In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marshall, Joseph, 1945–

In the footsteps of Crazy Horse / Joseph Marshall ; illustrated by Jim Yellowhawk.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4197-0785-8 (hardback)
[1. Self-confidence—Fiction. 2. Crazy Horse, approximately 1842–1877—Fiction. 3. Lakota Indians—Fiction. 4. Indians of North America—Great Plains—Fiction. 5. Grandfathers—Fiction. 6. Great Plains—Fiction. 7. Great Plains—History—19th century—Fiction.] I. Yellowhawk, Jim, 1958– illustrator. II. Title.

PZ.1.M35543In 2015

[Fic]—dc23
2015002042

Text copyright © 2015 Joseph Marshall III
Jacket illustration, text illustrations, and map copyright © 2015 Jim Yellowhawk
Book design by Jessie Gang

Published in 2015 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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IN LOVING MEMORY OF

Connie West Marshall

1949–2013

—
J.M. III

Contents

Map

C
HAPTER
1

Rosebud Sioux
Indian Reservation

C
HAPTER
2

Bear Butte

C
HAPTER
3

The Oregon Trail

C
HAPTER
4

The Bozeman Trail

C
HAPTER
5

The Tongue River Valley

C
HAPTER
6

Little Bighorn Battlefield
National Monument

C
HAPTER
7

Fort Robinson

C
HAPTER
8

The Way It Was

Author's Note

Glossary

Bibliography

1

Rosebud Sioux
Indian Reservation

JIMMY McCLEAN WALKED AMONG THE BUFFALO BERRY
thickets along the Smoking Earth River. It was a warm afternoon in late May. School was done for the week, and almost for the year. Jimmy was glad of that. He was tired of being teased for having blue eyes.

The river cut through the valley below the town of Cold River. Cold River was on the northern edge of the Rosebud
Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Jimmy lived with his parents in a modular house on the east side. That was okay. But it was not okay that he lived two blocks from Cold River Public School. He hated school. Corky Brin and Jesse Little Horse were two of the reasons. Maybe they were the only reasons. No, he didn't like math, or PE, either. In PE he had to hold hands with a girl. It was a game everyone had to play. But holding hands with a girl—that was embarrassing.

Corky teased him about it, and so did Jesse. Corky was white, and Jesse was Lakota. They didn't like each other, but they seemed to bond over teasing Jimmy.

Jimmy had blue eyes and light-brown hair. Other Lakota children had black hair, brown skin, and brown eyes. They had family names like Little Horse, Turning Bear, Bissonette, or Black Wolf. This was another reason for Corky and Jesse to tease him.

McClean was a white name. It was his other grandfather's name, a man he had never met. Angus McClean was his dad's dad. His mom was Anne, and her last name was High Eagle. But now she was Anne McClean. Jimmy's dad
was James McLean Sr. No one called him Jimmy. James Sr. was half Lakota and half white. His hair was dark brown and his skin was a bit lighter than most Lakota people's, but his eyes were brown. Jimmy was James McClean Jr.

His dad's mom was Madeline Bear, from the Pine Ridge Reservation, in the western part of the state. It all meant—as his mom explained—that three parts of Jimmy were Lakota and one part was white. That part was Scottish, to be exact.

“The problem is,” Anne McClean would say, “your three Lakota parts are all hidden inside. Your one white part is on the outside.”

Jimmy understood what she meant, but it didn't make him feel any better. It was the main reason Corky and Jesse teased him.

“You're just an Indian pretending to be white” was what Corky liked to say.

“Who ever heard of a Lakota with blue eyes and a name like McClean?” Jesse would say.

Jimmy's usual reply always infuriated Jesse even more.
“Malakota yelo!”
he would yell. Which meant “I am Lakota” in Lakota. Jesse did not understand or speak Lakota.
According to Jesse, a blue-eyed Lakota was strange. And one who spoke Lakota was even stranger.

Jimmy never fought, because he was eleven and Jesse was twelve and bigger. Corky was bigger than Jesse, so every argument with either of them was a loss, because it made Jimmy feel small and weak.

Now he found refuge, again, in the trees and thickets by the Smoking Earth River. Here the trees accepted him just the way he was, blue eyes and all. So did the grasses, and the birds, and the rabbits. Here, by the river, he was just a boy.