In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse

by Joseph Marshall

  Horses were very important. Every Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho family had several. Horses for riding carried people. Other horses hauled lodgepoles and folded lodges when the people moved from one place to another. Still others were used as warhorses, meaning they carried warriors into battle. The fastest runners were trained to chase buffalo. Horses were one reason the Lakota became a strong nation and controlled a large territory.

  Eight days after the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother, people were still talking about it. That battle had occurred a long day’s ride to the south, along Rosebud Creek. Crazy Horse and five hundred warriors had fought a thousand Long Knives. With the Long Knives were three hundred Shoshone and Crow warriors.

  After that battle, those Long Knives had turned back south.

  The Moon of Ripening Berries, or June, was a hot month. This day was already hot at noon when Crazy Horse walked north through the encampment. People were busy visiting, cooking, hauling water, and taking horses to the river to drink. Children ran and played. Young men and older boys were posted around the large horse herd to keep watch. All in all, it was an ordinary day.

  The sun was in the middle of the sky when a Lakota man appeared on the hill across the river. He was shouting.

  “Long Knives!” he yelled as loud as he could. “Long Knives are coming!”

  Only a few people on the south end of the encampment heard him. Some, though they could hear him shouting, could not hear his words clearly.

  Gunshots suddenly boomed from the south—many gunshots. The first warriors who heard reacted immediately. Running to their lodges, they grabbed weapons—guns and bows and arrows, war clubs, and lances—and ran toward the sound of the guns. Some got on horses and rode.

  Everyone at the south end of the village could hear the guns now. So much gunfire was not good and usually meant danger. So much gunfire usually meant enemies. It was better to think that and do something than to wonder and be confused. Enemies attacking were nothing new to the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho people.

  Mothers and grandmothers gathered up children to take them to safety. Old men helped them, or instructed the young men to grab weapons and meet the enemy.

  People shouted warnings. “Long Knives are coming! Long Knives are coming!”

  The frightening news swept through the camp, moving like a sudden gust of wind. More and more people heard the gunfire. It was not long before everyone in the encampment seemed to be running somewhere.

  Warriors emerging from the south end of the village saw two lines of mounted Long Knives. They were charging toward the village. Suddenly they slowed, and one line turned west and the other turned east. They made one long line, then stopped and dismounted. Some of the soldiers grabbed the reins of horses and led them away, behind the line. The dismounted soldiers began firing toward the village.

  Crazy Horse had sprinted back to his own lodge. He had to avoid the men, women, and children who were also running. Black Shawl had his weapons ready. Taking them, Crazy Horse hugged her for a moment, then jumped on his horse and rode toward the firing.

  Nearly a hundred warriors were already among the trees and shrubbery and firing at the line of soldiers. Crazy Horse joined a big, tall man named Gall, a Hunkpapa Lakota war leader. They talked and decided to charge the west end of the soldier line. At that end were many of the Shoshone, Crow, and Arikara scouts.

  Crazy Horse and Gall shouted to the mounted warriors close by. Gall led the charge and Crazy Horse followed, and forty or so mounted warriors were close behind them.

  Firing from the soldiers and the warriors was constant. Every moment was filled with the sound of gunshots. The mounted charge was fast and furious. The pounding hoofbeats of galloping horses mixed with the gunfire.

  Grandpa Nyles paused. He and Jimmy were near a marker overlooking the river, which was below them and to the west. Grandpa Nyles pointed at a large building in the distance. It resembled a western movie–style fort.

  “See that?” he said.

  Jimmy nodded.

  “Major Marcus Reno’s soldiers—he was the one in command here—and the army’s Indian scouts were in an east-west line even with that building and us. It wasn’t there in 1876, of course. There were about a hundred and twenty soldiers, and the scouts. They were firing north toward the village—the south end of it. Gall and Crazy Horse charged that end of the line.”

  “What happened then?” Jimmy asked eagerly.

  “The Long Knives and their Indian scouts retreated. Mounted fighters always have an advantage over an enemy on foot. The warriors chased the soldiers this way, toward us. More and more warriors from the village joined the fight, as many as two hundred, maybe three hundred.

  “Major Reno ordered a withdrawal, into the trees along the river. As the soldiers fled, the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho fighters rode in among them. The soldiers did not fight back very well. Some were running; others managed to catch horses and ride. They seemed very confused. For darn sure they were very scared.”

  Grandpa Nyles pointed to groves of trees below them, along the west side of the river. “About there,” he said, “the soldiers tried to take cover, in trees like that. But our men were relentless. They fired guns and bows and started fires. They forced the Long Knives out of the trees. They fled this way, across the river and up the slope. They suffered many casualties crossing the river. Same when they scrambled up the slope. Soldiers were falling, hit by bullets and arrows.”

  Grandpa Nyles turned and pointed east of where they stood. “They managed to get that far,” he went on. “There, in a meadow, they took cover. They put up barricades with saddles, boxes, with anything they had, even the bodies of dead horses. They dug shallow pits in the ground.”

  Crazy Horse listened to the excited young Cheyenne warrior. The two of them were with other warriors on the west slope of a ridge. They could see the fallen soldiers on the slopes below them. The blue clothing was easy to see against the green grass.

  Above them the sun was high, and the air was hot.

  “The Long Knives are digging holes, piling saddles and boxes, anything they can,” the young man reported. “Some are on the hills to the south, digging holes. I think they know we have them surrounded. Our men are all around. Some are trying to get in closer by crawling in the grass.”

  Black Moon, another Lakota war leader, looked at Crazy Horse. “Some of our men think we should overrun them, get them all.”

  “What do you think?” Crazy Horse asked him.

  “The Long Knives still have lots of bullets,” Black Moon said. “They keep firing at us. One way is to wait them out. They may be low on water and food.”

  Gall was climbing up the slope. Crazy Horse waited until he joined them.

  “I think we should wait,” Crazy Horse said. “The soldiers cannot go anywhere. We can wait and talk about what to do next.”

  It was easy to see that Gall was angry. He was a big, strong man. The angry scowl on his face made him look very scary.

  He was about to speak when a high-pitched sound filled the air. All the men near Crazy Horse looked north. They saw a horse and rider racing toward them. The man on the horse seemed to be making the sound. They watched and waited.

  The man on the horse stopped to talk to a group of warriors along the river. A warrior pointed up the hill, toward Crazy Horse’s location. It was plain to see the man was in a hurry. He galloped his horse up the hill.

  He was a young Lakota warrior Crazy Horse recognized. In his hand was an eagle-bone whistle. It had a high-pitched sound. The young man was agitated.

  “Uncle!” he said to Crazy Horse. “Long Knives at the crossing! They tried to ride across the river into the village! They were stopped!”

  “How many?” Gall asked, looking toward the north.

  “I do not know,” replied the young warrior. “Many of them, I think.”

  Crazy Horse looked at Gall and Black Moon. “We will leave a small number of warriors to keep the barricaded sol
diers from leaving. All other warriors should ride fast to meet the new attack.”

  “So there was another attack?” Jimmy said.

  “There was,” Grandpa Nyles said. “The Battle of the Little Bighorn was not one battle. It was really three. The attack that the young warrior told Crazy Horse about was the second—Custer himself trying to cross the river into the north end of the village.”

  “He was stopped, right?”

  “Sure was, by a group of old men and boys. They delayed those Long Knives long enough for the warriors sent by Gall and Crazy Horse to get to the crossing.” Grandpa Nyles pointed to the truck in the parking lot. “What do you say we go and pick up the story from there?”

  After a drive of a few miles, they came to a wide, flat gully. It was known as Medicine Tail Coulee. They pulled over near a historical marker with a picture on it. Grandpa Nyles pointed toward the river.

  “The soldiers could see the village,” he said. “They thought it would be easy. Custer thought that Major Reno and his men were coming from the other side. He didn’t know that Reno had been chased across the river and up the hill. Custer didn’t know that Reno couldn’t help him.

  “Those old men and boys stopped the Long Knives before they could cross. Not long after that, warriors came from the south. Custer had to turn and go that way”—Grandpa Nyles pointed up a slope going north. “He had no choice. Warriors came from behind him, and then on both sides of his column. North was the only way he could go. So let’s go again and trace their path.”

  He put the truck in gear and drove back onto the paved road. In a few minutes they were at the top of the hill. After driving through a cattle gate, he stopped at another set of historical markers.

  They stepped down from the truck. They were now on a ridge that led to Last Stand Hill, which was about a mile to the north.

  “Somewhere here,” Grandpa Nyles began, resuming the story, “one company of the Long Knives stopped. One company stopped twice or two companies did the same thing. Anyway, they stopped, dismounted, and faced the oncoming mounted warriors. It was a good attempt, but it didn’t work. Our warriors were coming, and they were angry. The gunfire they directed at the soldiers was too much. The soldiers got back on their horses and rode north. From this point on, Custer’s soldiers, his five companies, began to suffer casualties. That is, soldiers were being hit by bullets and falling.”

  Grandpa Nyles pointed across the meadows to the north. “Remember those white markers? They start right over there. Each one shows where a soldier was found, where he fell.”

  Jimmy was silent for a moment. “There are a lot of markers,” he said somberly.

  “Yeah, there sure are,” Grandpa Nyles agreed. “Custer had, oh, about two hundred and thirty men with him. He and only thirty or so made it to Last Stand Hill. So if you do subtraction, how many soldiers fell between here and Last Stand Hill?”

  Jimmy said, “Two hundred.”

  “Yeah,” Grandpa Nyles agreed. “That’s about right. And if we do a division to figure out percentage—divide thirty by two hundred and thirty—the answer is about fifteen percent. So Custer had lost about eighty-five percent of his men by the time he got to Last Stand Hill. No military commander wants those kinds of losses.”

  Grandpa Nyles paused and shook his head. He removed his straw hat to wipe a bit a sweat off his forehead. “Of course, the sad fact is that Custer lost all his men, including himself. Every man in the five companies he led was killed in this second part of the battle. That’s why there are so many white markers.

  “That’s the sad part about war and battles,” he concluded. “Doesn’t matter who you are, what side you’re on. It’s still sad, no matter what kind of uniform you wear or the color of your skin. It’s still sad.”

  Jimmy looked across the meadow. He could imagine all those soldiers falling in the grass, falling to the ground. Somewhere inside, he wished he would never, ever see the real thing. After a moment he looked up at his grandfather.

  “What did Crazy Horse do, in this part of the battle?” he asked softly.

  “Well,” replied the old man, putting his hat back on, “I’ll tell you, but first let me tell you what Gall did.”

  Dust rose from the hooves of the galloping Long Knives’ horses. They were struggling up the long slope. Gall and the warriors were closing the distance.

  They had raced across the uneven western slopes above the river. Arriving at Medicine Tail Coulee, they saw the soldiers running away. Most of the Lakota and Cheyenne warriors in the encampment had been in battles before. Furthermore, they had been trained to be war fighters since they were children. Eight days before, many had been in the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother. They knew what to do.

  Some mounted warriors veered to the right, others to the left. A third group stayed behind the soldiers. If the soldiers stopped, they would be immediately surrounded. If they kept going up the hill and beyond, they would be cut down as they rode.

  At the top of the ridge, a group of Long Knives stopped and dismounted. They formed a line to face the oncoming warriors. The soldiers fired, but it did not slow the warriors. They returned fire even as they galloped.

  Most of the dismounted Long Knives fired again; then all of them remounted. They hurried to the north.

  The onrushing warriors kept riding and firing from horseback.

  Farther north along the ridge, some Long Knives dismounted again. This time only a few fired at the warriors before remounting. They hurried to catch up with the other soldiers, who were galloping north.

  The galloping horses were raising a dust cloud that hung just above the ground.

  Warriors were on either side of the Long Knives, and behind as well. Soldiers were being hit and falling from their horses.

  Gall whipped his horse to run faster. He was on the slope below the soldiers. He shouted to the warriors near him. “Get ahead of them!” he yelled. “Get ahead of them, dismount, and shoot at them from the ground.”

  Eight warriors urged their horses faster. They raced recklessly over the uneven ground and outran the Long Knives’ horses on the ridge. The warriors dismounted, formed a line, and knelt to get a steady aim. One by one they opened fire with their rifles at the fleeing soldiers.

  All the while soldiers were falling, and falling. Many of their horses were galloping without riders.

  “So that’s what Gall did,” Grandpa Nyles said, pausing for a moment. “He was one of the main war leaders, after Crazy Horse. The warriors with him below the ridge were all very good marksmen. They hit a lot of the soldiers. No one knows exactly how many, but a lot of them.”

  He pointed to the truck. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go back to Last Stand Hill.”

  Jimmy hurried and climbed into the truck. “So where was Crazy Horse?” he asked.

  Grandpa Nyles started the truck and drove north, following the paved road. “When Gall was here, Crazy Horse was on the other side of the river. He had gone through the village, gathered a lot of warriors, and ridden north. Somewhere beyond where the visitor center is now, he crossed the river and went east. He took his warriors up the hills, and there they encountered some soldiers who had gone ahead. They chased those soldiers back.

  “So what Crazy Horse did was to block the soldiers from going beyond Last Stand Hill,” the old man went on. “Gall’s warriors and others, Crow King and Black Moon, were leading warriors, too. They were chasing the Long Knives from behind. There was no way the Long Knives were going to escape. By then, oh, maybe five or six hundred warriors were involved. It was all but over for Custer and his soldiers.”

  Grandpa Nyles pointed west toward the river. It was at the bottom of the slope behind the trees. “Right about here, some of the soldiers went toward the river,” he said. “They made it to a deep gully and were surrounded there by warriors coming up from the village. Those soldiers didn’t make it out. They say they are still there, buried in that deep gully.”

  Jimmy looked down th
e slope. He saw several white markers on the slope below them. He was beginning to understand how difficult it must have been for the soldiers.

  They drove into the parking spot near the large stone monument. From there they could see back along the road they had driven. Jimmy could see a lot of white markers.

  “Crazy Horse led a charge against a group of soldiers, right about here,” Grandpa Nyles said, “probably a company. He saw they were organized and fighting strongly. He inspired other warriors to follow him, and they wiped out the company. At first he was the only one riding at the soldiers, far ahead of the other warriors.”

  “Wow! Wasn’t he afraid?”

  “He probably was,” Grandpa Nyles said. “But remember his dream, when the rider was untouched by bullets and arrows? Crazy Horse was untouched at the Battle of the Hundred in the Hands, and he was unhurt here, too. Sometimes you have to do things no matter how scary it is, or how scared you are. For days, and weeks, months, and years after that, the warriors who were there talked about that—how Crazy Horse charged ahead of everyone else. Look, we’re still talking about it now.”

  Jimmy nodded slowly. The tall stone marker was nearby, and several white markers were on the slope. Below the tall monument were more headstones—those inside the black iron fence.

  “So,” he said quietly, “the battle was over, after that?”

  Grandpa Nyles nodded. “Yeah. The last group of soldiers with Custer fired a few shots. The warriors had them surrounded and fired back. Maybe once or twice more there was light exchange of firing. Then it was over. They say it became very, very quiet.”

  “Then what happened?” Jimmy asked.

  “People came up from the village, the women mostly,” the old man said. “They were looking for their husbands, sons, and grandsons. They wanted to know that their loved ones were safe. Many of them were angry at the Long Knives. So that’s when it started.”

  “What? What started, Grandpa?”