Man on Two Ponies (9 page)

“If anyone wants to speak as a friend,” Wright told them through Billy, “I will listen to him.”

Wooden Knife pounded on the floor with his war club. He shouted that the Great Father had told them if their agent didn't treat them right they should throw him out, and that was what they had come to do. While Billy translated, a fierce-looking warrior named Eagle Pipe grabbed the agent by one arm and pulled. The police held fast to the other, and Billy feared they would
tear
Wright apart. Many were shouting
“Kill
him!” but they waited for someone else to do it. More police struggled
to
the agent's side and pushed
him
through the door into his office and out another door into the yard, with the angry crowd close behind. The police finally escorted Wright to safety. He appeared flustered but not fearful.

The aroused warriors circled the agency, still shouting threats. Finally the chiefs arrived with a band of former Akicita, or tribal soldiers, who were armed with whips and whose authority was still respected. Most of the shouting died down for the moment. Then the crowd broke up into small groups and began quarrelling furiously, all trying to talk at once. A few crowded around the Indian police, shoving and threatening them.

This kept up until sunset, when the warehouse clerk happened by on the way to his cabin. Three of Wooden Knife's warriors
grabbed the frightened clerk and took his keys to the warehouse. Then all rushed to the building, unlocked the door, and in the dark helped themselves
to
whatever they found. Wooden Knife emerged triumphantly bearing a sewing machine, when the chiefs and the Akicita returned and ordered the crowd to leave. Taking their loot, Wooden Knife and his friends happily departed.

The Brulés called this the “night issue,” for it was the only time that items in the warehouse were ever distributed after
dark.
Wright treated it as a small matter and made no attempt to recover any of the stolen goods. He merely demanded that Wooden Knife apologize, which he willingly did. To the Tetons at every agency the night issue was a great event, and after tempers cooled, the Brulés also loved to talk about it. They had manhandled the Great Father's agent, nearly tearing him to pieces, and they hadn't been punished. Whenever anyone mentioned the night issue, all roared with laughter. And in the winter count showing the major events of 1886, the bearded agent was depicted as being pulled out of his office.

A few days after the affair Wright came to the trading post, and
Billy heard him ask Culver what he thought about it.

“It
tells me that although the Brulés appear to be settling down and farming, under the surface they're seething, ready to explode.
If
one shot had been fired they might not have stopped until a bunch of whites and Indian police had been killed. Should the government do anything else they consider unjust, like taking their land, there's likely to be big trouble.” Wright stroked his
beard
but said nothing. That same year his term ended, and he turned the agency over
to
George Spencer. Wright's son George remained as clerk for the new agent.

As the months passed, Billy's hair grew long enough to tie at the back of his head with a piece of cord. Julian visited him occasionally, but he seemed uncomfortable with anyone whose presence would remind others he had been to Carlisle. Billy tried to convince himself that Julian looked more and more like other Brutes, and that the same transformation must be happening to him. At least Julian's braids now reached his shoulders and didn't look so ridiculous. Mollie Deer-in-Timber seldom came to the trading post, but when she did she wasn't talkative, and Billy felt tongue-tied.

The Dawes bill finally passed, and in February 1887 President Cleveland
signed it into law. Nothing more was heard of it for a long time, for no attempt was
made
to put it into effect among the Sioux.

“Will I ever look enough like a Brulé to satisfy my father?” Billy asked, touching the hair
at
the back of his neck. “I still don't feel like a real Brulé, and I wonder if I ever will. The fullbloods ignore me unless they need an intetpreter or someone to write a letter. I doubt if anything will change when my hair reaches my waist.”

Culver removed his pipe from his mouth. “I wish I knew, Billy. Only
time
will tell. Even though there's no catpenter work for you, it would be a shame to throw away
all
you learned and go back
to
being a blanket Indian. You're helping by what you do for them, and when you're older you should be able to do even more. They'll come to appreciate you for what you know.”

There
had
been a drouth the previous summer, and the winter had been more severe than any that the oldest warriors could remember. Cattle died by the thousands
all
over the northern plains, and hundreds of white ranchers were ruined. The Sioux cowboys worked
hard
to save their cattle and held their losses to
thirty
percent, less
than
half the average white losses.

Billy turned eighteen in 1887, and at the agent's urging chose a place for a cabin near a creek a few
miles
from the agency. White workmen helped him build a snug one-room cabin of
squared
pine logs, with door, windows, and cookstove the government supplied.
An
assistant of the agency fanner plowed an acre of land to be planted with corn. Billy couldn't look at the cabin without thinking of sharing it with Mollie Deer-in-Timber.

In late spring Billy planted the corn in neat rows, then watched almost eagerly as the green shoots pushed up through the dark
earth.
A
fat progressive named Bull
Bear rode
by the cornfield one Sunday afternoon while Billy was hoeing weeds between the rows. Bull Bear, who had married two sisters, stopped his pony and looked at Billy with an expression of disapproval on his chubby face.

“It isn't right for a
man
to work like a woman. If you were a
real
Brulé you'd have a wife to do your planting,” he said, then
rode
on.

Billy leaned on the hoe and stared after Bull Bear.
He's right, of course.
I'm
still too much Wasicun, and I don't even realize it.
He thought of the rich fields and orchards around Carlisle and remembered the roasting ears he'd eaten in the summers. They'd be a welcome change from the ration issue; he looked forward to harvest time. Every day he
gazed
up at the cloudless
sky
hoping for rain.

In mid-July he rode out to check on his corn. His heart
sank,
for from a distance he saw nothing green. He stopped his pony
at
the edge of the plot and dismounted. His stunted corn
had
given up the struggle. He'd blistered his hands keeping down the weeds, and now this. Sick
at
heart, he glumly walked among the shriveled
stalks
that
rustled pitifully in the hot wind, kicking at the brick-like clods. He wanted to strike out violently, but there was no visible, tangible enemy.
Only grass and weeds will grow here. The Wasicuns are making fools of us, telling us to plant corn.
That
some month Mollie Deer-in-Timber married her white man, an agency employee.

In the
fall
Billy read that Dawes had introduced a new Sioux land purchase bill.
Why
doesn
'the leave us alone? We
have
troubles enough already.
Under the new bill each tribe would have its own reservation and the rest of the Great Sioux Reserve would be declared surplus and sold to whites. When a reporter questioned Dawes about
his
Sioux bill, he replied, “There's so much pressure in Dakota Territory for Indian land I'm afraid that twenty-five thousand Sioux can't hold out much longer against five hundred thousand whites. I would rather see them
part
with enough land to satisfy the Dakotans than to risk losing
all.”
Billy felt a chill when he read that.
Will the Wasicuns ever be satisfied? Or will they keep on until our land
is
gone and we are no more?

The new Dawes' bill became law on April 30, 1888. Under it the educational provisions of the 1868 treaty were extended. Each family would be given a wagon, a yoke of oxen, two cows, farm tools and
seed,
and twenty dollars in
cash.
Everyone but Dr. Theodore Bland was certain the Sioux would be
delighted
with such a generous offer. Of
all
the Indian reformers, Bland was the only one who visited the agencies to learn what the Sioux wanted and needed. The Friends of
the
Indian ignored
him
because
he
disagreed
with them, so he had founded the Indian Defense Association and
published
The Council Fire.

As Billy learned, the trickery of the Edmunds commission, as well as broken treaty promises, had united the Sioux in bitter opposition to any land sale. The squawmen of each band read the papers and alerted the chiefs to the new threat. They worried about the progressives and others who might be persuaded or cajoled into signing the new agreement. “The whites promised rations and clothing when they took our land before,” old Two Strike said. “We don't need another agreement. And who cares about schools? If they didn't use the police to round up our children there'd be no schools here.”

When the Brulé chiefs learned that the bill had become law, old Two Strike came to the trading post. “You can write like the Wasicuns?” he asked Billy.

“Yes.”

“Write to Grass at Standing Rock and Big Foot at Cheyenne River for me. Tell them to bring the chiefs and headmen here to decide what we must do to keep our lands.” Billy wrote the letters, and before long delegations from other agencies began arriving at Rosebud. The Brulés were so excited at the coming of famous chiefs and warriors from other Teton tribes they abandoned their farms and hung around Rosebud to watch and listen. The chiefs held council to decide on the steps all should take to block the commission. Agent Spencer repeatedly urged them to return to their farms, and finally sent the police to break up the council. The chiefs simply rode off to distant camps and continued their talks.

“What can I do to make them get back to work?” Spencer asked Culver, stamping his foot in frustration.

“The word I get is that there's great excitement at all the agencies,” Culver replied, puffing on his pipe. “No one else is doing any farming, so don't worry about it. There's nothing you can do anyway. They've been expecting another land grab attempt, and now that it's on the way they're naturally up in arms about it. My advice is to leave them alone.”

The chiefs agreed they would simply say no to the land sale and refuse to discuss it,
then
they returned
to
their agencies. “I've never
seen the Sioux so determined,” Culver said. “I wonder if they
can hang together.”

“I hope so,” Billy said. “We'll soon know, I guess.”

“Look at this,” Billy said a few weeks later, tapping the paper he was reading. “The Friends of the Indian say that Captain Pratt is the ideal man to head the commission
to
persuade his friends the Sioux to sign the agreement. His friends the Sioux!” Billy's voice was almost shrill. “And he's actually been appointed. Wait
till
they see how many friends he
has
here.” He put down the paper. “What do you think will happen?” he asked, looking worried.

“United the Sioux can hold out a while longer, maybe a few more years at most.
If
the government would ever admit that they can support themselves only by raising cattle, it would
be
clear they need most of the Reserve for range. But if it ignores that and sets aside just enough land to provide a farm for each family, it will feel justified in taking the rest, one way or another, like it took the Black Hills.”

Thinking of the thousands of whites in the East, Billy knew the Sioux were helpless.
There's no hope for us. The Wasicuns are determined to take our land and destroy us. I'll never see my father.

Snaggle-toothed Joe Smith brought Culver a note one day. He
read
it, then beckoned to Billy. “It's from Spencer. He says there'll
be
a flock of reporters at Standing Rock, which is the commission's first stop, and they want to hire the best interpreters from each agency. He wants you to go if I can spare you. I can, and it's a chance for you to earn a little extra money, depending on how long it goes on. You can also see Captain Pratt in action, and tell me all about it. Will you go?”