Joseph M. Marshall III (15 page)

They rode out of the dark morning shadows cast by the rising sun, crossed the Sweetwater, and were well into the still sleeping village before the first shouts of alarm were raised. By then, the herd of several hundred horses were running away from the shouting, blanket-waving raiders.

Surprise was on the side of the Lakota, but the reaction from the camp was swift. By the time the large herd was turned northward, a few Snake fighters who had staked their warhorses at the doors of their lodges were mounted and in pursuit. It was a foolhardy though undeniably brave effort by a few. Their pursuit was strung out in the broad floodplain, with no real hope of regaining the stolen herd.

Crazy Horse was with the first group of raiders. Back across the Sweetwater, he and several others stopped to fight as a rear guard. One Snake warrior on a very fast horse broke through their lines. With a pistol, he killed two Lakota before a hail of return fire knocked him from his mount. Others caught up as well, and Crazy Horse and his companions fought hard to drive them off, but by now, the fighting men of the camp had gathered themselves in larger numbers and were galloping across the flats - toward the river.

Crazy Horse and the others gathered up the two dead Oglala and galloped to catch up with the herd. The pursuing Snakes were relentless. What had started out as a horse raid for the Lakota, Sahiyela, and Blue Clouds was turning into a fight for survival itself. Crazy Horse and the rearguard warriors took advantage of a thick stand of trees to dismount and then set an ambush. The Snakes came in fast and a few were cut down with the first shots, but the others began to circle the grove.

Crazy Horse found good cover but was soon surrounded, and his horse had been captured. Incoming fire prevented him from reloading his rifle. Without a horse, his odds of survival were greatly reduced. His best chance was to move out of harm’s way, but he knew he had to act quickly. The sound of distant gunfire was growing fainter, meaning the herd of new Lakota horses and most of the raiders were now well to the north. He and the few other Lakota in the trees were left on their own, with more Snakes arriving. Moving from tree to tree, he waited for a Snake warrior to pass close and jumped behind him onto the horse, dispatching the man with one swing of his stone-headed war club. Pulling out his pistol, he opened fire to distract the Snakes circling outside the trees and shouted for the Lakota to make their escape. Making the break from the trees, Crazy Horse and his companions gained a good head start before the Snakes could regroup.

The Snakes continued to pursue the herd, and, at one point, managed to recover a few of their horses, but they had lost several more men and soon disengaged. Never in recent memory had the Oglala Lakota taken so many horses in one raid. But they had suffered losses as well, with at least five men killed.

Victory stories abounded and the dances went far into the night. The Lakota learned that one of the Snake casualties was a son of their headman, Washakie. The young man had been one of the first to pursue the Lakota.

Once more, young Crazy Horse did not participate in the dancing. In fact, he said nothing even to his father about the new horse he was riding or the new muzzle-loading rifle he had brought back. Worm could only guess how his son had acquired them until one of Crazy Horse’s companions, who had been in the trees surrounded by the Snakes, told what he had witnessed: that the young man had unhorsed a Snake and captured the gun in one daring moment. His action had saved them all, the man was certain.

Twelve years of one-on-one instruction provided any Lakota male the basic physical skills to be a fighting man. By the age of fifteen or sixteen, any boy was proficient with all of his weapons. But unseen factors determined how each would-be warrior would handle live combat. After the first few encounters with enemies on the battlefield, young Crazy Horse had demonstrated qualities that eluded many men for an entire lifetime. Older experienced men, while initially impressed, waited to pass judgment, however. It wasn’t unusual for young men to perform well in the first face-to-face encounters with enemies, if for no other reason than that their inexperience made them less cautious. Then the daunting realities of combat became part of their thinking and the same young men who seemed so daring and reckless in their first few outings hesitated, taking stock before taking action.

Caution was good. It turned reckless boys into thinking men and a thinking man was overall more valuable on the battlefield than one who placed others in danger because he took unnecessary risks. So the old men who heard of the first exploits of young Crazy Horse nodded knowingly, remembering that “such-and-such” had started the same way and now he was a man with a family because there was more to life than glory on the battlefield.

There were many good men among the Lakota. Three years after Woman Killer’s attack on Little Thunder’s camp on the Blue Water, many still talked about how the Sicangu leader, Spotted Tail, fought that day—jumping into the middle of swarms of soldiers with his bare hands until he took a long knife away from one of them and killed him, and ten more, with it before he finally fell from several grievous wounds. Black Shield, the Oglala, was still a formidable fighting man though he was nearly sixty. Old Smoke still wielded much influence because he was known for a lifetime of good judgment and honesty. And there were others.

The reckless die young, the old men advised, and their only legacy is a brief moment of glory; but over time it is forgotten. It is the steady and the steadfast that prevail, the old ones said. So while it stirred the heart and the imagination to hear of the exploits of a new young warrior—one whose quiet ways in camp contradicted the stories of daring on the battlefield—the old men puffed on their pipes as they sat around the evening fires and nodded knowingly. Over time, young Crazy Horse would give up his reckless ways, they said. Everyone does.

But even in this one encampment, there was more going on than the campfire conversations about the exploits from the latest raid. After a few days, the initial excitement that rose like a hot wind after several hundred horses were brought back had waned. The warrior societies decided that the families of those who had been killed should have first pick from the new herd, followed by the other participants. So the spoils of victory were thus divided and life went on.

The lines of suitors at the lodge of Black Buffalo Woman were as long as ever. One young man was notable by his absence. Young Crazy Horse had taken his place in line a time or two before the raid into Snake country. Some old women whispered to each other that many of the young hopefuls and fops who stood in line would not in their lifetimes achieve the battle honors that young Crazy Horse had earned in only a few raids. Furthermore, Black Buffalo Woman was not the prize for the heart of any man, they said. The family had gone to considerable effort to affirm their high standing by putting on the Woman’s Ceremony for her. And, some said, her family had already picked the man she would marry. Perhaps the man didn’t know that himself, but his good fortune was that he had been born into an influential family. It would be a marriage of families, the old women said, not of a man and a woman alone. Therefore, young Crazy Horse would be well served to bide his time and court another young woman who didn’t have the high ambitions of her father, uncle, and brothers, who were clinging to her like sandburs on her dress fringes.

Many of the old women, who watched with some amusement the parody being played out at the lodge of Black Buffalo Woman every evening after sundown, had seen the boy Light Hair grow into a shy and respectful young man. Perhaps he was overly shy but he had humility—something not often found in someone so young. And, after all, his family was not completely without status, they told one another. His mothers were the sisters of Spotted Tail and the mention of his name always evoked respect. In time, young Crazy Horse would have the pick of any young woman he wanted, so long as it wasn’t Black Buffalo Woman.

Life indeed went on for the Hunkpatilas. More raids were conducted and more successes became stories to tell in the months, and perhaps in the years, to come. Word spread throughout the land that the Hunkpatilas were fat and happy. They had put fear into the hearts of their enemies and even the hunting was better than it had been for many years. They had passed up the opportunity to go into Fort Laramie for their annuities, raising the eyebrows of those who had no choice but to live off the promises and uncertain generosity of the whites. What did the Hunkpatilas have that we don’t, they wondered. Yet they knew the answer as quickly as it had crossed their minds—the old way of living by hunting.

The old ways were good, and living off all that the land provided had always been the way. The unwanted realities were what were difficult to face. The Holy Road, messengers from the south said, had been as busy as ever. A new agent had come to the Shell River fort to replace the one with the Lakota wife. The agent was new because a new “great father” had come into power among the whites, it was said. Perhaps the old one was not wise, some Lakota thought, so the whites needed to find another. Wise or foolish, came the response, he looked on the Lakota as children, and the words and the ways of the new agent were less trustworthy because he knew nothing about the Lakota.

Crazy Horse listened to the news and sat at the edges of conversations that rose with the smoke from the evening fires outside the lodges. He said little, though he shared the sentiments of those who were puzzled that any Lakota would give up the free-roaming life to live so close to the whites. He liked especially to sit with his uncle Little Hawk, who was very opinionated about such matters and never hesitated to speak his mind.

So the words and the feelings of old men rose with the smoke into the cool night sky. Crazy Horse sought the light and the warmth of the low flames as much as he sought the wisdom of those who encircled the fire. As Light Hair, he had dared only to stay at the edge of the light. Now he could walk into the light, and at his approach, one or another of the old men would make room and invite him to take a place.

Since the fight on the rocky hill west of the Wind River in Snake country, he had a new sense of himself. Like a man trapped beneath thin ice, he had suddenly broken through to breathe fresh, life-giving air. High Back Bone and other established fighting men of strong experience looked at him differently and invited him into the lodges of the warrior societies. A few small boys had called out his name, “Crazy Horse! Crazy Horse!” But the circle of old men around a small fire offered a kind of acknowledgment he yearned after. Perhaps that was why he always stood at the edge of the firelight as a boy. There was something in the air any time a group of old ones gathered together, whether it was grandmothers talking as they dyed porcupine quills or as now, old men around a fire. He couldn’t explain it or understand it yet—except to wonder if the old ones had reached a place that everyone yearned to be.

So the young man with the new name breathed the fresh air of life.

Eleven

Worm, like all old ones, knew there were many unavoidable realities in life—some good and some bad. The sun rises and sets; warm spring weather follows quickly when the geese fly low. And broken hearts are as certain as snow in winter.

The silence hanging over the lodge of Worm was almost too much to bear. Elsewhere in the encampment were noisy victory celebrations for Red Cloud and his warriors. For nearly a month he had roamed at will in Crow territory with a large and powerful contingent, claiming victory after victory against the ancient enemy of the Lakota. But now a few old women shook their gray heads knowingly. Red Cloud was celebrating more than victories against the Crow.

Red Cloud had taken to the warpath with all the young men in the camp answering his call to arms. He needed to strengthen his influence as a military leader with a successful campaign, and to solidify his political alliances as well. To accomplish his first objective, he needed warriors to gather to him. For his second objective, a marriage of convenience would serve his purpose.

Just when many people thought that young Crazy Horse had wisely turned his attention away from Black Buffalo Woman, he raised a few eyebrows by taking his place in the line of hopefuls. Her family was encamped with Red Cloud a short ride from the Hunkpatilas, so the quiet young man would slip away now and then in the early evenings and take his hopes and his heart with him. Given his rapidly growing reputation, many weren’t at all surprised when the young woman seemed to favor him, much to the disappointment of his rivals. As time went by, even the staunchest skeptics agreed that Black Buffalo Woman and the stalwart young Crazy Horse were a good match and that she would do well to bring such a man into her family. But there were still many whispers behind the hand that her family had plans that didn’t take the girl’s own feelings into consideration. One of the other suitors was No Water, who of his own accord was no comparison to Crazy Horse. But No Water’s older brother Black Twin was a skilled orator and a man of growing influence, and he held many opinions solidly in line with those of Red Cloud. So No Water was suddenly a valuable man. There was nothing for anyone to do but wait and watch with great interest—and great amusement.