Wolf Mountain Moon: The Battle of the Butte, 1877

Chapter 14

Wanicokan Wi 1876

In those first days of the Midwinter Moon, Spotted Elk joined the other chiefs and headmen of those bands of Shahiyela, Hunkpatila, Sans Arc, Miniconjou, and Hunkpapa who chose to stand shoulder to shoulder with one another that winter—against the soldiers, against the great cold, against starvation, as they continued their hunt for buffalo in the valley of the Buffalo Tongue.

Some young warriors from the migrating camp rode north to learn what they could of the soldier fort. In two days the riders returned, driving before them a small herd of cattle and some soldier horses. It was a good thing, because the farther the village wandered up the river valley, the fewer buffalo they encountered. As strong as they felt together, Spotted Elk knew no man could remain untouched by the sight of the hungry children, their gaunt wives, the way the once-proud war ponies hung their heads in starvation.

Not even the great Crazy Horse.

So it was that by the time the village reached the mouth of Suicide Creek,^* even the stoic Strange Man of the Oglalla went along with the rest of the headmen in deciding they would at least talk to the Bear Coat, who was making war on them from his Elk River fort. With the hunting become so poor and the cold grown so deep, it surely could not hurt for a delegation of their people to go look the Bear Coat in the eye and see if this soldier chief spoke the truth when he did not just demand their surrender but offered the Titunwan Lakota peace on a reservation of their own at the forks of the Cheyenne River.

Spotted Elk, middle son of Old Lone Horn of the Miniconjou, knew his father would expect nothing less of him—for it was a chief’s first responsibility to care for his people.

“I will go to the soldier fort,” Spotted Elk told the assembly of chiefs deciding on who would join the delegation.

Packs the Drum nodded approvingly. “This is good. What other brave men are there who will join me on our journey into the land of Bear Coat’s soldiers?”

Hollow Horns volunteered, “For the Sans Arc I will go.”

“And for my band of Miniconjou, I will join you,” declared Fat Hide.^*

In the end Red Cloth,^† Tall Bull, and Bull Eagle agreed to go for their Miniconjou clans. Then two more stood to offer themselves.

“I must go with you,” Bad Leg told the council. “But I will go along to take back the stolen horses to the soldier fort at the mouth of the Buffalo Tongue.”

The Yearling stood in agreement. “Just as Crazy Horse and He Dog have said today: we are honorable men and cannot go talk with the wasicu about peace so soon after we have stolen his horses. We must return those animals.”

In the end more than two-times-ten joined Packs the Drum that blustery morning when they dressed in their finest, mounted their strongest ponies, feathers fluttering in the steady wind, buffalo robes tugged tightly about them, and set off north to talk peace to the Bear Coat. Even Crazy Horse and He Dog decided they would ride along to represent the Oglalla.

Oh, what a glorious morning that was for Spotted Elk! The women pouring from their lodges into the bitter cold to trill their tongues, making good wishes upon this endeavor all hoped would bring an end to the slow starvation. Children raced about, laughing for the first time in so, so long as they dodged in and out among the delegates’ ponies.

Stoic but expectant friends watched from the hillside across the creek while the village said its farewells. When the delegates had moved out of the tall, stately cottonwoods along the banks and were heading down the Buffalo Tongue, Bad Leg and The Yearling, along with four others, filed in at the rear, keeping their soldier horses bunched together in the deep snow.

From early morning, when the cold was its most bitter, until the night sky turned completely dark overhead, the peace delegates pushed toward the soldier fort on their mission of great urgency. How weary the ponies became on that journey, carrying these men a long way each day, animals forced to dig down through the snowdrifts at night in search of grass to eat. Four long days … but on the morning of the fifth Spotted Elk and Tall Bull reached the low rise of a bluff and looked down upon the valley of the Elk River.

Below them stood the squat log huts gathered in among the old cottonwoods. Wagons stood about, mules and horses grazing nearby or clustered in their corrals. And between that fort and where Spotted Elk sat on his pony stood some hide lodges, more than two-times-ten of them scattered among the trees and brush south of the soldier huts, a thin column of smoke rising from each one.

“They must be the soldiers’ wolves,” Tall Bull explained, his eyes quick to hide any worry.

“Eyes and ears for the Bear Coat, eh?” replied Spotted Elk. “Who do you think they are?”

“Corn Indians,”^* Tall Bull answered. “Maybe some Yankton, come down from the Fort Peck Agency.”

“Then they are Indians who will know us,” Spotted Elk said. “We have nothing to fear.”

Tall Bull nodded in agreement, but his eyes showed fear. “What if they do not know us?”

“There is no reason to fear an honorable warrior,” Spotted Elk declared with a grin. “Even if he is your enemy.”

“We will have the white flag flying above us?”

Spotted Elk reached out and laid his hand on Tall Bull’s arm. “Packs the Drum wants to have the honor of going toward the soldiers first.”

Tall Bull tried to smile bravely, saying, “And he wants me to be among those who join him.”

“We have been friends a long time, you and me,” Spotted Elk said. “So I want to come with you.”

Shaking his head, Tall Bull said, “I think … you should stay back with the others and ride behind us.”

Spotted Elk swallowed hard, sensing the other man’s dread. “Are you expecting trouble?”

Tall Bull’s eyes went first to those delegates coming up the slope behind them now. Then he gazed at the open ground between them and the soldier huts. “No—I am not expecting trouble. Those soldier wolves must surely be honorable men … and the Bear Coat’s soldiers will see our white flag and know that we come in peace.”

As the entire delegation of chiefs and soldier horses proceeded down the bluffs to the banks of the Buffalo Tongue, they came across a wood-cutting party, then a small group of men watching over a herd of cattle. Alarmed at first by the sudden appearance of more than a dozen warriors, the wasicu prepared to fight until they saw the two white flags carried by Hollow Horns and Tall Bull at the end of their lances. With that, and by other signs, the Lakota made it known that the white men had nothing to fear, that they were on their way to the post to talk to the Bear Coat about surrendering, to talk over making a strong peace between their peoples.

The winter sun was climbing near midsky by the time Packs the Drum stopped them all to form his forward delegation. The five he chose would ride in ahead of the others, who would stay behind a respectful distance, accompanying the horses being returned as a gesture of goodwill.

“I will wait behind with the others,” Crazy Horse declared.

This was good, Spotted Elk believed. For a man of the Shirt Wearer’s status to allow five others to go ahead on such an important mission was a good omen.

“And I will wait with him,” Bad Heart Bull added. He urged his pony up beside that of Crazy Horse, taking a piece of stiff rawhide and some charcoal sticks from a parfleche he had slung over his back. “I will draw the picture story of this day when our chiefs go with such great hope to the Bear Coat so that our people can survive.”

“We will show the wasicu that we are as honorable in peace as you have been in war,” Packs the Drum confirmed to Crazy Horse, then ceremonially unwrapped his pipe from its otter-skin bag and placed it across his left arm, requesting the other four who would ride with him to do the same with their pipes.

“We will not only have the white man’s white flags flying over our heads to show we come in peace,” Tall Bull now explained to all the delegates, “but we will show them that we do not carry any weapons—only our pipes.”

At Packs the Drum’s signal Tall Bull brought his pony up on the leader’s right side. Then Red Cloth positioned himself at Packs the Drum’s left arm. On the far left rode Red Horses, and at the far right rode Bull Eagle, both men not only clutching their pipes and reins in left hands, but holding aloft their lances with smaller makeshift white flags fluttering in the stiff breeze nuzzling down the valley of the Elk River.

“Stay here until we have gone the distance of an arrow-shot,” Packs the Drum requested of the others. “Then you are to follow.”

Spotted Elk, Hollow Horns, and Fat Hide remained behind with Crazy Horse, He Dog, and the others, while the five set off about the time a knot of more than a dozen warriors emerged from the lodges erected along the riverbank. The Miniconjou chief did not feel good about the way the strangers suddenly showed themselves with great martial bluster, advancing with a swagger, all of them shouting and yelling—shields strapped to their upper arms, their right hands filled with weapons.

“This is not the way a man greets a warrior he honors,” Hollow Horns warned.

“Who can these men be?” Spotted Elk asked, worry making wings flutter in his belly. “Who are these strangers who act with such poor manners when we show that we come in peace?”

“Aiyeee!” gasped Fat Hide, who clamped a hand over his mouth. “Perhaps these are the Psatoka ^* from beyond the Greasy Grass country!”

“Look at them!” Hollow Horns grumbled angrily. “If these are Psatoka—they act like insolent children before our warriors!”

Spotted Elk turned to look at Crazy Horse a moment, finding the war chief’s eyes crimped into narrow slits of hate. The Psatoka had been enemies of the Titunwan Lakota back into many generations. Could such bad blood be set aside now? he wondered.

As the dozen strangers got closer and closer to the peace delegation, Spotted Elk’s heart began to thump all the faster in his breast, like the beating of a wounded bird’s wing. He glanced beyond the strangers, finding some three or four soldiers advancing on foot in the distance—trotting, in a hurry. There was much activity taking place at the first fringe of log huts beyond those Indian lodges erected on the right, where even more warriors stirred now, clearly a few women too, all of them beginning to emerge from the trees and leafless willow onto the open plain.

Too many of the strangers … more than ten-times-ten. Back and forth they shouted to those who came hurrying on foot to confront the five delegates. If they were indeed Psatoka, thought Spotted Elk, then there was reason for him to fear for Tall Bull and the other delegates.

For winters beyond his count the Psatoka had allied themselves with the wasicu. For many winters the Titunwan Lakota had been making forays deep into traditional Psatoka hunting grounds. Many were the scalps Lakota warriors had carried home from the enemy’s country. Hard and cold must be the hearts of the Psatoka warriors against all Lakota. Even Lakota coming in peace, with their pipes out, with the wasicu’s white flags fluttering over their heads.

“Perhaps there is nothing to fear,” Hollow Horns suddenly said, hope rising in his voice.

“Yes, look!” agreed Fat Hide. “The Psatoka are showing their hands to our men.”

“They want to shake hands!” Hollow Horns cheered.

Spotted Elk nodded, his heart leaping, and said, “This is a good sign!”

Just as the frost from those last two words hung in the cold air before his face, Spotted Elk watched one of the strangers clasp hands with Packs the Drum, then suddenly jerk, yanking the man off the back of his pony. As quickly, other extended hands locked on to Lakota arms and dragged the remaining four delegates to the ground, where all five disappeared in a swirl of horses’ legs, a flurry of blows, the bright glint of sunlight on metal blades, along with the lusty blood-cries of those who had ambushed the delegates.

From the trees to the right burst a sudden cry as the many Psatoka who had been watching burst into the clearing, sprinting past the ambush toward Spotted Elk and the others.

Crazy Horse yanked his Winchester from beneath his buffalo robe, trying to steady his prancing horse. “They are murderers!”

“We cannot save them!” Hollow Horns shouted as he wheeled his pony, jabbing heels into its ribs.

Quickly trying to stuff his pipe back into its sacred bag, Spotted Elk fought to pull his bow from its wolf-skin quiver with a handful of arrows. He would stay with Crazy Horse and He Dog as long as there was a fight.

“No!” Fat Hide snarled. “There are too many!”

Spotted Elk nocked an arrow on his bowstring. “We cannot leave them—”

“They are lost!” He Dog growled, shoving Spotted Elk as the many on foot closed the gap on them.

“Turn the horses! Turn the horses!” Fat Hide ordered Bad Leg and The Yearling.

All was confusion now. In the middistance a handful of soldiers were shouting. Spotted Elk could hear their voices, see the breathsmoke puffing from their tiny mouths as they came racing toward the scene. The delegates’ ponies were bolting, scattering in fear to the four winds, being chased by some of the enemy warriors and their women.

Oh, how those Psatoka screamed and screeched at the Lakota fortunate to escape, Psatoka holding aloft Lakota pipes in one hand, the scalps of those five honorable men they had just murdered in the other.

Spotted Elk glanced over his shoulder, finding more soldiers were coming now. Behind them a soldier horn was blowing too. Wasicu coming from many directions now. It was a wholesale ambush! The soldiers broke from hiding, running to help the Psatoka murder all the Lakota.

Those left with Crazy Horse wheeled about and kicked their ponies into a hard gallop, heading back to that low rise of ground where they had first looked down upon the soldier fort. Where they had first spotted the enemy lodges back among the trees along the Buffalo Tongue River.

For a few heartbeats He Dog halted them, throwing up his arm and bringing his pony around in a tight circle. Down on the flat ground they saw the soldiers reaching the scene, guns in their hands. At that very moment Spotted Elk watched a Psatoka warrior disappear into the tall willow with the two white flags, carrying away those signals of peace as the soldiers arrived.

“We better go before the soldiers follow us!” Fat Hide cried out.

Already Bad Leg and The Yearling and some others were frantically driving the horses hard through the deep snow, down off the high ground, heading south, racing back up the Buffalo Tongue River toward the Crazy Horse village.

He Dog waved the rest on, waiting to be the last to flee with Crazy Horse. But Spotted Elk reined up beside them, all three waiting a breathless moment longer, gazing down at that scene … realizing that there were no survivors, knowing the soldiers’ Psatoka wolves had killed all five.

No man could still be alive after that treacherous butchery.

“There, Mr. Leforge!” Nelson Miles screamed at the civilian, ripping the two white towels from the hands of Hobart Bailey, his adjutant. The colonel roughly yanked up Tom Leforge’s hand and stuffed the flags into it.

“G-general—”

“There, by Jupiter! Your goddamned Crow are guilty of unprovoked and cowardly murder!”

“I can’t believe—”

“There—that’s your evidence!” Miles roared. “What have you to say to that?”

Leforge could do little more than stare down at the flags and wag his head in disgust. One of the towels was even stained with a little blood. Sioux blood.

“Bull Eagle! They even killed Bull Eagle!” Miles screeched, wagging his head violently. Then his voice suddenly quieted. “He was one I took a real liking to, figured I could trust his word.” Then he was screeching again, “And now your bunch of cowards have murdered him!”

Leforge gulped, then said, “I know most of them what done this—”

“You know the sons of bitches, do you?”

Shrugging, looking back up into the flinty glare of the colonel, Leforge admitted, “Don’t know what come over ’em to do anything like this.”

“A little too late to figure that out, don’t you think, Mr. Leforge?” Miles was seething. “Why—just yesterday I had you warn that bunch of yours that I would hang any one of them if they killed one of my Yanktonais couriers riding between here and Buford or Peck. Now they’ve killed Bull Eagle!”

Leforge pleaded, “Sir, they told me them Sioux fired on their women as they was riding in.”

“Bullshit!” Miles roared, slamming a fist down on his flimsy desk. “You and I both know those five didn’t come riding into a soldier fort shooting up your Crow camp!”

“The women … they’ll tell you—”

“Shut your lying mouth before I shut it for you, Leforge!” Miles fumed. “I have witnesses—soldier witnesses—that tell me different. I for one could not believe the Sioux would ride in here under a flag of truce, shooting at your women!”

Leforge swallowed hard, then nodded grudgingly. “General—there’s most of ’em wanna try to make it up to you—”

“Make it up to me?” Miles interrupted Tom Leforge. “Don’t you understand that just a month ago Bull Eagle showed up here, came riding right in here while I was gone chasing Sitting Bull? That’s right—he came in under a white flag—just like the ones your Crow tried to hide—came in to get some rations because he trusted me, because I told him he could trust that white flag!”

Leforge stared at the floor. “I can’t defend what they done, General.”

“Bull Eagle was the sort of man doing what was best for his people,” Miles stormed. “He alone was more of an honorable man than a hundred of those cowardly Crow of yours!”

Never before had Luther Kelly seen the man so angry. Make no mistake, Nelson A. Miles was an emotional, volatile man. But this … this treachery and attempt at cover-up had the general right on the edge. Miles was shuddering as he tried to contain his fury, his fists clenching and unclenching. As the general slowly brought both fists up, Kelly became afraid Miles would do something he might well regret.

Luther instantly stepped between Miles and the squaw man. “General—if I may. Let’s try to sort out what we can do about all this right now.”

“What we can do right now!” Miles shrieked. “We had five Sioux chiefs ride in here to surrender their people to me. Our efforts at convincing the enemy that we will continue to make war on them is finally beginning to bear enough fruit that Bull Eagle and his emissaries come riding in here under two goddamned white banners of peace … and they’re butchered within sight of my post!”

Miles lunged at the two grease-stained white towels Leforge held across his open hands, but Kelly was there first, tearing them away from the squaw man.

“Any reason why your Crow would kill the Sioux chiefs without warning?” Kelly demanded, glaring into Leforge’s eyes.

“Any reason?” Leforge answered. “How ’bout lots of dead relatives—if one reason’s good as another for you.”

Miles grumbled something under his breath, turning slightly before he roared, “They’re cowards, Leforge! All of them who had any hand in this! I’m not sure I shouldn’t string you up while I’ve got my hands on you! Just to show your bunch what I think of cowards!”

Kelly watched Leforge flinch and swallow hard at that imaginary noose tightening around his throat.

The squaw man bravely said, “If that somehow evens things, General—then string me up.”

Miles began to sputter with frustration. “You know goddamned well it won’t do me a bit of good with the Sioux, Leforge! Those other riders who watched your Crow kill the five helpless chiefs, why—they’re halfway back to Crazy Horse right now … off to tell him that my word can’t be trusted! Your back-stabbing sonsabitches have gone and shattered months of my hard work trying to hit the Sioux solidly while talking straight to them at the same time!”

“I ain’t got no idea what you want me to do now, General,” Leforge pleaded.

Miles leaned in to ask, “You said the dozen or so responsible for the murders have already escaped?”

“They took off about as soon as your soldiers started showing up.”

“Cowards!” Miles shouted as he whirled on his heel and stomped back to collapse behind his desk in the canvas chair. “Those Crow are supposed to be warriors! Warriors don’t kill unarmed enemies under a flag of truce!”

Feeling almost like a traitor himself, Kelly had to declare, “General, the Sioux had weapons under their blankets—just like at Cedar Creek.”

“But they didn’t have those weapons out and ready to use, by God!” Miles blustered. He turned to glare at the squaw man. “What will become of those responsible, Leforge?”

“They’ve took off for the agency, General.”

“And you’ll never get your hands on them,” Kelly admitted. “The rest of the tribe will protect them, harbor them.”

“Yellow-backed cowards,” the colonel fumed. “I don’t think I can trust one of your mercenaries now, Leforge.” Miles turned to Charles Dickey. “Captain, I’m hereby ordering you to disarm the remaining Crow scouts and send them packing.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Dickey. “Anything more?”

“I want you to dismount them, Captain—then I’m going to send those ponies to the Sioux, along with a few pounds of tobacco and my word that I had nothing to do with this. Yes—I’ll send those ponies back with a couple of the friendly Yankton couriers. By Jupiter—that ought to make the Crow think twice about pulling this kind of yellow-backed thing again.”

“General,” Leforge began to plead, “the rest of ’em ain’t to blame.”

“Did they stand and watch?”

Leforge shrugged. “I s’pose they did—”

“Did the rest of your goddamned Crow stop the murders?”

“No,” and he wagged his head.

“I can’t trust any bunch who will kill someone coming in under a flag of truce, Leforge,” said Miles. “I don’t want your Crow around here anymore.”

The squaw man said, “I’ll pull out in the morning.”

“No, not you,” Miles said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“N-no, sir?”

“You’re staying right here, Leforge.”

“Why are you sending all the rest back to the agency and you’re keeping me here?” Leforge asked, his eyes filling with worry. “You making me your prisoner?”

“No, you knuckle-brained son of a bitch. You’re my guide, my tracker. Kelly knows what lies north of here, but you know more about this country south of the Yellowstone than any scout I’ve got on the payroll. Tomorrow I want you to pick two of the most trustworthy Crow you can find—then send the rest packing.”

“Just two, General?”

“Two, Leforge. That’s all. So, believe me, I’m going to get my money’s worth out of you.”

“You’re really keeping me on to scout for you?”

Miles pointed a big finger at the squaw man. “Damn right I am. While you might not be my prisoner—I do in a way consider you my hostage.”

“H-hostage?”

Miles went on. “You brought those Crow here, squaw man. Those Crow probably just killed any chance I ever had of getting the rest of the Sioux to surrender to me. Not to Crook, but to me! So now you’re staying put, and when this outfit’s ready to march again in a few days, you’re going to take me south, Leforge.”

“South?”

This time Miles turned to his chief of scouts, asking, “That’s where the hell those Sioux came from, wasn’t it, Kelly?”

Luther nodded, grim-lipped as he answered, “South, General. Probably camped along the Tongue.”

The colonel slowly leaned onto his desk, rising out of his canvas chair. “And Mr. Leforge here is going to make up for the murder of those five peaceful Sioux by leading me up the Tongue after the one Sioux warrior we all know won’t ever give up and make peace.”

“C-crazy Horse?” asked Leforge.

“Goddamned right,” Miles grumbled. “If those Sioux don’t accept my offer of peace after what your Crows did, Leforge—you’re gonna be the one who takes me right into the lap of Crazy Horse himself.”

^*Hanging Woman Creek, site of present-day Birney, Montana.

^*Also known as Fat on the Beef in historical literature.

^†Sometimes referred to as Lame Red Skirt.

^*Arikara, or Ree, Indians from the Upper Missouri country.

^*The Crow, or Absaraka, tribe.