitched around the fort. And it was a Loafer that brought word from the peace talkers. They had come with more presents, kettles, blankets, knives, and now guns. And they were asking for Red Cloud to come and sign the paper so that all the Lakota could share in these gifts—so there could be peace in the Powder River country. The peace talkers had come with a new offer as well. All the country from the Great Muddy River to the Shining Mountains would be Lakota land, so long as the rivers shall flow and the grass grows.

  Where did the whites get the power to give the Lakota lands they already control, Crazy Horse heard many old men ask.

  Summer came and passed into autumn. The things of life went on. The people gathered at Bear Butte so the old men leaders could decide that Red Cloud should touch the pen on the peace paper for all the Oglala. Crazy Horse rode north to raid the Crows.

  He returned with new horses, and to news that his uncle Spotted Tail had his own lands to live on, given to him by the whites. Agency, it was called. Perhaps he was influenced by the kindness one soldier leader gave him when his daughter had sickened and died. Nevertheless, the Sicangu was advising that Red Cloud should touch the pen. From the north came different news. Sitting Bull was still defiant, and his Hunkpapa were still fighting the soldiers in the north and chasing buffalo. But there was a new worry, he had warned. The whites were making new kinds of roads, strips of iron laid across rows of wood so that a new kind of wagon could travel on it—an iron wagon that breathed smoke like the houseboats on the Great Muddy and dragged houses on iron wheels. The “iron horse,” he called it.

  Crazy Horse pondered this news even as Red Cloud rode south to Fort Laramie with a new power of his own. The old headmen had given him the power to sign the peace paper for the Oglala. Late in the Moon When Leaves Fall, he made a mark next to his name on the white man’s peace paper.6

  Life in the Powder River country was rather like the pale shadow made by a thin cloud. Something had changed, but the whites were still telling the Lakota what to do. Some of the younger men wondered if Red Cloud knew all the things written on the paper he had marked on behalf of all the Oglala.

  Spotted Tail, meanwhile, had been arguing to move his - people to a different agency even as Red Cloud was told he would have to move to one. Crazy Horse and He Dog stayed north, close to the Tongue, and raided into Crow country. More and more Lakota were moving south closer to the Holy Road, wanting to trade for goods they had grown to depend on—butcher knives, kettles, buckets, and bolts of cloth, and so on. The black medicine, coffee, was another favorite. So, too, was whiskey.

  As Crazy Horse stayed to the north, more and more people came to pitch their lodges with him. Though he had no wife and no lodge of his own, he found himself suddenly the headman among many families. Many fighting men attributed the victory of the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand to his bravery and skilled leadership—not because he told other men what to do, but because he showed them how to do it. And, in him, they saw the quality of good thinking that was just as important in the quiet times as daring action was in the time of battle.

  High Back Bone moved into the Crazy Horse camp and the two were considered the most powerful fighting men among the northern camps of the Lakota, perhaps of all the Lakota. Crazy Horse waved aside such words and said nothing of this new responsibility of headman that had been put at his lodge door. But he was, after all, a Shirt Wearer, his father reminded him gently. He must live up to the responsibility and be careful of the power and influence that often comes with it. It was the path of the Thunder Dreamer laying itself out in front of him, and he must walk it.

  So the Crazy Horse people flourished in the north country. They rode across the Elk to keep the Crow from becoming too bold. They hunted and observed the rituals that made them who they were, and the seasons passed. Crazy Horse saw to the duties of leadership he had not sought to have. The old ones would smile as he walked through the camp asking after their needs, often with his brother Little Hawk at his side.

  Returning from a hunt, he stopped in the camp of No Water to rest. Since the great gathering below Elk Mountain two years past, he had spoken to Black Buffalo Woman several times. Whatever had been between them had long passed. She was the mother of three now and it seemed entirely proper for him to ask about her children. But each time they talked, they lingered longer, something that did not go unnoticed by some who knew what had happened before. So now Black Buffalo Woman waited discreetly for the gift of elk teeth Crazy Horse had lately been leaving for her with someone. But as he was preparing to leave she approached openly and brought him food, and they stood together talking. He left, not lingering too long, but as he rode away some noticed that she watched until he was out of sight.

  His father was still awake that night as Crazy Horse returned, long after his mothers and Little Hawk had fallen asleep. The old man had been waiting to share a smoke and a few words. Two men had come from the camp of No Water, he announced carefully. There was no need for more words. Crazy Horse understood why the men had come. But Worm spoke nonetheless because much rode on the shoulders of his son, much that was important to the people.

  “They will not let her go,” he said quietly.

  Crazy Horse said nothing about the visitors. He smoked with his father and then took his anger to his bed. There was no one else to talk with. High Back Bone had left to visit among his Mniconju relatives to the north. He had long been angry over Red Cloud being given the power to put his mark on the paper for all the Oglala, saying that it would lead to trouble down the road. But Crazy Horse already knew High Back Bone’s thinking where Black Buffalo Woman was concerned. The power of a woman over a man is sometimes the greatest mystery of all, he had said.

  At such times the warrior’s trail seemed to open new ways of looking at one’s troubles, so Crazy Horse decided it was time to fight the Crows again. When He Dog heard his friend was calling for young men to ride north, he suggested it should be done in the old way, many men taking the trail with their women along to add their strength. The Crow Owners Society agreed and invited Crazy Horse and He Dog to join them as lancer bearers. But more than that, they were made caretakers of the two warrior lances of the Oglala, which had been given to the people in the time before horses. No one could remember exactly when, only that the spring grasses grew thick and tall when brave men carried the lances into battle. So it was done. Crazy Horse and He Dog carried the old lances into Crow lands.

  The raiders returned undefeated with many Crow horses and scalps to show that the power of the lances had not diminished. He Dog and Crazy Horse had been the first to attack and the last to withdraw. During one fight, they had chased the Crows to the gates of the fort of their soldier friends. Though they made camp close by to rest, the Crows or the soldiers did not come after them.

  Women from the No Water Camp helped with the victory feasts, since their old men and warriors had gone south to the fort along the Holy Road. One morning after the victory dances, whispers flew through the camp. Black Buffalo Woman had left her children with relatives and rode out beside the light-haired one. The hot sun of the Moon When the Sun Stands in the Middle shone brightly on them as they had ridden away openly and with friends along. No two people could agree over this new turn. Some said it was coming for a long time, since her father had made the choice of a husband for her when her heart belonged to the shy, quiet young man who was now the most powerful warrior among them. Others said there would be trouble; though she was a good Lakota woman free to choose, her husband was not one to let her have that choice. Besides, the reasons her father and uncle had influenced her choice of a husband were even more important now, some said cautiously. And they were right.

  The couple and their friends came to a small camp in a narrow little valley, and, there they rested. Little Shield, He Dog’s brother, and Little Big Man were along and made a feast. As night fell, there ca
me a commotion and a man tore into the lodge where Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman were guests, a man worn from a hard trail and driven by the anger of a jealous heart. No Water stood above them, a pistol in hand.

  As Crazy Horse leaped to his feet, the pistol boomed.

  Fifteen

  He awoke in a lodge unfamiliar to him, but he knew the strong, old face that appeared as his eye cleared and he could see. One eye was still swollen along with the left side of his face. Old Spotted Crow, his uncle, the brother of Long Face, nodded a greeting and held him down as he tried to sit up.

  “She is back with her people,” the old man said in answer to the question on his face. “My cousin Bad Heart Bull made it so. No one will harm her.”

  He had been in and out of sleep for three days, he was told. The swelling on his face had gone down a little, but he would have a scar where the bullet had opened his face from the corner of his nose down to the jawline. There will be black powder in the scar from the pistol, Worm had indicated.

  Two very fine horses were tied outside his uncle’s lodge, sent by No Water as a gesture of peace. Take them, his father advised, to soften the anger of those who would take revenge in your name. So he did, and the young men who wanted No Water turned over to them set aside their anger and put away their bows and guns. Now the only worry was Little Hawk, away on a raid into Snake country. Worm sent a young man to find him and give him the news—that his brother wanted peace among the Oglala most of all, and that that was why he had given back the woman who had been in his heart since boyhood.

  When the fever caused by the wound finally broke, Crazy Horse rode back to his mothers’ lodge and put himself in their care. One cleaned his wound with her special medicine and the other fed him good buffalo stew to make him strong again. And when he slept, they sang the soft lullaby only a mother can, for they wanted to heal the wound in his heart as well.

  The man returned from the Snake country saying he had not found Little Hawk and some wondered if he had tried at all.

  Day by day he grew stronger as his face regained its narrow shape and the wound was not as tender to the touch. Finally came the day when he was strong enough to ride along on a hunt, even if all he did was watch a buffalo chase from a hill. Young men came to exchange a few words of greeting, glad to see him well again. But no one said anything at all about Black Buffalo Woman and the trouble that almost caused Oglalas to spill each other’s blood. Then one night the young men who had gone into Snake country with Little Hawk slipped back into camp. The raiding against the Snakes did not go well. On the way home, Little Hawk was killed by whites in an unexpected attack.

  The news was like a war club to the stomach. As his mothers began to weep softly, Crazy Horse went out to stand alone in the night. His brother had been killed while he had been chasing after his own selfish needs.

  The next day he saw No Water unloading meat at the lodge of a relative. Seeming to sense Crazy Horse’s anger, No Water jumped on his horse and galloped out of camp. Perhaps unable to contain his anguish over both the loss of the only woman he wanted and the death of his brother, Crazy Horse grabbed the nearest horse and gave chase. Across the broken land, he kept up the chase until No Water plunged his horse into the Elk River and escaped to the other side.

  Not many days after that, the council of old men met, influenced by the relatives of Red Cloud and No Water. Crazy Horse was to return the Shirt, they decided. His actions over the woman endangered the peace of the Oglala like no outside enemy could, they said, and could not be overlooked. Though there was anger in his own lodge—and from the young men—at this trickery, Crazy Horse gave back the Shirt. Soon after that, the lodge of No Water moved far south to another camp and whispers were made behind the hand that Red Cloud was to be given the Shirt.

  But the angry whispers that flowed from camp to camp opened the ears of the council of old men. It would be just as dangerous to name another Shirt Wearer since the people didn’t agree that it should have been taken from the light-haired one, and the old men didn’t want to be the cause of bad blood by their actions. So they solved the problem by letting it lie, never to pick it up again. Never again would the Oglala have new Shirt Wearers.

  High Back Bone returned from the north two months later and listened with hard eyes to the news of Little Hawk. News of the trouble over Black Buffalo Woman had already reached him, even far to the north. But there was other news as well. Old Spotted Crow and He Dog had talked to the family of Red Feather, a young man who thought well of Crazy Horse. There was a strong woman in that family, the older sister of Red Feather, who was still unmarried well past the time when women were. It was her choice to say yes or no to the offer made, and so Black Shawl became the wife of Crazy Horse.

  The old women who had watched the light-haired one grow into a good man were satisfied that such a match had been made. So they pitched a new lodge close to that of his mothers, and it was good to see the wife of their headman set the red willow tripod to the right of the door and hang his warrior things from it. Such a thing showed the people that he was walking the path of life with a good woman.

  Soon after the new lodge had been pitched, the new couple had ridden off together south toward the Sweetwater. It was a long and arduous journey, dangerous too, into enemy country. But everyone knew that Crazy Horse was riding to find what might be left of his younger brother. They returned more than a month later and Black Shawl quietly told Red Feather that they had found the bones of Little Hawk and put them on a scaffold hidden from any enemy. Behind them came stories of Lakota raiding against miners sifting for gold in the cold creeks. Many had been killed but not scalped, and each body had a Lakota arrow impaled in the heart.

  Crazy Horse said no words in response to those stories as he sat smoking his short-stemmed pipe, the sign that he had lost a place of high honor. But the young men in his camp noticed that he walked straight again with the sure step of a man who knows where he is going and where he has been. He did not sit in the council lodge with the old men, however, so he was not there when Red Cloud came to speak to them. He had been to see the “great father,” riding for many days in the houses pulled by the iron horse. He talked of the rows of square houses in the towns of the whites, towns so large that a man would need a good horse and half a day to ride across one. It was easy to see that he was deeply impressed by the ways of the whites and of the things he had seen, among them buildings so large that a man with a strong bow could not send an arrow across from one side to the other. These things the old men heard with raised eyebrows. But when he talked of the treaty paper, they all leaned in close.

  The land has a new beginning and a new ending, he said. New pictures of the land had been drawn and new territory had been set aside for all the Lakota to live in for as long as the grass grows and the rivers flow. Where, they asked, might be this new territory? East from the Great Muddy to west of the Black Hills, was the reply, and north from above the Running Water to a line that crosses east and west below the Knife River.

  “What of the Powder River country?” a young man wanted to know.

  The Powder River would always be Lakota hunting grounds, was the straight-faced reply, but “we must move our camps to the new territory that the whites call the ‘great reservation.’”

  Throughout the Oglala camps, as in the Hunkpatila council lodge, there was anger and much debate. Clearly Red Cloud had agreed, in the name of the Lakota, to the whims of the peace talkers written on their paper. In return, he had been given his own place to live, his own agency. The young men felt that the paper had no power over the lives of any Lakota. They said, We are Lakota and these are our lands and we will not move our lodges here or there because one man made a mark on a paper, a paper with words that could not be known or understood by even the wisest Lakota. The white man can use those words, change those words, to fit his truth and his needs, was the angry sentiment.

  The council at Bear Butte had given him the power to make his mark for the
Oglala, Red Cloud reminded those who questioned him. That was true, some agreed, but in looking back, it was not the right thing to do.

  Red Cloud returned to his own camp but kept away from Fort Laramie until the whites called him in to take charge of the distribution of wagonloads of goods. Many of the northern Oglala camps came to see what things the whites were giving in return for the power to tell the Lakota what to do and where to live. Ignoring the threats and ridicule of some young men, Red Cloud gave orders and the goods were placed in four very large piles—three for the headmen that he knew would stand behind him, and one for himself. So Long Knife Horse, Man Afraid, and Red Dog came forward to claim the goods for their camps. It was said there were over five thousand Lakota there.

  There was one headman who had not brought his people down, and his absence was a loud message. Crazy Horse is doing the right thing, many of the young men said to one another. His power has grown the old way, in the hearts and minds of those who follow him. Perhaps, some said, I will take my family north and pitch my lodge in his camp.

  Sitting Bull sent a message from the north when he had heard the white peace talkers say that Red Cloud now spoke for all the Lakota. No one speaks for my people but me, Sitting Bull had said, and even then only in words they tell me to use.

  In the Moon When Leaves Fall, after the autumn hunts had been made and the meat containers were full, High Back Bone gave in to restlessness and invited Crazy Horse on a raid into Snake country. They rode over the passes of the Shining Mountains and crossed the Wind River into enemy lands. Here a rain came and turned the land into an endless bog. Horses were sliding and falling to their knees. Cold, wet moisture seeped beneath the robes and dampened the powder, and worse, made the bowstrings lose their tautness.