Man on Two Ponies

by Don Worcester

  Because Big Foot was needed in his village to control his unruly young men, Sumner allowed him to remain with his people. He asked only that Big Foot come to Camp Cheyenne next day to talk and to bring the Hunkpapas with him. Big Foot agreed, and Sumner withdrew with his troops to his base camp.

  After learning that Big Foot intended to take them to Camp Cheyenne the following day, the Hunkpapas held council. “Big Foot promised we would come peacefully,” one said. “We must do it.”

  “No!” said another. “They’ll kill us like they did Sitting Bull.” They argued while Pawnee Killer listened. Since he wasn’t a Hunkpapa, he knew he could stay with Big Foot. The Hunkpapas finally asked his opinion.

  “Big Foot took us in and fed us when we were starving,” he told them. “It isn’t right for us to abandon him now and make trouble for him. He says he trusts Col. Sumner.” The Hunkpapas frowned. “My brothers,” Pawnee Killer continued, “I don’t know what I would do if he told me I had to surrender to the soldiers. It is something each man must decide for himself. Big Foot is sick, and I intend to stay with him.” The Hunkpapas slipped away during the night.

  That same night a weary courier from Fort Meade brought Sumner a message from Miles, who was now directing the campaign from Rapid City, South Dakota. “I think you had better push on rapidly with your prisoners to Ft. Meade, and be careful they do not escape, and look out for other Indians.” Sumner glumly replied: “Did not succeed in getting Indians to come to my camp on account of want of shelter for women and children. Did not feel authorized to compel them by force to leave their reservation.” He added that if Big Foot failed to come to his camp the following day as promised, he would seize him.

  He waited anxiously the next morning for Big Foot to appear, and finally sent two scouts to his village to report. By noon neither Big Foot nor the scouts had come, and Sumner was in a quandary. There was still a possibility that hostiles were approaching from the north. And if he arrested Big Foot, as he supposedly had already done, in the ensuing fight most of the Miniconjus might scatter, join the hostiles, and launch an indiscriminate war on whites. His only hope was to persuade Big Foot to take his people to the agency. “All thought of these Indians going south had been abandoned by me,” he admitted later, “and I supposed they would either go peaceably to the agency or fight.”

  While Sumner pondered what to do, a red-bearded rancher named John Dunne, who lived a few miles away in the ceded lands, came to camp with butter and eggs to sell. Redbeard, as the Indians called him, was fluent in Lakota and well acquainted with Big Foot. He reluctantly agreed to visit the Miniconju village along with interpreter Felix Benoit, and to convey Sumner’s order to Big Foot to take his band to the agency. He was also to tell him that Sumner would be following to make sure his order was obeyed. Sumner and his cavalry followed at a distance and halted five miles from Big Foot’s cabins to bivouac.

  At the village, Benoit stopped to question Sumner’s scouts about why Big Foot had failed to come, while Dunne went on alone to Big Foot’s cabin. The Hunkpapas had left during the night, the scouts told him. Big Foot was sick and also embarrassed to face Sumner.

  Dunne delivered Sumner’s orders to Big Foot. According to what the Miniconjus said later, he also told him he’d overheard the officers at Camp Cheyenne say they were going to send 1000 soldiers into Big Foot’s village at night. They would seize all of them and then send the men far away to the east where they’d be held on an island. The only way to prevent a fight was to flee immediately to Pine Ridge. Big Foot protested, but Dunne insisted. He was telling them this because he was their friend, he said but they must not tell Sumner he had warned them, for he would be angry.

  Benoit found a noisy crowd of warriors in front of Big Foot’s cabin. The chief quieted them. “I’m ordered to go down to Fort Bennett tomorrow morning,” he told them. “We must all go to Bennett; if we don’t Redbeard says the soldiers will come tomorrow and make us go or shoot us if they have to.” He turned to Benoit. “Does Redbeard tell the truth?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  As soon as the scouts, Dunne, and Benoit departed, leaving a scout to watch the village, Big Foot and his headmen held a hasty council. “We must go to the agency,” some said.

  “No! Go to Pine Ridge!” others shouted. Big Foot hesitated. The fact that Sumner was coming from one direction and Merriam from another made Dunne’s warning credible. Finally they agreed to move up Deep Creek into the hills and wait to see if soldiers came. If none appeared in three days they could return home. If troops did come after them, they could scatter and flee to the south.

  The scout Benoit had left watching the village reported that the Miniconjus were excited and preparing to start for the agency at once. Sumner sent another scout to order Big Foot to remain until morning. He soon returned with the news that the Miniconjus were already on their way south. Sumner sent two scouts to follow them, while he hoped desperately they were headed for the agency. In the meantime, Big Foot’s scouts had discovered that Sumner was camped only five miles from the village. They held another hasty council, for they were now convinced that Redbeard spoke with only one tongue. Over Big Foot’s objections, the headmen insisted they go to Pine Ridge. He had no choice but to accompany them, although he was almost too sick to travel.

  Scout His-Horse-Looking caught up with Big Foot’s people traveling south along the Deep Creek Road about midnight. Warriors immediately surrounded him. “Kill him! He works for the soldiers!” they shouted. Big Foot silenced them, then spoke to the scout. “Tell my friend Sumner I’m sorry about what I’ve done,” he apologized. “I wanted to go to Bennett, but my headmen made me go to Pine Ridge.” They traveled on, moving as rapidly as possible in the blowing snow of the dark, frigid night. By early morning they had covered thirty miles, and stopped in the shelter of cliffs near the forks of the Bad River, where they rested until dawn.

  In the morning of the 24th, His-Horse-Looking rode into Camp Cheyenne with the unwelcome news. Sumner glumly inspected the deserted village. He hadn’t heard further reports of hostile Indians in the north, but he couldn’t help worrying about them, since everything else was going wrong for him. Still unsure what he should do, and seeing his military career hanging in the balance, he took his troops back to Camp Cheyenne. A rider soon arrived with a message Miles had sent the previous day.

  “Report about hostile Indians on Little Missouri not believed,” it said. “The attitude of Big Foot has been defiant and hostile, and you are authorized to arrest him or any of his people and take them to Meade or Bennett. There are some 30 young warriors that ran away from Hump’s camp without authority, and if an opportunity is given they will undoubtedly join those in the Bad Lands. The Standing Rock Indians also have no right to be there and they should be arrested. The division commander directs, therefore, that you secure Big Foot and the Cheyenne River Indians, and the Standing Rock Indians, and if necessary round up the whole camp and disarm them, and take them to Fort Meade or Bennett.”

  When he learned that Big Foot had escaped and fled south Miles was outraged at him and at Col. Sumner, and bombarded his field commanders with orders. Unaware of the circumstances surrounding Big Foot’s hasty flight, Miles wanted to subject Sumner to a court of inquiry. Sumner was spared that ordeal because he hadn’t actually received a direct order to arrest Big Foot until December 24, by which time he was already on his way to Pine Ridge.

  Fear of what might happen if Big Foot and his renegades joined the diehard Ghost Dancers in the Stronghold just as efforts were being made to persuade them to surrender generated an all-out campaign to track them down. Col. Eugene Carr of the Sixth Cavalry, a bearded veteran Indian fighter whose base camp was at the mouth of Rapid Creek, appeared to be in the best position to intercept the fugitives. On the morning of the 24th a message from Sumner informed him that Big Foot’s band was moving south, and that by a forced march to the east he could cut off their escape. With four troops of cavalry and two Hotchkiss g
uns, Carr headed east at a trot, dividing his force to cover more territory. By late afternoon they were on the northern rim of the Badlands, where they spent a miserable Christmas Eve in weather so cold the pools of alkaline water froze solid. A wide reconnaissance on Christmas Day convinced Carr that his prey had already passed to the east of his troops; he called in his patrols and returned to his base camp.

  Early on the 24th Big Foot’s weary people resumed their flight. The sky was clear, but an icy gale blew clouds of choking alkali dust in their faces making travel almost impossible. Even though Big Foot was too weak to ride and had to be carried in a wagon, he kept his people moving. Late in the afternoon they made the difficult descent of the rocky slope from the Badlands to the White River and camped on the south bank. They were only a few miles from one of Carr’s patrols before it was ordered back to camp. By now Big Foot was suffering from pneumonia, and they traveled only four miles on the 25th, while Carr scoured the country to the north. Big Foot sent three young men to Pine Ridge to inform the chiefs that he was seriously ill and came in peace.

  Major Guy Henry and a force of Ninth Cavalry from Pine Ridge now guarded the eastern trail to the Stronghold, where 500 friendly Oglalas had spent a week pressuring Short Dull’s followers to accompany them to the agency. In the evening of the 27th, Henry’s scouts reported that the Ghost Dancers had loaded their wagons and started across the plateau, apparently on their way to Pine Ridge.

  On learning that Big Foot was south of the White River and heading for the agency, Brooke dispatched four troops of the Seventh Cavalry under Apache fighter Major Samuel Whitside to intercept him. “I do not think there will be any mistake made with Big Foot if we get him,” he grimly wired Miles of the 25th. “My orders to Whitside are to dismount him and destroy his arms and hold him.”

  “Big Foot is cunning and his Indians are very bad,” Miles warned him the same day. “I hope you will round up the whole body of them, disarm them and keep them under close guard.” Shortly afterward he wired again. “I have no doubt your orders are all right, but I shall be exceedingly anxious until I know they are executed; whoever secures that body of Indians will be entitled to much credit. They deceived Sumner completely, and if they get a chance they will scatter through the entire Sioux camp or slip out individually.”

  On the night of December 26 Whitside’s force camped near Louis Mousseau’s trading post, where the Rosebud-Pine Ridge trail crossed Wounded Knee Creek, and he sent out Oglala scouts the next morning. He then had heliographs set up between his camp and Pine Ridge in order to flash messsages quickly to Gen. Brooke. He soon heard from Brooke. “I am directed by the commanding general to say that he thinks Big Foot’s party must be in front of you somewhere, and that you must make every effort to find him at once. A solution must be reached at the earliest possible moment. Find his trail, or find his hiding place and capture him. If he fights desttoy him.”

  Big Foot was worse that morning, and travel for him was agonizing. One of his messengers returned from Pine Ridge to inform him that cavalry troops were on Wounded Knee Creek and were looking for him. Another messenger, Bear-Comes-and-Lies, accompanied by an Oglala named Shaggy Feather, rode into camp a short time later. “Short Bull’s people are coming in from the Badlands,” they told Big Foot. “They will reach the agency in two days. Short Bull and Kicking Bear want you to arrive there the same day.” The Pine Ridge chiefs, they said, urged him to make a big swing to the south to evade the troops on Wounded Knee Creek.

  Big Foot and his headmen held council and talked most of the morning. The headmen argued in favor of making the detour to the south to get around the troops, but this time Big Foot finally prevailed. “I am too sick for unnecessary travel. We must go straight to Pine Ridge before I die.” They set out at noon, and that night continued by moonlight until they reached the abandoned cabins of Little Wound’s village. They were now one day’s travel from Pine Ridge.

  At sunrise, knowing that troops were between them and the agency, they nervously pushed on, expecting at any moment to be attacked. Pawnee Killer and other warriors rode ahead to watch for troops. They had gone only a few miles when a young Brulé wearing a Ghost Shirt overtook them and joined the party. The warriors eyed him suspiciously. In a Ghost Shirt he obviously wasn’t an army scout, so they ignored him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  News of Sitting Bull’s death alarmed the former Ghost Dancers at Pine Ridge; even the friendlies were apprehensive, because so many troops were still around them. Past experience had taught them that whenever soldiers had come it was to fight. They wondered if the troops were merely waiting until most of them were disarmed and in one place, where they could easily be attacked, and that troubling thought kept them nervous and magnified every little incident. The rumors that Sitting Bull had been killed through treachery intensified their suspicions.

  On December 22 a cavalry patrol intercepted a party of Oglalas and Brulés driving a big pony herd toward the Badlands. The troops fired on them, wounded several, and drove them back to the agency, where their fury and agitation infected others. That same day, while all of the Indians at Pine Ridge were seething and the Ghost Dance believers still hoped for the Messiah to come, a mysterious white man dressed like an Indian and wrapped in a white blanket appeared in Red Cloud’s camp. He was an Iowan named Hopkins, but he announced that he was the new Messiah, which greatly increased the excitement.

  Hopkins had gained notoriety by proclaiming a new religion called the Star Pansy Banner and by advocating that the pansy be named the national flower. Confused by countless rumors and eager to believe the Messiah was coming at last, some of the Indians accepted him at his word, but the majority rightly regarded him as deranged. Those who believed his tale crowded around him, while many who considered him a dangerous imposter tried to get their hands on him to remove him. There was much shouting and reckless brandishing of cocked rifles, and they were dangerously close to violence. Finally a group of level-headed fullbloods, mixed bloods, and squawmen managed to drag him away before he was tom apart, then took him to Red Cloud.

  After questioning Hopkins through an interpreter, Red Cloud concluded he was mentally unbalanced.

  “You go home,” he said. “You’re no son of God.”

  One of the squawmen who’d risked his life to get Hopkins to safety described him more explicity and with greater feeling.

  “You’re a Goddam son-of-a-bitch!” he said.

  When taken to Royer, Hopkins blandly informed him, “I claim to be Christ, the Messiah, in a poetic sense, the same poetic sense in which Hiawatha, Socrates, and General Grant are considered esteemed the world over.”

  “Prove you’re Christ,” Royer told him.

  “Give me more time among these Indians and I will,” Hopkins replied.

  Royer frowned. “I’ll give you one hour to get off the reservation.” He summoned the Indian police. “Keep him out of sight until dark, then take him to Rushville and put him on a train,” he instructed them.

  The excitement continued to rise that night, and early in the morning many of the Brulés and Oglalas who had been persuaded to leave the Ghost Dance camp panicked. They fled to the Stronghold, Kicking Bear among them.

  After Two Strike and the other Brulés and Oglalas had deserted the Ghost Dance camp on the Stronghold, the 200 remaining with Short Bull danced almost continuously in their feverish efforts to bring the Messiah. Billy felt exhausted and dazed, but each day was sure the Messiah would come on the next. Like the others, he still believed the star’s promise to Short Bull that if his people went to the Stronghold and danced, the Messiah would soon appear. At first he couldn’t even consider the possibility that there was no Indian Messiah, but that suspicion gradually intruded.

  He also began to have doubts about Short Bull and Kicking Bear. Were they really holy men, blessed with certain powers denied to ordinary people? Or were they ordinary men who thought they had, or pretended they had, solved the Great Mystery and set thems
elves apart from and above other men? It was troubling, and the longer the Messiah failed to appear the greater his doubts about them grew. It looks like Culver was right all along. It’s just an illusion. He still wore the Ghost Shirt Short Bull had given him, but only from habit. After learning of Porcupine’s failed experiment he no longer believed in its supernatural powers.

  Less than a week after Two Strike and the others had departed, the scouts reported that 500 Brulés and Oglalas were on their way to the Stronghold. When Brooke had learned that Two Strike’s people were coming in he asked Oglala friendlies to join them, return to the Ghost Dance camp, and persuade the remaining dancers to give up. Many of them, eager to have peace restored so the army would leave, wholeheartedly joined the effort to end the dancing.

  Billy was surprised one day to see the tall, rawboned Kicking Bear ride into camp with a large number of former Ghost Dancers. Kicking Bear didn’t resume the dance, but instead raised a raiding party and headed west on a trail across the plateau toward the Black Hills, to attack white settlers there. The next day they ran into a party of Cheyenne scouts who were guarding approaches to the settlements and who drove them back to the Stronghold.

  The 500 friendlies obviously intended to remain until all of the Ghost Dancers agreed to abandon the Stronghold and return to the agency. Billy noticed that each day more men were won over and gave up the dance—only a small group of the most fanatical still danced, and even they appeared to be wavering. Short Bull and Mash-the-Kettle continued to harangue their remaining followers, but Billy could see they were losing ground. It’s only a matter of time, perhaps a few days, before all give up, he thought. How will I face Culver now?

  The Hunkpapas who’d deserted Big Foot arrived unexpectedly, and repeated the story of Sitting Bull’s death. Although the Ghost Dance diehards had learned of it from the Pine Ridge Indians, hearing the details by participants aroused them to a frenzy, for they saw the same thing happening to themselves if they surrendered.