Bring in her people—before there were no relations left.
Chapter 21
Light Snow Moon
1877
BY TELEGRAPH
DAKOTA.
Jack McCall Executed.
YANKTON, March 1.—A quarter past 10, Jack McCall was executed, under direction of the United States marshal, for the murder of John B. Hickok (Wild Bill) in the Black Hills, the 2d of August last.
When their village first abandoned the Buffalo Tongue River camp, Antelope Woman was frightened. Then she grew sad.
Almost from the moment Old Crow’s peace delegation departed the Ohmeseheso village a day’s ride south of the Elk River, other voices began to rise in pitch and tone. With those who most professed a desire to make peace with the Bear Coat now gone from the camp, those who stood for continuing life in the old ways gained in power.
No more than two days passed before the other chiefs decided the village should migrate east from the Buffalo Tongue toward the Powder in hopes of remaining close to the Crazy Horse people. At the very least, the new powers declared, they could follow the scarred trail left by the Little Star People. After the Ohmeseheso had been twice attacked by the soldiers, after they had twice fled in search of Crazy Horse’s village, after his people had twice sheltered the Shahiyela, Antelope Woman could not blame these Northern People for wanting to be near the mysterious Lakota war chief.
When all was said and done, some of the Ohmeseheso’s finest warriors, leaders and holy men had gone north to talk with the Bear Coat. Chances were good they were all dead by now. If not dead, then chances were better than good those men were prisoners like Old Wool Woman had become. Why should they keep the village anywhere close to that soldier fort, where the ve-ho-e could strike quickly, without warning … again?
Antelope Woman could almost believe the arguments that compelled the camp to pack up and move east, abandoning the Buffalo Tongue. She could almost believe those leaders who declared it might well be better to go in search of Lone Wolf and Morning Star to reunite the Northern People. Almost believe that they would be all right at the White River Agency.
Almost, but for Antelope Woman’s brother, White Bull.
She was certain he would never allow himself to be captured by the soldiers, certain he could not be killed by the ve-ho-e. Most certain that White Bull would not have fooled himself about the Bear Coat’s intentions.
The fighting had been going on for too long. It was time to believe in peace.
Not long after striking the Powder River, they caught up to the village of the Little Wolf and Morning Star people. Nearby lay the camp of Crazy Horse. Together, the Ohmeseheso and Little Star People continued south at a leisurely pace.
Then yesterday as they slowly moved up the Powder, the migrating village passed by the remains of Old Bear’s camp attacked by Three Star’s pony soldiers more than a year ago.* In that Light Snow Moon the ve-ho-e had burned everything they could before they retreated. Lodges and poles, meat and hides, weapons and powder, all of it gone the way of smoke. But now, the earth had been at work a year to reclaim that terrible site. No more were there burnt rings and the carcasses of a few soldier horses. Now they found only a few scattered bones not dragged off by scavengers. Just about the only sign Antelope Woman found of where each lodge once stood, were the short stubs of charred lodgepoles lying here and there, their blackened nubs poking from the crust of endless snow, where that lodge had been burned to the ground.
Each dark stub was like a jagged, broken bone, obscenely protruding from a wound, each one like a ceremonial marker commemorating an Ohmeseheso death in this year of dying.
That night they camped a short distance upstream from that tragic place, near the ground where the soldiers had butchered the People’s ponies before the ve-ho-e retreated any farther. Both the site of the burnt-out village and this graveyard of bones were brutal reminders to the People of just how much they had lost to the white man.
Reminding the Northern People just how much was asked of them when the Bear Coat told them they must surrender.
Near the mouth of the Little Powder, Spotted Tail’s impressive party ran across them. This chief of the Sicangu Lakota had with him an escort of 250 armed warriors and a pack-train of army mules sway-backed beneath many gifts from the white agents at the southern agencies. Explaining that he had already visited the Sans Arc and Mnikowoju camps of Red Bear, Roman Nose, High Bear, and Touch the Clouds on the Little Missouri near the sacred He Sapa,* Spotted Tail called together a big conference of the Ohmeseheso and Lakota leaders.
“Where is my nephew?” he asked impatiently, not finding Crazy Horse among those who gathered for the council.
“He is away hunting,” He Dog apologized. “Perhaps it is better that he isn’t here to listen to these words you bring of surrender.”
“A leader of his people can no longer decide things for only himself,” Lame Deer said. “If Crazy Horse wishes to hunt and fight alone, then I will let him.”
“Spotted Tail,” a voice called.
Spotted Tail turned away from the stone faces of the Little Star warriors and found the man who had called him—Crazy Horse’s father. “You have something to say for your son?”
Worm reached out as he stepped forward to touch Spotted Tail’s hand. “Crazy Horse left a message for me to tell you. He touches his uncle’s hand through mine … and promises that he will bring in his people as soon as the weather makes that possible.”
“No! This cannot be true!” He Dog snarled.
Calmly, Spotted Tail replied, “I will send one of my people, He Dog, along with one of yours, to go find my nephew in the hills. They will take my gift of tobacco to him and ask him to come see me himself.”
Once the two couriers had started away to find the solitary hunter, Spotted Tail continued. “Three Stars Crook promises the Crazy Horse people a northern agency.” This elder who was some fifty-three summers old now began to use on the eager hundreds just those words that might give them all hope. “Somewhere you choose: in the Powder River country.”
“We can stay in our own land?” Lame Deer asked.
Iron Star was suspicious, having heard rumors of what the white man wanted to do with all Indians on the agencies. He asked, “They will not send us all back to the Mnisose?”*
Spotted Tail shook his head and looked upon those chiefs benignly. “The soldier chief tells me you do not have to give up your horses, or turn over your guns. He realizes a man needs a gun to hunt, needs a pony to hunt—needs both to feed his family. Three Stars makes you a good offer.”
Lame Deer asked, “If we do not go in?”
“More soldiers will come. And there will be more grieving in Lakota lodges.”
Always, more soldiers.
Then Spotted Tail looked over at the father of Crazy Horse. “I want you to tell my nephew to bring his people in—so there will be no more hunger, no more fighting, and no more dying.”
After a second day of talks, most of the chiefs joined in promising to bring in their people once the weather moderated. But still, Crazy Horse had not shown up to speak with his uncle.
Before leaving, Spotted Tail again touched hands with those friends he had not seen in many, many seasons, then turned south with his escort and a few lodges of the Shahiyela who were ready to turn themselves in. The chief was eager to tell the soldier chief and agents that he had the warrior bands’ vow they would come to surrender peacefully before summer.
And it was here on the Powder that the peace-seekers gone to see the Bear Coat finally found them two days after Spotted Tail had started back for the southern country.
“Where is my brother!” Antelope Woman shrieked as soon as the delegation got close enough for her to see that White Bull was missing from their number.
The village had turned out to watch the return of Old Crow, Crazy Head, and the rest. Pandemonium reigned as the People pushed close to the riders.
“He stayed behind!” Two M
oon cried at her in the tumult.
She lunged to the side of his pony. “He is safe there with the Bear Coat’s soldiers?”
Two Moon smiled down at her and caught her hand in his, squeezing it gently. “He will be safe.”
As Old Wool Woman dismounted, Antelope Woman turned to her. “Is this true? My brother is safe with the soldiers?”
“Yes,” a trail-weary Old Wool Woman answered, “because he is now one of the Bear Coat’s soldiers.”
“White Bull? A soldier? For the Bear Coat?” She clamped her hand over her mouth at this shocking news.
“When I last saw him,” Two Moon explained, “White Bull was wearing a soldier uniform. The Bear Coat said he would take your brother on the war trail this spring.”
“White Bull stayed behind?” Wooden Leg lunged up from the throng.
Both Antelope Woman and Two Moon turned to find the young warrior coming to a stop between them. His face was turning red. “Yes,” Two Moon said.
“This is true?” and Wooden Leg shook his head. “He is wearing a soldier uniform?”
Two Moon explained, “Yes. All is true what we have told you.”
Several other young warriors were gathering at Wooden Leg’s shoulders, noisy in their protests.
“I cannot believe that he would commit such a treason against our people!” Wooden Leg shrieked.
“He is not against our people!” Old Wool Woman declared.
Then Two Moon added, “Perhaps it is all right for a man to surrender to the soldiers if the man feels that is best.”
“White Bull decided long ago that his feet should stay on the path to peace,” Antelope Woman declared about her brother.
Wild Hog stepped up. “I am baffled at why a holy man of the People—who has fought long and hard for the Ohmeseheso—would now give himself over to our enemies.”
“White Bull has a special medicine,” Antelope Woman tried to explain as more of the Elkhorn Scrapers came up to get in on the debate. “If his medicine told him to become a scout for the Bear Coat—”
“He can surrender if he wants to!” Wooden Leg shouted, his eyes glaring in anger. “But when he offers to help the soldiers go in search of killing our old friends, then White Bull has a bad heart!”
Left-Handed Shooter, an older man, clamped his hand on Wooden Leg’s shoulder and said, “Perhaps White Bull is still grieving the loss of his only son.”
Antelope Woman knew no one would mention Noisy Walking by name. He was now among the dead—ever since that afternoon the pony soldiers came riding down upon that great encampment beside the Little Sheep River.
“Perhaps you are right,” Iron Shirt agreed. “But White Bull seems very much at peace about his decision.”
“I think White Bull wants a new wife,” Roan Bear said. “I saw how he looked at Twin Woman while we were at the soldier fort.”
“Twin Woman?” Antelope Woman asked. “My brother wants to make a wife out of Lame White Man’s widow?”
“Yes,” White Thunder answered. “Both he and Little Chief have eyes for her.”
“Then White Bull is guided only by what is stuffed in his breechclout!” Wooden Leg sneered. “Not by what is in his heart!”
She started for the young warrior, her eyes narrowed into slits, her hands brought up like claws. “You take those words back and swallow them again!”
But Roan Bear and White Thunder caught her, held her so she could not fling herself upon Wooden Leg.
“This is strange,” Wild Hog said. “What White Bull has done to help the soldier chief is very, very strange.”
Oh, how Antelope Woman wanted to believe that White Bull truly had done the right thing. How she wanted to believe that her brother’s powerful medicine was still as strong as the day the Ma-heono raised him out of that hole in the ground without moving that huge boulder. In this terrible time when the Ohmeseheso had nothing more than one leader or another to believe in, Antelope Woman wanted so badly to believe in her brother.
But Old Wool Woman had returned with even worse news for many in that village. “I was not going to come back with the others,” she explained as a large circle of women gathered around her. “Instead I was going to wait at the soldier fort with those who became scouts.”
“Your daughter, Fingers Woman—she is healthy?” a voice asked.
“Yes, but my heart is heavy and cold because Crooked Nose Woman has killed herself.”
“Killed herself!” Antelope Woman shrieked. “Aiyeee!”
All around them women began to wail and pound their breasts, pulling at their hair while Old Wool Woman told the story. “I caught up to the peace-talkers headed back here. To tell them the story. I thought it best to come tell all of you the sad news from my own lips.”
“Shahiyela do not kill themselves!”
“This is an evil omen!”
But Old Wool Woman tried to console the terrified crowd, “She was an unhappy woman only because her suitor did not come with the others to the soldier fort.”
Like so many others at that moment, Antelope Woman wanted desperately to believe that such a terrible thing was not an evil portent of things to come.
But—as if all of that news wasn’t enough, as if the spirits had arranged recent events to shake her faith and trust in both White Bull and his bedrock faith that things were bound to get better—the following day seven Ohmeseheso horsemen showed up at their camp. These riders had come all the way north from the White River Agency! Like Spotted Tail, the seven emissaries bore gifts of tobacco for the Council Chiefs; they had come to tell their people they should surrender only at their old agency. Not at the Elk River fort. Not at the Spotted Tail Agency either.
“No one there has been punished for fighting the soldiers,” one of the couriers declared.
“You have nothing to fear!” explained a second rider.
Crazy Mule asked, “They are not taking away your ponies and your weapons?”
“See here!” a messenger cried, holding up his rifle in one hand, the reins to his pony in the other. “Do you see a man before you with no weapon and no pony to ride?”
The crowd laughed, but it was a good laughter—one washed in relief. Many began to murmur that perhaps Little Wolf and Morning Star had been right all along to want to go south to the White River Agency. Far better than surrendering at the Elk River fort, it would be a place they already knew. In addition, the Little Star People would be sharing the agency with them. The Ohmeseheso had many friends and relations among the Little Star People, had even intermarried with them. Yes, it would be good to be close to them once more.
“But we should see if the Bear Coat will promise us as much!” Sleeping Rabbit declared.
“Yes,” echoed White Thunder. “If he will give us what Three Stars Crook will give us, then we do not need to go south any farther.”
Two Moon offered, “I will go back to the soldier fort with some other chiefs. We will see if the Bear Coat will give us all of what Three Stars promises.”
One after another the chiefs and headmen and warrior society leaders declared they would accompany Two Moon to the soldiers’ fort to see what concessions they could wrest from the army there. Soon there were more than ten leaders for every one of Antelope Woman’s fingers who said they would go north to talk to the Bear Coat.
They would surely get the soldier chief to give them what the Three Stars had offered them in the south.
But if the Bear Coat could not … then all of the Ohmeseheso would have no better choice than to march for the White Rock Agency together, abandoning the Northern Country.
Leaving her brother a prisoner on the Elk River.
Chapter 22
18-23 March 1877
BY TELEGRAPH
THE INDIANS.
General Sheridan Coming West.
OMAHA, March 6.—General Sheridan, accompanied by Colonel Sheridan, of his staff, arrived here today, and proceeded west on the Union Pacific train to Cheyenne, whither the general
goes to perfect the spring campaign against the hostile Indians. The river at this point is rising rapidly.
“Who’s that white man with the chiefs?” Nelson Miles roared at his officers. “Could he be a renegade mercenary?”
Minutes ago the cantonment’s soldiers were put on alert with the arrival of more than 160 Cheyenne and Sioux from the wandering village located somewhere in that country between the Tongue and the Powder. Outside the log hut that served as his office and private quarters, the situation was tense as nearly all those warrior horsemen remained on the backs of their ponies, while only their chiefs dismounted to stride purposefully toward the crude log headquarters hut.
White Bull suddenly burst from his wall-tent, quickly shoving the big brass buttons through the holes in his tunic as he prepared to meet old friends.
“General Miles!” the white stranger cried as he came to a halt with the chiefs and held out his hand.
“Yes, I’m General Nelson A. Miles,” he said guardedly as his officers flowed up on either side of him protectively, watching every movement made by the stranger’s hands.
“I’m William Rowland, General,” the man declared. “Come north from the Cheyenne agency down on the White River to talk the bands into surrendering.”
“That makes you an agent of General Crook.”
The man smiled, finally dropping the hand he had been holding out. “No, I came north with Spotted Tail on my own. I’m married into the tribe. Got Cheyenne relatives—my wife’s people and all. Our son came with me too.”
Now he really felt a prick of anxiety. “Spotted Tail? The Sioux chief?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Rowland agreed, and went on to explain how the Brulé leader had marched north from the reservation with 250 warriors and all those gifts from the agents for the Sioux and Cheyenne holdouts.
“Gunpowder too?”
“Yep, powder for their guns, General. But it weren’t the army sent that powder with Spotted Tail. And it weren’t the agents neither. It was the traders—”
“Damn those traders!” Miles roared. “They’re always going to make sure these war chiefs come in close enough to trade for more, aren’t they?” Then the colonel whipped his arm in a wide arc across those chiefs arrayed right before him. “So, what brings you with these men to my doorstep?”
Ashes of Heaven (The Plainsmen Series) Page 20
