Wolf Mountain Moon: The Battle of the Butte, 1877

Young Medicine Bear ran his hands down the front of the fire-smoked elk-hide shirt the great blind shaman of the Ohmeseheso had given him to wear. The four long legs of the elk hide swayed back and forth below his knees. “He told me that if I wore it, you could not fail to give me the Turner.”

Coal Bear finally grinned. “The old man is a smart one.” He turned to gaze down at the sacred objects as the noise outside the lodge grew loud: men shouting farewells to families, women sobbing and children crying, dogs howling and ponies snorting. “Like Box Elder, I think I can trust you to protect the great power of Nimhoyoh. With your own eyes you have seen how its magic turned the soldiers’ bullets. There is no other reason why all of us escaped from the village with our lives when all around us the soldiers and their scouts darted here and there.”

That bitterly cold dawn in the Big Freezing Moon, with the first gunshot and at the first shout of warning, Box Elder had clambered to his feet. For many winters already his vision had been clouded. As his apprentice, Medicine Bear was the old man’s eyes. Together they had scrambled to seize the most important object in Box Elder’s life before they had abandoned the shaman’s lodge and plunged into the madness of the retreating village. In that screaming, fleeing crowd they had somehow managed to find Coal Bear, with Esevone wrapped in its special bundle and tied upon his woman’s back.

In the midst of that confusion and panic Coal Bear himself had been holding the Sacred Turner, both hands clutching the round cherrywood stick about the length of a man’s arm. Suspended from the stick was a crude rectangle of buffalo rawhide, the edges of which had first been perforated, then braided with a long strand of rawhide. From three sides of Nimhoyoh hung many long buffalo tails, tied to the rawhide shield much like scalp locks.

“Give the Turner to Medicine Bear!” Box Elder had ordered that morning when the greatness of their people had turned to blood on the snow. “So that he might carry it above him on his pony to turn away the soldier bullets!”

As instructed, the Medicine Hat Priest gave the heavy object to Box Elder’s young apprentice so Medicine Bear could ride behind them all on his skittish pony, holding aloft Nimhoyoh, waving the thick hide of the Sacred Turner and its long black buffalo tails back and forth to ward off the enemy’s bullets that kicked up snow and dirt “from the ground at their feet, knocking twigs and splinters from the trees all about them until they reached the open valley.

Turning his sightless eyes to Medicine Bear, Box Elder had said in a strong voice, “The powerful medicine of Nimhoyoh you carry turns away all the bullets flying around us. Do not be afraid!”

Nor would Medicine Bear be afraid now. He had seen for himself the power of Nimhoyoh—how it turned the soldier bullets to puffs of dust, nothing more than air.

Now this night Coal Bear turned and handed the long cherrywood pole to the young apprentice and said, “Take this. And with it protect our warriors.”

Medicine Bear rubbed his hands around the cherrywood handle, thinking quickly on the many generations who had held this sacred object of such great and awesome power. “Through its magic I will protect our warriors,” he vowed. “So that those warriors can protect all the Ohmeseheso”

Through the cold fog of dawn Medicine Bear rode, far behind the first who had hurried from the village as the storm clouds rolled in to cover the late rising of the moon. It was not a hard thing to follow the trail of the others— the way was wide and deep through the snow.

Just past the coming of day’s gray light he heard the first shots fired to the north. By the time Medicine Bear reached the hills west of the river, he looked down to watch the soldiers driving back the last of the warriors into the ravines across the Tongue from the knoll where the ve-ho-e stood around their wagon guns. With the warriors’ retreat that band of soldiers themselves withdrew across the river to rejoin the other white men.

But just when Medicine Bear had decided to cross the river himself to join those warriors flooding to the tops of the bluffs, many of the Tse-Tsehese fighting men came out of the coulees and brushy draws, drawn to the apprentice who held the Sacred Turner above his head.

“See!” Beaver Dam cried to the others, waving them on. “Do not run!”

“Nimhoyoh!” shouted Crow Necklace.

More and more painted faces appeared from the brush in the ravines. A large circle of warriors crowded around Medicine Bear’s snorting pony.

“The Turner will protect us!”

“Attack the soldiers now!” Gypsum called.

“No,” warned Brave Wolf, an older warrior. “What we must do is circle around behind the soldiers.”

“Yes, go upriver,” High Wolf agreed. “Then cross and come in behind the soldiers to free our people from them.”

“Seize their wagons!”

“Steal their horses!”

“No bullets can harm us when we fight under the power of Nimhoyoh!”

By the time the warriors rounded up their ponies and set off through the deep snow, spreading out to follow Medicine Bear like the point of a great arrow, they emerged around the river bend to discover that soldiers already occupied the top of a low line of hills on the west bank of the river.

“What are they doing?” Spotted Blackbird shrieked in dismay.

Like the others, Medicine Bear stared into the distance, studying the actions of the white men.

“Are they digging?” someone asked.

“Like a fox at its burrow!” was the answer.

Indeed, it appeared that the soldiers were hurriedly digging rifle pits for themselves atop that bluff— entrenching all the faster once the warriors came into view.

An older man named Long Jaw placed a hand on Medicine Bear’s forearm. “This is Box Elder’s shirt.”

“Yes,” he answered. “My Grandfather gave it to me to wear into battle this day.”

Long Jaw smiled at the apprentice. “It is good, Medicine Bear. You must lead us into this fight. Hold Nimhoyoh high over our heads so no bullets will touch us! So we can root these soldiers out like voles from their burrows!”

With a mighty yell from a hundred throats the Ohmeseheso charge began. In the van rode Medicine Bear, kicking his pony violently through the deep snowdrifts to keep it in front of the rest—mostly veteran warriors who carried many scars of countless battles against the ve-ho-e and other enemies.

Oh, how great was the honor of leading these men into battle!

He turned at the sudden shrill, high-pitched whistle, a foreign sound. Looking into the cloudy sky, Medicine Bear tried to find the cause of that strange noise. Then he saw it. A ball fired from the white man’s wagon gun.

Sailing over the ranks of the warriors, the sphere crashed into that open ground between the horsemen and the soldiers entrenching among the red shale on the hilltop. Rocks and snow and shards of iron splintered into the cold morning air. Back tumbled the ponies and warriors, men crying out and horses whimpering in shock. Riderless horses bolted away. Men crawled on their knees, dragging themselves out of the snow. Everyone else milled aimlessly, some of them dazed.

Their charge was broken!

“Go! Go, Medicine Bear!” Long Jaw goaded, pointing to the slope of the nearby hill where the soldiers began to plop to their bellies, their rifles at ready. “Lead us now before the wagon gun shoots again!”

Swallowing down that first flush of fear, telling himself that no harm could come to him with the power of the Turner watching over them all, Medicine Bear did as he was instructed.

Wheeling the frightened pony in a circle, he yelped like a wolf, howling to give himself courage as he set off in front of the others. In that instant the others threw off the confusing mantle of shock and tore off again on horseback or on foot. A wide massed front of warriors followed the Turner onto that open ground that would lead them to the base of the soldiers’ hill.

Right on over the shallow cannonball crater he leaped his pony, paying it no heed as the soldier rifles opened up on them.

Back and forth he waved Nimhoyoh, giving its protection first to one side of the