IX IX Dry snow had fallen in the night, and it was scurrying drearily under a dull sky when I reached the old man’s tepee the next morning. He sat smoking serenely with his blanket tucked about his waist and legs. “I thought you might not come, Grandson,” he said; “but you are here, and it is good.” When we had smoked awhile together, he began:
“We are going on my first war party today, and it is very bad weather for fighting; but no snow has fallen in my story. The grass is getting strong; the animals are making fat; there is a warm wind blowing; and I am just a boy with long legs.
“After my vision quest people noticed me more than before, and they did not treat me like a little boy. So when it was time for a war party to start out, I went along on Whirlwind. There were thirty-seven of us, and we were not all Oglalas. Some of us were Miniconjous and Sans Arcs, and a few were Cheyennes, for we had camped together along the valley of the Greasy Grass that winter. Some of us were only boys getting started to be men; some had been in many fights and had scars to show; and there were a few who almost could have been the grandfathers of the boys.
“Crazy Horse was leading the party, and he was already getting a big name then, for he had a mysterious power. People talked about him, and told stories of his deeds in fights with the Crows and Shoshonis. Also he had fought the soldiers when the hundred were killed on the ridge, and that was a story too. He was not a big man, for I was even then almost as tall as he; and he was not a little man either; just above a little man, and he was not fat at all. He was slender and very strong; and his face was lean too. It looked sharpened like an arrowhead. They said he never wanted anything for himself but a good horse and weapons to fight for his people, and that he always gave everything away.
“His hair was not so dark as most other Lakotas’ hair, but was a little brown; and his skin was not so dark either. He always braided his hair with one braid down each side of his head, and he wore a braided buckskin with his medicine in a little bag at the end of it, also an eagle-bone whistle, like mine, tied on. This he always had with him.
“Just before the beginning of a battle, when they were ready to charge, he would get off his horse and take a handful of earth from a mole hill or an ant hill or a prairie dog’s house. This he would put between the horse’s ears and then on the hips of the horse. After that he would stand in front of the horse and throw the earth back over him. Then he would stand behind and throw some towards the horse’s head. Last, he would rub some of the earth from the horse and put it on his own head. He never wore a war bonnet in battle and he did not paint his face. He wore only one spotted-eagle feather tied in his hair and hanging down the back of his head. It was Chips, the wakon, who taught him to do this, and always advised him. He would be ahead in a fight, and when he killed an enemy he did not count coup. He would call others to take the honors. I think he had so many honors he did not want any more, but helped others to get them.
“He had a society of his own; not a feast and dance society, but just followers. They were called Ho-ksi-ha-ka-ta [The Last Child]. The last child in a family is not thought of as much as the others, and so he chose the last child to follow him. They were very brave warriors because they had to do great deeds and be honored even more than the first child. They were always trying to make themselves greater, and so they were not afraid to do anything.
“They say the ponies Crazy Horse rode never lasted very long. They wore out fast because of the great power that was in him. It was from a vision that he had. When he rode into a battle, he would remember his vision and be in it again, so that nothing in this world could hurt him. I do not know this, but so the people all put it out. They did not say it about other brave men, and I think it was so. When the Wasichus murdered him, they had to do it from behind when he was not ready for battle.
“I had seen him around the village as long as I could remember. People thought he was queer because he did not talk often, and sometimes he would not notice anybody. But he would stop to play with little children, and he liked to tease and joke them till they laughed. When he was on a war party, he was different. Then he would joke with the warriors, and tell funny stories. It kept them feeling good, so that they could fight better. They all liked him, and whatever he said, they would do that.
“We rode towards where the sun comes up when the summer days are long. The world was young and wide as day, and we were going almost to the end of it beyond Mini Shoshay [the Missouri]. We crossed the Rosebud and the Tongue and the Powder, and there were no enemies. The young grass was getting strong for our horses, and there were deer and elk in plenty, so that, man and horse, we feasted every night.
“There was story-telling around the fire when we had feasted; and there was always one I did not hear the end of, being over-full of meat and heavy sleep. When I had to take my turn along with older horse-guards, it was like a wonderful story with no one to tell it out there under the stars, listening to the horses chewing and blowing, and watching every shadow all around. It made me feel tall and brave, and something was always about to happen all at once, so I did not feel like sleeping.
“In the daytime we were often merry; and if someone started singing, we would all sing together. That made the horses feel good, and maybe one would neigh and start the others neighing.
“Where we could not see far, there would be riders out ahead of us and off on both sides to watch for enemies. Sometimes when we were walking the horses slowly to rest them, somebody would start a funny story, and others would crowd close to take it from him and go on with it. There was one about the young woman bear who saw a handsome young hunter; and right away she loved him so much that she made up her mind to have him for her man. This was very hard on the young hunter, and it got harder and harder the longer the story became. He did not want to shoot anybody who loved him so much, but he did not want to be her man either. Sometimes he would think he had lost her at last; but just at the wrong time she would show up again.
“Maybe there was a pretty girl and he had been sneaking around a long while, trying to make her talk to him. And at last he would catch her down by the creek when she was getting water for her mother, and they would be talking. Then that woman bear would rush out of the brush groaning and with tears running down her face, because she loved him so much. And when the girl screamed and ran and he turned and ran too, the bear would chase him—maybe up a tree.
“Then maybe the handsome young hunter had the girl for his woman at last, and the bear would sneak into his tepee in the night just at the wrong time, and there would be a big woman fight in there, and all the people would come yelling to see who might be killing somebody.
“The bear always got away and there never was an end to that story. I think it is still getting longer somewhere. Anybody could tell about another time the woman bear did something, and he could make it up if he could not remember any. This story had to be told like something very sad and without seeming to know it was funny. I would laugh so hard to hear the story and see how sad and worried the story-tellers looked, that I could hardly stay on my horse. Maybe at night the bear story would begin again; and when they got it going it was hard to stop.”
Eagle Voice chuckled awhile, evidently enjoying remembered fragments of the bear yarn.
“Yes,” he continued at length, “High Horse and I would roll and hold our bellies with laughing. High Horse was a Miniconjou boy as old as I was. I knew him when we were small and I used to play over there being Tashina’s horse, and he was a girl’s horse too. It was on this war party that we began to be brother-friends. We were always together; and we liked each other so much that we decided we had been twins over in Twin Land and had got parted because we did not happen to find the same mother over here. We had heard the old ohunka story from our grandmothers, and maybe we did not quite believe it; but we wanted to, because the story made it more wonderful for us to be together.
“Twins are not like other people, and there is something wakon about them. They come from Twin Land where they have lived together always; and when they come into this world looking for a mother, they ride around on jack rabbits. Nobody can see them; but they ride around anyway, looking and looking for a good and pretty young woman. Maybe she is getting water from a spring or a creek and the twins have followed her on their jack rabbits. They are hiding in the brush, and when the good and pretty young woman leans over, they hurry and get inside of her. If only one gets inside, then the other must find himself another mother, and all their lives each will be hunting the other one.
“So we had found each other, and we said we were never going to be parted any more. If the story wasn’t so, why did everybody know it?
“Beyond the Powder we came to a great flat land where many antelope were feeding. Some high buttes were there standing all alone, and when High Horse and I climbed one of them, far off towards where you are always looking [south] we could see the tops of Pa Sapa [the Black Hills] low down in the sky like a black thundercloud just beginning to come up.
“We crossed the Slim Buttes, where our people had a big fight with the soldiers a long while afterwards, and then we turned left towards where the White Giant lives. Afterwhile we came to a stream that ran the same way [the little Missouri] until it turned towards where the sun comes up and ran into Mini Shoshay [the Missouri]. But before we got there, we had to go through a strange land that was not like this world, and sometimes it was hard to travel and we had to go around [badlands]. There would be flat grassland with many buttes scattered in it, all staring at us like strangers that maybe never saw men and horses before. And there would be places where the land was all tangled with buttes and gullies; and sometimes these were burning and smoking. High Horse and I said maybe it was always like that when you were getting near the end of the world. Sometimes when I would look around, and everything was still and strange and there were only the ponies’ hoofs to hear, it would make me feel like getting out of breath.
“Afterwhile we came to where they said it was not far to Mini Shoshay, and we would have to make boats. We were on the right side of the little river that we were following, and our scouts had seen bison on the other side. The river was not very deep or wide, so we crossed over to kill some bison and to get hides for the boats.
“There was a steep hill, almost too steep for the horses; and we rode up there to look. Bison were grazing all over the flat green valley in among little hills down there, and they could not smell us or see us. It was good to look at them, and we lay down along the rim of the hill to rest and see awhile before we started killing. Right below us the hill was very steep, and we could see almost straight down. One Horn, the oldest in our band, was lying beside High Horse and me with his chin on his arms, just looking; and afterwhile he said: ‘Watch that old bull right down there. He is eloping with that young cow. See him? When they do that, the cow is always a nice fat one. She will make good eating, and I want a bite out of her hump.’
“We looked down, and there was an old grandfather bull with a young cow following close after him. I think he was the biggest bull I ever saw, and he looked proud and handsome like a great chief who lived a long while ago in some great-grandfather’s story. He walked slowly with the cow at his tail and did not notice the other bison at all.
“Then somebody said: ‘Look over there! We’re going to see a big bull fight!’ We looked, and there were four fine young bulls all in a row walking slowly towards the grandfather and the cow. When they were not very far apart, they all stopped and looked at each other awhile. Then the first young bull began to roll and tear the earth up with his horns, throwing the dirt over his back and bellowing. When the old bull saw this, he began doing the same thing, rooting up big chunks of sod and tossing them over his back. His voice was deep like thunder rumbling. Then they stopped and looked at each other a little while with their muzzles near the ground.
“All at once they both charged, and when their skulls came together it was like a gunshot. There was so much dust for a little while after they came together that we could not see what was happening in there. The cow just stood looking, and so did the three other young hulls. Then all at once we saw one of the bulls up in the air. When the dust cleared away, the grandfather was wiping his horns on the grass. Then he walked over to the cow and licked her face, while the young bull was getting up and staggering away with his insides dragging and his hind feet tangled in them.
“In a little while the second young bull began rolling and bellowing and tearing the earth with his horns. The old bull did the same; and when they came together the dust rose in a cloud. They fought so hard that we could hear them panting and grunting. Then the dust thinned in the wind and we saw one rise into the air and the other horn him coming down. Again the grandfather wiped his horns on the grass and went back to lick the cow. The other one was trying to get up, but he would always fall down again, and his belly was all torn open.
“Then the third young bull did as the others had done, and there was a longer fight in the dust and more panting and grunting. It ended the same as before, with the young bull staggering away dragging his insides. But we could see that the old grandfather was bleeding hard and wobbling. This time he just stood there and did not go back to the cow. High Horse and I were sorry, because we were on his side; and we wanted One Horn to shoot the last young bull with his gun. But he just laughed at us.
“Right away the fourth young bull rolled and tossed earth and bellowed, and the two came together with a loud sound. High Horse and I yelled, ‘hi-yay, hi-yay,’ cheering the old one; but One Horn told us to stop; and, anyway, maybe the young one would think we were cheering him. This last fight was the longest of all. We could see big bodies getting tossed in the dust, and the panting and grunting were louder than ever. Afterwhile the cloud cleared away. The young one was trying to get up, but, the way it looked, one of his shoulders was ripped nearly off and he was open underneath. The old one was still on his legs, bleeding hard from his nose and his belly, and we could see it was hard for him to steady himself. Then he staggered back to the cow without trying to wipe off his horns first. He just stood there trying to steady himself and bleeding hard.
“And what do you think the cow did? She went over to the last young bull that was trying to get up, and nudged him and pushed him, trying to help. She was right under us, and One Horn shot her with the gun he got at Red Cloud’s agency.
“When we went down there, the five bulls were dead, and they were all so torn up and full of holes that we could not use their hides for boats. Also, the old men said we should not eat any of their meat, because they had murdered each other. But the young cow was fat and tender; and when we had killed and skinned enough bison for the boats, we had a big feast.”