Man on Two Ponies (14 page)

All of the Brulés who
had
stopped
to
watch now began shrieking, while chiefs and headmen tried to hero the others away before they could
be
stampeded into signing. Agent Spencer sent the Indian police to stop the chiefs from driving the waverers away.

Many of
those
who
had
rushed away began drifting back. Hollow-Horn-Bear hurried to Crook. Through the interpreter he begged Three Stars to let them return to their farms.

Unruffled, Crook replied, “Why not stay until tomorrow and have another
talk?
It's not good to quit when you're mad, and I can see you're hopping mad.”

“I'm not
mad!”
Hollow-Horn-Bear roared. In the meantime the police had stopped Yellow Hair and White Horse from trying
to
make the others leave.

Billy realized that nearly three hundred had already signed, mostly mixed-bloods and squawmen, but also the fullblood members of the Loafer and Corn bands. Louis Richanis and other mixed bloods now went among those who remained away from the table. “You're disloyal,” Billy heard Richanis say, “and you know what happens to disloyal men.” No Teton wanted
to
be
accused of disloyalty, and the hint that disloyal men would suffer later troubled them.

The councils continued. Those who remained opposed loudly protested their loyalty while more and more men touched the pen as their names were written. As he watched, Billy had a sinking feeling. Crook had broken their resistance. On June 12 he announced that more than the necessary three-fourths of Brulé men had signed. The commission's work at Rosebud was successfully concluded.

Episcopalian Bishop W. P.
Hare,
who
had
observed the councils, remarked to Culver that the commission, “convinced that the bill
was essential, carried persuasion
to
the verge of intimidation. I don't blame them if they sometimes did. The wit and patience of an angel would fail often in such a task.” Charles Hyde, who
had
also been watching, called the commission's actions a “shakedown.”

Billy had been appalled at the growing number of signers, remembering how the Hunkpapas had taken their cues from Grass and refused to let Pratt stampede them into signing. But among the Brulés, once the signing
had
started, the resistance of one group after another had collapsed out of fear of punishment, or at the least of losing a share of the benefits. And none wanted to be considered disloyal.

“Three weeks ago we were united against it,” he said. “I'm still opposed, but most signed, whether or not they were
in
favor. What happened to us?”

Culver lit his pipe and blew smoke toward the ceiling. “Crook is convinced that the well-being of the Sioux depends on accepting this agreement. He knows that if they refuse they'll lose their land anyway and likely have little to show for it. So he had the agent corral everyone here where he could keep them under pressure until enough realized that it was a good agreement or their resistance broke down. To accomplish it Crook had to make many promises, and some of them will require action by Congress. He took that chance because he felt it was in the interest of the Sioux and necessary, but now his honor depends on Congress fulfilling his promises. I don't envy
him
being in that position. It's no place for an honorable man, and you have to admit he is that.”

I still can't believe it happened. Everyone was solidly against it, yet somehow three-fourths signed. And Three Stars was the one who did it.

The signing had bitterly divided the Brutes and they quarreled violently. The non-signers said loudly that once the government got their land it would reduce rations, no matter what Three Stars and the others said. The signers hotly denied that would happen. “Which is right?” Billy asked Culver. He knocked the ash of his pipe and shook his head.

“I don't know what will happen when Lea turns in his census report. Right now the rations are barely enough to keep people from
starving. A cut
is
too awful
to
think about, but everything depends on appropriations. Congress, not the commission controls them.
All
we can
do
is
hope.”

“I offered my buckboard to carry some of the commission's staff to Pine Ridge,” Culver said that evening. “I agreed you'd drive the team. You can stay and see what the Oglalas do if you want.” Billy looked glum, still bewildered by the collapse of Brulé unity.

“My bet is that Crook will find Red Cloud and his people harder to break down, like the Brulés would have been if they still had Spotted Tail,” Culver continued. “Dr. Bland has bombarded the Oglalas with warnings not to sell. Crook versus Red Cloud—that should be a show worth watching.”

The four wagons
set
out early on June 13 and reached Pine Ridge
mid-morning of the third day. Billy had seen scouts watching them from a distance, and when the wagons approached Pine Ridge, several hundred mounted warriors in a long line moved toward them at a walk. All held Winchesters and were painted as for war. The sight of those stem warriors, with their feathers fluttering in the breeze, gave Billy a momentary chill. He glanced at the menacing line and then at Three Stars, who was feeling ill. He sat stiffly on the wagon seat, frowning. The warriors stopped a hundred yards away while the chiefs solemnly rode forward to greet the commission. If they were a welcoming committee, that wasn't obvious.

“I don't like this,” Crook curtly told the chiefs through his interpreter. “We came to
talk
to the Oglalas as individuals, not as a tribe controlled by warriors.” The chiefs gave signals and the warriors wheeled their ponies and loped away, the ribbons in
the ponies' tails trailing behind them.
Maybe Culver is right. The Oglalas look ready to fight.

That afternoon they met in council, with a huge crowd of Oglalas seated in a big circle. In the center, Foster and Warner sat with Red Cloud, American Horse, Little Wound, and Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses. While Crook remained in his tent, Warner
read
the agreement to the Oglalas, who listened with expressionless faces. When the interpreter finished translating the last sentence, the chiefs gave signals and a large body of mounted warriors began driving the other Oglalas away.

“See
here, what in thunder are you doing?” Foster asked sharply, snapping his fingers.

“The tribal council has ordered that no one be allowed to talk about selling land,” Red Cloud replied, unawed by the commissioners, “for the Oglalas have already rejected the sale. There is nothing to discuss. It is time for you to leave.”
Culver
is
right. Even the progressives refuse to sell. It won't be easy for Crook to change that.
He watched Foster and Warner. They showed no sign of being ready to leave. Then he glanced at Crook's tent and saw several mixed bloods leaving it.
He's not too sick to try the same things that worked at Rosebud.

Crook apparently felt better the next morning, and when he summoned the Oglalas for another council, they reluctantly assembled. Smiling and conciliatory, Foster explained the agreement's advantages for the Oglalas.

“We are here to enable the Sioux to become men again,” Foster continued, “and to free themselves from their present slavery. I want to
see
the day when the son of Red Cloud or your other chiefs shall occupy a seat in the great council of this state. Then instead of having a white
man
speak for the Indians, the Indians will be able to speak for themselves. In the meantime, it's important for the Sioux to
sell
some of their land while they
can
get such favorable terms.”
That's what Culver keeps saying. But why should we sell any of it? They said it was ours forever. Let the Wasicuns go somewhere else.

Foster went on to say that South Dakota would soon become a state, and its people wouldn't tolerate having it divided by the Great Sioux Reserve, which was like a wall between the eastern
and western parts. “It doesn't take much sense
to
see that the whites
will break down that wall. It is our duty as friends to advise you of the situation. Unless this act is accepted, and I don't say this as a threat-! say it as a friend, the Senators and Representatives from South Dakota will influence Congress to get it through there somehow. There's no way to stop them. Your choice is to accept a good price for your land now, or risk losing it, and receiving nothing.”

Red Cloud spoke next. First he wanted to be sure that white men married into the tribe would have the same rights as fullbloods. Then he rambled on for a time before coming to the point. “My friend General Crook knows something about this last treaty of 1876. My friends, when a man owes ten cents or fifty cents up here at these stores these storekeepers want that paid before he gets any more. Now you come here and ask for more land. You want to buy more land, and I looked around to see if you brought any boxes of money. I couldn't see any, and now I think this is sugar talk again.”

Progressive chiefs Little Wound and Young-Mao-Afraid-of-His-Horses spoke briefly, and they also dwelt on the past, especially unkept promises. Irritated, Crook had Red Cloud send for his copy of the 1868 treaty, then showed him that all the commitments except the clothing issue had expired.

American Horse said that he knew very well what the land agreement would do to the Tetons. “Today it takes half of our land. Tomorrow a tax man will come and tie ropes to every bit of land we have left. Then, when we have no money to pay the
tax
man, he will pull on the ropes and drag the land out from under our feet. It has
happened
to
other tribes.” The commissioners frowned, for what he said was true at the few reservations that had already been allotted.

White Cow Man agreed with American Horse. “I think that if I spread my blanket right here and you piled money upon it that high,” he said, holding his hand palm downward at knee level, “I don't
think
I could keep it two days. Whenever I get ten dollars, I put it in my blanket and go to the trader's store, and before the day is out I spend it all. I am an Indian and I don't know how to take care of money. Over there at the boarding school I have a son who has been there four years. This young one at the school,
I think he is the one to take a land allotment when the time comes.”

“My friends,” Warner said, with a trace of irritation in his voice,
·'we are talking of a land agreement, not of allotment. That is a totally different matter.” He paused to see if they appeared to understand. “That you may have been wronged in the past I do not question, but that the Great Father has watched over you as you would watch over your children, there is no doubt. And yet you come here today and slap the Great Father in the face. It's time to forget the past and to think of the future.”

Crook spoke next.
“If
whites have violated the 1868 treaty,” he said, “the Sioux have also violated it.” He cleared his throat. “The old days are gone forever. It's time to put them out of your minds and start looking after yourselves. Before we leave we want every man eighteen or older to say for himself if he will or will not sign.”

It was clear to Billy that Crook was again maneuvering to get around the chiefs and the tribal council by appealing to individuals. But fearing that no Oglala could win an argument with the commissioners, especially with Three Stars, the tribal council had ordered
all
to remain silent. The fullbloods obeyed, but that gave the mixed bloods a wide opportunity. As those at Rosebud had done, the mixed bloods argued in favor of the sale and took influential fullbloods
to talk to Crook in his tent. Billy could see that a few seemed to have been won over, but none of them did any talking.

Finally Crook called on the Oglalas to come forward and sign the agreement. Squawmen, mixedbloods, and about eighty Northern Cheyennes who had lived with the Oglalas since their flight from Indian Territory, headed for the table. The Oglalas who opposed the sale called on American Horse to talk for the tribe.

American Horse, a sharp-faced man of medium stature, was the greatest orator of all the Tetons, and when he started talking the signers returned to their seats. Billy saw Crook look at Foster and shrug. The commissioners had pretended that they had come only for leisurely talks with their friends the Oglalas, so they had no choice but to listen. American Horse was, after all, a leading progressive chief, but his talk against the sale meant that the commissioners could no longer pretend that only hard-headed non-progressives opposed it.

American Horse talked steadily the rest of the day, pointing to the earth, the sky, and distant hills to emphasize his remarks. At times he was witty, at others solemn. He brought up anything that entered his mind, from visits to Washington to his travels with a Wild West Show. The commissioners glumly listened, but they didn't interrupt him. They looked relieved when the time came to quit for the day. “I hope he's as tired as I am,” Billy heard Foster
say.