Fourteen, The Journey of Crazy Horse

Feinting head-on charges, the decoys would swerve at the last moment, well within range of the soldier guns. They took the soldiers north over the frozen snowfields. At one point, some of the decoys, including Crazy Horse, had to ride down a treacherously steep, frozen slope. The soldiers took the gentler slope of the south face and kept pursuing. An open valley with a thick stand of trees on either side of a creek lay ahead with no serious obstacles to impede the soldiers’ advance. Once across the creek, the warriors turned straight north and came in sight of Lodge Trail Ridge.

The walking soldiers were slowing down the column. Crazy Horse dismounted well within rifle range, pulled out his knife, and calmly scraped ice from the bottom of his horse’s hooves. When the bullets began to ricochet closer and closer, he remounted and loped away. The other decoys, to infuriate the soldiers, used similar tactics. One of them stood on the rump of his mount and calmly watched the soldiers before he retook his seat and galloped away. Each time the soldier column seemed to be slowing, the decoys charged at them to draw their fire. On and on they took them, ever closer to Lodge Trail Ridge and the warriors hiding in the cut banks and gullies beyond. Many of the walking soldiers grabbed stirrups or saddle skirts to hang on and run a little beside the horses.

Now they gained a gradual slope that ended on the mostly east-west crest of Lodge Trail Ridge. To the south, the fort was partially visible through some trees. The breath of the big soldier horses formed puffs of misty clouds that dissipated quickly. On and on the soldiers came, some of their big horses slipping, some of the walking soldiers slipping and falling.

Movement gave a searing edge to the frigid air. Faces of the decoys were numb and fingers could barely hold weapons and reins. Now and then, one of them dismounted to stand against his horse to get warm. Crazy Horse ran up the slope leading his horse and then stopped to build a fire, fumbling with the flint and striker. He was barely able to coax flames to life from the small pile of tinder and kindling to warm his tingling fingers before bullets began erupting in the snow around him. Calmly, he mounted and galloped up the slope, leaving the warmth of the little fire.

He gathered the decoys on the back of Lodge Trail Ridge for a quick parley, deciding to stay on the wagon trail since it was familiar to the soldiers. A few rounds passed overhead with a high-pitched whine. Those that were closer had a lower, angrier hum. They waited and waited as the bullets sounded closer and closer before they slid their mounts down the north-facing slope. Gathering at the bottom, they waited for the soldiers to gain the ridge.

On the ridge the soldiers hesitated, perhaps waiting for some to catch up. The decoys renewed their efforts, coaxing their tired horses partway up the slope, moving dangerously close. One pretended to be shot off his horse and immediately bounced up, running behind the horse before skillfully remounting from the back. Crazy Horse had picked the right men for the task at hand. Here, the decoys opened fire, sending the heaviest volley so far at the soldiers. Down off the ridge came first the mounted soldiers. The decoys loped to a slight rise that was the wagon trail and milled around, as if uncertain what to do. Like a dark blue stream, the soldiers reached the bottom of the slope and those on horses went hard after the decoys.

For Crazy Horse and his decoys, this was the decisive moment. If the waiting ambushers attacked prematurely the soldiers could still escape. The decoys looked right and left as they proceeded north along a very narrow part of the ridge, but could see no movement. Below the slope of the ridge falling away before them was the winding Prairie Dog Creek, and the end of their task.

Now the soldiers were pressing harder, increasing their gunfire, obviously certain that the decoys comprised the entire enemy force. Crazy Horse formed his men into a skirmish line, and those with bullets to spare fired at the oncoming soldiers. Drawing heavy return fire, the decoys raced their horses down the slippery slope, forming two lines as they rode. They crossed the flats leading to Prairie Dog Creek, each line of riders swinging out wide and then crossing each other on the opposite side of the creek. This was the signal to attack.

From out of the very Earth itself came the waiting ambushers. Horses and men burst from the gullies, cutbacks, and what little winter shrubbery there was. In a heartbeat, several hundred fighting men rode south, some from the east and some from the west. Those closest to Lodge Trail Ridge quickly shut the soldiers’ escape route back to the fort.

The soldiers’ advance stopped. Then they instinctively began their fight to reach the safety of the fort. The walking soldiers were strung out far to the back, closer to Lodge Trail Ridge. They were the first to fall as gunfire blasted up the slopes below them.

There was no end to the guns firing. The soldiers fought hard as they retreated up the ridge, but there was nothing to be gained. They were cut off with nowhere to go. Wave after wave of mounted warriors fought their way up the treacherous slopes. Those with guns used up their bullets and then resorted to their bows. Some had only bows and arrows. Arrows flew up the east slope and from the west. The sky was dark with them and some found their mark in the body of a Lakota or Sahiyela. Toward the end, the warriors waded in among the dead and dying soldiers, killing them with a pistol shot or a hard, skillful swing of a war club or the deadly thrust of a lance. And then all was quiet. All the soldiers were dead.

It began with the Sahiyela, as they remembered Sand Creek and what had been done to their relatives. When the frenzy ended, the soldiers were stripped naked, fingers were chopped off, bellies slashed open, eyes gouged out.

Many warriors were wounded, but fewer than fifteen had been killed. Crazy Horse found a pouch with bullets for his gun, suddenly remembering that he had not fired one of the four bullets he had for his back-loading rifle. He had used only his pistol and bow.

Little Hawk, He Dog, and High Back Bone found him, and then they began looking for Lone Bear. Even as someone warned that more soldiers were coming, they found him on the east slope below the wagon trail, face down in the snow. His body was cold but he was still alive. A bullet had torn through his chest and only the brutally cold day had prevented him from bleeding to death immediately.

Crazy Horse turned his friend over and watched his eyes flutter. The dying man grimaced, or perhaps it was a smile at this last bit of bad luck. Then he was gone.

Crazy Horse held him close for a time, tears freezing as they fell out of his eyes. For Lone Bear, the victory had come at the highest price. Little Hawk and the others stepped in and helped carry him up the slope.

Later, he was told that there had been eighty soldiers, so the Mniconju medicine dreamer had known the true outcome when he saw one hundred soldiers in his hands. Almost before the warriors reached the warmth and comfort of their lodges, it was known among them as the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand. Sometime in the night, word was brought to Crazy Horse that among the dead was one of his decoy warriors, Big Nose, the stalwart and fearless Sahiyela.

The soldiers stayed in their fort for the rest of the winter. The wood wagon did not venture out and no whites traveled along the wagon trail to the gold fields, due mostly to one of the hardest winters in memory. It was so hard, in fact, that many Lakota camps were dangerously low on meat.

Snow was deep and hunters wore out horses or injured their legs traveling in it. Many went out on snowshoes looking for elk and buffalo. A month after the battle, Crazy Horse and Little Hawk went east and then south to Crazy Woman Creek to sheltered areas and cottonwood groves. Elk, like horses, fed on young cottonwood trees in winter.

Days of scouting brought no results and they were forced to seek shelter in a sudden blizzard. As the wind whipped the snow sideways, they could do no more than huddle beneath their buffalo robes in the lee side of boulders in a narrow creek bed. When the wind abated somewhat, they saw shapes in front of them through the veil of snow, a small herd of elk also seeking shelter from the wind. Stringing their bows, the brothers crawled through the snow and managed to shoot several before the others fled. The next morning when the storm ended, they found their elk, some already being torn apart by hungry wolves. They managed to rescue most of their kills and gathered wood for a large fire. Crazy Horse stayed there to guard the meat against the wolves as Little Hawk returned to camp for horses. Back at the encampment, they distributed the fresh meat first to those who had nothing to eat but kept only a little for their family. There was no hunger in the lodge of Worm, however, because with each scratching at the door, someone handed in a buffalo horn filled with elk soup or a skewer of roasted meat.

Travelers returned to the wagon trail in the late spring after the runoff from the mountain snows had receded. The Lakota harassed or attacked every wagon they could, hampered by a lack of ammunition for the various assortment of pistols and rifles they owned. Nonetheless, they managed to take horses practically at will. Occasionally, however, the people in one of the wagon trains would be well armed and prepared to fight. Crazy Horse frequently joined a raiding party, sometimes going all the way to the first fort on Dry Fork, called Fort Reno.

In the Moon When the Sun Stands in the Middle, the peace talkers at Fort Laramie requested a council, so the Oglala chose Old Man Whose Enemies Are Afraid of His Horses to speak for them. But they also sent Red Cloud along. Their terms were simple: no one would sign the paper unless the whites abandoned the forts, stopped using the wagon trail, and paid the Lakota with a worthwhile supply of ammunition. The peace talkers, of course, refused, so Old Man Afraid and Red Cloud left the council.

With no agreement in place, the soldiers and the forts stayed. Whites continued to travel up the wagon trail, known to the Lakota as the Powder River Road and the whites as the Bozeman Trail. Various headmen from the camps met, deciding they should keep attacking all three forts. But they couldn’t agree which to strike first, however. The warrior leaders stepped in and decided among themselves that the Sahiyela would attack the fort near the mouth of the Big Horn and the Mniconju would lead against the fort on Buffalo Creek. Crazy Horse returned from a raid in Crow country to join them.

The attack against the wood camp west of Fort Phil Kearny turned into a hard-fought battle, one the Lakota didn’t expect. For Crazy Horse, it was a lesson in fighting the whites. Waging war against them, he learned, had to be done with a cold heart.

Thirty soldiers behind a circle of wagon boxes detached from the wheels and frames had poured continuous rifle fire into each wave of Lakota attackers, whether mounted or on foot. For most of a day, the fighting went on. Though a few soldiers were killed in the initial attacks, Lakota casualties were higher. Bravery on the part of the Lakota was not the issue—some had died because they were foolishly brave. A good man named Jipala had walked in the open toward the wagon boxes with his shield before him, and was shot dead. The outcome of the battle had to be just as important in the minds of the Lakota as demonstrating bravery during it. The whites didn’t fight a battle to show how brave they were, they fought to kill as many of the enemy as they could. Killing enough of the enemy would lead to victory. Crazy Horse said as much to High Back Bone, Little Hawk, and He Dog. Their reply was a philosophical one: then we must learn to jump from one horse to another in the middle of the rushing river.

Crazy Horse learned later that the soldiers behind the wagon boxes had new back-loading guns. They could be reloaded and fired much faster than muzzle-loaders. In fact, as one soldier fired, a second behind him reloaded a second rifle.

They had won the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand because they outnumbered the soldiers, though each had a rifle and a pistol and plenty of bullets. But faster-shooting rifles would sooner or later enable one soldier to fight like two or three. Warriors outnumbering the soldiers would not always be the answer. Acquiring more and better guns and putting aside foolish acts of bravery in the face of an enemy that didn’t care were the ways to win against the whites. There was no choice but to jump from one horse to another before the rushing river became stronger.

The Lakota and Sahiyela went hard against the travelers on the Powder River Road until only soldiers or a wagon train with plenty of guns and ammunition to put up a good fight dared to use it. Crazy Horse and Little Hawk joined the raiding, but as the autumn was passing, they joined the hunts to make meat for the winter.

Snows came and the winter passed, and the camps along the Tongue waited to see what the new cycle of seasons would bring. The soldiers in the forts along the Powder River Road kept themselves inside, watching through their farseeing glasses and ready to fire off their wagon guns at the first Lakota that came within range.

Then a strange thing happened. The soldiers left. In long columns of riders and wagons piled high with their goods, they set off south toward the Shell. Almost before the soldiers were out of sight of the fort on Buffalo Creek, the Sahiyela and Oglala went in to claim what had been left behind. Then they set fire to the fort and watched the great leaping flames reduce the walls and buildings to ashes, vowing they would never let another be built on their lands.

In spite of the cruelty of the soldier leaders at Fort Laramie (Fouts and Moonlight), new Loafer camps were pitched around the fort. And it was a Loafer that brought word from the peace talkers. They had come with more presents, kettles, blankets, knives, and now guns. And they were asking for Red Cloud to come and sign the paper so that all the Lakota could share in these gifts—so there could be peace in the Powder River country. The peace talkers had come with a new offer as well. All the country from the Great Muddy River to the Shining Mountains would be Lakota land, so long as the rivers shall flow and the grass grows.

Where did the whites get the power to give the Lakota lands they already control, Crazy Horse heard many old men ask.

Summer came and passed into autumn. The things of life went on. The people gathered at Bear Butte so the old men leaders could decide that Red Cloud should touch the pen on the peace paper for all the Oglala. Crazy Horse rode north to raid the Crows.

He returned with new horses, and to news that his uncle Spotted Tail had his own lands to live on, given to him by the whites. Agency, it was called. Perhaps he was influenced by the kindness one soldier leader gave him when his daughter had sickened and died. Nevertheless, the Sicangu was advising that Red Cloud should touch the pen. From the north came different news. Sitting Bull was still defiant, and his Hunkpapa were still fighting the soldiers in the north and chasing buffalo. But there was a new worry, he had warned. The whites were making new kinds of roads, strips of iron laid across rows of wood so that a new kind of wagon could travel on it—an iron wagon that breathed smoke like the houseboats on the Great Muddy and dragged houses on iron wheels. The “iron horse,” he called it.

Crazy Horse pondered this news even as Red Cloud rode south to Fort Laramie with a new power of his own. The old headmen had given him the power to sign the peace paper for the Oglala. Late in the Moon When Leaves Fall, he made a mark next to his name on the white man’s peace paper.⁶

Life in the Powder River country was rather like the pale shadow made by a thin cloud. Something had changed, but the whites were still telling the Lakota what to do. Some of the younger men wondered if Red Cloud knew all the things written on the paper he had marked on behalf of all the Oglala.

Spotted Tail, meanwhile, had been arguing to move his - people to a different agency even as Red Cloud was told he would have to move to one. Crazy Horse and He Dog stayed north, close to the Tongue, and raided into Crow country. More and more Lakota were moving south closer to the Holy Road, wanting to trade for goods they had grown to depend on—butcher knives, kettles, buckets, and bolts of cloth, and so on. The black medicine, coffee, was another favorite. So, too, was whiskey.

As Crazy Horse stayed to the north, more and more people came to pitch their lodges with him. Though he had no wife and no lodge of his own, he found himself suddenly the headman among many families. Many fighting men attributed the victory of the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand to his bravery and skilled leadership—not because he told other men what to do, but because he showed them how to do it. And, in him, they saw the quality of good thinking that was just as important in the quiet times as daring action was in the time of battle.

High Back Bone moved into the Crazy Horse camp and the two were considered the most powerful fighting men among the northern camps of the Lakota, perhaps of all the Lakota. Crazy Horse waved aside such words and said nothing of this new responsibility of headman that had been put at his lodge door. But he was, after all, a Shirt Wearer, his father reminded him gently. He must live up to the responsibility and be careful of the power and influence that often comes with it. It was the path of the Thunder Dreamer laying itself out in front of him, and he must walk it.

So the Crazy Horse people flourished in the north country. They rode across the Elk to keep the Crow from becoming too bold. They hunted and observed the rituals that made them who they were, and the seasons passed. Crazy Horse saw to the duties of leadership he had not sought to have. The old ones would smile as he walked through the camp asking after their needs, often with his brother Little Hawk at his side.

Returning from a hunt, he stopped in the camp of No Water to rest. Since the great gathering below Elk Mountain two years past, he had spoken to Black Buffalo Woman several times. Whatever had been between them had long passed. She was the mother of three now and it seemed entirely proper for him to ask about her children. But each time they talked, they lingered longer, something that did not go unnoticed by some who knew what had happened before. So now Black Buffalo Woman waited discreetly for the gift of elk teeth Crazy Horse had lately been leaving for her with someone. But as he was preparing to leave she approached openly and brought him food, and they stood together talking. He left, not lingering too long, but as he rode away some noticed that she watched until he was out of sight.

His father was still awake that night as Crazy Horse returned, long after his mothers and Little Hawk had fallen asleep. The old man had been waiting to share a smoke and a few words. Two men had come from the camp of No Water, he announced carefully. There was no need for more words. Crazy Horse understood why the men had come. But Worm spoke nonetheless because much rode on the shoulders of his son, much that was important to the people.

“They will not let her go,” he said quietly.

Crazy Horse said nothing about the visitors. He smoked with his father and then took his anger to his bed. There was no one else to talk with. High Back Bone had left to visit among his Mniconju relatives to the north. He had long been angry over Red Cloud being given the power to put his mark on the paper for all the Oglala, saying that it would lead to trouble down the road. But Crazy Horse already knew High Back Bone’s thinking where Black Buffalo Woman was concerned. The power of a woman over a man is sometimes the greatest mystery of all, he had said.

At such times the warrior’s trail seemed to open new ways of looking at one’s troubles, so Crazy Horse decided it was time to fight the Crows again. When He Dog heard his friend was calling for young men to ride north, he suggested it should be done in the old way, many men taking the trail with their women along to add their strength. The Crow Owners Society agreed and invited Crazy Horse and He Dog to join them as lancer bearers. But more than that, they were made caretakers of the two warrior lances of the Oglala, which had been given to the people in the time before horses. No one could remember exactly when, only that the spring grasses grew thick and tall when brave men carried the lances into battle. So it was done. Crazy Horse and He Dog carried the old lances into Crow lands.

The raiders returned undefeated with many Crow horses and scalps to show that the power of the lances had not diminished. He Dog and Crazy Horse had been the first to attack and the last to withdraw. During one fight, they had chased the Crows to the gates of the fort of their soldier friends. Though they made camp close by to rest, the Crows or the soldiers did not come after them.

Women from the No Water Camp helped with the victory feasts, since their old men and warriors had gone south to the fort along the Holy Road. One morning after the victory dances, whispers flew through the camp. Black Buffalo Woman had left her children with relatives and rode out beside the light-haired one. The hot sun of the Moon When the Sun Stands in the Middle shone brightly on them as they had ridden away openly and with friends along. No two people could agree over this new turn. Some said it was coming for a long time, since her father had made the choice of a husband for her when her heart belonged to the shy, quiet young man who was now the most powerful warrior among them. Others said there would be trouble; though she was a good Lakota woman free to choose, her husband was not one to let her have that choice. Besides, the reasons her father and uncle had influenced her choice of a husband were even more important now, some said cautiously. And they were right.

The couple and their friends came to a small camp in a narrow little valley, and, there they rested. Little Shield, He Dog’s brother, and Little Big Man were along and made a feast. As night fell, there came a commotion and a man tore into the lodge where Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman were guests, a man worn from a hard trail and driven by the anger of a jealous heart. No Water stood above them, a pistol in hand.

As Crazy Horse leaped to his feet, the pistol boomed.