Massacre of Eagles

PROLOGUE

Tongue River Reservation, Montana Territory

One of the residents of the Tongue Reservation was Mean to His Horses, a member of the Crooked Lance Warrior’s Society, and a nephew of the most notable of all Cheyenne warriors, Roman Nose. Mean to His Horses was but a youth when he saw his uncle killed at Beecher Island in September of 1868. Later, Mean to His Horses had been by the side of Crazy Horse in the fight against Custer. Crazy Horse was killed September 5, 1877, at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. He had been told that he was going to a meeting with the white officials to correct a misunderstanding. The misunderstanding was the result of a deliberate misrepresentation of his words by a translator during an earlier conference. Instead Crazy Horse was arrested, and as they attempted to put him into a guard house, he resisted. During the altercation, Crazy Horse was stabbed and killed.

Mean to His Horses was thinking about this when he entered the sweat lodge. Though he was alone, he observed the etiquette that would have been required had there been others in the lodge. He smudged his face with sage, he loaded his sacred pipe with tobacco, he turned in a clockwise circle at the door, then he crawled in through the opening, saying the sacred words Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations). Crawling in a clockwise direction, he completely circumnavigated the tipi, then he poured water over the seven hot stones to produce the steam.

He did not know how long he had been in the sweat lodge when it began. He heard singing and drums, but he had built the sweat lodge far from the village, so he knew there were neither drums nor singing to hear. He could see, in the clouds of steam, a great battle between Cheyenne and white soldiers, and he saw that the Cheyenne were winning because all the soldiers were falling from their horses.

Then the scene of the battle went away, and the drums and the singing stopped, and it was so quiet that he could hear his own blood flowing through his veins. That is when a new vision came to him.

The vision was of a man with long curly hair, not too tall and with a somewhat rounded face. His hair hung to his waist, braided with beaver-pelt covering and with two eagle feathers hanging down on the left. This could be only one person, and yet Mean to His Horses knew this could not be.

He challenged the apparition.

“Are you Crazy Horse?” Mean to His Horses asked. He asked the words with his heart, since speaking aloud would be inappropriate.

“Look,” the apparition said, putting his finger to his left jaw. “What do you see here?”

There, Mean to His Horses saw a scar on the apparition’s left jaw near his mouth and nose. The scar, Mean to His Horses knew, was from a bullet wound where No Water shot him for being with Black Buffalo Woman, who had been No Water’s wife at the time.

“It is you!” Mean to His Horses said.

“Listen, and I will tell you of a new thing,” Crazy Horse said.

Mean to His Horses listened, and learned of the new thing: Wagi Wanagi or Spirit Talking.

“If all Indian people will do Spirit Talking, the Great Spirit who guides our lives will be pleased, and he will send the whites away so that all the land and the water and the game will return to the Indian people,” Mean to His Horses was told. “You have been chosen to teach this thing to all Indian people.”

“And if the white man objects and there is war?” Mean to His Horses asked.

“You are a war leader,” Mean to His Horses was told. “If there is to be war, the people will follow you.”

“I will lead them,” Mean to His Horses said.

“From this day forward, you must wear the sacred paint,” Crazy Horse said. The right side of your face, you will paint red. That is for the blood of the whites that must be spilled. The left side of your face you will paint white. That is so that our people will no longer be in darkness. Do these things and you cannot fail.”

Upon leaving the sweat lodge, Mean to His Horses obeyed the commands of Crazy Horse. He painted the right side of his face red and the left side of his face white.

No one asked why he had done this.

Broken Bar K Ranch, near Virginia City, Montana Territory

It was late morning and Len Kennedy and his two oldest boys, Len Jr. and Luther, were working in the field. Len’s wife Mary had just called her family in to lunch when they saw Indians approaching. They thought nothing of it. All the neighboring Indians were friendly.

There were ten Indians in the party, and they rode right up to the back of the house.

Len was still not concerned because the Indians, while hunting, often came by the house for water, and sometimes for food. Just as often, the Indians left some of their game with Len. He recognized the leader of the group.

“Mean to His Horses,” Len said. He chuckled. “Why do you have your face all painted up like that?”

Suddenly, and without so much as a word, the Indians attacked, sending an arrow through the senior Len’s torso.

“Pa!” Len Jr. shouted.

The Indians shot Len Jr. and then they shot Luther as he tried to climb over the fence.

Mary Kennedy, hearing her son call out, then hearing the sound of a gunshot, came out onto the back porch.

“Mean to His Horses! What are you doing?” she screamed in fear and anger.

Mean to His Horses signaled to some of his men, and they grabbed Mrs. Kennedy and the three youngest children. Then his warriors went inside and ransacked the house, taking the money box and whatever else they thought might be useful.

Back outside, they planned to take Mary and her three youngest children with them as they left, but as they started to tie the boy, Toby, to a mule, Mary and Toby began crying and screaming.

Mean to His Horses shot Mary several times and ran a lance through Toby’s neck. Then, leaving seven-year-old Tamara with her five-year-old brother Donnie and their dead mother, father, and brothers, the Indians rode off. Tamara stayed with Donnie and the dead members of her family until nightfall. Then she led Donnie back into the house.

The next morning, three passing freight wagons stopped by to visit and to see if they could get water for themselves and their team.

“Whoa,” Doodle Priday said, as he halted his team. “Len! Len, where are you? I know you seen us coming, you thick-headed Irishman. How come you ain’t out here to meet us the way you always are? I got that tobacco you wanted. Len! Len, where the hell are you?”

“Doodle, they’s somethin’ that don’t feel right here,” Arthur said. Arthur, sitting on the seat beside him, was the shotgun guard.

“Yeah, it does seem awful quiet, don’t it? Len! Len, where are you?” This time Doodle’s call was more insistent, and more worried.

“Doodle!” the driver of the second wagon called up to him. “Look over there. On the fence!”

Looking toward the fence, Doodle saw Luther’s arrow-riddled body, draped across the top rung.

“Damn!” Doodle said.

“Ain’t that Len, over there?” Arthur said.

“What the hell happened here?” Doodle asked. He set the brake on the wagon and climbed down. By now, the other two drivers had seen the bodies as well, not only Luther and Len, but Len Jr. All three, in addition to bullet wounds, had several arrows protruding from their bodies.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, Doodle, look over there!” one of the other drivers said.

The driver was pointing to the bodies of Mary and Toby.

“God in heaven,” Doodle said. “Have the Injuns gone mad?”

After determining that none of the ones they found outside were alive, the drivers and shotgun guards went into the house.

“Is anyone alive here?” Doodle called.

Getting no answer, he called again.

“Hello! Is anyone here!”

“Me and Donnie are here,” Tamara answered.

The young girl’s frightened voice came from behind a hutch.

“Tamara? Tamara, child, come out here.”

Tamara and her younger brother crawled out from behind the hutch.

“We were hiding in case the Indians came back,” Tamara said.

“That was a wise thing to do.”

“Are they all dead?” she asked.

Doodle was amazed at how calm the young girl was, and he was sure it was the result of her being totally overcome by the events.

“I’m afraid they are, darlin’,” he said.

“I thought they were.”

“I expect you had better come with us, child,” Doodle said.

“Not until mama and daddy and my brothers are buried,” Tamara said. Overnight, she had aged from a seven-year-old girl to a responsible young woman.