Wolf Mountain Moon: The Battle of the Butte, 1877

Big Horse, a scout for Little Wolf, had come to visit friends and relations too. But, like Old Wool Woman, they all quickly came to miss their families and friends among Morning Star’s people now traveling with the Crazy Horse village somewhere in the valley of the Tongue. Another widow, Twin Woman, as well as Old Wool Woman’s own daughter, Fingers Woman, and her niece, Crooked Nose Woman, all decided to ask Big Horse if they could return with him when he started on his way back to their people.

Including Twin Woman’s son and daughter, Red Hat and Crane Woman, along with an adolescent boy named Black Horse, the group set off overland on foot, what ponies they had each dragging a travois carrying their tiny lodge and other baggage. They did not have all that much after Three Finger Kenzie’s soldiers had destroyed everything and driven them into the wilderness.

Following a grueling struggle, the little party finally reached the headwaters at the east fork of Suicide Creek. From there they trudged through the icy, crusty snow until they reached the divide and looked down on the valley of the Tongue. Far away, where they had expected they would find the village, they saw no lodges. But there was smoke rising from the distant trees, farther down the Tongue.

“I do not believe our people would move their camp such a short distance downriver,” Big Horse warned from atop his pony. “It could be soldiers come looking for camps in the snow again.” For a moment his eyes gazed at the boy, Black Horse. “Go on down this creek—but be careful, and watchful. I will go see whose smoke that is in the distance and return for you.”

Old Wool Woman and young Black Horse watched the warrior move off into the wind and snow that swirled along the ground. In moments he was gone among the cold fog and clumps of cedar.

Sighing, she set off again at the head of the march, breaking snow for the rest of those who followed. The boy waited for the rest to pass, then protectively took up the rear of their march. Although this was her fifty-fourth winter, Old Wool Woman was nonetheless as strong as Fingers Woman and even Twin Woman, the widow of Lame White Man, who had been killed in the fight beside the Little Sheep River.^*

Both of them were still young enough to be strong in body, but their will had never been tested the way Old Wool Woman had been tested in her life.

She remembered the taste of this wind—like laying her tongue on a piece of the ve-ho- e’s steel when the temperature plummeted. So sharp the metallic taste. So cold, it was hard to pull her tongue from the barrel of a pistol or the blade of the knife. So cold and so hard that her tongue kept the taste of that steel on it for a long time afterward. It had been that way when Black White Man had first come to live with the Ohmeseheso—when she and he were both children.

Many, many winters ago.

Almost as cold then as it was this day. So long ago that it was a time of few ve-ho- e, very few. What white men there were came to trap the flat-tails in the streams, or trade furs from the wandering bands of the northern plains. It was a time before those light-eyed creatures from the east pushed hard against the land and the herds and the migrating bands.

She was called Sweet Taste Woman back then. When the men came back from trading buffalo robes and fine furs to the ve-ho-e, often they brought small pouches of the white grains that were so sweet on her tongue, they made her mouth tickle, made Sweet Taste Woman giggle. She was so young then, less than eight winters—now remembering how on one journey the warriors had brought back not just iron kettles and bolts of cloth, not just powder and lead and sugar … but in front of one of the war chiefs sat a strange creature. The whole village came out to gawk and whisper, some daring to inch close enough to touch the creature once the war chief dropped to the ground with the little dark person still wriggling in his arms.

How wide and filled with fear were the child’s eyes back then as he looked around at all the Ohmeseheso who crowded about him. Finally one old man licked a finger and rubbed it hard across the creature’s cheek. But the child’s black paint would not wipe off!

“We stole him,” the war chief announced. “I saw him at the log lodges where we went to trade. There was a grown-tall person with skin as black as this. But I wanted this little one for my adopted son.”

He was thin and gangly, with strange pink palms and pink on the soles of his bare feet, but he learned quickly how to speak the People’s tongue, quickly adopting the People’s ways. And before long he went on his first pony raid. Then off for scalps against the Ooetaneo-o.^*

Moons and seasons and winters passed, and soon this boy they had been calling Little Black White Man was called only Black White Man.

He had come of age, and grown all the more handsome to the eyes and heart of Sweet Taste Woman. She had hoped the look in her eyes would tell him how much she wished him to come to her parents’ lodge with his blanket after dark that late spring night she would always remember.

Spring ran into summer, and still he did not show … then finally one night she sat there beside the fire with her father and mother, with her younger sisters and brothers—and they all heard the flute. She remembered now as they struggled through gusts of cold breath from Winter Man’s nostrils how she had closed her eyes and prayed that it would be Black White Man who was playing the flute for her outside their lodge door.

Sweet Taste Woman’s father barely lifted the door flap and peeked out. Then he quietly let the door flap back down and went back to looking at the fire without saying a word. Only the crackle of the flames along the dry-split cottonwood in that quiet lodge … and the sound of that flute.

Finally her father looked at Sweet Taste Woman and spoke.

“I think there is a young man outside our door, playing his song for you. He is a good man and will make a fine husband for you. Go see if he truly wants to make you his wife.”

For a moment she wanted to cry out, to ask who it was before she went out and made a fool of herself before the wrong young man. Instead she bit her lip and felt the tremble grow inside her until she could not move.

“Go ahead,” she remembered her father saying gruffly, though his eyes twinkled with merriment. “He is a brave young man. I do not think he is a very rich young man with many fine ponies to bring us, but I am certain that one is brave enough to stand and play his flute all night long if you do not go out now to be with him, Sweet Taste Woman. Yes, I think he is bull-headed enough to stay until he gets what he wants. Go see to him so he will stop playing, because you know how I don’t like to have my sleep disturbed. Go, daughter.”

Sweet Taste Woman turned quickly now as she heard one of the young girls whimper behind her on the side of the hill where there was little shelter from the harsh wind. She motioned the child, Crane Woman, to her side, where Old Wool Woman put the girl beneath her arm, wrapping her there beneath the edge of her old blanket—so they could share their warmth. In that way they walked on, seeking the Crazy Horse camp where their relatives were staying this winter after the terrible battle with Three Finger’s soldiers in the Red Fork Canyon.

Her thoughts drifted back to that warm summer night … how she had bitten her tongue, held her breath, and moved through the door. She stood in the darkness, waiting, so scared she dared not look for the flute player at first, looking instead at the other lodges lit up like lanterns aglow, the cool night wind brushing her skin. When a part of the night moved toward her, she jumped back a step. Then Sweet Taste Woman saw his eyes shimmering like stars in that face so much like the summer night itself. Saw his teeth when he smiled as he took his flute from his lips.

Black White Man held out his blanket, and she came within his arms. They stood there that spring night beside the door to her parents’ lodge, talking, feeling the warmth of each other’s closeness, listening to and sensing the gentle throb of each other’s hearts. Knowing that they would never be apart from that night on. How happy he had made her; he had given her many children and had become a strong and respected warrior of the Ohmeseheso.

A warrior protecting what was most dear to him.

So it was that despite his many winters, Black White Man had been one of the first to cut his way out of the frozen lodges when Three Finger’s soldiers attacked, sweeping up only his rifle and cartridge belt, turning quickly to lay his lips on hers before he gently ran his fingers down her wrinkled cheek where the tears were already spilling. Outside, the shouts of the enemy were drawing closer; already the gunshots echoed from the canyon walls.

“I must go,” he whispered, his eyes crinkling.

Sensing that this was to be their last parting, she had said nothing, knowing her heart clogged her throat— but held him quickly before she turned and stabbed her butcher knife into the stiffened hides at the back of the lodge, cutting a slash that she forced all the way to the ground. He took one finger and touched his lips, then laid it on her left breast, there over her pounding heart.