Six, The Journey of Crazy Horse

Life has a way of creating strange circumstances that often lead to a bad end, or an unexpected turn. Several Lakota camps were in the vicinity of the fort in the Moon of Dark Calves, idling away the hot months waiting for the annuities, especially the longhorn cattle. Though the meat wasn’t nearly as tasty as buffalo, it was meat nonetheless and many were becoming impatient.

Sometime during the summer, the Long Knife commander at Fort Laramie decided to designate an old Sicangu man named Conquering Bear as a spokesman for the Lakota, ignoring the fact that the Lakota already had their spokesman. But it just so happened that Conquering Bear was respected and thought of as a wise man by many among his own people because he cared for their welfare, a fact unknown to the white officer who made the “appointment” for his own convenience. And it was into Conquering Bear’s camp that an old footsore cow wandered on an especially hot afternoon.

The Lakota didn’t own any cattle, of course, so it was correctly assumed that she had been lost or abandoned by some white man. Trying to escape barking dogs, she was running between lodges knocking over meat racks. After the laughter stopped someone realized that, although old and thin, she was fresh meat.

A young Mniconju visiting relatives in the Sicangu camp dispatched the old cow, butchered it, and divided the meat among the old ones. Word came soon after from the fort that a white man called a Mormon was complaining to the soldiers that his cow had been stolen. Trouble might be brewing at the fort, the messenger warned old Conquering Bear.

The story of the “stolen” cow was relayed to Conquering Bear. The Mormon had tried to turn her away from the Sicangu camp, but when he couldn’t, he immediately ran for the fort. He was undoubtedly too afraid to go near the encampment to recover his animal, so instead he told the commander of the soldiers, a young man named Fleming, that it had been stolen.

The next morning Conquering Bear rode to the fort to settle the matter by offering payment for the cow, explaining that it had been butchered because it appeared to belong to no one. But his offer was ignored, and Fleming demanded that the man who had killed the cow be turned over for punishment.

The old Sicangu politely tried to explain. The cow was dead, and the offer of a good horse, better than the cow was in her good days, was fair, the old man insisted. There was no need to punish anyone over a cow. But Fleming was insistent because the Mormon was demanding to have his cow returned. The old man returned to camp, angry and frustrated with Fleming. In the evening, he went to sit in the Oglala council lodge to talk with Man Whose Enemies Are Afraid of His Horses, and Smoke, and Bad Wound. He informed them that Fleming wanted the killer of the cow turned over, or he would come with a few soldiers to take him away. If the Mniconju refused to go with the soldiers, what was to be done? And what Lakota in his right mind would willingly go with the soldiers for any reason?

Word of the predicament spread quickly through the camps. The next afternoon the soldiers started from the fort in two wagons, and with two wagon guns. But the man leading them was not Fleming. It was one called Grattan, a new officer lately come from the east. With him was a man married to a Lakota woman, a “speaks-white” brought along to translate.

Grattan, it was later learned, had been loud about his disdain for the Lakota. As they passed other camps along the way he shouted for everyone to stay in their lodges. At the Conquering Bear camp, men had been gathering since early morning, positioning themselves to watch for trouble. And trouble was coming.

When the soldiers reached his camp, Conquering Bear left his lodge to meet them. Even as they jumped from the wagons and formed into two lines facing the camp, the old man was still trying to stop the trouble. But his efforts were ignored. Meanwhile, the speaks-white rode up and down the line of soldiers shouting threats at the Lakota.

South of the camp, hidden in low shrubbery, Light Hair and Lone Bear watched the old man and strained to hear him, but - couldn’t. Grattan stepped down from his horse and helped load one of the wagon guns aimed into the camp. The officer shouted, the wagon gun blasted, and all movement seemed to come to a stop, if but for a heartbeat.

The tops of a lodge’s poles splintered into many pieces, then the soldiers aimed their rifles and fired before the echo from the wagon gun had faded. Astonished and unable to immediately perceive the reality unfolding before their eyes, the two boys watched Conquering Bear fall back, struck in the chest and stomach. The second wagon gun boomed and then the Lakota men reacted. Before the soldiers could reload their rifles to fire again, a few Lakota guns boomed, arrows flew, and then angry men ran toward the scattering soldiers. Grattan was one of the first to fall. The speaks-white fled from the camp at a gallop.

A hundred or more Lakota warriors swarmed the soldiers as a few women ran to carry the grievously wounded Conquering Bear away. But the incident was quickly over. Many of the soldiers died within a few steps from where they had stood and fired their rifles. Several managed to flee a little way before being cut down. The speaks-white tried to hide in the death lodge of an old man who had died days before, but several angry Lakota dragged him out screaming and begging to be spared, to no avail.

Soldiers lay dead, scattered at the edge of the camp. Angry warriors swarmed about although the fight was over. Light Hair and Lone Bear cautiously left their hiding place and crept up on the dead soldiers. They had never seen a dead white man. Already the bodies were stripped or being stripped, their guns and powder cases taken.

For the moment, any possible consequences to what had just happened were on no one’s mind. The two boys felt the heavy excitement in the air. People were already gathering around the lodge of Conquering Bear. Women wept. Several warriors dragged away the bodies of the soldiers while others took up defensive positions to protect the Conquering Bear family. In a moment the boys found their horses and started for their own camp, an unexpected sense of elation mixing with a sense of dread as they galloped.

Angry warriors rode to the trading post near the fort run by a Frenchman named Jim Bordeaux, who was married to a Lakota woman. They talked of attacking the fort itself and wiping out all the soldiers and shutting down the Holy Road once and for all. Their anger continued to rise like flames, fanned by the thought of an old Lakota man mortally wounded because he tried to seek a peaceful solution to a dangerous situation. Groups of armed warriors rode through the hills and the breaks wanting to fight, wanting to attack someone. When they gathered together and began to harangue one another into even more frenzied anger, a veteran warrior and a man of high repute rode among them and spoke. His name was Swift Bear, a Sicangu.

He warned them that attacking the fort or any white people in sight would only bring tragic consequences. If there is one thing that is certain, white men would not hesitate to kill Lakotas, he told them. If all the whites hiding in the fort—soldiers or wagon people—were to be killed, it would not close the Holy Road or the fort. The whites, he said, would only send more Long Knives and more wagon guns and would start killing. Still, he reminded them, attacking and killing the soldiers that opened fire on the Conquering Bear camp was undoubtedly the right thing to do—the only thing to do because men are bound to defend the helpless ones. Perhaps there were thinking men among the whites who also have good hearts and will understand why it all happened. And perhaps they would think clearly enough to influence others.

Swift Bear’s calm insistence cooled the men’s anger and they left to see to their families. Already the camp of the wounded Conquering Bear had been moved, except for one lodge. The old man’s family stayed with him, afraid to move him because of his wounds. In fact, all the camps relocated further from the fort. In a few days, even Conquering Bear’s lodge was taken down and he was moved to a place of safety where the Sicangu and Oglala had encamped together, carried on a wooden litter by six strong men walking so that he wouldn’t have to endure a jarring ride on a pony drag.

Light Hair and Lone Bear stayed near and watched men like Spotted Tail, Red Leaf, and High Back Bone come and go from the home of Conquering Bear—Crazy Horse, too—helping to make the old man comfortable.

The anger among the younger warriors had not completely faded, however, especially after they had learned that some of the annuities had indeed arrived but that the soldiers were holding them in storage houses. Intent on collecting the annuities, perhaps two hundred armed men rode into the fort early one morning. High Back Bone took Light Hair with him.

If there were Long Knives about, they could not be seen. The fort stood as if deserted. Before long, the storage houses were found, doors were broken down, and bags of food were loaded onto horses. Unchallenged, the men rode away. The old men decided soon after that it would be best to move further from the fort and the Holy Road.

The Oglalas headed north back toward the Powder River country while the Sicangu traveled east toward the Running Water River. Conquering Bear was growing weaker by the day. The farther from the fort and the Holy Road they moved, however, the fresher the air seemed. Trouble seemed far away under the shadow of the western horizon. Crazy Horse and his family stayed among his wives’ Sicangu relatives. High Back Bone also decided to stay with the Sicangu camp to be near the dying Conquering Bear. Lone Bear was with his family in the Hunkpatila camp by now somewhere near the Powder River. Light Hair spent most of his time alone or helping his mothers.

The Sicangu camp finally reached an area near Snake Creek and decided to let the wounded Conquering Bear rest. It was difficult for the people not to think about the incident that was taking the old man’s life. The old men talked of it in the council lodge and the younger warriors talked around their fires under the night sky. But now the flush of anger was wearing away and the men relived the incident as something to be examined from all sides rather than a source of anger and pain.

Light Hair followed High Back Bone to the door of the Conquering Bear lodge on a warm evening. Through the opening, his gaze found the sunken eyes of the dying man—an overall picture so different from that of a man so vital until the shell from the wagon gun knocked him to the ground. There was no light in the old man’s eyes, only a shadow caused by fading life. An immense confusion and sadness washed over the boy. Walking aimlessly back to his own lodge he caught his horse and rode for some far hills.

He rode north from the camp. The horse picked his way over the uneven ground until he reached the top of a long ridge. There was thunder in the west. Light Hair dismounted on the ridge and let the horse graze. Night fell with deeper darkness as he sat on the ridge. Behind him to the east, perhaps three or four days’ travel, was the sand hill country known to him only through the eyes and memories of others. To the north was the country where his mothers had known their childhood. They talked softly about the White Earth and Smoking Earth Rivers, the second a tributary of the first.

Morning came, bringing hunger with it. Thirst came as the day grew hot and passed slowly into the afternoon. Once again the clouds rose up behind the western horizon and the Thunders spoke again. Another evening slid into darkness and the Thunders spoke louder and louder, and the lightning turned the land blue-white for a heartbeat each time it flashed. He saw to his horse then curled up against the hunger and growing thirst. Sleep came again sometime in the night.

High Back Bone and Crazy Horse were kneeling over him. The sun was in the morning half of the sky, the land bright. They pulled him to his feet, their faces scowling as they scolded him for his carelessness. The Kiowa and the Pawnee and the Omaha were known to be around at times, they told him.