Man on Two Ponies (32 page)

When the young warriors began milling about again, Big Foot asked to be raised so he could calm them, but his voice was too
weak for them to hear. To prevent the warriors from wandering back
and forth to the Indian camp and frightening the women, Forsyth had troops line up behind them. Then he
had
interpreter Philip Wells instruct Big Foot to order his men to hand over their weapons.

“They have no guns,” Big Foot replied. “The soldiers at Cheyenne River seized
all
of them.”

“You tell Big Foot,” Whitside ordered Wells, “thatyesterday, when they surrendered, they were well armed. I know he's deceiving us.”

“They have no guns,” Big Foot insisted. “I gathered up
all
my guns at the agency and gave them to the soldiers. They burned them.”

Whitside and Crawford conferred again. “We'll have to send details to search their camp,” Whitside said. Forsyth sent two officers and fifteen men to begin searching the tipis at the east end of the camp and others to start at the west end. To avoid frightening the women unnecessarily, only the officers entered the tipis, while the soldiers searched the wagons. Shangreau accompanied one group and Little Bat went with the other. As they began the search under Whitside's supervision, he ordered the troops in the square to move a few paces closer to the Indians, which made them even more apprehensive.

It
was a difficult search, for the women had skillfully concealed the guns; some were sitting on them and had to be lifted to one side. Gradually, however, the officers and men built up a pile of guns, hatchets, and knives—anything that could serve as a weapon. When they saw the guns carried away, the women wailed.

While the slow search went on, the Miniconju men became even more agitated, and the troops were as nervous as the Indians. Yellow Bird was still dancing and chanting in front of the warriors, but he finally stopped and began shrilly haranguing them. “Don't be afraid,” he said. “Let your hearts be strong
to
face what is before you. There are many soldiers around you and they have lots of bullets, but I have been assured their bullets can't penetrate your shirts.”

“Hau!” the warriors responded. Although the air was chilly Billy wiped sweat from his face, for he knew the Ghost Shirts couldn't stop bullets. Porcupine had proved that.

Yellow Bird began dancing and muttering again and blowing on his eagle-bone whistle as Whitside returned from the Indian camp. “Major, that man is making mischief,” Wells warned him, nodding at Yellow Bird.

“Tell the colonel,” Whitside replied.

Through Wells, Forsyth ordered Yellow Bird to sit down and remain quiet. “He'll sit down when he gets around the circle,” Homed Cloud told Wells. Yellow Bird completed the circle and took his place among the squatting warriors. Billy glanced at his thin face and shuddered. Yellow Bird's eyes blazed with hatred, and he looked eager to fight.

After an hour the search details returned with 38 rifles, but only a few of them were good Winchesters. Billy knew that one of them was his, for he hadn't hidden it. Whitside grimly shook his head. They still had many rifles. There was only one place they could be—under their blankets. He looked over the sullen warriors, wondering how they could conceal rifles even while squatting. Searching them would be a ticklish business, for they would bitterly resent it. But would they resent it enough to fight against such overwhelming odds? He shrugged and looked at Forsyth. “They've got them under their blankets, colonel,” he said. “It means we've got to search every last one of them, and if anything can touch off a fight, that's it.” Forsyth nodded and gazed at the Mini con jus with piercing eyes, his bushy eyebrows twitching. “My orders are to disarm them,” he said in a flat voice. “I think we should wait
till
they're at Pine Ridge and let the Oglala friendlies disarm them, but we can't do that.” He nodded to Wells.

“Tell them I don't want to subject every man to a personal search,” he said, “but they must submit to inspection. Tell them to come forward like men and remove their blankets, then throw their guns on the ground.” Wells translated the order.

“Hau! the older warriors responded. Twenty of them arose and walked toward Whitside and Forsyth, who stood in front of Big Foot's tent. While the young men remained sullenly in place, the others removed their blankets in front of the two officers. Not one of them had a gun. To Billy, the young men looked like cougars tensed to spring, their eyes on the soldiers.

At that moment Yellow Bird arose and stretched his arms west-
ward toward the Messiah, begging him to make the Ghost Shirts
strong. Then he began haranguing them again, urging them not
to give up their guns. “Your Ghost Shirts will protect you,” he reminded them. “Bullets can't harm you.” Billy trembled, for it was clear they believed him. Hearing this the scouts shouted to the young men not to make a false move and to give up their weapons.

Whitside and Capt. Charles Varnum stood facing each other a yard apart and motioned for the young men to pass between them. From the first three they removed two rifles and emptied their cartridge belts. Yellow Bird continued haranguing the young warriors, his voice shriller than before, the young men even more agitated. “Look out!” he said. “Something bad is about to happen. I have lived long enough. It's a good day to die!” That was, Billy knew, what men said when going into battle. Wells urged Homed Cloud to silence Yellow Bird and reassure the young men they were in no danger, but the medicine man ignored him.

The rising tension, like the electric air around a lightning bolt, seemed to envelop white and Indian alike. When many of the Indians began singing their death chants, the frightened Oglala scouts drew back, for they knew what was coming.

Lt. Charles Mann glanced over the crowd. “I had a peculiar feeling come over me,” he recalled later, “a presentiment of trouble.” Billy heard him quietly warn his troopers. “Be ready,” he said, “there's going to be trouble.” He ordered them to fall back fifteen paces.

A Miniconju named Black Coyote, “a crazy man, a young man of very bad influence, in fact a nobody,” in the words of scout Turning Hawk, took his new Winchester from under his blanket and waved it over his head. “This gun is mine!” he shouted. “It cost me much money! No one takes it without paying me for it!” Two troopers walked up behind him and grabbed him. As he brought his rifle down it fired in the air.

At that moment Yellow Bird snatched up a handful of dirt and threw it in the air, then blew on his eagle-bone whistle—the old-time signal for battle. Six young men on one end of the line leaped to their feet, threw off their blankets, and leveled their rifles at the troops facing them. Lt. W. W. Robinson, who was between
the two lines, spurred his horse out of the way. “Look out, men!” he shouted. “They're going
to
shoot!”

Capt. Varnum spun and saw the men with rifles
at
their shoulders. “My God! They've broken!” he exclaimed. It seemed,
Lt.
Mann remembered, that the warriors appeared to hesitate for an endless moment. “I thought, the pity of it! What can they be thinking?” Revolver in hand, he moved to the front of Troop K as the Indians
fired
a volley and the square exploded into gunfire. “Fire! Fire!” he shouted.

B and K troops fired at the same time as the Indians. The warriors fired their repeating rifles as rapidly as they could work the levers and pull the triggers, while the soldiers replied as fast as they could reload their single-shot carbines. In seconds a cloud of smoke and dust obscured both sides; the firing was so constant it sounded as to some men like the tearing of heavy canvas.

Some of the troops were between the Indians and their camp, and when the warriors missed their targets their bullets sped toward the women and children, who screamed and ran. When some of the warriors ran among the tipis and continued shooting, the Hotchkiss guns, which were aimed at the Indian camp, opened
fire.
Exploding shells burst among the tipis, setting some on
fire
and striking down the terrified women and children.

At the first sound of gunfire, Big Foot pulled himself into a sitting position, then fell back against Horned Cloud with a bullet hole in his forehead. His daughter screamed and ran toward him, only to fall across his body with a bullet in her back.

The shrieking women and children fled in
all
directions, many of them up the ravine to the west. The hand to hand fighting between Indians and soldiers was over in little more than a minute as the surviving warriors broke through line of troops between them and the ravine, clubbing soldiers with their rifles as they tried to reload their carbines. Terrified, and deafened by the roar of gun
fire,
Billy raced after the warriors to the mouth of the ravine. When a warrior fell in front of him, Billy snatched up the Winchester he dropped. He was shaking so he feared his legs would fail him.

Suddenly Billy realized he was running alongside Pawnee Killer. They dashed up the ravine and around a bend, where they were shielded from the sight of the pursuing troops. Billy gasped. Blood
was spreading rapidly down the side of Pawnee Killer's white Ghost Shirt. His father slowed down, then stopped. “Save yourself, my son. I can go no farther. I'll hold them off as long as I can.”

Billy whirled and ran a few steps up the ravine, then stopped, his thoughts racing.
He called me his son. That's
what
I've waited for. I'm no longer a man on two ponies.
He turned back and knelt by his father, filling the rifle chamber with cartridges from his pouch. “You told me once it is better to die young fighting your enemies than to grow old and weak,” he said. “Like Yellow Bird said, it's a good day to die.” He cocked his rifle. The shouts of the soldiers came closer.

Pawnee Killer weakly turned his head and looked at Billy. “You're a real Brulé, my son,” he said.

“If
he fights, destroy
him,”
General Brooke had ordered Forsyth when he marched to Wounded Knee to help disarm Big Foot's band. The Soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry, shocked into a blind
fury
by seeing their comrades fall in what they considered a treacherous attack, did their best to carry out Brooke's command. Once the battle had started, they shot at any Indian that moved. The officers shouted again and again at the pursuing troops not to kill the women, but when men and women were together and the warriors continued firing at them, the soldiers returned the fire
indiscriminately. Bodies
of slain women and children were found
three miles away.

Near the smoke-shrouded square, Yellow Bird darted into the Oglala scouts' tent and cut a slit in it. He had shot several soldiers before others spotted his smoking rifle barrel. “I'll get the son-ofa-bitch!” a private of Troop K shouted as he ran toward the tent with knife in hand.

“Don't! Come back!” Lt. Mann bellowed, but the private cut a slash in the tent, only to catch Yellow Bird's bullet.

“My God! He's shot me! I'm killed! I'm killed!” he exclaimed, staggering a few paces toward Lt. Mann before falling. His infuriated comrades riddled the tent with bullets and set it on fire.
As the tent burned to the ground they saw the charred corpse of Yellow Bird still clutching his rifle, his scorched face contorted with undying hate.

The firing into and out of the ravine finally stopped, and Wells
called to the Indians: “All of you still alive come over here; you won't
be
shot at any more.” A wounded old man farther up the ravine painfully
raised
himself as a mounted unit that was sweeping the ravine from the upper end appeared. Seeing the old man move, the troopers riddled him with bullets.

Forsyth, who was trying desperately to stop the killing, screamed “For God's sake stop shooting them!” One by one the wounded Indians crawled out and were carried off to the hospital area.

Wells went next to the square, where at least fifty men lay dead or wounded, and called for those still alive to raise their heads. A dozen responded. One of them, a warrior named Frog, pointed to the body of Yellow Bird. “Who is that man?” he asked. Wells told him. Frog pointed his closed fist at the grisly corpse and shot his fingers out toward it. This was the Teton's deadliest insult, meaning I could kill you and still
be
dissatisfied because I could do no more to you.
“If
I could be taken to you, I'd stab you,” he growled, then turned to Wells. “He is our murderer,” he said. “But for him inciting the young men we'd all be alive.”

At Pine Ridge that morning the keen ears of the Indians heard the dull booming of the Hotchkiss guns fifteen miles to the east and, knowing that Big Foot's people were under attack, went wild with rage. Two Strike's warriors were aroused to action; 150 of them hastily painted their faces, mounted their ponies, and raced toward the sound of the guns. They met two cavalry troops that had gathered some Miniconju women and children and drove them off, killing one trooper. The Brulés took the women and children and rode away.