Sixteen, The Journey of Crazy Horse

Hunters returned empty-handed time after time to the encampments along the Powder River, with worn-out horses and the same frightening news: the buffalo were harder and harder to find. Many reported seeing nothing at all. A few saw only old bulls and let them go, knowing their meat was tough and stringy. Old meat was better than no meat, others said, but the elders kept their counsel, knowing there was something bigger to worry over. Their way of life was changing.

True, there was still elk that could be found anywhere—the black-tailed deer in the mountains and the white-tailed deer on the prairies. But the buffalo had always been the mainstay of life. They had covered the prairies from horizon to horizon only within the past generation. Now hunters had to ride for days to see just one. There was good reason for worry.

Crazy Horse hunted as often as he could. Like other hunters, he pursued elk or deer, often taking two packhorses with him far up into the foothill slopes of the Shining Mountains. Hunters were almost constantly in the field because the meat of seven or eight deer and four or five elk was equal to the usable meat of only one buffalo. Furthermore, lodge coverings could not be patched or repaired without fresh buffalo hides. It was out of the question to make new lodges since about twenty or more hides were required. Word came from the agency Lakota that the white man’s canvas was very good for making lodges. Some of the old ones said, however, that canvas lodges rattled in the breeze and were outright noisy in a wind. Buffalo-hide lodges - didn’t make any noise even in the strongest wind.

Crazy Horse pondered all of these new and unwanted realities as he sat in his lonely hunting camps, the burden of a leader’s responsibility heavy on his shoulders. Were the Lakota facing a future of living in noisy canvas lodges? It seemed unavoidable when hunters had to travel for days before they could find one or two buffalo.

No one but Wakantanka could replenish the buffalo. First the whites had to be driven away, completely out of Lakota country. That was for the Lakota to do, not Wakantanka. Within the span of his lifetime, they had always been around. Who could forget the day twenty years ago now that old Conquering Bear was killed, and the loudmouthed soldier Grattan who caused it? The cold hard truth was that white men brought trouble. The hide hunters killed buffalo in numbers that were hard to imagine, for example. One hunter with a powerful gun could kill hundreds in one day. Hundreds of hunters over hundreds of days over many years were most of the reason the buffalo were gone in this part of the country.

There was another cold, unbending truth: driving out the whites would take more fighting men than Crazy Horse had, and more guns, bullets, and powder than all the Lakota fighting men had together. To make matters worse, more and more Lakota were slipping away to live at the agencies, yearning after the material goods of the white man. His uncle Spotted Tail had taken his Sicangu Lakota people to an agency. And a goodly number of Oglala Lakota had followed Red Cloud out of the Powder River country to his own agency near the mouth of the White Earth River to the southeast. Who was left to resist? Who was left to say that the Lakota way of living was still good? Who was left to fight, if it came to that? Not many, Crazy Horse knew. Not even the buffalo, as it turned out.

As far as he could tell, Crazy Horse had about 150 fighting men. Most of them were hardened veterans, all of them skilled and committed. He would lead them without hesitation against any enemy, Crow or white. And they would follow without hesitation. But what could 150 men, as good and brave as they were, do against a people whose numbers were like hailstones in the sudden thunderstorm? It was a bothersome sign of the times that he had to always think of fighting and resisting the whites. It was a sign of the times.

Undeniably, the whites were like the two-faced giant in the childhood stories the grandmothers told during the long winter nights. With an endless hunger, the giant ate anything and everything and trampled the land as he did, smashing all that lay in its path. The more it ate the larger it grew until it could leap across lakes and shake the Earth when it ran. For Crazy Horse, the giant was real. It had eaten all the buffalo.

He knew the two hundred or so families in his encampment - could adjust to life without the buffalo in order to keep their free-roaming ways. At least most of them would. Life was always changing, after all. But this was different. This was unforeseen, unwanted change. Perhaps they were destined to live in noisy canvas lodges. If he had to, he would—so long as it meant staying free of the agencies, though he could not speak for everyone. Messengers came now and then from the agencies with stories of the easy life, stories that would have anyone believing that the new life with the whites was good, with the agency Lakota not wanting for anything. Soon after such visits, a few families would take down their lodges in the night, as if leaving at night would make their departure less painful for the relatives and friends left behind. The buffalo were becoming more and more scarce and so were the “wild” Lakota, as the agency people called the Crazy Horse camp as well as the Hunkpapa Lakota who were with Sitting Bull to the north.

The buffalo were almost gone, unbelievably, and more and more Lakota began living on the agencies. Such realities plagued Crazy Horse as he sat alone at a dying fire in a shadowy gully far below the craggy peaks of the Shining Mountains. As a more-than-proficient hunter he could provide for Black Shawl, They Are Afraid of Her, and his parents. For any given year, every family needed fresh meat equal to one buffalo and perhaps the hides from twenty to thirty deer and elk for clothing and items for the household, such as sleeping robes and rawhide clothing and food containers. If survival depended only on hunting, life would be good. But even if there were enough elk and deer to feed the “wild” Lakota, there was always the problem of the whites. Survival also meant doing something about them.

That was one of the problems that haunted Crazy Horse, sometimes not letting him sleep. He was a worrier as it was, though he rarely voiced his concerns to anyone, not even to Black Shawl or his father, Worm. It was his place to worry because the people depended on him. Worrying came with responsibility. But he was not good at thinking and weighing all the factors of a situation when others were around. Strange that it was easier to function on the battlefield in the face of the enemy and in the midst of noise and chaos. One simply acted and reacted seemingly without thought. Facing the overall problems of life, however—especially as the one to whom the people looked for answers—was far more difficult.

People were constantly coming to his home to talk and the old men called him frequently to the council lodge. Consequently, it was difficult for him to be alone with his thoughts. And solitude had always been one of his best allies. So he sought out the solitude of the prairies or the mountain slopes. He needed the reassuring silence broken only by the passing breeze or the distant howl of a wolf. In such places, he could gather his thoughts and pile them up like stones and then examine them, one by one.

His friends and relatives thought he shouldn’t wander off alone as much as he did. They worried after his safety, but also in their minds was the feeling that a leader’s place was with the - people. Many wondered what pulled him, what drove him to the solitude of a cave or a hidden camp, or to the shadowy place just below the crest of a ridge. They didn’t know what he felt. They - could only watch him ride away yet again.

Black Shawl wondered most of all, even as she silently prepared and packed food for him to take along. But she kept her fears to herself. They Are Afraid of Her would smile as he swept her into a close embrace and played with her—especially when they played with her favorite toy, the stuffed doll made of deer hide with a face painted on it. She smiled and giggled in great delight as her father pretended to rock the doll to sleep. But the smile would fade quickly from her little face as she watched him lead his horse away through the circle of lodges. Crazy Horse worried that she was so thin—that she sometimes didn’t have the energy to play and would fall asleep in his arms.

They watched him in painful silence, his wife and daughter, as he would ride away, their eyes fixed on his back. He could see their faces in his campfires. But he could also see the pile of stones that were his thoughts, the burdens he carried, the many problems he had to solve. When a man belonged to the people, he no longer belonged to himself. How does one explain that to a four-year-old?

One of those stones was larger than the others. It was a giant growing larger with each passing year—a giant that had forced even Sitting Bull, the powerful Hunkpapa leader, away from the Great Muddy, pushing him west toward the Elk River country. Sitting Bull had refused to travel to the last treaty council at Horse Creek near Fort Laramie in the year the whites called 1868. He had sent word that he would never touch the pen to any treaty paper the white man had.

Sitting Bull knew what would happen, Crazy Horse was certain. The whites would use that treaty as a way to control the Lakota. They drew lines on a paper to outline the picture of the land, something not unknown to the Lakota. But the idea that an imaginary line could define where the land begins and ends was laughable—as if the line would somehow show up on the land. Even more laughable was the rule that the Lakota had to live in one part of the land and obtain permission from the whites to hunt in the other. Their thinking was laughable but it was their thinking and they had the power of numbers, many soldiers with many rifles, many wagon guns, and plenty of powder.

Part of the answer was to fight. There could be no other way, and it was coming to that. The whites understood force, how to use the threat of it effectively. Soldiers were always part of the treaty talks, prominently displaying their weapons and firing their thunderous wagon guns that splintered trees. Those wagon guns could obviously knock over several men at once. Therefore, behind the words of the white peace talkers was the killing power of the soldiers. As a whole, whites were willing to kill to get what they wanted. That had always been obvious to Crazy Horse. To put up a strong resistance and defeat them, Lakota fighting men had to meet force with force. They would have to kill as many Long Knives as possible, as many as it would take until they understood that coming into Lakota lands would always be dangerous. There could be no other way. But there was the unsettling probability that too many Lakota men would die before they could kill enough soldiers. If that happened, who would protect the women and children, and the old ones? Who would provide for them?

Some of the younger men were getting restless, anxious for some type of action. But most of them didn’t understand that fighting the whites would be different than going against the Crow or the Snakes. The young ones barely into manhood - couldn’t remember a time when the white men were not a constant threat and the objects of animosity, or the topic of heated conversation in just about every lodge among the “wild” Lakota. Perhaps it would be wise to shape the young men into different kinds of fighters, some of the older men said to Crazy Horse. The Crow and the Snakes understood the philosophy of being a warrior, that defeating an enemy didn’t always depend on taking his life. Defeating one’s enemy meant being better on a given day, overpowering his mind and spirit with the strength of your own being and the power you carried in your own spirit. Such victories were honorable. That certainly wasn’t the philosophy of the whites. So perhaps it would be best to teach the young men, the new crop of Lakota fighting men, that whites didn’t understand honor, that they only understood killing. He had said as much to the old men in the council lodge. His words were received with silent, somber nods because they all understood the kind of adversary they were facing in the white man.

Crazy Horse returned home to resurgent rumors that miners were going into the Black Hills in violation of the rules set down in the Horse Creek treaty. Gold was the reason. Ah, yes, gold, the white man’s god. It was because of gold that the man called John Bozeman had laid out a trail for wagons from Deer Creek, just north of the Shell River to the south, northward through the Powder River country east of the Shining Mountains and on north into Crow lands.

The whites were willing to risk their own lives to get gold. Gold was the reason for their interest in the Black Hills, the heart of everything that was to the Lakota. The center of their world was apparently now coveted because of the misfortune of gold. It was the heated topic in the council lodge. The consensus was that something must be done. But the Lakota were too scattered—too scattered over the land and too scattered when it came to the issue of the whites. One of the old men suggested sending word to the agencies, a call to young men to join the “wild” Lakota under Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Everyone agreed, so it would be done. Meanwhile, Crazy Horse would lead a raid against the Crow to give their young men something to do, and to keep their edge as fighters. Doing nothing wasn’t good, because it took away the edge, the sharpness. A good fighting man needed to remain taut, like a good bowstring. Without a good string that could remain taut, the best-made bow was useless.

Crazy Horse invited a few young men to go north into Crow country. Most of them were inexperienced and untested. Some of them probably wondered why the greatest fighting man among them, probably among all the Lakota, would invite them to accompany him. They soon deduced Crazy Horse’s rationale, but were still grateful for the opportunity to learn from him.

The raiding party left the encampment in the Greasy Grass valley and went north toward the Elk River. This time of the year, the Crow moved away from the sheltering slopes of the mountains, usually to hunt buffalo. Surprisingly, however, the Lakota had to cross the Elk before they picked up fresh sign of human movement. They had seen several buffalo, so perhaps the Crow had a few more to hunt than they did. Keeping a wary eye on their back trail to the south, they kept moving north, staying east of the foothills of the mountains, looking for an encampment with enough horses to make a little raiding worthwhile. Not far from a bend in the Elk, they finally found a sizeable but well-guarded herd in a small box canyon. There was an encampment beyond it, a small one. The Crow always had more horses than they really needed. But as Crazy Horse studied the Crow camp through his farseeing glass, something caught his attention. The meat racks were empty and no women were busy scraping fresh hides, which was always a sure sign the hunting was good. In fact, not only was the camp just a few lodges in size, there was not much activity overall. Most of the people in sight were the boys and young men guarding the large horse herd grazing in the thin meadow of the box canyon. Something wasn’t right.

From all outward appearances, the Crow camp was small and poor, with few women and children and only a few boys and young men guarding the herd. What wasn’t in the camp was the more bothersome fact. Crow men, like the Lakota, were in the habit of picketing their best warhorses next to their lodge doors. There were none here. Where were the older men? Were they out on the hunting trail, on a raid, or simply hiding in the foothills all around?

Crazy Horse explained that they might have walked into a clever trap. He sent the young men in twos back to their horses, cautioning them to move silently and stay out of sight. They had to call on all the skills they had to move unseen and silently through the gullies and dry creek beds, using every stalk of the sparse brush for cover. He was the last to leave, scanning the terrain around his hiding place as he waited. Soon after, he rejoined his raiding party, where their horses were hidden in a pine-choked bowl below a ridge, and his suspicions were confirmed. Scanning through his farseeing glass, he spotted several groups of armed Crow, waiting and watching their own encampment.

The young men were worried and anxious, nervous to be so deep in enemy country and outnumbered. But they waited for darkness, taking their cue from the calmness of their leader. Crazy Horse devised a plan and whispered it to the young men as they waited for dusk to turn into deep, friendly darkness.

Each man would take his turn at scouting a path in the darkness for the distance of a good bowshot, then return and lead - everyone to the farthest point he had gone. After that, the next would go and so on until they were well out of danger. Crazy Horse did the first scout, returned and led them through the darkness. When he called for volunteers, he was encouraged that all of the young men tossed down a stick as a sign to go next.

Dawn found them out of danger. Slipping away from under the noses of the enemy was no small feat, a solid victory in itself. The young men had done very well. They voiced no fear, nor did they complain. In among this group very well could be the man who would succeed in leading the Lakota to drive out the whites once and for all. Crazy Horse knew it would be that kind of fight, one that would test the resolve of good men for years, perhaps generations, to come.

A day later they spotted an old, crippled buffalo cow. How she had managed to escape the wolves or human hunters was a mystery. But in spite of her lean flanks and the dragging front leg, she had not lost her dignity. Knowing she couldn’t run, she turned and faced the hunters as they approached her on horses. As their arrows drove into her sides, she bellowed and charged the nearest horse and rider. Her pursuit was so persistent the young Lakota had to whip his horse into a gallop to stay away from her. The cow finally gave in to her age and loss of blood, collapsing among the sagebrush.

It was a subdued feast after they butchered and skinned her. Drag poles were cut and tied together, the meat wrapped in the hide and loaded. The raiders, briefly turned hunters, set out for home. They had not battled the Crow or taken horses, but they had learned important lessons and were bringing home a little meat as well.

The encampment had moved from the valley of the Greasy Grass, leaving signs pointing in the direction they had gone, off to the southeast toward the Tongue River. There, along the bluffs above the floodplain, was the new encampment. Smoke from the cooking fires rose like wavering thin lances on a calm late afternoon. Riding into camp, the raiders noticed the first people to greet them smiled thinly, almost afraid to look in their direction. Worm emerged from his lodge and moved deliberately to meet his son. He was haggard, appearing as if he hadn’t slept. His shirt hung in tatters, a sign of mourning.