Stone Song (56 page)

“Whoever wants to go with me should slip away quietly, one lodge at a time, without making any fuss. We will all meet on Goose Creek near the Shining Mountains in the first half of the Moon When the Leaves Fall,” which was more than a moon away. “Maybe we will be able to live in the Shining Mountains. Maybe farther north. Maybe in Grandmother’s Land. Now that Black Shawl is better, I may be able to live there.”

He used the old Lakota words for things and places. He had noticed that younger Lakota were changing some of these words—Maka Sika they called “the badlands” or “terre mauvais,” and White Earth River they referred to as “the river where the agency is.” He had let some of his own language change. Now he consciously used the oldest names he could remember.

“Don’t answer me in words,” he said. “Come back and ask questions if you like. Then come to Goose Creek, or don’t, whatever is best for your family.”

Red Feather and Good Weasel, young men of high spirits, were elated at the proposal and said immediately that they wanted to go. Most of the men said how attractive it sounded and promised an answer in a few days. Some looked worried.

Worm said simply and briefly that he would come with his son.

Touch-the-Sky said he would consider the suggestion, but his village weighed heavy on his mind. The people owned him, and maybe he was not free to seek a life good for himself alone.

Little Big Man pondered his answer a long time before he spoke. “I will always be your friend,” Little Big Man said, “but I will not walk beside you on this journey.” Then he laughed a little. “Maybe that’s good. I won’t be able to hold your arms if anyone shoots at you.” They had teased each other occasionally about that. Tonight Crazy Horse didn’t feel like any teasing. He was thinking that if he died here at this agency, it would be because his own people were holding him back in some way.

“I can’t go,” Little Big Man repeated. “I’ve set my feet on a new road, the agency road, and I will ride it as hard as I ever rode into battle.” He looked Crazy Horse in the eye. “I’m an
akicita
man. That is my promise to the whites and my duty to the people.

“Many times it looks like a black road to me,” he said. “Many times. I see much that you see. But I have promised myself, my family, Clark, the people of the village that I will walk this road.” He paused. “And I will do whatever it asks of me.”

He let this sit a long while. “I’m glad you’re going. I think it’s right for you. I think this place will kill your medicine.” He hesitated. “I’m also glad for myself. I’m afraid Clark might ask me to arrest you.” He shifted his weight on his bottom. “They never say so, but I think that’s on their minds sometimes.” He smiled wryly. “You would be less trouble a hundred sleeps away in a jail, they say to themselves.” Hesitation. “I couldn’t stand arresting you. But if I was ordered, I would do it.”

The two friends looked at each other in the eerie flicker of the fire. E-i-i-i, thought Crazy Horse,
the world has turned itself inside out…
.

“So go, my friend. Go soon,” said Little Big Man, getting to his feet. “Part of my heart will go with you.”

Crazy Horse thanked him. As always, he did not say good-bye, but, “
Ake wancinyankin ktelo
,” meaning, “Until I see you again.”

Late in the Moon When All Things Ripen, which the whites called August, Clark summoned the leaders of the Crazy Horse people and of the agency people. Since Touch-the-Sky had been called down from Spotted Tail Agency for the occasion, Crazy Horse knew it was important. As the headmen walked into the building next to his nephew, Crazy Horse said quietly that he wondered what was going on. “Do you think this is the big bribe?”

Touch-the-Sky didn’t answer. The rumor all this moon had been that the
wasicu
would offer Crazy Horse chieftainship of all the Lakota in return for leading the people to the new agencies on the Muddy Water. The two leaders had shaken their heads ruefully about it. “They don’t understand you at all,” Touch-the-Sky said.

But the news Clark gave them in the council room was something else entirely: Led by Chief Joseph, the Nez Percé had broken off the reservation. No one knew where they were going or what they would do. They were in the Yellowstone River country. This was one of the reasons the Lakota couldn’t be allowed to go there to hunt, added Clark, but this was a lie: The hunt had been refused half a moon ago.

“Well,” the lieutenant went on, “we would like your help, the army would like your help. General Crook and General Miles are going to the Yellowstone country to fight the Nez Percé, and Crook wants your scouts to go with him.”

Clark looked at them eagerly while Grabber translated. Bordeaux was there too, up from Spotted Tail with Touch-the-Sky, but he let Grabber do the translating.

Everyone was too surprised to say a word. Finally Little Hawk said, “Fight?”

“Yes,” said Clark. “Your scouts fight the Nez Percé.”

The Indians talked quietly among themselves, the Crazy Horse people and Mniconjou Touch-the-Sky on one side of the room and the Red Cloud people, including No Water, on the other.

Fight? This was unexpected. There were various opinions. Some said the young men would be glad for the opportunity and it would be good for them. Others said they had quit fighting forever. Others said it was a only trick by the whites to make it look like they were going to war.

Finally Little Hawk answered for the Crazy Horse people. “You whites always ask one thing and then another. You wanted us to come in, we did. You wanted us to give up our horses and our guns, we did. You wanted us to go on a buffalo hunt, we said yes. You asked us to go to see The One You Use for Father, we said all right. Now you say go to war.”

Little Hawk paused in his oratory for effect, and some of the headmen made the sound of approval. “Our people have untied their horses’ tails,” he went on. “We want the peace we were promised. We are tired of war. We want to go to the Yellowstone to hunt buffalo.”

Without even waiting to hear from the Red Cloud side, Clark burst out, “That’s impossible. We can’t have you in that country. There’s trouble up there. Everyone will think all the Indians are off the reservation. Who knows what would happen?”

He talked loudly and blusteringly. The Lakota looked surreptitiously at each other. Some of them felt ashamed to be shouted at this way. Others felt embarrassment for Clark, that he allowed himself to act like this. The most experienced around the agency just said to themselves,
The white men are acting like white men again
.

While Grouard, Grabber, translated Clark’s words, they were only half-listening. You don’t listen to the words of a man who has lost control of himself.

When Grabber finished, they all sat and thought, wondering how to answer this odd white man. To Touch-the-Sky’s surprise, it was Crazy Horse who finally spoke up, softly and deliberately. “We want peace,” he said. Crazy Horse did not sound reticent or self-effacing now, but like a man sure of his powers. Touch-the-Sky thought it was a shame that he would lay down chieftainship just when he had grown into it fully. “We want peace,” he repeated. “We are tired of war.”

While Grabber made these words into English for Clark, Crazy Horse held the floor with his commanding gaze. “The
wasicu
have lied to us and tricked us from the beginning, when you tried to put Bear-Scattering over us all, and thus killed him. You are still trying to trick us.”

The Indians in the room were perfectly still while Grabber translated. They were dazed by Crazy Horse’s taking command like this.

“Nevertheless,” Crazy Horse went on, “we want to do what is asked of us. If The One You Use for Father wants us to fight the Nez Percé, we will go to the north country and fight until not a Nez Percé is left.”

As soon as Grabber had translated the words, Clark started shouting at Crazy Horse. He was on his feet, red-faced, bellowing like a crazed bull in his incomprehensible language. Neither Touch-the-Sky nor any of the other Indians knew what to make of this outburst.
Impolite
didn’t begin to describe it.

“But Crazy Horse said he will do what you want!” said someone near Touch-the-Sky.

Suddenly one of the Red Cloud headmen, Three Bears, was on his feet, too, pointing at the sandy-haired one. “If you want to kill someone,” he yelled, “kill me!”

Suddenly the two interpreters were arguing, Grabber and Bordeaux. “You liar!” Bordeaux said over and over in Lakota.

Grabber hollered back at Bordeaux—some of the Lakota recognized the bad white-man word
bastard
—the traders’ sons were acting as bad as white men.

Grabber jumped up. For a moment Touch-the-Sky thought he was going to strangle Bordeaux. Suddenly the half-breed stopped himself. He glared at Bordeaux. Then he turned slowly and gave Crazy Horse the queerest look. Touch-the-Sky thought the face glimmered with triumph. In an instant the look was gone, and Grabber stomped out of the room.

The door slammed the room into silence. Bordeaux stuck his head down angrily. The Lakota fell silent—no one wanted to argue in front of a white man. They all waited in tense wordlessness. Touch-the-Sky thought everyone looked agitated but Crazy Horse. His nephew seemed recovered from his melancholy of the last several moons, in fact serene in the eye of the storm.

Fear shot through Touch-the-Sky like lightning, fear for Crazy Horse.

He looked at the door Grabber had slammed behind him.
What now?
he wondered.
What has this trader’s son done?
But the door was blank and mute.

Lieutenant Clark asked Bordeaux to interpret, but the trader’s son refused. Clark didn’t know the man well anyway. He was from Spotted Tail Agency. So he told a soldier to go get Billy Garnett to finish the council.

He was irate. This wasn’t just a government problem—it was a personal betrayal. Crazy Horse had promised Clark personally that he had quit war forever, and now he declared that he would fight until not a single white man was left alive.

Insolence and effrontery!

He thought they were friends!

It proved all the nasty rumors flying around the agency were true. Crazy Horse hated white people. Though he pretended friendship sometimes, he was a reactionary who would fight until he was dead, and all his people were dead.

Clark waited for Garnett. He had to finish this council somehow, get out of here without a knife in his back, and telegraph Crook quick.

Touch-the-Sky noted the first words Garnett translated from Clark: “Would Crazy Horse change his mind and go fight the Nez Percé?”

That was what the sandy-haired one had already promised to do, and Crazy Horse said so calmly.

Touch-the-Sky studied Clark. He was agitated, anyone could see that.

“You will take the scouts and fight the Nez Percé?” repeated Garnett.

“Yes,” said Crazy Horse, “and take some lodges and women too and make a little hunt.”

At least a little of this council began to make sense to Touch-the-Sky. His nephew was angling to get the hunt back. That’s why he wanted the women, to do the butchering. For sure he was worried about the people having enough to eat this winter. And maybe he was wanting to get up to the north country himself, so he and some companions could disappear. Another reason to take the families.

Clark got angry again at this. “You can’t fight with women along!”

Crazy Horse was not rude enough to shrug visibly. “We’ve done some good fighting with them there,” he said softly. No one smiled. Everyone supposed Clark got the reference to the Custer fight.

“No!” shouted Clark. He made a lot more words, but Touch-the-Sky only knew he was yelling again.

Crazy Horse didn’t even wait for Garnett to tell what the white officer said. He got up and told his headmen he wanted to go home. “We’ve talked too much here,” he said.

Outside in the night air Touch-the-Sky waited for Bordeaux. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

The interpreter acted like he was going to walk on without answering.

“Why didn’t Clark understand that His Crazy Horse agreed to fight the Nez Percé?” Touch-the-Sky asked.

Bordeaux wheeled on him. “That
bastard
Grabber,” he said, spitting out the one ugly white-man word, “he changed what the Strange Man said. When he told the words to Clark, he made them, ‘We will fight until every
white man
is dead.’ ”

Bordeaux spun and stomped off.

Touch-the-Sky was standing there seeing the future. This mistake—this dirty trick—was going to cause a lot of trouble. Maybe more than he could straighten out. He could kill Grabber—he might kill him—but that might not save Crazy Horse now.

HAWK

Crazy Horse was also seeing the future. Or was it the past? Or a time neither future nor past nor present but somehow always? He didn’t know, but he knew he needed the seeing.

That night he dreamed part of the vision he had had as a youth, near the Running Water:

Now Rider was stripped to nothing but a breechcloth, and rode harder, faster, in a martial vigor. But hands flailed at him, clutched at him from behind, slowed him down. He tossed his arms backward like a man slinging off an encumbering shirt. The hands kept pulling at him, holding him back, the hands of his own people. He felt threat in them. He shook them off and shook them off and rode on and rode on, but the hands did not relent. Rider shook and shook and shook at them. He feared the hands behind more than the bullets before.

He saw it over and over, over and over, and sometimes it was oddly varied: Sometimes he saw the picture of Rider galloping into the bullets and being clutched at from behind, as he had in his vision, a brilliantly colored moving painting, more vivid than anything ordinary eyes could ever see. Sometimes he
heard
words chanting the story of Rider going into fire, and saw discontinuous pictures, as through shifting fog, or gun smoke blown by the wind. Sometimes he saw shifting pictures and heard not words but drumbeats that in their throb told the story once more.

But the story was always the same. All night, in one form or another, he dreamed of Rider invulnerable to his enemies, vulnerable to his people.

When he woke up, Hawk was in his heart. She perched there. He could feel her heft and her body warmth and an occasional clasping of her claws and brushing of her feathers.

She was with him.

He sat up in his robes, quiet, simply attending to her. He touched Black Shawl, still asleep next to him, on the shoulder. He watched the dawn light slowly brighten the dark tipi with a rose light.

“
Tunkasila, pila maya
,” he said. Grandfather, thank you.

He felt whole again.

All that afternoon people came to him with unhappy tales. The telegraph wires were singing. No one knew much of what was being said, but the Red Cloud agent and the commanding officer at Fort Robinson had been sending and getting words from Spotted Tail Agency and from Crook.

They’d heard what Clark said. He’d told Irwin, the new agent who still
didn’t know the people, that Crazy Horse was going to take his people and make a run for the north country. When the agent asked Red Cloud and the other agency chiefs, they all said the Strange Man was wild and they couldn’t control him.

Crazy Horse smiled at this. He was wild—he was returned to his original warrior self—and he couldn’t be controlled. That much was absolutely true. And he was no threat to anyone.

Little Hawk asked him why the agency chiefs weren’t reassuring the agent. They had heard Crazy Horse promise to do what Clark wanted, go fight the Nez Percé.

Crazy Horse shrugged.

Yes, yes, there was white fire coming at him, and the hands of his own people were grabbing at him from behind, and he might be hurt. He felt the rightness of it. He wanted to survive, but maybe he wouldn’t. He would ride and feel the rightness under him like a fine, spirited pony.

He Dog came and explained part of it. It was Grabber. Little Hawk muttered, “Grabber again. They should have killed him. Grabber changed the sandy-haired one’s words at the council, He Dog said. Bastard, saying Crazy Horse would kill every white man, not every Nez Percé.”

Little Hawk was incensed.

Crazy Horse said he was not so surprised. That was what happened when you spent your days begging for life instead of living.

That night a rider came to Crazy Horse from Touch-the-Sky. The Mniconjou had talked to Agent Lee at Spotted Tail Agency, the messenger said, and the agent understood Grabber’s deception.

“It will be all right,” Crazy Horse told his uncle through the messenger. Though the family had barely enough to eat, he gave the man a little jerky—it was a hard ride from Spotted Tail Agency to here and and back. Maybe Nellie would go to her father’s trading post and beg some more food tomorrow.

His Crazy Horse was quietly noticing Hawk in his chest. Hawk didn’t feel martial yet. But Crazy Horse sensed he would be a warrior again before long, and only a warrior.

The next day the Crazy Horse people loafed around the fort hoping for word.

Crazy Horse was far from the fort, on the creek. The Inyan creatures were set before him. He was breathing in the warrior way, attentive, accepting, aware. He said to Inyan the word Horn Chips had taught him, “
wanisugna
,” living seed within the stone. He heard the earth pulse. From time to time he murmured the prayer, “
Mitakuye oyasin
.”

His people wanted to find him to tell him that signs of trouble were
everywhere. Crook had come fast on the railroad. Agent Lee was here from Spotted Tail Agency. Pony soldiers were on the way from Fort Laramie, and all the white men were holding talks.

Clark refused to believe that Grabber had fooled everyone or even made a mistake—he insisted that the Crazy Horse people were about to bolt.

Lt. Jesse Lee, agent from Spotted Tail Agency, claimed it was all a mistake, though, and an injustice to Crazy Horse and his people.

The agency headmen would only say that Crazy Horse was young and wild and uncontrollable.

Crook had come and would set things right. He had called a council for this afternoon to hear what Crazy Horse had to say. He did not necessarily believe Grabber—his mind was open.

At first they couldn’t find Crazy Horse to tell him all this news. Red Feather, Black Shawl’s brother, had an idea where the Strange Man was. He found him at his private place on White Clay Creek and stood respectfully a long way off until the sandy-haired one put away his Inyan and signaled the young man to come close.

After Red Feather told his stories, the two came back to camp. “I will go to the council and tell Three Stars the truth,” Crazy Horse said to Red Feather. “But my young friend, it will make no difference, not for me.” They walked along quietly for a moment. Crazy Horse murmured, “Begging a
wasicu
for a place to live, or food, or the right to go hunting or visit my father,” and shook his head incredulously.

Inside he turned his mind to Hawk, felt her warm presence, and smiled to himself.

Crook was on the way to White Clay Creek with Lieutenant Clark in an army coach called an ambulance. Crook would have preferred to ride horseback, he would have preferred to dispense with ceremony, but this was the way of the world.

Gen. George Crook was an impatient man today. He prided himself on his understanding of Indians and on his reputation for fairness. He knew as well as the next man the truth of Abraham Lincoln’s declaration that an Indian reservation was a place Indians lived surrounded by thieves. “And liars,” Crook would have added.

Now he suspected that the Lakota at this agency were being treated treacherously. He suspected that the interpreter had translated the words of Crazy Horse falsely. And he suspected that the young lieutenant beside him, his own aide, whom he knew with some affection as Philo, was playing
the fool. Philo had gotten infatuated with Crazy Horse and with the idea of having a famous wild Indian as a friend. The first time Crazy Horse acted like an Indian, Philo felt personally betrayed and turned into his enemy.

So Crook suspected. He intended to meet everyone in council right now and straighten everything out. Crook was not a man to put up with lying or equivocating or virginal hesitating or fandangling around. He wanted the truth and he wanted it now. Then he would want action, immediately.

An Indian in a scout’s uniform rode up to the interpreters in front of the ambulance and motioned for them to stop. He spoke to Big Bat Pourier and Billy Garnett—Crook didn’t want to give that damned Grouard another chance to lie at this council. He trusted Garnett and Big Bat.

Whatever the Indian was telling them, Big Bat didn’t like it. He sneaked a sidewise look or two at Crook. The Indian was a fellow with soulful spaniel eyes, and the spit and polish of a man who’d had his head turned by a uniform. Not the sort of man Crook was inclined to think a straight shooter. Finally Crook said, “Spit it out, man. What’s he saying?”

Garnett explained, “This man is Woman Dress. He says one of his brothers, Little Wolf, was outside His Crazy Horse’s lodge last night when he and his warriors had a big talk. He heard what they said, he told his brother Standing Bear, and Standing Bear told Woman Dress. The Crazy Horse Indians plan to kill you today.”

Crook snorted. “Exactly how does he say they’re going to do this?”

Garnett seemed boyishly embarrassed by this conversation, but he proceeded with the facts. “Sixty of His Crazy Horse’s men will be there. When His Crazy Horse shakes your hand with one hand, he will kill you with the other. Then his warriors will kill all the rest of the whites. Woman Dress says you better not go there.”

“I knew it,” hissed Clark.

Crook shot the fellow a look to shut him up. He didn’t intend to be deterred. But he pondered. Finally, he said to Garnett, “What is this man’s name again?”

“Woman Dress.”

“Who is he?”

“The son of Chief Bad Face, the grandson of Chief Smoke.”

Perhaps a reliable man then.

“Does he have a reputation for telling the truth?”

Billy Garnett had lived in Crazy Horse’s camp and knew the Strange Man and Woman Dress hadn’t liked each other since one was called Curly and the other Pretty Fellow, but he didn’t know why. Surely Crook knew Woman Dress was an agency Indian. Garnett thought he himself was
maybe prejudiced in the sandy-haired man’s favor. So he said, “What do you think, Big Bat?”

“Woman Dress, he’s straight,” said Big Bat.

Billy started to add that Big Bat was Woman Dress’s cousin but thought better of it.

“Private, let’s go,” said Crook.

“Sir!” protested Clark. “You can’t go there now.”

“I never set out for anywhere and got scared off,” said Crook.

“Sir!” exclaimed the lieutenant. “You don’t know what’s been going on here. Crazy Horse has been moody, sour…. Even the other Indians don’t like him. And don’t trust him.”

“Lieutenant,” said Crook, “thousands of men have tried to kill me. If I retreated because of that, I’d need a horse with eyes in its ass.”

“Sir! Truly!” Clark really did seem alarmed. “We’ve lost one good man to Crazy Horse. We can’t be made fools of again.”

This made some impression on Crook. The army had looked like a three-legged catamount often enough in this Sioux War. Clark started in again, but Crook wasn’t listening. It was all right to be mule-headed, he told himself, but not addle-headed. “Enough!” he said to Clark.

He waved Garnett and Big Bat over. “Go to the council place and say I’ve been called to the railroad,” he said. “Then, without letting Crazy Horse know, bring the reliable chiefs and scouts to the fort.”

The interpreters nodded. Clark named off some “reliable” chiefs and scouts for them, all agency Indians, mostly Red Cloud people.

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” growled Crook.

Crook watched the agency chiefs file into the room and sit, against the walls as they preferred. Agency chiefs. He had to have men whose friendship he was sure of. Garnett had come back from the site on White Clay Creek with word that Crazy Horse hadn’t shown up for the council anyway. No telling what was on his mind. So only longtime friendlies here—Red Cloud, Red Dog, Little Wound, American Horse, Three Bears, No Flesh, Yellow Bear, High Wolf, Slow Bull, Black Bear, Blue Horse, No Water, and Young Man-Whose-Enemies.

No, it wasn’t ideal. He thought some of these chiefs were jealous of Crazy Horse, and certainly Red Cloud could be a devious old bastard. But Crook thought he could see through jealousy. And surely in the end the chiefs would not sacrifice one of their own unjustly.

He motioned to Philo, who brought Woman Dress into the room. At Crook’s instruction the Indian began to tell once more the story of what his brother Little Wolf had heard outside Crazy Horse’s lodge last night
and told to his brother Standing Bear, who had told him, their brother, the scout Woman Dress.

No Water watched with his face carefully neutral. He wasn’t going to let his own people see his emotions, much less the white men. But this time it was hard.
Goddamn
, as he had learned to say from the white men, this was delicious.

He felt a hot rock in his chest. The rock was not burning so much from seven winters ago, when Crazy Horse had humiliated him, stealing Black Buffalo Woman away forever, even if she had come back in appearance. No, that was not when he had first felt the hot rock in his chest. That was a day twenty winters past, when the whites were supposed to hang Spotted Tail and No Water had watched from the bushes while Crazy Horse topped Black Buffalo Woman over and over. That day he saw all their ecstasy and felt it all in reverse, as agony. That day the rock first clogged his chest and his breath and his being. Today he would spit it out.

He paid no attention to Woman Dress’s story. He had helped Woman Dress and Standing Bear invent it. Woman Dress also hated the Strange Man. This tale was just a way of taking an opportunity.

He looked at around at his fellow headmen as Crook questioned Woman Dress about the story. No Water wondered how many of the other headmen knew this story was made up. He and the two brothers had told no one, not even Little Wolf, who was actually off in the Maka Sica hunting.
Goddamn
, some of them must suspect. But he thought they would go along. He hoped Young Man-Whose-Enemies didn’t suspect. That was the only big risk.

Young Man-Whose-Enemies sat quiet while Red Dog answered Three Star’s questions—Red Dog, Red Cloud’s mouth and tongue these days. Red Dog was telling the truth, with some extra sourness: Crazy Horse wasn’t really converted to the new life, he just pretended. He was an unsettling force among the young men, who kept hoping he would lead an uprising, whip the army, and take all the people back to the Yellowstone and Powder River country. He attracted everyone on the agency who was dissatisfied, and there were plenty, and gave them a leader to rally around. In general, he was trouble. And since he was closed-mouthed and morose, you never knew what was on his mind.