Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 03 (28 page)

Slim Buttes, Dakota Territory
1876

T
HE BATTLE AT THE LITTLE BIGHORN
was the high point of Lakota resistance, but few of the chiefs seemed to realize it. In the immediate aftermath of the defeat of Custer, the huge Lakota/Cheyenne village fragmented as the chiefs took their bands off for the summer buffalo hunt. Dozens of bands of varying sizes crisscrossed the northern plains, their sporadic contact with one another used to exchange information about the movement of the army units in the territory. Three Stars Crook was on the march again, and Terry was still eager to run down and subdue both Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

For Sitting Bull, the months of July and August were an anxious time. He knew that the destruction of Custer’s entire command would only make the Long Knives more determined than ever to find him and, if they could, destroy him. Despite his
understanding that the Lakota had to continue to fight to defend their land and their way of life, he had more immediate concerns, foremost among them being food and other supplies for the coming winter.

He continued to maintain that he had no interest in waging war against the whites if they would just go away and leave his people alone. But deep down inside, he knew that was not about to happen. And if he had to fight, he would fight; not because he wanted to, but because the Long Knives gave him no choice.

Everything was colored by the events of June 25. The strain on his nerves was tremendous and unrelenting. Every time a scout broke over a ridge and headed for the camp, it might mean the Long Knives were coming. While trying to lead a normal life, the members of Sitting Bull’s band had to be prepared for war at a moment’s notice. There was no doubt in the chiefs mind that the Little Bighorn battle had been a great victory for the Indians of the northern plains, but there could be no doubt, either, that the army would not rest until it had avenged Custer and his men.

As the weeks went by, news of Crook’s column—sketchy, vague, and far from complete—drifted in, often days or weeks old. But short of direct contact with that column, or General Terry’s forces, it was all the news he was likely to get. And it was better to have no news at all than to have the Long Knives come thundering down on his camp yet again.

Despite the fact that he was the foremost Hunkpapa chief, and the most influential nontreaty
Lakota chief, his command of the widely scattered bands was tenuous, based more on his reputation than on any direct contact or control. The Lakota simply lacked the kind of centralized government Crook and Terry had behind them. Channels of communication did not exist. The democracy of the Lakota was in many significant ways their biggest handicap, and Sitting Bull knew it.

As usual, when he needed a sounding board he turned to his uncle, Four Horns. In early September, having received yet another vague report of army movement on the plains, he went to his uncle’s lodge.

Sitting across the fire pit from Four Horns, he rubbed his hands together and sighed. Four Horns watched him closely, waiting patiently for his nephew to say what was on his mind; although he thought he could guess what he was thinking, because he had been there when the Oglala hunting party had passed on its information. The wait was taking a toll on Sitting Bull, and he seldom smiled now … and almost never thought of anything but the war.

“I don’t understand,” Sitting Bull began, “why the white men will not leave us alone to live as we want to live. Whenever I have had the chance to tell them, I have told them: go away and leave us alone and then we will be friends instead of enemies. But they have no ears.”

Four Horns smiled sadly. “They have ears, nephew, but not for you. They want the land, and they will not rest until they have it.”

Sitting Bull nodded. “Always they have some
new excuse. They say to Red Cloud, ‘We will take this much land and leave you the rest. In exchange, we will give you this and that.’ Then the next winter or the winter after that, they come back and Red Cloud says, ‘Where are those things you gave us in exchange for the land?’ And they say, ‘Those things are coming. But we want more land now, and we will give you this and that for it.’ Always, Red Cloud agrees, because he doesn’t know how to refuse them any more.”

“Red Cloud has made a bad bargain,” Four Horns agreed. “He meant well, but he let the white man take advantage of him, and it is the people who suffer.”

“I have never agreed to give them any land, and still they say that they have bought it out from under me, and that I must leave the land even though it still is mine. All I want is for the people to hunt the buffalo, to feed themselves and live as they have always lived. This does not seem to be so much to ask.”

“I saw Running Antelope,” Four Horns said, “and I asked him why he was out hunting if life on the reservation was so good. And he said that he just wanted to do what he had always done. But I know he was not telling the truth. I talked to people in his camp, and they told me that there is no food on the reservations. Always there is some excuse, but though the white man does not seem to know it, not even an Indian can eat excuses.”

“I have heard how they bought the Black Hills,” Sitting Bull said. “Men came from the Great Father and said that they would pay so much for them,
and even Red Cloud said no, that was not enough. The Black Hills are sacred land, he told them. And they said this is all the Great Father wants to pay. If you don’t accept it, the Great Father will take the Black Hills anyway, and you will have nothing for them. That is a strange way to buy something.”

“It is a sad thing that has happened to Red Cloud,” Four Horns sighed. “He was a great warrior when he was young. And when the Long Knives went into the Powder River country, nobody except Crazy Horse fought them harder or better. But they have covered his eyes and spun him around and now he walks like a dizzy man, stumbling from place to place, not knowing which way to go. He listens to them and like a fool he believes what they tell him.”

Sitting Bull reached into the fire and grabbed a stick to poke at the coals. “He never should have listened to them the first time. That was his mistake. He believed them once, and then he could not stop believing them, even though his eyes saw the rotten food they gave him and his ears were filled with the cries of hungry children and the wailing of the old people who died like flies.”

“But it is hard to know what else to do. As long as we stay off the reservation, the Long Knives will come after us. That is no way to live,” Four Horns said.

Sitting Bull replied, “I have been thinking that we should leave this place, go to the Grandmother Country. The redcoats there will leave us in peace, as they do the Blackfeet.”

Four Horns did not look happy. “It would be a
hard thing to leave our land. And if we go to the Grandmother Country, we might not ever be able to come back.”

“What is better—to go there and live as we have always lived, or stay here and be hunted like wolves for as long as we live? The Long Knives will never leave us in peace, and there are so many of them. You have heard the stories, just as I have, of the war between the bluecoat Long Knives and the graycoat Long Knives. There were more soldiers than there are buffalo, and they died in numbers too large to count. In one day, I have heard, more soldiers died than there are Lakota now living. For men who are so comfortable with death, what are the lives of a few Indians?”

“It is something we will have to think about, Sitting Bull. It is not a decision that will be easy to make,” cautioned Four Horns.

“But it must be made … and soon. Already we know that the Long Knives are crawling over the plains like the white worms that eat a buffalo carcass.”

Sitting Bull poked at the fire again, then sat and watched the sparks rise up toward the smoke hole. He was about to continue speaking when a shout distracted him. He turned toward the lodge entrance and listened. He heard the shout once more, and got up quickly to go outside, Four Horns right behind him.

He saw Eats-the-Bear, an Oglala he knew from Iron Shield’s band, hanging off his pony and bleeding from a wound in his shoulder. Warriors swarmed around him and Sitting Bull pushed
through the crowd to help the man from his horse.

With Four Horns helping him, he carried the wounded man into his uncle’s lodge. He turned to a woman who was peering through the entrance and said, “Go to my lodge and ask Four Robes for my medicine bags. Then bring some soup.”

As soon as the woman had gone, Sitting Bull turned his attention to the warrior. “What happened, my friend?” he asked.

“Three Stars,” the warrior gasped. “He is attacking Iron Shield’s camp. There are hundreds of Long Knives, and they are shooting everyone.”

“Where?”

“Slim Buttes,” the Oglala replied.

To his uncle, Sitting Bull said, “See to him.”

“Where are you going?”

“To help Iron Shield.”

“But that is a long ride. You will not get there in time,” Four Horns warned.

“If I don’t help, who will?”

Four Horns nodded. “Then go,” he said.

Sitting Bull sent runners through the camp to summon the warriors, then ran to his lodge to get his weapons. Within a half hour, they were ready to ride, more than a thousand warriors strong. But Slim Buttes was a long way off. They rode hard, passing more refugees along the way. The first reports were heartening. One old man estimated that there were only two hundred Long Knives and said that most of the people had managed to get away, but that the Long Knives had captured the camp and were burning the lodges.

It was well into the afternoon by the time Sitting Bull’s war party reached Slim Buttes; in the meantime, the rest of General Crook’s column had arrived, and Sitting Bull’s forces were outnumbered almost two to one. And once again, the firepower of the soldiers was more than a match for Lakota determination.

Sitting Bull and his warriors swarmed over the buttes, taking the high ground and trying to force the soldiers to relinquish what was left of Iron Shield’s camp. But it was no use. The two sides squared off in long lines and exchanged fire for much of the afternoon, but to little effect. The damage to Iron Shield’s small village had already been done, and all Sitting Bull could hope to do was provide cover for the escaping fugitives.

Some of Iron Shield’s men were holed up in a makeshift cave with their chief. The soldiers knew they were there and fired relentlessly into the cave. Crook, impressed by the courage of the warriors, offered them a chance to surrender, but Iron Shield would not surrender.

Crook’s forces resumed firing, and the warriors, supported by Sitting Bull and his men on the bluffs, did their best to return fire. But their supplies of ammunition were all but exhausted, and Crook seemed to have no end of bullets for his guns.

Crook again called a cease-fire, and this time Iron Shield agreed to surrender if Crook would promise to spare his warriors. The general, moved by the chief’s courage and concern for his men, gave his word, and the small band of warriors
staggered out of their cave. Iron Shield himself had been gut-shot and was mortally wounded, but he refused help and walked on his own to surrender his weapon to Three Stars.

Sitting Bull, outnumbered and outgunned, was powerless to intervene. As the sun set, both sides dug in for the night. Crook’s men were exhausted. They had been on a forced march for nearly two weeks, subsisting on the meat of their own horses and mules because rations had been so depleted. And they were angry both at Iron Shield and his warriors, and at Crook himself for having given his pledge to let them live.

A search of the captured camp had revealed the presence of articles belonging to Custer’s cavalrymen, including a glove marked with the name Myles Keogh, a captain in Custer’s command. In addition, several of the Lakota horses wore the 7th Cavalry brand on their flanks. In the days since Little Bighorn, a kind of frenzy had swept the country. The powers that be in Washington were determined to snuff out Sioux resistance, no matter what the cost. Crook’s men felt they had had a chance to exact a little personal revenge and resented their commander’s interference, but Crook would not yield.

When the sun came up, Sitting Bull once more rallied his warriors, but there was nothing left to be done. All he could do was watch as Crook’s column reformed and started its march, bearing with it dozens of captives from Iron Shield’s village. Iron Shield himself had died during the night. Sitting Bull and his warriors shouted
encouragement to the captives, and he led an abortive charge that cut off several soldiers and a handful of captives—only to learn that the captives were going along willingly. They had had enough of war.

As the column moved out of sight, Sitting Bull oversaw the burial of the dead. Every body was like a knife through his heart. There were old men, women, children—even a newborn baby dead in its mother’s arms, shot through the head. The mother, too, had been shot to death. These were the bodies of people he knew, the children of friends, the parents of men who had ridden beside him, and between his grief and his rage, he felt as if his heart were breaking.

And as the great chief climbed back onto his horse and headed home, he kept looking northward, as if his gaze were drawn by some irresistible force. He was going to the Grandmother Country. He knew that now. Because there was no place else to go …

Saskatchewan
1880

L
IFE IN THE GRANDMOTHER COUNTRY
was not what Sitting Bull had hoped it would be. He and his people had freedom, of sorts, but it just wasn’t the same. Almost from the first, the people had begun drifting away by the handful, back below the border to turn themselves in at the agency.

It was hardest for the young men, because the old ways, the ways that had allowed them to attain prominence, were gone. No more war parties against the Crows or the Arikara. No more stealing horses from the white settlers, or thundering down out of the mountains on a wagon train or brigade of Long Knives. The buffalo in Canada were fewer, and the hunt was not the same, either. Nothing was the same; nothing was as good as it had been.