Stone Song

by Win Blevins

  “I heard the firing,” said Clark.

  Garnett told Crazy Horse what he had told Clark.

  “I spoke to them,” said Crazy Horse. “It is not important.”

  “Maybe not,” said Clark. He nodded to himself. “Let’s have a smoke.” He thought, The man who can stop fighting with his presence and his voice is damn well important.

  It wasn’t just a little smoke. Before long He Dog and Little Hawk were sharing the pipe, and pretty soon Young Man-Whose-Enemies and Little Wound, too. Crazy Horse passed his short pipe around several times. White Hat offered tobacco, and Crazy Horse accepted it, wondering why all these influential men were sitting in front of his lodge, smoking the short pipe that an insignificant man must carry. All the while the sundance drums beat in the background, and the singers’ voices lifted up to Wakan Tanka.

  It was Young Man-Whose-Enemies who broached the subject. “Do you like Nellie, the daughter of Joe Laravie the trader, the girl who helped the doctor?”

  Crazy Horse remembered. The trader’s daughter who translated when the white doctor examined Black Shawl for the coughing sickness, thumping the back and listening at the chest, the girl who explained what the doctor was doing. “Yes,” he said. A very appealing young woman, gay, always laughing, never serious, and with a truly, truly beautiful face.

  “We your friends want to honor you,” said Young Man-Whose-Enemies. “Clark asked how the army could honor you. Little Wound and I, your friends among the agency Oglala, suggested the Laravie woman. If you like her. Little Hawk and He Dog agree. If you like her.”

  Crazy Horse let his eyes smile a little. Not much that was funny happened these days. The white people opposed a man’s having more than one wife. But they would pay horses to Joe Laravie to buy a chief a second wife, if they thought it might influence him. This was how the whites tried to outsmart him.

  He emptied the pipe, filled it with the good tobacco White Hat had brought, lit it with a coal, drew deep, and his mind offered the smoke to Father Sky.

  Ordinarily, he could not refuse. To refuse honor was to insult your friends. To refuse a gift from the whites and from rival chiefs would be to refuse their friendship. Dangerous, very dangerous.

  He wondered, though, if he might refuse as a way of laying down chieftainship. Say that he knew they wanted to honor the leader of the free Oglala, but he was no longer that man. Could he convince them that his friendship was no longer pertinent? That he was no longer an important man? Perhaps. He doubted it.

  He looked his uncle Little Hawk and his friend He Dog in the face. Since they were involved, there was no treachery here. Those who cared for him thought Nellie Laravie would be good for him. Little Hawk would have consulted Crazy Horse’s father, who evidently thought it good.

  This last notion pained Crazy Horse. Yes, Little Hawk would have consulted with Worm. Which meant leaving the agency without permission to go to Spotted Tail Agency—you couldn’t even visit your own brother without permission. Which meant riding at night, concealing your horse, keeping Worm’s lodge flap shut tight while you were there, and avoiding friends or even anyone who would recognize you. What a world the whites made.

  He forced his mind to the girl. Yes, very appealing.

  Black Shawl would be glad of a sister in the lodge, he thought. Though the doctor said she would get better with rest, she was often sick and weak. If he escaped this place, a second woman would be a great help to Black Shawl back in the hunting country, when Crazy Horse would often be gone.

  But what would the whites want in return for this bribe?

  He shook his head. He didn’t want to live like this. But refuse an honor from his fellow chiefs?

  He answered softly, and in a measured way. “I thank you for the high honor you offer me,” he said, “and I accept.”

  “THIS AGENCY LIFE IS FOR POLITICIANS”

  The word from Crook came in a telegram: The Lakota of Red Cloud Agency, friendlies and hostiles alike, could go on a buffalo hunt back to their own country. After the hunt, in the Moon When Leaves Turn Brown, they could go to see the Great White Father to tell him why they didn’t want agencies on the Missouri.

  Clark read the paper to the assembled headmen with big smiles, and Grouard translated ingratiatingly, as though something grand had been accomplished in getting these permissions. All the principal men were there, not only Crazy Horse, Young Man-Whose-Enemies, and Red Cloud, but three score of the smaller leaders—He Dog, Black Elk, Good Weasel, Little Big Man, Jumping Shield, and Little Hawk of the Crazy Horse people, Red Dog, Big Road, Black Twin, Woman Dress, and No Water of the Red Cloud people, Little Wound and American Horse of the True Oglala, Sword of the Oyukhpe, Yellow Bear, and many others. The old ways of describing the bands—Hunkpatila, Bad Faces, Bears—didn’t apply well anymore, for the agency had changed everything, and the groups were intermingled.

  Before dark Clark heard from his various informants that the response to Crook’s proposal was less than enthusiastic. Some hostiles said again that a hunt and a trip to Washington City were not what they’d come in for—they’d been promised an agency in their own country. And some still said that waiting for the white man’s permissions, to hunt or to do anything, was intolerable. Besides, they muttered, the rations at the agency had been short this summer. The white man was using the threat of starvation, some said.

  Clark had anticipated these objections. He called the chiefs back together. When everyone was seated, Clark announced enthusiastically that he had asked Dr. Irwin, the new agent, to issue cattle and coffee and sugar for a feast. Through the mouth of Grabber, Grouard, he added, “You Indians can decide who will have the honor of hosting the feast.”

  Young Man-Whose-Enemies was first on his feet. “Our relatives from the north have been among us for more than two moons,” he said, “and have not been given the food to hold a big feast. So I say His Crazy Horse and Little Big Man should get this honor.”

  Crazy Horse listened to the murmurs. Always the maneuvers, he thought. I am to be grateful to the white men for giving me the food to feast my people. Half of them will rejoice at a feast in my village. The other half, the Red Cloud people, will resent it. Why should I be rewarded for holding out? they will say. Instead they should be rewarded for their many winters of loyalty to the white man.

  In fact, Red Cloud and Red Dog, his shadow, were walking out of this meeting right now. Crazy Horse averted his eyes from them, not wanting to invite a confrontation.

  Despair touched him in the chest again.

  No one else had much to say. The suggestion of Young Man-Whose-Enemies was accepted. The feast would be in the camp of the recent hostiles. Crazy Horse and Young Man-Whose-Enemies traded glances subtly. Yes, here was another cause for resentment.

  Though darkness was falling, Crazy Horse indicated that he wanted to stay outside. His new wife, Nellie, brought light blankets for both him and Little Hawk. For the hottest moon of the year, Middle Moon, it was a cool evening. Little Hawk liked the cool evenings and nights of this northern country. He didn’t want to go to the south where the government wanted him, Indian Territory, they called it. There the summer nights were hot and the water was bad.

  Nellie went back into the lodge for the coffeepot. Little Hawk wondered whether Crazy Horse didn’t want her to overhear their conversation, whether he was afraid she might say something unknowingly to her relatives that would cause trouble. It was true that trouble was everywhere, and even a well-meaning wife could make it worse.

  Little Hawk had watched Nellie and Crazy Horse, and Black Shawl too, during dinner. Nellie was clearly enamored of Crazy Horse. Why not? He was a man of real power, physical, spiritual, even political. Little Hawk’s nephew’s eyes seemed livelier than they had since that day on the Greasy Grass. Maybe it was the new wife. And the improving health of Black Shawl. Now Nellie poured the coffee. Little Hawk felt that he had done right to encourage this marriage.

  He had some things to say to his nephew. When h
e had taken a sip, he said, “How subtle the whites are, especially Clark.”

  Crazy Horse smiled and nodded. “He thinks to bribe me with a woman. Result—I am happier, and he gets nothing.”

  “I was thinking of the feast.”

  “Yes,” murmured Crazy Horse.

  “He yokes you and Little Big Man together in honor. The wildest one, the one they’re afraid of, and the wild one who has become the biggest peace man.” Since Little Big Man had become a scout, a policeman of his own people, he had taken his duties very seriously. Crazy Horse was an officer in the scouts because of his position. Little Big Man, on the other hand, was earning high office by hard work and close attention to what the soldiers wanted.

  Crazy Horse nodded. He had realized. He didn’t miss much, even if he did hate politics.

  Little Hawk said with a sly smile, “Watch out, Nephew, the white men have ways of doing you favors that can get you killed.”

  Crazy Horse smiled.

  “What do you think about going to see The One They Use for Father?”

  Crazy Horse looked at his father’s brother questioningly.

  “It is said you might go and not come back.” Each man looked at that in his mind for a moment. “The whites might kill you, or they might send you to jail in a hot place far to the south.”

  “They will never put me in one of their jails,” said Crazy Horse sharply.

  Little Hawk was glad. Some compromises were not possible for a true Lakota. He wondered if his nephew was thinking that Spotted Tail had gone to jail and come back half a man.

  “They want you to go. They flatter you with honors so you will do what they want.”

  Crazy Horse didn’t respond for a while. “You would speak better than I for the people to The One They Use for Father.”

  Unspoken: And they wouldn’t kill you or jail you.

  Also unspoken: Here at the agency you will make a better leader than I.

  Little Hawk waited. He could see more on his brother’s son’s mind.

  Crazy Horse picked up his short canupa, filled it, lit it, and offered the smoke to the four directions, Father Sky, and Mother Earth.

  “Ate,” he said, “I cannot bear this agency life.” He grinned suddenly. “It is for politicians.” His eyes got far away. “I think a man could still live with a very few lodges in the Shining Mountains. Don’t you? If he slipped away quietly? As long as he killed white people only once in a great while?” The grin again. “Or left the moccasin prints of the Psatoka near the bodies?”

  Little Hawk watched his nephew’s face. It was smiling, but Little Hawk thought despair was not far away. In his mind, thought Little Hawk, Crazy Horse was crying to see a way.

  So. Little Hawk wondered. If Crazy Horse went to the Shining Mountains, would he be able to avoid the appearance of an outbreak? If the hard choice actually came, how many of his friends would go with him? Was there still a life for a man like this?

  Little Hawk felt a twist of emotion, pungent as the smell of sweetgrass, a breath of love and loss.

  “Yes,” he said, “and you would not be able to get this coffee, which some of us like too much,” said Little Hawk. They smiled at each other, raised their cups, and drank.

  The next morning the new agent, Dr. Irwin, spread the word that the feast would be postponed. He offered no explanation. Everyone assumed Red Cloud’s people had objected too strenuously to its being hosted by Crazy Horse.

  A few mornings later Crazy Horse’s warriors went to the trading houses to get rifles and ammunition for the hunt and were refused. No hunt, the traders said. They showed their orders from the agent. No guns or ammunition to be traded to the people of Red Cloud Agency.

  So Crazy Horse sent friends to find out the explanation of this broken promise, friends with good contacts among the whites. Among them he sent Little Big Man.

  His old friend talked to Billy Garnett and Grouard—Grabber—and others and pieced together the story he brought to Crazy Horse. Because ears seemed to be everywhere these days, and lying tongues, they talked inside the lodge.

  Much of this information came from Billy Garnett, said Little Big Man. Though he was young, they had known Billy a long time and he had lived with them, and you could see he worked hard to tell everyone the truth.

  “The night Young Man-Whose-Enemies-Are-Afraid-of-His-Horses asked that you and I give the feast,” said Little Big Man, “two of Red Cloud’s people went to the agent, Irwin, secretly, their faces covered with blankets. Some say No Water was one of them. Others say Grabber was there, and Red Cloud’s confidant Red Dog, and Standing Bear.”

  Crazy Horse sniffed. Standing Bear, the brother of Woman Dress. After all these years the sly hand of Woman Dress worked against him. The most foolish thing Crazy Horse had ever done was break Pretty Fellow’s nose by accident.

  “No one knew for sure who went,” Little Big Man went on, “but they came from Red Cloud’s side. They told the agent, who was brand-new to the reservation, that he didn’t understand who Crazy Horse was. A troublemaker. Even the chiefs had thought so for a long time—they took the shirt away from you seven winters ago. The chiefs still don’t trust you, these men said. You were hostile to the white people. No one ever knows what you’re thinking. You’re a bad influence among the young warriors. It wouldn’t do to let such a man give a feast.”

  Crazy Horse just waited.

  “Irwin told them he was surprised. ‘The officers like and respect Crazy Horse,’ he said. ‘Even Crook does.’

  “The Indians gave a sterner warning. If the agent lets the Crazy Horse people trade for rifles, they will go back to their country and go on the warpath. They won’t kill buffalo—they will kill white people.”

  The two old friends looked at each other. Something was slipping away here.

  “The next morning telegrams flew from the agent to Crook and back. Also to Spotted Tail Agency and back. Crook decided the hunt was too risky. Some said that even Crazy Horse’s uncle Spotted Tail doubted the wisdom of the hunt—he too said that if his nephew left the agency, he might never come back.”

  “E-i-i-i,” Crazy Horse said regretfully to Little Big Man. He was hurt. Spotted Tail knew that a Lakota chief keeps his promises.

  The two men sat and stared into the fire. Their friendship had been forged in the hardships and dangers and loyalties of the war trail. Yes, Little Big Man had held Crazy Horse’s arm from behind against danger, but even that was a closeness. Crazy Horse rubbed the scar below his nose with a forefinger.

  Little Big Man had come to Crazy Horse as a passionate young man, eager to show his power in war. Then he had become a respected war leader, now an officer of the Indian police. Always he’d been a determined defender of the people—no one had been more obstinate about keeping the Black Hills. No one had been more zealous to stay in the hunting country and fight the whites. He was a good man. Yet now even he was changed.

  Crazy Horse took a little sweetgrass and put it on the fire. The smell always brought him a kind of tranquillity. He had liked to use it when he wanted to sit quietly and be with Hawk. He missed Hawk. Right now he burned the sweetgrass to invite the spirits to attend this talk. He watched the pungent smoke waft up toward the smoke hole.

  “My friend,” he said, “look what we’ve just done. I asked you to creep around and ask questions of this person and that one and put the answers together so we know what’s going on. Now, in the same darkness, we think of doing something back and hope we get what we want, maybe, sometimes, depending on who outschemes who.” He paused. “And who are we scheming against?” Crazy Horse shook his head. “Other Lakota. Even other Oglala.

  “I can’t live like this.”

  They let the words sit. Little Big Man didn’t deny them.

  “I think Little Hawk will be a better agency leader than I am. He is a good speaker, and lets the whites know how a real Lakota feels.” Crazy Horse smiled a little. “As for me, I think I want to live quietly, and maybe somewhere else.
” He waited. “Out in the hills somewhere.” He listened for the beat of the earth, but for the moment he heard nothing. He rubbed the scar on his upper lip. “Would you like to smoke?” he asked. Then he lit the short canupa once more. Both of them were thinking how short it was.

  PARTING OF FRIENDS

  Crazy Horse made time often now to listen to the Inyan. He went down to a quiet place he knew by White Clay Creek, where no one could see him or was likely to come on him by chance, and prayed to Inyan, Stone, the first power, which came before anything else. He never heard words from Inyan, but he knew now he was hearing something. Not words, as he had expected, but the beat of the drum, which was the beat of his pulse, which was the beat of life upon the earth. Yes, he had heard it all these years and never known it as the song of Inyan, the song of the oldest creatures on the earth.

  Sometimes he got a whisper of what more there was to hear, an understanding. It didn’t come as words, but as something wispy, like the sound of wind when it isn’t quite loud enough to hear. An awareness, a sense.

  He didn’t know what this whisper meant. It was tempting, seductive. It was also tranquil, sweet, at rest with the world. Nothing else in his life seemed sweet or tranquil now. He would sit for days and days beside Inyan, his mind within them, savoring this feeling.

  He thought that if he felt Hawk again, it would be here. If he felt Hawk again. He was still desolate.

  But the soldiers did not like for Crazy Horse to be off by himself somewhere, no one knew where. The rival chiefs liked it even less. “He comes back with a faraway look in his eyes,” they said. “He doesn’t seem so ready to sit around the fire and tell stories anymore. He’s morose, and we can’t tell what’s on his mind.”