In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse (7 page)

Though it was warm, Jimmy shivered, imagining how cold it was for those warriors and soldiers.

“Was it really cold, like you said?”

“Sure was. Thirty degrees below zero, according to the thermometers in the fort. The decoys and Crazy Horse had been in that cold since leaving their villages before dawn. It had to be brutal for them.”

“Does it ever get that cold at home?” Jimmy asked, trying to remember if he had ever been so cold.

“A few times,” Grandpa Nyles replied. “Any temperature
below zero is dangerous. You can get frostbite and lose fingers and toes. I saw a man who lost the tip of his nose. Worse yet, you can freeze to death.”

“Man!” exclaimed Jimmy. “I hope that never happens to any of us. Did those warriors get frostbite?”

“I wouldn't be surprised. The stories don't say, specifically. But they were all outside in that cold for the entire day. I'm sure some of them suffered frostbite.”

“So what did Crazy Horse and his men do, exactly?”

“Well, they distracted the soldiers, tricked them into turning and chasing them, the decoys. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be telling you this story.”

Crazy Horse led his warriors into a meadow thinly covered with snow. The horses' hooves sounded like two dried sticks hitting together. The blasts of gunfire were loud, too, in the cold air
.

The mounted Long Knives followed them, as Crazy Horse had hoped they would. Now came the most dangerous part of the plan. Crazy Horse and his decoy warriors had to act like the wounded grouse. They had to stay just
ahead of the oncoming soldiers. To avoid being hit by a bullet, the warriors kept moving. They scattered over the meadow. Each warrior rode in a different direction, then turned and went in another direction. This made it very hard for the Long Knives to aim their guns. Moving targets are very difficult to hit. Amazingly, so far, none of the warriors had been wounded or killed. Now and then a warrior fired back
.

Between the boom of the guns, Crazy Horse could hear the shouting of the Long Knives. Their leaders were in front, yelling at their men. Crazy Horse assumed the leaders wanted their men to move faster
.

In the middle of the meadow, Crazy Horse did a very brave thing. He stopped his horse and dismounted. Then he lifted one of his horse's front feet, curling it back at the hock. Yanking his knife from its sheath, he scraped snow and ice from the bottom of the hoof. The snow and ice could make the horse slip and fall, taking its rider with it. When he finished scraping that foot, he picked up the other front foot
.

Meanwhile, the Long Knives were still coming, and
gunfire still blasted the frigid mountain air. The lead Long Knives saw that one of the warriors had dismounted and was attending to his horse. That made a very easy target. Much of the gunfire was aimed at Crazy Horse
.

Bullets whined through the air above Crazy Horse, like angry mosquitos. Those bullets were very high. The ones that hummed like yellow jackets were close, very close. Now and then, a bullet erupted in the snow and bounced off into the air. That kind of bullet made a very high-pitched whine, almost like a scream
.

Crazy Horse finished with his horse's front hooves and next took up the back feet. The bullets were getting closer and closer. His tan-and-white mare did not flinch at the booming of rifles as her rider scraped the ice from her hooves
.

“Wow!” exclaimed Jimmy. “He really did that?”

“He did,” affirmed his grandfather. “But he was smart, an experienced warrior. He watched the soldiers. As long as they were firing from moving horses, he knew they couldn't aim very well. And the foot soldiers, who were still running,
were too far back to be on the mark, especially since they were panting from the effort. So overall, the odds were in Crazy Horse's favor. Still, one of them could have gotten off a lucky shot. But, as we know, that didn't happen.”

“Did the soldiers know it was Crazy Horse?”

“No. They hadn't heard of him. No one among the whites had . . . yet. All they could see were ten warriors, a small force against eighty well-armed, well-supplied soldiers. Their commander, Captain William Fetterman, was confident. He was sure his soldiers could defeat any number of warriors. By all accounts he hated Indians. He didn't think they were as good as soldiers.”

“Oh. So then what happened?”

“Well, when the bullets were getting really, really close, Crazy Horse finally, calmly, mounted his horse and loped—not galloped—farther away. By then, the other nine decoy warriors were pretty much doing the same kinds of things.”

“They were?” Jimmy's eyes were big.

“Oh, yeah,” said Grandpa Nyles. “They were doing everything they could to make the soldiers angry. To make them keep chasing them. Remember, the place where the
other five hundred or so Lakota and Northern Cheyenne fighters were waiting was four miles away. Also, all of this was happening when it was thirty degrees below zero.”

“They did, didn't they, Grandpa? I mean, they took the soldiers to the ambush place, right?”

“Yeah, they did. Over four miles of frozen and uneven ground, covered with snow and ice. When they came near the ambush place, the warriors went down a steep slope. It was hard for the horses and men not to slip and fall. It wasn't easy for the foot soldiers, either. But they followed. They were angry—or too afraid not to follow their commander's orders.

“So on they came, following Crazy Horse and his warriors. They followed until they came to a long flat hill. It was called Lodge Trail Ridge.”

The northern side of Lodge Trail Ridge sloped down to a wide gully. There it led to the Bozeman Trail, used by white gold seekers heading farther north. It was a familiar trail to the Long Knives
.

From the bottom, Crazy Horse looked up and saw the
Long Knives. Several of them were at the edge of the crest, looking down. They finally seemed to be hesitating. Perhaps they had spotted some of the warriors waiting in ambush. Crazy Horse and his men fired their pistols at the soldiers. Return rifle fire splattered bullets in the snow near the warriors. After another moment, the soldier in the lead rode toward the decoys. Others immediately followed him. Soon there was a line of soldiers coming down
.

Crazy Horse signaled his men to fire again. Then they rode onto the Bozeman Trail and turned north onto a very narrow ridge. It ran north to south. On either side were very steep slopes and deep gullies. In those gullies on the eastern and western sides, the warriors were hiding. They had been waiting in the frigid cold since dawn, their weapons ready. They were eager for something to happen. They were waiting for Crazy Horse's signal to spring the trap
.

For the first time since early morning, Crazy Horse felt confident that the ambush would happen. Now, on the trail, he and his men acted confused. To the soldiers they appeared to be uncertain what to do. Meanwhile, the column of soldiers and horses poured down the slippery slope.
Crazy Horse let them get close, and then the decoys galloped away, as if trying to escape. The mother grouse was luring the coyote closer and closer
.

Crazy Horse stayed back and sent his men on along the trail. He waited as the soldiers came closer. Suddenly he felt the intense cold as the wind blew across the ridge. He heard guns firing, and bullets hummed by. Still he waited. When he could see their faces clearly, he turned and urged his horse into a lope
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The last of the foot soldiers came off the ridge. Crazy Horse stopped again to watch them. He heard the thud of horses' hooves on the frozen ground. His heart thumped in his chest. The plan was succeeding
.

He urged his horse on again. Catching up with his men, he raced northward with them. At the bottom of a slope, a creek curved across a low meadow. They rode for it, five men in one line, the other five in another line. They came to the frozen creek and crossed the ice carefully. Once on the other side the two lines of warriors separated. Then they rode toward each other, with one line crossing the other, like the fingers of two hands interlacing
.

Two warrior scouts, one on each side of the ridge, saw Crazy Horse and his warriors. That was the signal! Rising up from hiding, the two scouts each fired two rifle shots
.

All the soldiers were past the narrow ridge now, hurrying after the fleeing warriors
.

From behind leafless shrubs and out of narrow old creek beds, the waiting warriors emerged. Many had been hiding and waiting under buffalo- and elk-hide robes. All of them had been holding their weapons beneath the robes, to keep them warm
.

In a few heartbeats, the gullies were suddenly filled with warriors. Everyone was scrambling up the slopes. The warriors on the south side closest to Lodge Trail Ridge climbed upward. Their task was to get behind the soldiers
.

As soon as the warriors could see the soldiers on the ridge above them, they started shooting. Once the Lakota and Cheyenne guns started firing, and their arrows started flying, they did not stop
.

Crazy Horse and his decoys had carried out their plan. The soldiers were in the trap!

The old man looked at his grandson. Jimmy was completely enthralled by the story.

“Are you with me so far?” he asked.

“Yeah, Grandpa. The battle was starting, right?”

“Darn right! Our warriors scrambled up the slopes from both sides. The footing was treacherous, slippery. Their winter moccasins didn't have lug soles, you know. And it was cold, really cold! But that didn't matter to them.”

Jimmy looked down the slope to the west and turned and looked down the slope to the east. He could see them, hundreds of Lakota and Cheyenne men. He could see the mist from their breaths as they panted. They scrambled up the slopes, some of them slipping and falling. All of them were carrying weapons.

“What kind of weapons did the warriors have?”

“Most of them had only bows and arrows. Some did have guns of some kind, a six-shot pistol or a rifle. But ammunition—lead balls and powder—was hard to get. So everyone had bows and arrows. It was said Crazy Horse had only four round balls for his rifle, so he used his pistol until he ran out of powder. Then he used his war club and bow.”