Bill Dugan
Crazy Horse
WAR CHIEFS
BILL DUGAN
September 1841
I
T WAS LATE
S
EPTEMBER
. Far ahead, Bear Butte towered over the flatlands, its rude, buff-colored face, flat against the horizon, laced with smoke from hundreds of fires. Crazy Horse was too far away to see the individual tipis, but he knew they were there, thick as needles on a pine limb. The Sioux were gathering, as they did every autumn, to renew friendships, see family, and share news. Both good and bad.
His band was small, just a few families, but it was from such small groups that the great tide of the Lakota people was made. They would be coming from every direction, some with news of warfare with the Crow and the Shoshoni, others with tales of coups counted and battles won, friends lost and horses stolen.
The Sioux had been gathering here as long as anyone, even the oldest warrior, could remember. The winter counts, painstakingly sketched on tanned leather, soft with years of handling, their bright paints already beginning to peel in places, did not go back far enough to show the first time.
Everyone knew that it could not be more than
one hundred years, or maybe two. Not that long ago, the Sioux were a woodland people, making their homes on the banks of Minnesota lakes, pulling their lives from the cold, clear blue waters, hunting deer and elk in the thick forests. But that was before the Chippewa had gotten their guns from the white men. Driven westward by the Iroquois, who had their guns first, the Chippewa had passed on the relentless pressure when they got guns of their own.
But the plains were like home now, as comfortable as if they had always been home. There was not a Sioux still living, man or woman, who could remember a time when they did not have horses and follow the buffalo from early spring to early autumn. Nor was there a Sioux still living who could remember a time before the Black Hills were special, a place so nearly perfect that only Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, could have fashioned it, made it for the Sioux to venerate the way only a people perfectly in tune with the world around them could venerate so perfect a place.
The weather was almost perfect, too. The worst of the summer heat was already past, and the breeze from the northwest swept away the thick dust kicked up by the ponies and the scraping of the travois. It had been a good late summer hunt, and there was plenty of dried meat to see the small band through the winter. If they were lucky, there would be more buffalo before the first snows forced them into permanent winter camp, but there was plenty of time to worry about such things. At the moment, Crazy Horse wanted to think about the coming reunion.
His wife was expecting her first child at any
time, and Crazy Horse knew it would probably be born at the gathering, in the shadow of Bear Butte. He already had a daughter by his first wife, White Deer’s sister, but Laughing Elk Woman was dead two years now. It was still painful, but new life would ease the hurt, only a little, but any relief was welcome. And Bear Butte was a good place to be born, he thought. Not far away, to the south and west, the towering peaks of Paha Sapa, the Black Hills, formed a saw-toothed backdrop for the giant butte. It would be good to visit the Black Hills. The rich valleys and deep woods were full of game. Buffalo and elk seemed to run without number in river valleys. Higher up the slopes, deer and bighorn sheep were plentiful. The water of the Black Hills was the best water he knew, cold and clear and full of fish. Even this late in the year, the hillsides would be covered with a thick carpet of flowers. Staring at the purplish haze of the hills shimmering in the distance, Crazy Horse thought that it was almost as if the Great Spirit had come to him and said, “Tell me what would make the perfect place for you and your people. Tell me, and I will make this place for you, just as you describe it.’ That hadn’t happened, of course, because the Great Spirit had far too many things to do to worry about what one man thought, even if that one man was a dreamer and a holy man as Crazy Horse was.
But it didn’t really matter. Because Crazy Horse, his mind full of fluttering images of those sacred and perfect hills, wouldn’t change a single thing about them. They were what he imagined the great place beyond was like, that place where he would go to hunt when his days on earth were finished. They
were a place where there were no Crows and no Arapahos, no Arikaras and no Pawnee. And most especially, there were no white men there, no men with pale skins and cheap whiskey, like those who had been crossing the Plains for the last few years. Not many, but more every year.
Just the year before, in fact, there had been several long, curling skeins of wooden boxes with canvas shells. Wagon trains, the white men called them, but he preferred to think of them as snakes. They had come in dribs and drabs, driving their skinny cattle, with bones poking through their skins so far a man could count the ribs with his eyes closed, just by using his fingertips. The wheels of their wagons gouged deep troughs in the earth, killed the grass so that it couldn’t grow back. It was a great, ugly scar across the face of the land. The Oregon Trail, the white men called it, had divided the great herds of buffalo, who would not cross it, would not go near it because of the stink and because the white men killed the buffalo stupidly, uselessly, sometimes even just for sport.
The whites left mounds of junk behind. Strange boxes full of metal strings, tall pieces of wood with glass faces, wagons, broken and wheelless, lying on their sides like the skeletons of strange beasts. From time to time, bands of Cheyenne, Sioux, or Pawnees would attack one of the wagon trains, and sometimes they would just ride close, until the white men were so frightened they offered anything and everything, if only the Indians would leave them alone. Coffee, tobacco, sugar; even sometimes guns and bullets were offered.
Crazy Horse had no use for those Sioux who had come to depend on the wagon trains and their white man goods. Some of them knew only how to hang around the white man’s trading post on the Laramie River, living like parasites on handouts, and drinking the white man’s whiskey. They were forgetting the old ways, and that could only mean trouble, one day, if not now.
But he was soon to be a father again, and the white man troubles seemed a small thing on this glorious autumn afternoon. He was close enough now that he could see the tipis, arrayed in a great circle, open to the east and the rising sun. He knew that members of all seven of the great Teton Sioux bands would be there. His own people, the Oglala, his wife’s people, the Brule, the Miniconjou and Sans Arc, the Two Kettles and the Hunkpapas and the Blackfeet. More than likely, there would be a few of their friends, the Northern Cheyenne, too.
As his
tiyospe
, or family band, drew near enough to be seen by those already camped, warriors began to ride out to greet him. They were all members of the
akicitas,
the warrior societies that were like the white man’s police. They were responsible for the safety of the camp, they set the rules for the hunt, and they took their responsibilities seriously. The Kit Foxes and the Badgers and the Crow-Owners were the best men of the various bands. One did not join one of the
akicitas
just because he felt like it. One had to earn his way in. And once a member, he had better toe the mark, or would not last long. It was no disgrace to be turned down for membership, but it was a great disgrace
indeed if, having once earned membership, one were so derelict as to require expulsion.
Once satisfied that Crazy Horse and his band were no threat, the warriors relaxed, bantering with those they knew, teasing the children, and letting their ponies canter along on both sides of the small caravan. Crazy Horse moved away a bit, to ride alongside Two Bows, an Oglala he had known all his life, and ask news of old friends.
It was to be a large gathering, Two Bows told him. Already there were hundreds of lodges. And the hunting had been good. The week before, a large herd of buffalo had been spotted on the eastern edge of the Black Hills. The surround had worked perfectly, and the kill was a large one.
Spotted Tail was there already, and anxiously waiting news of his younger sister and the child she was expecting. Two Bows looked at Crazy Horse expectantly, and when the holy man nodded, he broke into a broad smile. “Soon,” Crazy Horse told him. “Any day.’
“It is a great thing to be born so near the Paha Sapa,” Two Bows said.
“The best.’
“If the child will be a boy, he will be a great warrior.’
“It is a boy,” Crazy Horse said. Once more, his old friend looked quizzically at him. “I have seen. It is true.’
Two Bows knew his friend’s reputation as a dreamer and interpreter of visions. He accepted the simple truth of what Crazy Horse had told him. If the holy man said it, it must be so.
The camp was laid out as always. Crazy Horse
knew where to look for the Brule tipis, and waved farewell to Two Bows. As customary, he would camp with his wife’s people. He would have to wait a while before going to the Oglala lodges to see his own family. There would be much to do in the next few hours. The great circle was already getting crowded, and fitting the tipis of his
tiyospe
into the camp would keep the whole band busy for the rest of the day. Then there would be socializing. It would be necessary to find Spotted Tail among the Brule. He would want to know how his sister was bearing up under the strain of her pregnancy. But that might have to wait until morning, unless Spotted Tail heard of his arrival and came looking for him.
The tipis were assembled quickly, once a suitable place in the great circle was found. The women did much of the work, and they had done it so often that it appeared to be smooth and almost effortless to an observer. The poles were used for the travois, so the goods of the traveling band had to be unpacked before the tipis could be erected. But everyone knew what to do, and in less than two hours, the frames were in place and the skins ready to be fitted.
Nearly twenty feet across at the base and eighteen feet or so high, the tipis were almost perfect in their economy. Light and easily assembled and disassembled, with a fire they were snug enough in winter and the painted buffalo hides that formed the sides could be rolled up to admit a breeze in warm weather.
Soon the fires were going, their smoke curling lazily up through the smoke holes and mingling
with the haze already hanging above the camp, draped like a gauzy curtain below the top of Bear Butte. Even White Deer did her share, refusing to let her stomach get in the way. The Sioux pulled their own weight, and pregnancy was no reason to be excused from the rigors of establishing camp.
It was near sunset when White Deer felt the first stirrings. She called to Black Calf Woman as she rushed past the latter’s tipi, her hands clutched against her belly. Together, the two women moved away from the camp, heading for the bank of a small stream that fed into the Belle Fourche River a few miles away. The brush along the stream bank was still green and the grass was thick, almost lush, right down to the edge of the water.
Crazy Horse, having no role in the birth, paced back and forth outside his lodge. He heard the excited buzz among the women as they made ready for the new arrival, crushing berries to fill a buffalo bladder with their juices. This would be the baby’s first meal. According to custom, it would be a day or so before the mother’s milk would be pure enough.
White Deer felt the pangs deep inside her. The baby would be her first, and everything was new, not just the pain, but the terror of the unknown. She felt as if she would tear in half before the baby was delivered. But with a rush, things sped to their conclusion and soon she was holding her child. As Crazy Horse had foretold, it was a boy. The first thing she noticed was that he had a full head of hair, not just any hair, either, but fine hair of a light brown unlike any she had ever seen on a Sioux. His skin, too, was light. Not like the whites who
traveled the Holy Road, but lighter than any Sioux or Cheyenne or Pawnee.
The baby started to cry. Her instincts, so finely honed by her life on the Plains, were automatic. She pinched the baby’s nose between thumb and forefinger to stop the crying. Despite the size of the camp, there could be Pawnee or Assiniboin about, just waiting for the chance to steal a few horses. Or a Sioux woman and her baby.
There would be time enough for the newborn to learn about such things. He would be a warrior, and if things went on as always, his life would be nothing but such things. While he was young, she would keep him to herself, try to keep him from harm. The world was harsh and unforgiving, their enemies even more so. There would come a time when she would watch him don the war paint and gather his lance and bow to ride out into the plains. And she would sit and do beadwork, her mind always on him, her heart almost still, a clenched fist in her chest, wondering if this time would be the time he would not come back.
But that time was not yet come.
