Joseph M. Marshall III (14 page)

Ghosts, the old warriors said, were the price a fighting man paid to follow the path of the warrior; somewhere behind the noble and espoused traditions, somewhere behind the achievements and the glory the ghosts waited. And they would always be there. Their dying would forever be part of the path of the man who took their lives, whether the act was honorable or justified or not. Their faces, and often their dying moments, could not be forgotten, unless the heart of the warrior was made of stone. And few could boast of that, though many might have secretly wished it to be so. Somewhere people they didn’t know—wives and daughters, mothers and granddaughters—would mourn. They would wail and gash themselves, their hearts torn in anguish. The path of the warrior was indeed strewn with broken hearts like so many stones on a long and winding trail.

The victory dances honored the warrior and the victory stories reaffirmed the tradition of the warrior, but very little, if anything, could chase away the dark memories that always lurked. The ghosts would always dull the edge of arrogance and bring a cold feeling at the most unexpected moments. Such was the price of being a warrior.

High Back Bone sent two of the young men ahead to announce their victory in the Snake country against an unknown - people. The encampment was waiting with smiles and laughter and songs. The victory was a good one because only two men had been wounded, no one had been killed, and young Light Hair had passed his first test.

His mothers fussed over him after his father treated the wound in his leg, although High Back Bone already had taken good care of it. His father quietly reminded him that though his victories would be many, he was never to take a scalp or boast of his deeds. That was why he was wounded, his father believed. A Thunder Dreamer must always do the opposite of what people expected. Though the people would expect him, as the warrior he now was, to claim the scalp of his enemy, one who was a Thunder Dreamer had to take a different path. Light Hair must walk the path of humility rather than the path of glory.

That night there was a victory dance. High Back Bone and the others described the battle and their parts in it. Four enemy warriors had been killed. Guns and horses had been captured. Everyone waited for the son of Crazy Horse to tell of his deeds, since according to the other men, he had turned the flow of the battle. But the boy hung back, reluctant to talk. Some thought it a little strange.

The celebration went far into the night, but Light Hair retreated to his parents’ lodge to rest his injured leg. Long days of riding had not helped ease the pain, so he welcomed the opportunity to be still, and to think.

The events of the past days had happened so quickly, beginning with the woman’s ceremony for Black Buffalo Woman. The family of Red Cloud was well known in many Oglala camps, and as his niece she would be courted by many young men who wanted the influence of such a family to help them in their ambitions. Light Hair knew that was how things worked for such families. It was the way influence was increased. No suitor would be allowed to stand outside her lodge unless he was from an important family.

Morning came with a gray light. The injury was more painful and had kept him awake through the night. The camp was into its usual routine. Horses were being moved from one end of the encampment to a meadow close by where the grass was still high. Dogs barked, children ran about and threw their laughter around. Light Hair’s mothers were busy outside, cooking, it seemed. His sister came once to bend over him closely, so he pretended to sleep. Little Cloud came to look as well, and left.

The sun was high when he finally roused himself. The pain in his leg had diminished somewhat and he had managed to doze a little. He sipped tea from the horn cup someone had left by the fire pit and finally dressed. He stepped out from the lodge and was surprised to see a crowd gathered in the camp circle; at the edge of it stood his father, wearing his best medicine robe decorated with long strands of horsehair.

A trilling arose among the women. His mothers stood behind his father, gentle smiles on their faces, and unmasked pride as well. Crazy Horse lifted his voice in a warrior’s honoring song, joined by his wives and Light Hair’s sister. After the song came more shouts and war whoops and trilling. Crazy Horse lifted his hand and walked forward and faced the crowd.

“I give my first son a new name this day,” he said, raising his voice. “I have heard the story of the brave things he did. I am proud, his mothers are proud, all of his family and friends are proud of our young man. So this day I give him a new name. I give him the name of his father and of his fathers before him. From this day forward I call him Crazy Horse!”

From somewhere in the crowd a drum pounded and another honoring song was raised and the crowd surged forward. High Back Bone, Little Hawk, He Dog, and Lone Bear were among the many who came forward smiling.

The name flowed like water over rocks.

Ten

“A good name is like deep roots,” many old ones liked to say, “that help the tree stand strong against hard winds.”

For a lifetime, the father had walked in humility, honoring the calling that had chosen him and endeavoring not to dishonor the good name given to him by his father. Defining something that cannot be carried in the hand or seen with the eye is not easy, yet a good name can be the most important possession of all. Things born of the Earth eventually return to dust and even the stones will turn to sand, but a good name can rise above the weaknesses of things held in the hand and outlive even the stones. Thus, the father unselfishly passed on part of his own strength—part of his own being—in the gift of an old name to his son. The name will be his roots, he hoped—and yet he knew it would be so. It was an old name earned and established long ago with courage and strong action. So the father also passed on part of his father, and his father before him. He had earned the name not with the same deed that established it, but by not dishonoring it. And he knew in his heart the new bearer of it would not dishonor it and he would lift it higher. So the father passed on the name and took for himself another: Worm, a name of utmost humility. In time, even that name would have meaning, for he would be known as Worm, the father of Crazy Horse.

Boyhood had been left behind on the rocky slopes of a hill west of the Wind River in the land of the Snakes, the place of Light Hair’s second taste of combat. The wound from that hard-fought battle healed and the pain of it was fast becoming a waning memory, but the fight itself was still in his mind as if it were only yesterday. Crazy Horse would look back on that day and those blurred moments often in the days and years ahead. That day was a sharp bend in the road that was his journey. All that had happened that day had taken him to a new place in his own mind, to a new way of thinking of himself. In one day, in a few fast and furious moments, he had become a man. He had become Crazy Horse.

Every boy on the verge of manhood comes face to face with a moment that comes only once. The stories of the deeds of men who had lived before push him toward that heartbeat in time when he must answer the question: Will I run or will I face the moment? It is at once an almost overwhelming fear and the ever-present question that will define the road ahead. Some cannot face the moment. Most live through it dragged along by the events and circumstances and the actions of others. A few grab it by the horns.

Since the day of that battle, Crazy Horse had already relived those moments several times each day. He had answered the question, he had faced the moment—greatly relieved that he had not shamed himself or his family. Just as important, he had acquitted himself well in the eyes of High Back Bone. His first reward had been the satisfaction in the eyes of that warrior. He also knew his family would be pleased, but the gift of a new name had been unexpected. Some of the family had been thinking that another old and honored name should be his: His Horse Stands in Sight. But his father had followed an old, old custom and passed on the name that had been passed to him. Crazy Horse knew the story of the name and was humbled by it and truly mystified that it was given to him. Unexpected though it was, the new name gave him also a new sense of purpose. As many men do, he suddenly understood an old saying: We must pray that courage is always the last arrow in the warrior’s quiver.

All the Lakota encampments scattered from the Great Muddy in the east to the Shining Mountains to the west did not know the news that another young man had joined the ranks of fighting men. But every year in every season, another young man somewhere made the passage from boy to young man. And every year in every season, Lakota fighting men gave their lives on the path they had chosen. One such young man, killed by the Crows, had been the beloved son of a man named Black Shield. Black Shield was a man with a strong reputation and so his revenge raid against the Crow did not lack for fighting men. Nearly a hundred men followed him to help his family heal their hearts and honor the good name of a good man. Young Crazy Horse was one of those men.

The raiders went far into Crow country, attacking more than one camp. They returned with many horses and guns and victory stories to be told in the warrior society lodges and around the evening fires. Crazy Horse left it to others to tell their stories and showed no inclination to talk about his own actions, though it was known he had fought with such daring that others were compelled to stop and watch him. He gave away the horses he had captured to widows who had to borrow horses to haul their household belongings each time the people moved camp.

His medicine was strong, agreed all who had watched him in action. His father and mothers were proud, but they were happier that their young man was concerned for those less fortunate, especially in light of the fact that his younger brother, Little Cloud, was now approaching fourteen and eager to follow his brother onto the warrior’s path. They knew there was more to that path than glory and the spoils of victory, and they wanted Little Cloud to learn that as well. Being a warrior was only a part of being a good man, and a truly good man would not let his horse herd grow to far more than he would need for himself and his family while the old and unfortunate had to walk.

Other facets of life for young Crazy Horse suddenly and unexpectedly opened—as when a long embedded stone on the road of life is finally dislodged and what has been hidden beneath it is revealed. The grain of hope Light Hair had dared to hold as he watched the line of suitors at Black Buffalo Woman’s lodge grew into a distinct possibility for the young and daring Crazy Horse. Getting into line with the other hopefuls was no less daunting in its own way than facing an armed and dangerous enemy. But when she came to him and stood beneath the robe for a few precious moments, all the trepidation and expectations of rejection and failure were forgotten. Like any young man inexperienced in such matters, he found no endearing words to speak that wouldn’t have been forgotten by the time he had walked away, so he asked some senseless question. He walked away elated by those few precious moments and angry over his clumsiness, but he had the memory of the scent of sweet grass in her hair and the trembling of her lips as she smiled.

The tossing and turning beneath his robe that night did not go unnoticed by his mothers, who worried that he was having pain from his leg wound. But his father knew otherwise. The wounds suffered by the heart were the most grievous of all. While he regretted that his own reputation would not make the path of courtship easier for his son, the father was convinced that the accomplishments of the up and coming warrior would prompt the fathers of many eligible young women to let him walk to the front of the line of suitors. He also knew that young men did not always follow the path of reason when it came to matters of the heart, just as he knew that old men who saw their daughters and granddaughters as the means to an end were apt to let the weight of their own narrow thinking trample the swirl of youthful emotions.

Worm was relieved when young Crazy Horse was asked to join a small group of warriors with plans to see what kind of excitement they could stir up in the territory of the Snakes. A few daring Snakes had tried to steal horses from Oglala encampments. The raids had been unsuccessful, but the fact that they were well into Lakota territory could not go uncontested.

The Oglala departed in the Moon of Ripening Berries and were joined by a few Sahiyela and Blue Clouds who had their own differences with the Snakes; all headed to the southwest. Not far past the Sweetwater River their advance scouts located a large encampment with a sizeable herd of horses. That night they moved in close and rested and planned.

Horses would be the main objective. There were simply too many to be ignored, for one thing. And if anyone wanted excitement and a good fight, the Snakes would certainly not stand by and watch a few of their most detested enemies drive off their horses.