In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (6 page)

As they approached the historic site, Jimmy saw a wall made of upright logs. It was not that high. Off to the right was the Interpretive Center, according to a sign.

“What happened here?” Jimmy asked. He already suspected that Crazy Horse had been here. Otherwise they would not be stopping.

“This is where young Crazy Horse became a war leader,” Grandpa replied as he parked the truck. “He was only in his twenties, unusual for a war leader. It's one of the reasons Crazy Horse is considered so exceptional.”

Inside the building were dioramas—three-dimensional displays of the fort's history. They showed soldiers and Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. A man in a tan uniform approached them.

“Welcome to Fort Phil Kearny,” he said. “I can try to answer any questions you might have.”

“Thank you,” said Grandpa Nyles. “We're Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. I'm taking my grandson on a tour of Crazy Horse sites.”

“Ah, I see,” the man replied. “Then you probably know more about Crazy Horse than I do. But let me know if I can help in any way.”

A half hour later they drove away from the Interpretive Center. On the access highway they turned north and parked at the top of a hill. There the highway ended. Nearby was a tall, upright monument made of stones.

“That's about where the battle came to an end,” said Grandpa Nyles.

“A battle? What battle?”

“We call it the Battle of the Hundred in the Hands. The whites call it the Fetterman Battle. Some even call it the Fetterman Massacre.”

“Why?”

Grandpa Nyles pointed at the monument. “Come on. Let's look at that plaque.”

ON THIS FIELD ON THE 21
^ST
DAY OF
DECEMBER, 1866,
THREE COMMISSIONED OFFICERS AND
SEVENTY SIX PRIVATES
OF THE 18
^TH
U.S. INFANTRY, AND
OF THE 2
^ND
U.S. CAVALRY, AND
FOUR CIVILIANS,
UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAIN BREVET–
LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM J. FETTERMAN
WERE KILLED BY AN OVERWHELMING FORCE OF SIOUX,
UNDER THE COMMAND OF RED CLOUD.
THERE WERE NO SURVIVORS
.

“They got it wrong,” Grandpa Nyles said. “There
were
survivors of this battle: hundreds of Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. And Red Cloud wasn't involved in it.”

“But it says Red Cloud was the leader,” Jimmy said, pointing to the plaque.

“Well, Crazy Horse was the biggest reason the Lakota and Cheyenne won the battle. December twenty-first, 1866, was the start of winter. The temperature that day was thirty degrees below zero.”

“That's really cold, Grandpa.”

“Yeah. When it's that cold, it's hard to take a deep breath. Imagine what it's like to ride a galloping horse.”

The way it was—December 1866

Smoke rose into the frigid air from eighteen conical lodges, thin undulating columns rising upward. Footsteps crunched on the snow. One by one a few young Lakota men wearing elk-hide robes ducked into a lodge
.

The lodge was on the west side of the village. The village was one of twenty-three along the Tongue River. This particular lodge was the home of a Lakota medicine man named Worm and his two wives, their daughter, and their two sons. One of the sons was Crazy Horse
.

Worm had been called Crazy Horse. He was given the name by his father, the first Crazy Horse. So when he passed it on to his son Light Hair, he himself took the name Worm
.

For the entire day and into the evening, dozens of young warriors came to talk with Crazy Horse. The elders, the old men leaders, had chosen him for a special task. This was part of a plan to defeat the Long Knives stationed in Fort Kearny on Buffalo Creek. Every warrior wanted to be chosen to help him with that task. But he would choose only a few
.

For several years those Long Knives had been living in Lakota territory. That was against Lakota wishes. Furthermore, the Long Knives were there in violation of their own promises. They had built their fort even though they had promised they would not. All in all, the Long Knives were part of a bad problem for the Lakota
.

That bad problem was because of gold. A long way to the northwest were the goldfields. Hundreds, if not thousands, of whites used the Bozeman Trail to get to the gold. They traveled by foot, on horseback, and in wagons. And the trail ran straight through Lakota territory
.

Two other forts stood along the Bozeman Trail: Fort Reno, to the south, and Fort C. F. Smith, to the north. That made three in all, built to protect the gold seekers from the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne—to protect the invaders against those whose home it was. That made the Lakota and Cheyenne angry
.

What was more, the Long Knives were reluctant to leave their forts. When they did, they did not stay out long. That made it difficult for the Lakota and Cheyenne to engage
them in battle. Therefore, they could not fight them and send them away
.

After many failed attempts to fight the Long Knives, a new plan was made. First, lure them out of the fort. Second, lure them into an ambush. Young Crazy Horse was given the second task. It was a dangerous assignment. If successful, it could mean the defeat of the Long Knives. And, once defeated, they might leave Lakota territory. So every young warrior wanted to be selected to help him
.

Crazy Horse's part of the overall plan was simple. There was a ridge several miles from the fort. He and his warriors would act like a mother grouse leading a coyote away from her nest. She pretended to be injured. When the coyote came close, she flew away but landed close by. Each time the coyote approached, she flew away again. Doing this, she led the coyote far away from her chicks. Crazy Horse's task was to decoy the Long Knives. To lead them to the ridge—and to the ambush
.

The chances of success were small, though the plan was good. For that reason, Crazy Horse had been selected to
lead. In order to ensure success, the warriors he selected had to be very skilled and very brave. By the time he went to sleep, he knew the warriors he wanted
.

A bitterly cold dawn revealed the landscape. There was already activity in the villages along the Tongue River. Hundreds of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors were on horses and riding north. It was the first day of winter and very, very cold. Every man was bundled in a thick buffalo-hide robe. Many had elk-hide coats beneath that. They also wore elk- or bear-hide mittens on their hands. Just as important, they carried weapons. After all, a battle could occur today
.

No one really wanted a battle. But it was a necessary way to defeat the Long Knives. Every man was afraid. Most would not admit that to anyone but themselves. But part of being a warrior was facing their fears. That was called courage
.

The cold was very intense. Mist billowed from the mouths of men and horses. Warm breath turned into vapor. It took a lot of courage just to be outside in such intense cold. Horses' hooves crunched sharply on the snow. On dry ground they were a loud clop, clop, clop, clop
.

After they had ridden twenty miles, the plan for the day was put into action. Some five hundred warriors hid on either side of the high, narrow ridge—about half of them in the gullies on the east side and the others on the west. These warriors were the main body of fighters; they would wait in ambush
.

Two smaller groups of warriors rode farther south. Nine were led by Crazy Horse. They were the decoy warriors: five were Lakota, two were Northern Cheyenne, and two were Arapaho. All were skilled riders and experienced fighters. Little Hawk, Crazy Horse's younger brother, was the only teenager in the group. As a small boy he had been called Whirlwind
.

There was another small group of warriors that was also an important part of the plan. This band would attack the horse- and mule-drawn wagons that came out of the fort. Those wagons regularly drove west toward the forested slopes, where they loaded wood for the stoves in the fort. When the wood wagons had been attacked before, soldiers always came out of the fort to save them
.

Grandpa Nyles gestured, indicating the north-south ridge. It was very narrow in one spot, with steep slopes going down on both sides.

“This is where the battle started and ended,” he said. “On this ridge. But we have to imagine the land covered with snow, though not completely. And remember, it was very, very cold.”

Crazy Horse took his warriors to a thick stand of leafless bushes. Hidden there, they waited. The other group—the wagon attackers—kept going and found another place to hide. Then everyone waited to see if the wagons would emerge from the fort. Everything depended on that
.

Before noon the wagons did roll out of the fort, through a large double gate. They rumbled west on the road toward the forest. Two or three men rode in each, along with their axes and saws. They were going to gather wood
.

The wagons followed the road. Soon they were even with the long, low ridge to the right. From a thicket of shrubs, the wagon attackers burst from hiding. Making their horses gallop over the frozen ground, they rode toward the wood
wagons. Gunfire erupted from the warriors' rifles and pistols. More gunshots blasted as the men in the wagons shot back at the attacking warriors
.

The gunshots cracked loudly across the ice-covered landscape. A battle between the attacking warriors and the wagon men ensued. After several minutes, the fort's west gate opened and soldiers hurried out. They moved in a column of twos, eighty in all. The first forty were mounted. The forty behind them were on foot. The column hurried toward the gunfire
.

The Long Knives had carried out such tactics before. Each soldier had a rifle and a pistol in a holster. All wore heavy blue overcoats, thick leather gloves, and fur caps
.

Crazy Horse and his warriors saw the soldiers emerge through the gate. An important step in the plan was happening. He held his men back, waiting for the soldiers to get farther away from the fort. If he attacked too soon, they might run back to the gates
.

The commander of the Long Knives was in a hurry, so the soldiers on foot had to run to keep up. Before long, the mounted soldiers were far ahead. From his hiding place
Crazy Horse could see them. He waited until he could see most of the column
.

In spite of the intense cold, Crazy Horse tossed off his buffalo robe so he could handle his weapons more easily. His warriors did the same. He turned to them as he took out his pistol
.

“Follow me,” he called out. “We do this for our people!” Without looking back, he urged his horse out of the thicket. In the open he coaxed it into a gallop. The nine other warriors were close behind him, all of them with rifles in hand
.