Man on Two Ponies (30 page)

“Big Foot is cunning and his Indians are very bad,” Miles warned him the same day. “I hope you will round up the whole body of them, disarm them and keep them under close
guard.”
Shortly
afterward
he
wired
again. “I have no doubt your orders are
all
right, but I
shall
be exceedingly anxious until I know they are executed; whoever secures that body of Indians will be entitled to much credit. They deceived Sumner completely, and if they get a chance they will scatter through the entire Sioux camp or slip out individually.”

On
the night of December 26 Whitside's force
camped
near
Louis
Mousseau's trading post, where the Rosebud-Pine Ridge
trail
crossed Wounded Knee Creek, and he sent out Oglala scouts the next morning. He then had heliographs set up between his camp and Pine Ridge in order
to
flash messsages quickly to Gen. Brooke. He soon heard from Brooke. “I am directed by the commanding general to say that he thinks Big Foot's party must be in front of you somewhere, and that you must make every effort to find him
at
once. A solution must be reached at the earliest possible moment. Find his
trail,
or find his hiding place and capture him.
If
he fights desttoy him.”

Big Foot was worse that morning, and travel for him was agonizing. One of his messengers returned from Pine Ridge to inform him that cavalry troops were on Wounded Knee Creek and were looking
for him. Another messenger, Bear-Comes-and-Lies, accompanied by an Oglala named Shaggy Feather, rode into camp a short time later. “Short Bull's people are coming in from the Badlands,” they told Big Foot. “They
will
reach the agency in two days. Short
Bull
and Kicking Bear want you to arrive there the same day.” The Pine Ridge chiefs, they said, urged him to make a big swing to the south to evade the troops on Wounded Knee Creek.

Big Foot and his headmen held council and talked most of the morning. The headmen argued in favor of making the detour to the south to get around the troops, but this time Big Foot finally prevailed. “I am too sick for unnecessary travel. We must go straight to Pine Ridge before I die.” They set out at noon, and that night continued by moonlight until they reached the abandoned cabins of Little Wound's village. They were now one day's travel from Pine Ridge.

At sunrise, knowing that troops were between them and the agency, they nervously pushed on, expecting at any moment to be attacked. Pawnee Killer and other warriors rode ahead to watch for troops. They had gone only a few miles when a young Brulé wearing a Ghost Shirt overtook them and joined the party. The warriors eyed him suspiciously.
In
a Ghost Shirt he obviously wasn't an army scout, so they ignored him.

News of Sitting Bull's death alarmed the former Ghost Dancers at Pine Ridge; even the friendlies were apprehensive, because so many troops were still around them. Past experience had taught them that whenever soldiers had come it was to fight. They wondered if the
troops
were merely waiting until most of them were disarmed and in one place, where they could easily be attacked, and that troubling thought kept them nervous and magnified every little incident. The rumors that Sitting Bull had been killed through treachery intensified their suspicions.

On December 22 a cavalry patrol intercepted a party of Oglalas and Brulés driving a big pony herd toward the
Badlands.
The troops fired on them, wounded several, and drove them back to the agency, where their
fury
and agitation infected others.
That
same day, while
all
of the Indians at Pine Ridge were seething and the Ghost Dance believers still hoped for the Messiah to come, a mysterious white man
dressed
like an Indian and wrapped in a white blanket appeared in Red Cloud's camp. He was an Iowan named Hopkins, but he announced that he was the new Messiah, which greatly increased the excitement.

Hopkins had gained notoriety by proclaiming a new religion called the Star Pansy Banner and by advocating that the pansy be named the national flower. Confused by countless rumors and eager to believe the Messiah was coming at last, some of the Indians accepted him at his word, but the majority rightly regarded
him
as deranged. Those who believed his tale crowded around him, while
many who considered him a dangerous imposter tried to get their
hands
on him to remove him. There was much shouting and reckless brandishing of cocked rifles, and they were dangerously close to violence. Finally a group of level-headed fullbloods, mixed bloods, and squawmen managed
to
drag
him away before he was tom
apart,
then took him to Red Cloud.

After questioning Hopkins
through
an interpreter, Red Cloud concluded he was mentally unbalanced.

“You go home,” he said. “You're no son of God.”

One of the squawmen who'd risked his life to get Hopkins to safety described him more explicity and with greater feeling.

“You're a
Goddam
son-of-a-bitch!” he said.

When taken to Royer, Hopkins blandly informed him, “I claim to be Christ, the Messiah, in a poetic sense, the same poetic sense in which Hiawatha, Socrates, and General Grant are considered esteemed the world over.”

“Prove you're Christ,” Royer told him.

“Give me more time among these Indians and I will,” Hopkins replied.

Royer frowned. “I'll give you one hour to get off the reservation.” He summoned the Indian police. “Keep him out of sight until dark, then take him to Rushville and put him on a train,” he instructed them.

The excitement continued to rise that night, and early in the morning many of the Brulés and Oglalas who had been persuaded to leave the Ghost Dance camp panicked. They fled to the Stronghold, Kicking
Bear
among them.

After Two Strike and the other Brulés and Oglalas had deserted the Ghost Dance camp on the Stronghold, the 200 remaining with Short Bull danced almost continuously in their feverish efforts to bring the Messiah. Billy felt exhausted and dazed, but each day was sure the Messiah would come on the next. Like the others, he still believed the star's promise to Short Bull that if his people went to the Stronghold and danced, the Messiah would soon appear. At first he couldn't even consider the possibility that there was no Indian Messiah, but that suspicion gradually intruded.

He also began to have doubts about Short Bull
and
Kicking
Bear.
Were they really holy men, blessed with certain powers denied to ordinary people? Or were they ordinary men who thought they had, or pretended they had, solved the Great Mystery and set themselves apart from and above other men? It was troubling, and the longer the Messiah failed to appear the greater his doubts about them grew.
It looks like Culver was right all along. It's just an illusion.
He still wore the Ghost Shirt Short Bull had given him, but only from habit. After learning of Porcupine's failed experiment he no longer believed in its supernatural powers.

Less than a week after Two Strike and the others had departed, the scouts reported that 500 Brulés and Oglalas were on their way to the Stronghold. When Brooke had learned that Two Strike's people were coming in he asked Oglala friendlies to join them, return to the Ghost Dance camp, and persuade the remaining dancers to give up. Many of them, eager to have peace restored so the army would leave, wholeheartedly joined the effort to end the dancing.

Billy was surprised one day to see the tall, rawboned Kicking Bear ride into camp with a large number of former Ghost Dancers. Kicking Bear didn't resume the dance, but instead raised a raiding party and headed west on a
trail
across the plateau toward the Black Hills, to attack white settlers there. The next day they ran into a party of Cheyenne scouts who were guarding approaches to the settlements and who drove them back to the Stronghold.

The 500 friendlies obviously intended to remain until all of the Ghost Dancers agreed to abandon the Stronghold and return to the agency. Billy noticed that each day more men were won over and gave up the dance—only a small group of the most fanatical still danced, and even they appeared to be wavering. Short Bull and Mash-the-Kettle continued to harangue their remaining followers, but Billy could see they were losing ground. It's only a matter of time, perhaps a few days, before all give up, he thought.
How will I face Culver now?

The Hunkpapas who'd deserted Big Foot arrived unexpectedly, and repeated the story of Sitting Bull's death. Although the Ghost Dance diehards had learned of it from the Pine Ridge Indians, hearing the details by participants aroused them to a frenzy, for they saw the same thing happening to themselves if they surrendered.

Knowing his father had been with Sitting Bull and fearing he might have been killed, Billy approached Black Badger, one of the Hunkpapas. “Do you know where Pawnee Killer is?” he asked anxiously. “He's still alive, isn't he?”

Black Badger nodded. “He came south with us. When Big Foot promised to turn us over to the soldiers, we slipped away. Big Foot is sick, and Pawnee Killer refused to leave him. The last we heard they started for Pine Ridge the next day and should be across the White River by now.”

Billy pondered that. It was clear the Ghost Dance would soon end and that the Indian Messiah would never appear. Now all that mattered was for his father to recognize him as his son. That yearning had been almost forgotten from time to time in the excitement of the Ghost Dance, but it had never been far from his thoughts.
If
the Messiah had come, as promised, he and his father would have been quickly reunited, but that was not to be. I must find him, he thought, before it's too late. After that I don't care what happens.

He rolled up his blankets, packed enough cooked beef to last a few days, and caught his thin pony. As he rode out of the big camp Short Bull saw him.

“Where are you going?” the sharp-faced medicine man asked. “You're not deserting me like the others?”

“I've got to find my father. That's the only thing that matters to me now.” Short Bull frowned but said nothing more as Billy headed for the land bridge and left the Stronghold.

After searching for a half day he found where Big Foot's wagons had come down the slope, and at dark stopped where his people had camped several days earlier. He hurried along their trail in the morning, passing two other camps not far apart, and he was greatly relieved to see they were traveling slowly. At dark, when he rolled up in his blankets not far from Little Wound's village, he smelled the smoke from their fires and was elated to know he would overtake them in the morning.

At dawn Billy arose and followed the wagon tracks into Little Wound's village. His heart beat faster as he saw thin spirals of smoke still rising from the chimneys of the abandoned cabins. Still wearing his Ghost Shirt, he trotted after the Miniconjus, and in few
miles caught up with the rear wagons escorted by sullen warriors who saw his Ghost Shirt and let him pass. He continued riding past the wagons until he saw his mother in one.

Scarlet Robe gazed at him sorrowfully. “My son, soldiers are looking for us and must soon find us. I have a bad feeling that something terrible will happen, and I'm afraid for your father. Protect him from harm if you can.” He nodded and rode on, wondering what terrible thing was in store for them. Perhaps the soldiers would attack them on sight and refuse to allow them to surrender. He looked for his father, but Pawnee Killer was with the scouts riding ahead of the wagons.

In the lead wagon he saw Big Foot, his burly form wrapped in blankets, his nose bleeding, his face contorted with pain caused by the jolting wagon. The column moved steadily on despite Big Foot's discomfort, and before noon crossed the divide between American Horse Creek and Porcupine Tail Creek. As they were descending Pawnee Killer and other warriors rode up to Big Foot's wagon with four captives—the famous mixed blood scout Little Bat, Old Hand, and two other Oglalas, the scouts Major Whitside had sent out that morning from his camp on Wounded Knee Creek. While his people stopped to eat at Porcupine Tail Creek, Big Foot sent Old Hand and another Oglala to tell Whitside he was bringing his people to the soldiers' camp.

When interpreter John Shangreau relayed Old Hand's message to him, Major Whitside ordered his bugler to sound “Boots and Saddles.” “But Major,” Shangreau interposed, “Big Foot told them he was coming to the camp, and we may as well wait for him here.”

Whitside reminded him that Major Henry's column was searching for Big Foot somewhere to the north, and there was danger the two might clash. “And don't forget,” he added, “that Big Foot told Colonel Sumner the same thing before he struck out. We can't take any more chances.”