eighty-six. And over at Standing Rock, where there should have been seven thousand three hundred twenty-two Sioux that summer, all but two thousand three hundred five had left to join Sitting Bull.
The warriors were gathering, their souls burning for the fight of Bull’s mighty vision. Still they came, more warriors and families had arrived each day to join up until this greatest of all villages stretched for more than three miles up and down the valley of the Pa-zees-la-wak-pa.
Already better than fifteen thousand joyous celebrants sharing the old life in the valley of the Greasy Grass this last week of the
And of those, better than half were seasoned, hardened veterans of plains warfare.
Not only the veterans—every fighting male snarled for a fight. Every one with a father, brother, uncle, or cousin who had been killed by the soldiers. In every male boiled blood hot for those soldiers destined by the Dream to ride down on their camp circles. For if any army was brazen and foolish enough to march down on this greatest of all gatherings in Lakota history, this epic encampment would be the last sight to greet their terrified, death- glazed white eyes.
In those few days it had taken them to cross the divide after fighting Red Beard Crook, the Sioux learned of another army in the country. Scouts had seen the Fireboat-That-Walks-on-Water up on the Yellowstone for days now. Some had even noticed the dust of a large compliment of soldiers marching on the Rosebud where Crazy Horse had scattered Red Beard’s forces a few days earlier.
And now on this balmy evening a crippled and leathery old Sans Arc village crier hobbled through his camp. As white men reckoned with time, it was a Saturday, the twenty-fourth of June, in the year of 1876. The crier’s high, reedy voice sang out that unthinkable news.
“Soldiers are coming, people! Heed my words! The Dream says it is so. Soldiers come with tomorrow’s sun!”
Neither the Sans Arc nor any other camp circle paid the old man any heed. Surely Crook or any other soldier- chief wouldn’t be crazy enough to attack so large a gathering. It would be unthinkable. Yet more than a few did remember the details of Bull’s vision.
The soldiers would fall into camp almost as if committing suicide.
Others had heard that scouts reported seeing dust clouds on the divide. Some saw trails of iron-shod hoofprints.
That afternoon leaders of the various bands decided it best to post camp sentries on those ridges and bluffs east of the river to prevent any glory-seeking young warriors from dashing headlong out of camp to hunt down soldiers. If an army was indeed coming to fight the Sioux, then let those pony soldiers march all the way into the camps as Sitting Bull had foretold.
No warrior had the right to capture glory for himself by striking the first coup and ruining The Bull’s vision. Instead, the old men wanted this to be a battle to cloak the entire nation in glory and honor.
By sundown that warm Saturday evening, camp guards rode along the bony ridges east of the Greasy Grass like the spine of a sway-backed old mare. Soldiers were coming. Everyone knew. The words sat on every lip. Nervous and impatient, the Sioux and Cheyenne would have to wait for the army to ride down on their camps.
Up at the northern end of that village in the Cheyenne camp, four young warriors announced they would sacrifice themselves during the coming battle with the pony soldiers. As twilight settled over their Goat River, a dance and celebration got under way for Little Whirlwind, Close Hand, Cut Belly, and Noisy Walking. This was to be their last night on earth. Their last night among friends, they boasted before everyone in camp. Tomorrow they would give their lives in battle.
As the sun sank like a red-earth ache behind the distant Bighorn Mountains, a solitary figure slogged out of the river on foot, trudging up that slope at the far northern end of the long ridge. Up from the fragrant thickets of crabapple and plum and wild rose, he climbed into the tall grass and wild buffalo peas. Not a one of the posted camp guards challenged the lone Hunkpapa chief come here to sing his thunder songs and pray for guidance now that his great vision was about to see fulfillment.
With a purple sky deepening to black out of the east, this short, squat man left behind little bags of tobacco and red-willow bark, each bag tied to a short peeled willow shaft he had jammed into the ground near the crest of that hill at the northern end of the pony-back ridge. His powerful thunder medicine told him that here on this most hallowed ground, the last desperate fight would take place.
Here on the knoll, Sitting Bull prayed his final blessing for those
Dawn of the next day stretched over the valley of the Greasy Grass, and with the first pale light to the east along the brown, hoary caps of the Wolf Mountains, a high, shrieking death wail erupted through the sleepy Hunkpapa camp.
Four Horns, the wife of Sitting Bull’s uncle, had died as this new day was born.
Filled not only with grief but with a renewed awe at the mysterious workings of the Great Powers, The Bull knew this woman’s death presaged the great victory of his dream.
Far back into the memory of any of the old ones, it had been told that with the death of the wife of an important man would come a momentous event.
Sitting Bull closed his eyes and prayed again for those blessings he had asked on the hill above the river. From that very knoll the soldiers would see the entire village spread before them.
From that dry, grassy crest the troopers would see why the powerful Wakan Tanka had turned them over to the fury of the Sioux.
* * *
Farther north in the Oglalla camp, a Canadian half-breed who spoke passable English sat at a smoky dawn fire, refusing to lay his head down for sleep. Unlike most of the warriors, who had gone to their robes just before dawn, this nameless one sat staring into those yellow licks of flame darting along the dry cottonwood limbs, sensing the portent of some great event. What stirred him most already this cool gray morning was the strange behavior of Crazy Horse.
Before most battles the great war chief was normally composed and reserved. Not today as the sun was born again in the eastern sky. The Horse stomped in and out of his lodge many times: scurrying back and forth around his pony, checking and rechecking his personal weapons, and repeatedly inspecting the war medicine he carried in a small pouch tied behind an ear.
With grease and a vermilion pigment, the war chief mixed his paints, plastering a brilliant handprint on each of the war pony’s hips for speed this day. On one side of the animal’s neck he drew a dripping scalp lock, on the other side his fingertip traced out a bloodied arrow.
Filled with nervous energy, he went for a ride to other nearby camp circles yet returned a short time later. In and out of his lodge he paced again.
Something refused to release its grip on his spirit. Something that told him this would be a day like none other before … or ever to be again.
Crazy Horse’s most important fight was at hand.
A Miniconjou warrior called High Pipe drew himself from the icy water of the Greasy Grass and stood shivering beneath the first licks of sunlight breaking over the Mountains of the Wolf. When his morning prayer was spoken, and the air had warmed his body, the warrior strode back to his camp circle, finding his uncle, Hump, anxiously awaiting him.
“You must collect your horses, High Pipe,” the old man solemnly advised, dark eyes darting suspiciously to that bony ridge east of the river.
“Why, Uncle?”
“Something is going to happen this day,” Hump asserted. “Bring your horses into camp so your wives can pack them when trouble begins.”
“Uncle, there are plans to move the camp circle today,” High Pipe soothed, a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Farther north some, toward the country of the antelope. The Cheyenne lead the way. There is no need for
