In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (5 page)

“That was the Council on Horse Creek,” said Grandpa Nyles. “East of here. History calls it the Fort Laramie Treaty Council of 1851. The people came because they were curious about what the white peace talkers wanted. They were told all the Indians were not to bother the people in the wagons on the Oregon Trail. Also because the whites offered gifts. Being asked not to bother those people seemed kind of silly, because it was the wagon people who always started the trouble. Some of them would shoot at Indians. The tribes signed the treaty. But after Light Hair became Crazy Horse, he was here again. Other than that, he stayed away. He didn't like this place.”

“Well, why did he come back?” Jimmy wondered.

“Horses,” replied Grandpa Nyles. “He led a raid. Crazy Horse and several other Lakota warriors swept through here like a sudden wind. They took the Long Knives'
horses. The Long Knives chased them, but they couldn't catch them.”

Grandpa Nyles turned and pointed west, beyond a two-story building. “They came from that direction.” Then he pointed toward the other side of the large open space. “Most of the Long Knives' horses were picketed there. Pawnee scout horses, too.”

“Pawnee?” Jimmy asked.

“The Long Knives used them a lot as scouts, against other Indians.”

“Did they take
all
the horses from here?”

“No, I don't think so. A lot of them, though.”

Jimmy looked around, imagining Lakota warriors on horseback. He could see them racing across the open area. He could hear the drumlike pounding of hooves.

“Why did they do that?” he asked his grandfather.

Grandpa Nyles smiled. “Well, because they could. And because Crazy Horse wanted to annoy the Long Knives.”

Jimmy smiled broadly. “I think he did that.”

Grandpa Nyles was smiling as well. “Yeah, he did, for sure. But there was an incident that happened near here,
when he was still Light Hair—something that caused the Long Knives to attack Little Thunder's village.”

“You mean when Light Hair helped Yellow Woman? What happened?”

Grandpa Nyles took on his storytelling face again. “Yeah, that was it. Let me tell you what happened.”

The way it was—1854

Light Hair and his friend Slow were among the first to see the soldiers coming. The Long Knives were riding in wagons, sitting shoulder to shoulder. Behind the wagons a team of horses pulled a strange-looking object. It looked like a thick, short log, but it was black. A warrior who also saw the Long Knives shouted a warning
.

Light Hair and Slow ran and hid in a chokecherry thicket. They knew the Long Knives were coming because of that skinny cow
.

Several days earlier, a cow had wandered into the village. A cow from those whites called Mormons. The cow had knocked over meat racks and bumped into an old woman. A
Mniconju had killed it. He had been visiting in the Sicangu village. The cow had been butchered and the meat given away to old people
.

Then the white man had come, and he wanted his cow back. He had gone to the one in charge of the Long Knives at Fort Laramie and complained. A messenger came from the Long Knives' fort to the Sicangu village's headman, Conquering Bear. The old man offered payment—several mules—for the cow. Foolishly, the Mormon wanted his cow, not the mules. One mule was worth more than that skinny cow
.

Conquering Bear had done his best to avoid trouble. Next the Long Knife headman insisted that the man who had killed the cow be put in jail. Conquering Bear refused. So the Long Knives had now come to take the Mniconju
.

The soldiers jumped down from the wagons and formed a line, pointing their rifles toward the village. Conquering Bear and two other men bravely walked toward them. The old man spoke with the soldier in charge. The soldier spoke loudly, angrily
.

Meanwhile, Light Hair and Slow saw warriors gathering
in the village. Long Knives—the soldiers—were not to be trusted
.

Conquering Bear offered more mules for the cow. The soldier leader's name was Lieutenant John Grattan, and he was angry. He demanded that the man who had killed the cow be brought to him. Conquering Bear again refused. When the old man saw there was no use talking, he and his two men turned and walked away
.

The soldier leader shouted, and the soldier guns fired. The big black thing that looked like a log turned out to be a big gun. It was fired at the village. It boomed like thunder. Conquering Bear was one of the first to fall, severely wounded
.

The waiting warriors attacked, charging the Long Knives. Light Hair and Slow watched, too young to join. Warrior guns cracked and boomed; the men swung clubs and thrust lances. The soldiers seemed helpless because the warrior attack was swift. Many soldiers fell, and some ran away. Those fleeing were chased and cut down, except for one. He was sent back to the Long Knives' fort. The soldier leader, Grattan, had been one of the first to fall
.

Light Hair and Slow watched some of the warriors ride toward the Long Knives' fort. They heard later that the Long Knives would not come out to fight
.

The badly wounded Conquering Bear was taken to his lodge. There Light Hair's father and other medicine men treated his wounds. But their efforts could not save the well-liked old man
.

When Conquering Bear died, a man walked through the village shouting the terrible news. Light Hair was very sad when he heard. Without thinking, he found his horse, mounted, and galloped away across the prairie
.

He was angry. He understood now why many Lakota did not trust the white people. They were loud and quick to anger, and eager to shoot their weapons at the Lakota
.

Light Hair rode aimlessly, his thoughts full of the sounds and images he and Slow had witnessed. Sounds of the Long Knife rifles, and the big gun; images of the brief and furious battle, and of soldiers falling
.

He found himself at the base of a hill. Tying his horse to a plum tree, he climbed the hill and took shelter in the shade. Later he took his horse to drink from a small creek
nearby. Then he went back up the hill. He could not take his mind off the battle or off the old man who had died. When night came, he fell asleep
.

Light Hair had no food. The next morning he awoke hungry, his stomach growling. So he drank water. Very slowly the day passed. He sat in the shade and walked around the hill. He took his horse to water again. Evening gave way to night once more, and he slept. Sometime in the night, the dream came
.

It was a strange dream. A warrior on a horse rode across a lake. Mountains and storm clouds rose to the west. There was the sound of thunder, and a red-tailed hawk flew above the man and horse. As the horse galloped, it changed color, from black to blue to white and then red. Bullets and arrows flew at the man but did not hit him. Then the horse and rider reached the dry ground, and other men, who looked like the rider, rose out of the earth. They surrounded the horse and pulled the rider down
.

Light Hair could almost feel their hands pulling. Then he awoke. His father and another man were shaking him
.

“Wake up!” they said. “What are you doing here alone?”

“What happened then?” Jimmy asked, after his grandfather had paused for several long moments.

“They went home, back to the village,” Grandpa Nyles said. “Light Hair's dad scolded him for wandering off without telling anyone.”

“Who was the other man?”

“High Back Bone, but he was called Hump,” his grandfather replied. “He was Light Hair's teacher. He taught him how to be a hunter and a warrior. The two of them were friends for life, until Hump was killed in a fight against some Shoshone. He was a strong man and a very good teacher.”

“What about the dream?” Jimmy asked.

“We all dream when we sleep. Sometimes the dreams don't mean anything. But Light Hair's dream had a very strong meaning. He didn't tell his father until months later. Then his dad and another medicine man told him what it meant.”

Jimmy was very curious. “What did it mean?”

Grandpa Nyles smiled and ruffled his grandson's hair. “That I will tell you later,” he said.

4

The Bozeman Trail

INTERSTATE 25 CUT FROM SOUTH TO NORTH ACROSS
Wyoming. From the city of Casper it traced the route of an old road.

“This interstate pretty much follows an ancient trail,” Grandpa Nyles told Jimmy. “It was marked out by a white man named John Bozeman. So it was called the Bozeman Trail. He marked it out back in 1860 to show the way to gold fields in Montana. Soon other whites came along and used
it. Problem was, it went right through Lakota territory.”

“Our people didn't like that?” Jimmy ventured.

“No, they sure didn't. And there were even older trails here before Bozeman. One was called the Powder River Road. It was used by our people.”

He lifted a finger and pointed without taking his hands from the steering wheel. “See those mountains over there to the left?” he said. “Those are called the Bighorn Mountains now. Our people called them the Shining Mountains.”

It was hard not to notice those mountains. They filled the entire western skyline.

“Why?” Jimmy asked.

“Because the snow on the peaks shines in the sunlight,” explained his grandfather.

They turned off Interstate 25 at a sign that said
KAYCEE
, drove past a convenience store, and eventually turned onto a dirt road. Kaycee was a small town, even smaller than Cold River. They drove through it in less than five minutes. A few miles farther on they came to gullies and low spots.

Jimmy noticed that the grass was sparse here and the
land looked like a desert, no longer like the grass prairies to the east. His grandpa pulled to a stop, and they stepped out of the truck. Everything felt different as well. Perhaps it was the jagged mountains to the west.

“There was an army post here,” his grandpa said, waving his arm in an arc. “It was called Fort Reno.”

“Was Crazy Horse here, too?”

“He sure was. But there was another fort to the north. That's where the interesting things happened,” said the old man.

“Then why did we stop here?” Jimmy asked.

“So you can see what he saw. Smell the sagebrush and feel the same sand under your feet.”

They walked a ways into the desert. In the distance a small whirlwind swirled behind a rise, raising dust. Jimmy imagined it was a group of Lakota warriors on horseback galloping their horses.

After a few minutes they walked back to the pickup. Shortly after that they were back on Interstate 25, going north. Just over an hour later they saw a large brown-and-white sign:
FORT PHIL KEARNY STATE HISTORIC SITE
. They
exited, then drove through an underpass and onto a narrow two-lane road. It took them to a turn-off to a gravel road.