Forever Ecstasy (66 page)

Hard feelings smoldered until a minor incident fanned the embers into a roaring blaze. In 1854, a Lakota brave was accused of stealing and slaughtering a pioneer’s cow. A scornful, militant lieutenant named John Grattan rode into the Brule camp. Gratten became infuriated by what he considered hostile behavior, opened fire, and killed Chief Brave Bear. The outraged warriors attacked and slew the entire unit. General William Harney—“By God, I’m for battle, no peace”—was ordered to retaliate. Among other reprisals, he led the infamous Ash Hollow Massacre and earned the name “The Butcher” for his bloody tactics.

Oglala Chief Red Cloud could not bear the sufferings and abuses any longer. He later said, “The white men have crowded the Indians back year by year… and now our last hunting grounds…‘are’ to be taken from us. Our women and children will starve…. I prefer to die fighting than by starvation.” At Horse Creek in 1851, “The Great Father made a treaty with us… We kept our word… but only once did [the promised goods] reach us, and soon the Great Father took away the only good man he had sent to us, Colonel [sic] Fitzpatrick…. When I reach [sic] Washington, the Great Father…showed me that the interpreters had deceived me…. All I want is right and justice. I represent the whole Sioux nation, and they will be
bound by what I say…. We do not want riches, we want peace and love.”

During years of conflicts and impending warfare, Tom Fitzpatrick urged the government to correct its mistakes of treatment and broken promises. His pleas and warnings were ignored and aggressive actions were taken against the Indians with whom they had signed a treaty.

It was the opening of the Bozeman Trail in ’62 and the building of four forts between 1865 and 1867 to guard it that took their best hunting grounds, increased their miseries and fears, and provoked between 1866 and 1868 “Red Cloud’s War.” Until Crazy Horse, Red Cloud was the most feared and skilled Lakota chief. His daring and costly exploits eventually led to the Army abandoning the forts along the 967-mile trail and to new negotiations.

The second peace conference in 1868 concluded with the Laramie Treaty, which formed a “permanent” Dakota reservation. That parley ended the warpath of Red Cloud, who believed the United States government was being honest with him. He accepted that there would be no more encroachment of their lands that the whites would honor their new promises. It was the breaking of the second, better known, treaty that led to the series of events and clashes that finally allowed the invasion of the sacred Black Hills for gold, provoked the massacre of Custer and his men at the Little Big Horn, and caused the near destruction of the Dakotas and many of their allies.

In this novel, the Oglala rituals, societies, laws, and customs are factual to the best of the knowledge gleaned from thirteen years of research during the writing of the series. However, the Red Heart banishment law for interracial marriage is part fact and part fiction. I did not find authentication of such an actual law, but it
was
forbidden and scorned to intermarry, which was thought to weaken the Indian bloodline. The Oglala language—dialogue and sign— is genuine. Some words in past books, however, were translated incorrectly for the Lakota tongue due to dialect
and spelling differences, but are correct for the Dakota. All forts, except Tabor, and all trading posts and fur companies, except for Orin McMichael’s, are historically accurate. Throughout the series, all treaties used are authentic, except for the 1782 and 1820 ones used in previous sagas.

The mentions of Colonel Leavenworth, Francis Parkman, George Catlin, Asa Whitney, and the Topographical Bureau Survey are accurate. Events leading to the Indian/white conflicts portrayed in this book are true, as are the trails, states, and Indian chiefs mentioned. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall, Red Cloud, Inkpaduta, Jumping Buffalo/Spotted Tail, Tashunkopipape (Man Afraid of His Horses), Little Thunder, Wacouta (The Shooter), Wamdesapa, and Tecumseh were real men.

The lives and fates of the most legendary chiefs were similar to one another. The great Sitting Bull, Tatanka Yotanka, battled at the Little Big Horn, was later arrested, confined to a reservation, resigned himself to his fate, but was slain there in 1890. Crazy Horse, Tashunka Witco, also battled Custer, warred many more years, surrendered in spring of 1877, lived on a reservation, but was slain there in autumn of the same year. Heirs of sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski continue working on a monument at Custer on Thunderhead Mountain to honor the legendary spirit of the Lakotas, whom he represents as an heroic leader who always rode before his bands.

Gall, Pizi, battled Custer, later surrendered and lived on a reservation, where he worked for peace, and died at home in 1896. Besides the mentions in the story and earlier in this section, ultimately Red Cloud, Mahpiya Luta, settled on a reservation, where he resigned himself to his fate. He had an agency named after him, and lived there until his death in 1909. The American government built a home for Spotted Tail, Sinte Geleska, his wives and children but he left it to return to life in a tepee. He was honored and respected by white leaders, had an agency named after him in 1873, but was murdered by a jealous rival in 1881. Today, there is a college named after him: Sinte Geleska in Rosebud. Tashunkopipape (incorrectly translated through history
and should be “Man Of Whose Horses We Are Afraid”) worked for peace until his death. Little Thunder, following the Ash Hollow massacre by General Harney, settled on a reservation, where he died in 1879. Inkpaduta fought at the Little Big Horn, then fled across the Canadian border; he never made peace with the whites or returned, and died there in 1882.

Some of the most enlightening and poignant speeches and letters in history were written by Lakota chiefs Sitting Bull and Red Cloud. Also, the Oglala chief and prophet Black Elk, cousin to Crazy Horse, is noted for his physical, mental, and literary prowess.

The Crow chiefs, warriors, and their roles in this story are fictional. My novel is about a Lakota maiden, her band, and their hereditary enemies, as told from an Oglala point of view. I read many non-fiction, including Indian, sources to understand the emotions and motivations of these two nations, who warred for many generations. I do not want to mislead or offend with the products of my imagination. It is my wish that the good traits in Two-Bulls counterbalance the evil ones in Black Moon. In all Indian nations there have been bands and warriors who resemble my characterizations. It was necessary to my fictional plot to use the Oglalas’ strongest enemy and the Crow’s weakest facet.

Historically, between these two nations existed “a rancorous hatred, transmitted from father to son, and inflamed by constant aggression and retaliation,” wrote Francis Parkman in 1846. Sitting Bull’s limp resulted from a Crow bullet. The Crow accepted and sided with whites during the Indian wars between 1850 and 1870. This was an action the Dakotas themselves could not do or understand any Indian perpetrating against his Red brothers, foe or not. In 1876, the Crow aided General Crook in tracking and battling the forces of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse; the whites would have lost the Battle of the Rosebud if not for Crow prowess, courage, and tenacity. In 1877, Crow aided Colonel Sturgis in tracking and defeating the famous Chief Joseph and his Nez Perces at Canyon Creek. Custer used Crow
scouts and allies.

It is implied that the Crow recognized and feared the power and intelligence of the white man, particularly the soldiers and their weapons, and that was why they allied themselves with whites against Indians. Crow served as scouts, guides, hunters, and couriers, some of the best skilled history has recorded. Crow saw the alliance as a path to retaliation, safe raids, and vengeance against their hereditary foes. Added to the traditional warfare and enmity between the two Red nations, the Lakotas and their allies disdained and hated Crow even more for such traitorous treachery.

I based Orin McMichael’s and Black Moon’s motivations on those of real men such as Absaroke chiefs Plenty Coops and Old Crow, and soldiers such as General Crook, Colonel Gibbon, Custer, and others. Many officers took advantage of the generational animosities as Gibbon did: “I have come down here to make war on the Sioux. The Sioux are your enemy and ours. For a long time they have been killing white men and killing Crow. I am going down to punish them. If the Crow want to make war upon the Sioux… [and] get revenge for Crows… now is their time.” The Absaroke believed that “these are our lands, but the Sioux stole them from us…. the Sioux… heart is black. But the heart of the pale face… is red to the Crow…. Where the white warrior goes there shall we be also.”

The historical quotations and facts featured in this story were found in too many sources to list for credit and are facts of public record. However, six nonfiction books helpful in clarifying people and events. I list for acknowledgment:
Forts Of The West,
by Robert Frazer, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965;
They Led A Nation,
by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, Brevet Press, 1975;
The Indian Wars,
by Robert Utley and Wilcomb Washburn, Bonanza Books, 1977;
Story of the Great American West,
edited by Edward Barnard, Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., 1977;
Let Me Be A Free Man,
compiled and edited by Jane Katz, Lerner
Publications, 1975; and
South Dakota, Land of Shining Gold,
by Francie Berg, Flying Diamond Books, 1982, for information on the 1841 Pre-Emption Law. Thank you all—authors and publishers—for historical data and for written permission to use your research to enlighten and entertain readers. One last book I found useful is
Everyday Lakota,
collected and edited by Joseph Karol, in 1971 by the Rosebud Educational Society. It filled in translations missing due to the death of my Dakota friend and interpreter, Hiram Owen.

In South Dakota, there are two locations called Slim Buttes; I used the one near Reva, where the 1876 battle between General Crook and Lakotas took place. For reader recognition, I took the liberty of using the name Crazy Horse before this great legend received it in his vision-quest.

Many people in South Dakota were helpful with my extensive research and my attempts to be accurate, but the list in the beginning of the book acknowledges those who went to extra effort and cost to send me material and pictures. I want to thank each of you generous people again. Lawrence Blazek, aged seventy-five,
hand-
wrote me numerous pages of facts. He even entertained me with humorous tales of his boyhood days in Marcus.

To readers who enjoyed and supported this series over the years, thank you. Your letters, recommendations to friends, and kindnesses during tours and research trips have touched me deeply. In particular, I express my gratitude to: Eileen Wilson, who gifted me with ceramic busts she made of Gray Eagle and Alisha; Laverne Heiter, who made a beautiful and authentic white buckskin garment for me and had it beaded by One Sun with the symbols of Gray Eagle, Bright Arrow, and Sun Cloud. She also gifted me with a Lakota Medicine Wheel hair ornament (the female equivalent of the warrior’s coup feather); Christy Johnson, who presented me with a Cheyenne Red-Tailed Hawk coup
feather on a beaded rosette; and Debbie Keffer, for the many pieces of Indian beadwork she has made and given to me over the years. I want to thank bookstore managers and their staffs for keeping the series available for their customers, and thank distributors and their employees for their support and hard work over the years by keeping the series in stock and by promoting it to stores. No author is more grateful and moved by reader and bookseller loyalties than I am.

Your satisfaction and appreciation make my work meaningful and worthwhile. I tried to the best of my abilities to give you a story, a series, and characters you will never forget and will love as much as I do. Of the twenty-three novels I’ve written, this series brought me special friends among Indians and whites and has been emotionally rewarding. To tell me you have learned about history and the two cultures involved thrills me. To tell me it inspires you to learn more about them warms my heart.

Until our next visit on the pages of my new book, keep reading, and learning, and loving!

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