He ventured: “Uncle, will they find us here—
The soldiers?” ’Twas a buzzing in the ear
Of Red Hawk where he brooded on his cast.
“The wind is coming up,” he said at last;
“The sky grows dusty.” “Then the fish won’t bits,”
Said Running Wolf. “There may be rain tonight”
Said Red Hawk, falling silent. Bravely then
The youngster wrought himself a world of men
Where nothing waited on a wind of whim,
But everything, obedient to him,
Fell justly. All the white men in the world
Were huddled there, and round about them swirled
More warriors than a grownup might surmise.
The pony-thunder and the battle-cries,
The whine of arrows eager for their marks
Drowned out the music of the meadowlarks,
The rising gale that teased the cottonwoods
To set them grumbling in their whitened hoods,
The chatter of a little waterfall.
These pebbles—see!—were Crazy Horse and Gall;
Here Crow King raged, and Black Moon battled there!
This yellow pebble—look!—was Yellow Hair;
This drab one with a little splotch of red,
The Gray Fox, Crook! Ho ho! And both were dead;
And white men fell about them every place—
The leafage of the autumn of a race—
Till all were down. And when their doom was sealed,
The little victor danced across the field
Amid the soundless singing of a throng.
The brief joy died, for there was something wrong
About this battle. Mournfully came back
That other picture of a dawn attack—
The giant horses rearing in the fogs
Of their own breath; the yelping of the dogs;
The screaming rabble swarming up the rise;
The tangled terror in his mother’s eyes;
The flaming lodges and the bloody snow.
Provokingly oblivious of woe,
The two still eyed the waters and were dumb.
“But will they find us, Uncle? Will they come?”
Now Red Hawk grunted, heaving at his line,
And, wrought of flying spray and morning-shine,
A spiral rainbow flashed along the brook.
“Hey hey!” said Red Hawk, staring at his hook,
“He got my bait! Run yonder to the bluff
And catch some hoppers, Hohay. Get enough
And you shall see how fish are caught today!”
Half-heartedly the youngster stole away
Across a brawling riffle, climbed the steep
And gazed across the panoramic sweep
Of rolling prairie, tawny in the drouth,
To where the Big Horns loomed along the south,
No more than ghosts of mountains in the dust.
Up here the hot wind, booming gust on gust,
Made any nook a pleasant place to dream.
You could not see the fishers by the stream;
And you were grown so tall that, looking down
Across the trees, you saw most all the town
Strung far along the valley. First you saw
The Cheyennes yonder opposite the draw
That yawned upon the ford—a goodly sight!
So many and so mighty in a fight
And always faithful brothers to the Sioux!
Trees hid the Brulé village, but you knew
’Twas half a bow-shot long from end to end.
Then Ogalalas filled a river bend,
And next the Minneconjoux did the same.
A little farther south the Sans Arc came,
And they were neighbors to the Hunkpapas.—
The blackened smoke-vents, flapping in the flaws,
Were like a startled crow flock taking wing.—
Some Ogalalas played at toss-the-ring
And many idlers crowded round to see.—
The grazing ponies wandered lazily
Along the flat and up the rolling west.
Now, guiltily remembering his quest,
He trotted farther up the naked hill,
Dropped down a gully where the wind was still—
And came upon a hopping army there!
They swarmed, they raged—but Hohay didn’t care;
For suddenly it seemed the recent climb
Had been a scramble up the height of time
And Hohay’s name was terror in the ears
Of evil peoples. Seizing weeds for spears,
He charged the soldiers with a dreadful shout.
The snapping of their rifles all about
Might daunt a lesser hero. Never mind;
His medicine made all their bullets blind,
And ’twas a merry slaughter. Then at last
The shining glory of the vision passed,
And hoppers were but hoppers as before,
And he, a very little boy once more,
Stood dwarfed and lonely on a windy rise.
The sun was nearly up the dusty skies.
’Twas white with heat and had a funny stare—
All face! The wind had blown away its hair.
It looked afraid; as though the sun should fear!
Now, squinting downward through the flying blear,
He scanned the town. And suddenly the old
Remembered dawn of terror struck him cold.
Like startled ants that leave a stricken mound
In silence that is felt as panic sound
By one who sees, the squaws and children poured
Along the valley northward past the ford;
And men were chasing ponies every place,
While many others ran, as in a race,
To southward.
Hohay, taking to his heels,
Made homeward like a cottontail that feels
A kiote pant and whimper at his tail.
He reached the bluff rim, scrambled to the vale
And crossed the stream. The fishermen were gone.
A hubbub in the village led him on
Pell-mell among the snatching underwood,
Till, checked as by a wall of sound, he stood
Apant and dripping in the howling town.
A bent old man there hobbled up and down
Upon a staff and sang a cackling song
Of how his heart was young again and strong;
But no one heeded. Women ran with guns
And bows and war clubs, screaming for their sons
And husbands. Men were mounting in a whirl
Of manes and tales to vanish in a swirl
Of scattered sand; and ever louder blew
The singing wind of warriors riding through
To battle. Hohay watched them, mouth agape,
Until he felt a hand upon his nape
That shoved him north, and someone shouted “Run!”
He scampered.
Meanwhile, nearer to the sun,
A rifle shot beyond the village end,
Came Reno’s troopers pouring round a bend,
Their carbines ready at their saddle bows.
A bugle yammered and a big dust rose
And horses nickered as the fours swung wide
In battle order; and the captains cried,
And with a running thunder of hurrahs
The long line stormed upon the Hunkpapas
Strung thin across the open flat. They fled
Like feeble ghosts of men already dead
Beneath the iron feet that followed there;
For now they deemed the far-famed Yellow Hair,
The Wolf of Washita, with all his pack
Potential in the dust cloud at his back,
Bore down upon them.
Flame along a slough
Before a howling wind, the terror grew
As momently increased the flying mass,
For all the others running up were grass
Before that flame; till men became aware
Of how another voice was booming there,
Outsoaring Panic’s, smashing through the brawl
Of hoofs and wind and rifles.
It was Gall.
A night wind blowing
