Wolf Mountain Moon: The Battle of the Butte, 1877

The Black Hills Committee.

WASHINGTON, December 26:—The president today sent to the senate a message enclosing the report of the proceedings of the commission appointed to treat with the Sioux Indians for the relinquishment of their right to the Black Hills. He calls special attention to the articles of agreement by the commission. Among the other advantages to be gained by them is the right of citizens to go into the country of which they have taken possession, from which they cannot be excluded; ordered printed and tabled.

No one knew how long it would take for the Sans Arc runner to reach the Sitting Bull camp.

Many suns ago Crazy Horse had asked for a volunteer, a man who could ride day and night, switching back and forth between three ponies, galloping north to find the Hunkpapa people. He was carrying Crazy Horse’s request that Sitting Bull trade for ammunition with the Red River Slota north of the Muddy Water River.^* Trade for as many weapons as the Hunkpapa could get their hands on.

Then he asked Sitting Bull himself to bring the rifle cartridges to the Shifting Sands River,^† where the Hunkpapa camp circle would rendezvous with the Crazy Horse people. And once more they would be strong enough to turn back, perhaps to wipe out, all wasicu soldiers—with enough bullets and guns, the Titunwan Lakota would never have to bow their heads in shame like those who had been driven back to the agencies.

Day after day Spotted Elk watched and waited for the runner to return with word that Sitting Bull was on his way, especially now that they knew the Bear Coat’s soldiers were marching south toward the villages. With his slow wagons pulled by the plodding, lead-footed animals the white men were so fond of, it would take the Bear Coat many more days before his men were a threat to the women and children in the villages. Once the soldiers reached the ground Crazy Horse had selected for their battle, only then would the warriors ride out to engage them.

If the ammunition and guns arrived in time, then their war against the wasicu could go on, and they never would have to surrender, Spotted Elk realized. But if after he had delivered that precious cargo, Sitting Bull still desired to flee back across the Elk River, north beyond the Muddy Water River until he had crossed the Medicine Line into the Land of the Grandmother, then Crazy Horse would not try to stop the Hunkpapa visionary.

Then Crazy Horse would be on his own.

After the decoys left for the soldier post, the Horse ordered that the village move upstream from the mouth of Suicide Creek^# to the sheltered mouth of Prairie Dog Creek, which flowed into the Buffalo Tongue from the west. With plenty of wood close at hand as well as a warm, seeping spring that did not freeze over even in the coldest weather, the camp raised their lodges, sent out small hunting parties of the younger boys, and kept wolves moving up and down the Buffalo Tongue day after day—watching the Bear Coat’s army advance through the deepening snow.

Just as Spotted Elk watched Crazy Horse.

What were they to do as leaders? Because the hunters could find too few buffalo that winter, their people were hungry. There weren’t enough hides to make lodges where every man, woman, and child would stay warm. And because this was the coldest winter any of the old ones could ever remember, many of the Lakota were sick.

Not just the red, raw noses sore and cracked inside because of the cold, dry air … but more and more were becoming truly sick. Even Black Shawl—the wife of Crazy Horse. In her chest rattled the dry rasp of death-coming. Spotted Elk never saw her without a piece of cloth she would use to cover her mouth each time she coughed, bringing up flecks of blood and tiny pieces of her lungs.

So Spotted Elk watched Crazy Horse, feeling sick in his spirit for the Shirt Wearer—for both of them knew it was only a matter of time before the woman took her last, painful breath.

Then no one knew for sure just what the Strange Man of the Oglalla would do.

Would he find himself another wife, who would be like a balm to soothe his mourning? Or would he be so consumed with grief that he would abandon his responsibility to his people and finally wander off from the village for good? So consumed with hate at the wasicu and his diseases that he would single- handedly attack the soldier column because he no longer wanted to live?

There really was no telling, Spotted Elk decided—because Crazy Horse was not acting like himself these recent days of endless cold. At one time Spotted Elk would have declared he knew what was held in the heart of Crazy Horse … but no longer was he so sure. Never before would he have thought Crazy Horse the sort of leader who would keep his people in the village by force. This was a strange thing for Crazy Horse to do: ordering his akicita to kill the ponies of those who tried to sneak back to the agencies, to cut up their lodges, break their lodgepoles, steal their powder and bullets.

Aiyeee! This was a strange and terrible time for the Lakota people who tried hard to remain steadfast in their loyalty to the great mystic of the Oglalla.

Maybe it was as Crazy Horse tried to explain. “You see,” he told the other camp leaders, “I make it plain what will happen to any who attempt to return to the agencies.”

“What are you so afraid will happen to those who go in?” asked Long Feather.

“The wasicu will shoot them,” Crazy Horse declared.

Many clamped their hands over their mouths in amazement.

“This is not a strange or silly notion,” Crazy Horse argued. “Just look what happened to our chiefs who went to talk to the Bear Coat about surrender.”

“Perhaps Crazy Horse is right,” He Dog said to that hushed council. “There is no life in surrender. Only death—death from the white man’s diseases, from the starvation, perhaps even from the wasicu’s bullets once the soldiers and agents have robbed us of our weapons and we can no longer protect our families.”

For a time there even the Shahiyela wanted to break away. When Crazy Horse decided the village should head on up Hanging Woman Creek toward the eastern divide, Little Wolf, Morning Star, and the other chiefs stood their ground and declared that it was better to find game for their starving people if they continued due south, up the Buffalo Tongue River, as fast as possible to get as far as they could from the Bear Coat’s soldiers.

Those had been hard days for Crazy Horse, with his friends wanting to desert the struggle, and hearing no word from the Sitting Bull camps. And now the Shahiyela were going their own way. Yes, Spotted Elk ruminated: it must have made Crazy Horse feel very lonely. With all the bands deciding to take their own trail, no more were they a powerful people able to withstand and even defeat the finest pony soldiers sent against them, time and time again.

They had watched Morning Star and Lone Wolf take the Shahiyela south along the leafless cottonwoods bordering the Buffalo Tongue. For three sunrises the Crazy Horse camp had moved up Suicide Creek while the great chief brooded more and more. Eventually, Crazy Horse turned his people around and went south in search of the Shahiyela.

Once rejoined, he told the Ohmeseheso that they would all continue up the Buffalo Tongue River to the warm spring near the mouth of Prairie Dog Creek. There they would choose the place where they would make a stand. Here among the bluffs they would await the soldiers.

Hunhunhe! Shameful the things that so strong a leader as Crazy Horse must do to hold together his fragile confederation at the moment the Bear Coat was marching his soldiers toward their village! What torment for a proud man to swallow his pride for the sake of a thankless people.

Enough shame and torment that even the strongest of Lakota hearts would feel small, cold, and on the ground.

^*The Missouri River.

^†The Powder River.

^#Present-day Hanging Woman Creek.