Wolf Mountain Moon (70 page)

The stormy fight at Battle Butte pierced these two great nations to the very heart of what they were as a culture. The bleeding had begun, drop by drop, that winter and continued into a cold, rainy spring. There would be no way to stop that bleeding.

The hoop was unraveling.

What once was would never be again.

Saddest of all—it was to be Crazy Horse's last fight.

At Battle Butte he chose the ground where he would engage his antagonist, Nelson A. Miles. This was the fight that proved the Bear Coat good at his word. At the Cedar Creek parleys
^*
he had promised the Sioux he would not give them any rest that winter. Miles kept his vow. The winter roamers learned that the army could and would hunt them down, despite the most severe weather.

Day by day, moon by moon, it was becoming more and more clear that there would be no peace until they went in to their agencies.

This last battle for Crazy Horse was a fight that stripped the Northern Cheyenne of what little they still had left after close to a year of constant war.

This was a winter that proved to Crazy Horse that his people could not go on any longer.

After 8 January 1877, the choices were as clear as a high-country stream: follow Sitting Bull in fleeing to Canada … or limp into one of the agencies and hope for the mercy of those who have labored long and hard to defeat you.

For Crazy Horse, the greatest warrior of the
Titunwan
Lakota nation, the hardest thing for him to do was to consider giving up his war pony, handing over his weapons, and abandoning the path being a defender of his people. Harder still to leave the land that rested in his bones and ran in his blood.

If the Battle of the Butte accomplished nothing more, it convinced Crazy Horse that the war was over. The fight was done.

No longer was there any home on the face of his beloved land for a warrior.

Many winters before, his feet had been planted on the road that would hurtle him toward his youthful vision of a man he called Horse Rider—a vision in which Horse Rider could not be killed by the white man. Instead, Crazy Horse knew Horse Rider was to die at the hands of his own people … the way they clawed at him, tugged at him, trying to hold him back.

With his fight against the white man done, Crazy Horse knew he had those last terrible steps to take along the trail that would lead him to his fate.

And to the spiritual death of his people.

The Battle of the Butte was his last fight.

So what did death matter when his people no longer had need of a warrior, no longer had need of a Shirt Wearer … no longer had need of this Strange Man of the Oglalla?

—Terry C. Johnston
   Battle of the Butte
   Quarter Circle U Ranch, Montana
   8 January 1996

Terry C. Johnston
was born on the first day of 1947 on the plains of Kansas and lived all his life in the American West. His first novel,
Carry the Wind,
won the Medicine Pipe Bearer's Award from the Western Writers of America, and his subsequent books appeared on bestseller lists throughout the country. After writing more than thirty novels of the American frontier, he passed away in March 2001 in Billings, Montana. Terry's work combined the grace and beauty of a natural storyteller with a complete dedication to historical accuracy and authenticity. He continues to bring history to life in the pages of his historical novels so that readers can live the grand adventure of the American West. While recognized as a master of the American historical novel, to family and friends Terry remained and will be remembered as a dear, loving father and husband as well as a kind, generous, and caring friend. He has gone on before us to a better place, where he will wait to welcome us in days to come.

If you would like to help carry on the legacy of Terry C. Johnston, you are invited to contribute to the

Terry C. Johnston Memorial Scholarship Fund
c/o Montana State University-Billings Foundation
1500 N. 30
^th
Street
Billings, MT 59101-0298
1-888-430-6782

For more information on other Terry C. Johnston
novels, visit his website at
http://www.imt.net/~tjohnston

send e-mail to
[email protected]

or write to
Terry C. Johnston's West
P.O. Box 50594
Billings, MT 59105

The Fifth Infantry in action against Crazy Horse's warriors
at the Battle of the Butte.

(Painting by Frederic Remington)