In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (10 page)

Eight days after the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother, people were still talking about it. That battle had occurred a long day's ride to the south, along Rosebud Creek. Crazy Horse and five hundred warriors had fought
a thousand Long Knives. With the Long Knives were three hundred Shoshone and Crow warriors
.

After that battle, those Long Knives had turned back south
.

The Moon of Ripening Berries, or June, was a hot month. This day was already hot at noon when Crazy Horse walked north through the encampment. People were busy visiting, cooking, hauling water, and taking horses to the river to drink. Children ran and played. Young men and older boys were posted around the large horse herd to keep watch. All in all, it was an ordinary day
.

The sun was in the middle of the sky when a Lakota man appeared on the hill across the river. He was shouting
.

“Long Knives!” he yelled as loud as he could. “Long Knives are coming!”

Only a few people on the south end of the encampment heard him. Some, though they could hear him shouting, could not hear his words clearly
.

Gunshots suddenly boomed from the south—many gunshots. The first warriors who heard reacted immediately. Running to their lodges, they grabbed weapons—guns and
bows and arrows, war clubs, and lances—and ran toward the sound of the guns. Some got on horses and rode
.

Everyone at the south end of the village could hear the guns now. So much gunfire was not good and usually meant danger. So much gunfire usually meant enemies. It was better to think that and do something than to wonder and be confused. Enemies attacking were nothing new to the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho people
.

Mothers and grandmothers gathered up children to take them to safety. Old men helped them, or instructed the young men to grab weapons and meet the enemy
.

People shouted warnings. “Long Knives are coming! Long Knives are coming!”

The frightening news swept through the camp, moving like a sudden gust of wind. More and more people heard the gunfire. It was not long before everyone in the encampment seemed to be running somewhere
.

Warriors emerging from the south end of the village saw two lines of mounted Long Knives. They were charging toward the village. Suddenly they slowed, and one line turned west and the other turned east. They made one long line,
then stopped and dismounted. Some of the soldiers grabbed the reins of horses and led them away, behind the line. The dismounted soldiers began firing toward the village
.

Crazy Horse had sprinted back to his own lodge. He had to avoid the men, women, and children who were also running. Black Shawl had his weapons ready. Taking them, Crazy Horse hugged her for a moment, then jumped on his horse and rode toward the firing
.

Nearly a hundred warriors were already among the trees and shrubbery and firing at the line of soldiers. Crazy Horse joined a big, tall man named Gall, a Hunkpapa Lakota war leader. They talked and decided to charge the west end of the soldier line. At that end were many of the Shoshone, Crow, and Arikara scouts
.

Crazy Horse and Gall shouted to the mounted warriors close by. Gall led the charge and Crazy Horse followed, and forty or so mounted warriors were close behind them
.

Firing from the soldiers and the warriors was constant. Every moment was filled with the sound of gunshots. The mounted charge was fast and furious. The pounding hoofbeats of galloping horses mixed with the gunfire
.

Grandpa Nyles paused. He and Jimmy were near a marker overlooking the river, which was below them and to the west. Grandpa Nyles pointed at a large building in the distance. It resembled a western movie–style fort.

“See that?” he said.

Jimmy nodded.

“Major Marcus Reno's soldiers—he was the one in command here—and the army's Indian scouts were in an east-west line even with that building and us. It wasn't there in 1876, of course. There were about a hundred and twenty soldiers, and the scouts. They were firing north toward the village—the south end of it. Gall and Crazy Horse charged that end of the line.”

“What happened then?” Jimmy asked eagerly.

“The Long Knives and their Indian scouts retreated. Mounted fighters always have an advantage over an enemy on foot. The warriors chased the soldiers this way, toward us. More and more warriors from the village joined the fight, as many as two hundred, maybe three hundred.

“Major Reno ordered a withdrawal, into the trees along
the river. As the soldiers fled, the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho fighters rode in among them. The soldiers did not fight back very well. Some were running; others managed to catch horses and ride. They seemed very confused. For darn sure they were very scared.”

Grandpa Nyles pointed to groves of trees below them, along the west side of the river. “About there,” he said, “the soldiers tried to take cover, in trees like that. But our men were relentless. They fired guns and bows and started fires. They forced the Long Knives out of the trees. They fled this way, across the river and up the slope. They suffered many casualties crossing the river. Same when they scrambled up the slope. Soldiers were falling, hit by bullets and arrows.”

Grandpa Nyles turned and pointed east of where they stood. “They managed to get that far,” he went on. “There, in a meadow, they took cover. They put up barricades with saddles, boxes, with anything they had, even the bodies of dead horses. They dug shallow pits in the ground.”

Crazy Horse listened to the excited young Cheyenne warrior. The two of them were with other warriors on the
west slope of a ridge. They could see the fallen soldiers on the slopes below them. The blue clothing was easy to see against the green grass
.

Above them the sun was high, and the air was hot
.

“The Long Knives are digging holes, piling saddles and boxes, anything they can,” the young man reported. “Some are on the hills to the south, digging holes. I think they know we have them surrounded. Our men are all around. Some are trying to get in closer by crawling in the grass.”

Black Moon, another Lakota war leader, looked at Crazy Horse. “Some of our men think we should overrun them, get them all.”

“What do you think?” Crazy Horse asked him
.

“The Long Knives still have lots of bullets,” Black Moon said. “They keep firing at us. One way is to wait them out. They may be low on water and food.”

Gall was climbing up the slope. Crazy Horse waited until he joined them
.

“I think we should wait,” Crazy Horse said. “The soldiers cannot go anywhere. We can wait and talk about what to do next.”

It was easy to see that Gall was angry. He was a big, strong man. The angry scowl on his face made him look very scary
.

He was about to speak when a high-pitched sound filled the air. All the men near Crazy Horse looked north. They saw a horse and rider racing toward them. The man on the horse seemed to be making the sound. They watched and waited
.

The man on the horse stopped to talk to a group of warriors along the river. A warrior pointed up the hill, toward Crazy Horse's location. It was plain to see the man was in a hurry. He galloped his horse up the hill
.

He was a young Lakota warrior Crazy Horse recognized. In his hand was an eagle-bone whistle. It had a high-pitched sound. The young man was agitated
.

“Uncle!” he said to Crazy Horse. “Long Knives at the crossing! They tried to ride across the river into the village! They were stopped!”

“How many?” Gall asked, looking toward the north
.

“I do not know,” replied the young warrior. “Many of them, I think.”

Crazy Horse looked at Gall and Black Moon. “We will leave a small number of warriors to keep the barricaded soldiers from leaving. All other warriors should ride fast to meet the new attack.”

“So there was another attack?” Jimmy said.

“There was,” Grandpa Nyles said. “The Battle of the Little Bighorn was not one battle. It was really three. The attack that the young warrior told Crazy Horse about was the second—Custer himself trying to cross the river into the north end of the village.”

“He was stopped, right?”

“Sure was, by a group of old men and boys. They delayed those Long Knives long enough for the warriors sent by Gall and Crazy Horse to get to the crossing.” Grandpa Nyles pointed to the truck in the parking lot. “What do you say we go and pick up the story from there?”

After a drive of a few miles, they came to a wide, flat gully. It was known as Medicine Tail Coulee. They pulled over near a historical marker with a picture on it. Grandpa Nyles pointed toward the river.

“The soldiers could see the village,” he said. “They thought it would be easy. Custer thought that Major Reno and his men were coming from the other side. He didn't know that Reno had been chased across the river and up the hill. Custer didn't know that Reno couldn't help him.

“Those old men and boys stopped the Long Knives before they could cross. Not long after that, warriors came from the south. Custer had to turn and go that way”—Grandpa Nyles pointed up a slope going north. “He had no choice. Warriors came from behind him, and then on both sides of his column. North was the only way he could go. So let's go again and trace their path.”

He put the truck in gear and drove back onto the paved road. In a few minutes they were at the top of the hill. After driving through a cattle gate, he stopped at another set of historical markers.

They stepped down from the truck. They were now on a ridge that led to Last Stand Hill, which was about a mile to the north.

“Somewhere here,” Grandpa Nyles began, resuming the
story, “one company of the Long Knives stopped. One company stopped twice or two companies did the same thing. Anyway, they stopped, dismounted, and faced the oncoming mounted warriors. It was a good attempt, but it didn't work. Our warriors were coming, and they were angry. The gunfire they directed at the soldiers was too much. The soldiers got back on their horses and rode north. From this point on, Custer's soldiers, his five companies, began to suffer casualties. That is, soldiers were being hit by bullets and falling.”

Grandpa Nyles pointed across the meadows to the north. “Remember those white markers? They start right over there. Each one shows where a soldier was found, where he fell.”

Jimmy was silent for a moment. “There are a lot of markers,” he said somberly.

“Yeah, there sure are,” Grandpa Nyles agreed. “Custer had, oh, about two hundred and thirty men with him. He and only thirty or so made it to Last Stand Hill. So if you do subtraction, how many soldiers fell between here and Last Stand Hill?”

Jimmy said, “Two hundred.”

“Yeah,” Grandpa Nyles agreed. “That's about right. And if we do a division to figure out percentage—divide thirty by two hundred and thirty—the answer is about fifteen percent. So Custer had lost about eighty-five percent of his men by the time he got to Last Stand Hill. No military commander wants those kinds of losses.”