In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (4 page)

The next morning Jimmy and his grandpa drove south and got on Interstate 80 going west. After a few hours they crossed into Wyoming and arrived in Cheyenne. They stopped for a bite to eat and to put gas in the truck, and then they went north on Interstate 25. At the exit for a town called Guernsey, they turned east.

3

The Oregon Trail

IT WAS WINDY AND CLOUDY. THEY DROVE THROUGH THE
small town of Guernsey, and late in the afternoon they stopped along the highway. Crossing the fence, Jimmy followed his grandpa to the top of a hill. They sat down among some bristly green soap plants. Grandpa Nyles pointed at the river in the valley below them. “That is called the North Platte River,” he said. “Our people called it the Shell River.
Now, if you look carefully, you can see some deep ruts just this side of the river.”

“Yeah,” said Jimmy. “I see them. Looks like some big trucks got stuck in the mud.”

Grandpa Nyles chuckled. “Well, guess what? Those ruts, those tracks, are over a hundred and fifty years old.”

Jimmy was astonished. “For reals?”

“For reals.”

“Wow! Who made them?”

“Wagons. Thousands of them.”

Jimmy let out a whistle. “Thousands?”

“Ever heard of the Oregon Trail?”

“Yeah, we studied it in school.”

“Before it was called the Oregon Trail,” Grandpa Nyles explained, “it was known by the Lakota and other tribes as the Shell River Road. And before that, it was a trail used by animals, like buffalo. It's an old, old trail.”

He paused for a moment. “So do you know why we're here?”

“Crazy Horse was here?”

“You got it. He was still Light Hair when he first saw wagons on this trail. Hundreds . . . thousands of them.”

Jimmy stared at the deep ruts. He knew about trails. Lots of animals or people or cars traveling made trails. They wore out the grass and made marks on the ground.
How many wagons made those deep marks?
he wondered. He could not imagine what hundreds and thousands of wagons looked like.

“Imagine,” said Grandpa Nyles, “if one day you suddenly saw hundreds of flying saucers in the sky. What would you think? How would you feel?”

“I'd be scared,” admitted Jimmy. “And . . . and I'd wonder who was in them. The flying saucers, I mean.”

Grandpa Nyles smiled. “You know, I'd bet that's exactly what Light Hair thought, back in about, oh, 1852.”

The way it was—summer 1852

A slow, lazy breeze floated through the grasses. It was a hot summer afternoon. From the top of a hill, young Light Hair looked to the west. The front of the line of covered wagons
went out of sight over a far hill. He looked to the east. Wagons at the back of the line were just coming over the horizon
.

A few riders were on either side of the wagons. Some people walked, but no one seemed to be in a hurry
.

Light Hair was careful to stay down behind the grasses. Beside him was Little Hawk, his uncle, who was just as astonished at the sight of the endless line of wagons. One after another, pulled by oxen. Since warriors always carried their weapons, Uncle Little Hawk had his black powder percussion rifle with him. His bow and arrows were tied on his horse
.

“Are they people?” Light Hair whispered
.

“I think so,” Uncle Little Hawk replied. “But not like us. Their skin is pale, and many of the men have beards. Their clothing is different.”

“Where are they going?” the boy wondered
.

“Somewhere to the west. They have been doing this for four or five summers now. But I don't remember seeing this many.”

Light Hair and his uncle watched in silence. They had seen wagons before. The Long Knives at Fort Laramie used them. Wagons hauled soldiers and other people. They also
carried food, flat wood, guns and powder, tools, clothing, and even water. All the things the white people needed and used. But never had the Lakota seen so many at once. Wagons were end to end, from one horizon to the other. And even more people with them
.

Light Hair did not know what to think. In a way, he was scared, and he wondered if his uncle was or if his father, Crazy Horse, was
.

“As long as they keep going,” Little Hawk said, “that will be good. We don't want those people staying here, on our lands. They leave their trash behind and scare away the buffalo. The wagon wheels leave marks—they scar the land.”

Jimmy looked at the empty land along the river. Some cattle grazed on the other side. A few antelope could be seen.

“How many wagons went through here?” he asked his grandpa.

“Hard to know, but history says that three hundred and fifty thousand people traveled on the Oregon Trail.”

Jimmy was astonished. “Three hundred and fifty thousand? Wow! That's . . . that's a lot of counting.”

“For sure. They started from the state of Missouri, went by here, and ended up in California or Oregon. They did that for twenty years.”

“That's older than me,” Jimmy declared. “What happened to them all?”

“Well, that's the problem,” Grandpa Nyles said with a sigh. “Some of them decided to stay. Later, more came to stay. They farmed and raised cattle and sheep. They forced our people off their own lands.”

“Did our people try to stop them?”

“Yes, they did. There were battles. When Light Hair became Crazy Horse, he fought in many of them.”

Fort Laramie

Fort Laramie National Historic Site was a group of old buildings. They stood around a yard that seemed very large to Jimmy. People were walking around and looking into the buildings.

Grandpa Nyles drove into the parking lot and stopped. “Remember the ruts back there, along the river?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy replied.

“Well, that trail came to this place, and then went on farther to the west. This place is Fort Laramie. It's been here a long time.”

Jimmy looked around. There was a wagon beside one of the buildings. Near another wagon stood a group of men in blue uniforms.

“Are those Long Knives?” Jimmy wanted to know.

“In a way,” Grandpa Nyles answered. “They are reenactors. They come here and play the part of soldiers. They talk to the tourists.”

“Where are the Indians?” Jimmy asked.

“Good question. Come on, let's look around.”

“Okay. So Crazy Horse was here?”

“Yeah, he sure was. He was here, as Light Hair and as Crazy Horse.”

The way it was—September 1851

Light Hair could not believe the number of people. He could stand in one place, turn in a circle, and there were people, lodges, and horses everywhere he looked. All were camped
along Horse Creek, a day's ride east of Fort Laramie, the Long Knives' outpost
.

“Where did they come from?” he asked They Are Afraid of Her, one of his mothers
.

“All over,” she replied as she sliced wild turnips into an iron kettle. “From the south, west, north, and east.”

“Why are we here?” he asked
.

“Because the white peace talkers invited all of them and us to come,” she replied
.

“I heard some people talking, but I couldn't understand them,” Light Hair told her
.

“Yes. Many different people means different languages,” she said. “There are our friends the Arapaho and the Cheyenne. Our enemies, too, the Crow. Then the Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. Our relatives the Dakota and the Nakota are here, too.”

“Why?”

They Are Afraid of Her chuckled. “Because of the white people in the wagons on the Shell River Road. They're afraid we might attack them. So the peace talkers want us to promise to leave them alone.”

“Then maybe they should just stay away,” said Light Hair
.

His mother laughed. “That's what most of the people here think. Now, go find your brother and the two of you stay close to our lodge. I don't want you wandering away. It's easy to get lost.”

Light Hair found his little brother, Whirlwind. He was called that because he was always on the move, first going in one direction, then another. “Come here,” he said to the younger boy. “Mother wants us to stay close.”

“Let's go look at those horses!” begged Whirlwind. “See, over there? They have little black spots all over them.”

“All right—but just for a little while,” Light Hair said, giving in
.

They hurried through the groups of people while avoiding the barking dogs. Light Hair took his little brother by the hand. He had never seen so many people in one place. Men stood in groups together talking. Older boys rode by on horses. Women called out for their children. Others tended to kettles hanging over cooking fires. Smaller children
played by the lodges. And everywhere he looked, it seemed there were more horses than people
.

He suddenly felt very small
.