Bill Dugan (11 page)

“You do it,” Collins said, but Crazy Horse shook his head.

“It is your deer,” he whispered. “Or it is no one’s.”

Collins drew the bowstring back as far as he could. He felt his arms tremble as he tried to hold the powerful bow at full draw. He watched Crazy Horse for a signal. Then it came. The deer had heard something and raised its head, water running in silvery filigrees from its muzzle.

The string snapped, the arrow sailed, glanced off a tree and clattered on into the brush.

The deer was gone.

“Now,” Crazy Horse said, “you are starting to see how hard it is to be Lakota. And when the deer and buffalo are gone, what will we do?”

Collins made no answer. He knew there was none.

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OVEMBER 29, 1864,
a thousand troops from the Department of Colorado, under the command of Col. J. M. Chivington, attacked a village under the leadership of the Cheyenne chief Black Kettle. Black Kettle had been a friend of the white man for years, and his band was perfectly peaceful, but Colonel Chivington was not a man to let facts trouble him. When his butchers were done, nearly two hundred Cheyenne, mostly women and children, lay dead. Their bodies were mutilated, scalps taken and savagery almost unparalleled had been visited upon the women, living and dead alike.

It did not take long for news of the slaughter to spread across the plains. When word reached Fort Laramie, one of the Laramie Loafers told Maj. George O’Brien, “You have set the prairie on fire.”

And so indeed it happened. Furious at the carnage, feeling betrayed and foolish, even a peaceful Sioux chief like Spotted Tail was moved to go on the warpath. A great council was held on Cherry Creek, and in its aftermath, the plains Indians cooperated like never before. Cheyenne and
Arapaho joined forces with the Sioux, even friendly Brules, and the result was the most intense and sustained warfare the plains had yet seen.

Rather than form a massive force to sweep down on the forts and settlements, the leaders opted for a less concentrated and more effective kind of warfare. Crazy Horse led one of dozens of bands of warriors, sometimes with as few as ten members, sometimes nearly a hundred, which fanned out across the plains.

The troops were widely scattered, their outposts separated from one another by miles of open space, and that space belonged to the Sioux. Communication was sporadic at best, limited to telegraph and, when that was not possible, by courier. Realizing how dependent the army was on the “talking wire,” Crazy Horse made one of his principal aims the disruption of the telegraphy system.

Stations were burned, wires cut and, when there were enough warriors available, long sections of the wire removed and the poles toppled and burned. The mails, too, came in for their share of attention, as did the stagecoach lines. One after another, stage stations were burned to the ground. Remote, even isolated, many of them were manned by a handful of defenders, often enough to drive off the raiders but not to save the stations themselves. Pursuit of attacking bands was out of the question.

By early spring, it was apparent that the Sioux were not about to forget Sand Creek. The incessant raids were taking an enormous toll on supplies and, more importantly, on military morale. Many of the soldiers were unfamiliar with plains Indian warfare and contemptuous of their adversaries.
Like Grattan before them, they felt as if they were being held back by reluctant commanders, prevented from putting a permanent, expedient end to the Sioux depredations.

With the Civil War ending, Maj. Gen. Grenville Dodge, fresh from Sherman’s march, was given command of the Department of the Missouri. Two months of harassment of stage and telegraph lines by the Sioux brought Dodge west to Fort Riley with a sheaf of orders to wage war on the Sioux and restore order to the Platte River Territory.

The winter was severe, even more severe than usual when Dodge reached Kansas and, true to his mission, he started immediately, despite the intense cold and the unremitting snowstorms. He lost thirteen men to the weather on his way to Fort Kearney. He took a stagecoach, making his way from post to post and finding, without exception, that his post commanders were bound to their installations. The Sioux were everywhere, and the troops were reluctant to travel beyond a quick sprint back to their stockades.

Not one to tolerate cowardice, or anything which in his rather severe definition even approximated it, he issued orders at fort after fort. His commanders were told in no uncertain terms to send their men out and not to readmit them until the telegraph lines were up and working. Whether afraid of Dodge or the Sioux, the men worked fast, and full communications were restored within two months.

During this period, there were very few significant clashes with the Sioux, and Dodge congratulated himself on striking terror into their hearts.

What he didn’t realize is that the Sioux were interested only in harassment. They were on their way to the last remaining good buffalo hunting territory north of the Platte, in the Powder River country and the vicinity of the Black Hills.

Unfortunately for both Dodge and the Sioux, Colonel Collins, the only military commander in the Department of the Missouri who seemed to have a grasp of Sioux mentality, had completed his three years’ service on the frontier, mustered out and retired. His place was taken by Col. Thomas Moonlight, whose sole claim to fame was having replaced Colonel Chivington as the commander of the Department of Colorado. That left Dodge with no counsel worth having. Firebrands were a dime a dozen in the army, and most didn’t need a match to ignite their quick tempers. Dodge was not the least among them, and he was determined to discharge his duties with the unremitting zeal for which he had become known. The attitude percolated throughout the Department.

While Dodge was trying to reinvigorate his forces, Spotted Tail and the Brule, and the Oglala under Old Man Afraid, were ensconced in the buffalo country. But the Cheyenne, furious over the betrayal at Sand Creek, rode north in an effort to entice their Sioux allies to join them in a full-scale war against the white soldiers. Spotted Tail declined the Cheyenne request, but Old Man Afraid, while still opposed to war, knew that his young warriors could not be held back and, reluctantly, accepted the war pipe, as did Red Cloud.

Using the Powder River valley as a base of operations, the Sioux resumed their attacks on the outposts
west of Fort Laramie. Crazy Horse, with Young Man Afraid, Hump, and Red Cloud, led raid after raid, trying to pound the bluecoats into submission. Using new tactics devised in large part by Crazy Horse, the Sioux would stage a raid as a diversionary tactic. When the raid managed to draw out a cavalry column to relieve the besieged station, the Sioux, watching from concealment, then swooped down on the post the cavalry had left lightly defended. Again and again, they attacked, feinted, and fell back. All the soldiers could do was race across the plains arriving hours, even days, late, only to find that somewhere behind them yet another raid had taken place.

Throughout the spring, the guerrilla war raged across Colorado Territory. Moonlight, like so many of his fellow officers, was in the dark about his adversaries, and yielded little to Lieutenant Grattan when it came to impetuousness. Sensing Moonlight’s belligerence, the soldiers in his command allowed themselves to take a more aggressive attitude toward the Sioux, even the Laramie Loafers who clung like barnacles to the Fort. But the constant barrage of muttering and threats was beginning to make the Loafers nervous.

It seemed to Smoke and the other peaceful Sioux settled near the fort that Moonlight and his men did not know the difference between friendly and hostile Sioux or, if they did, did not care. The one ray of sunshine in the Loafers’ lot was the presence of Capt. Charlie Elliston, who was married to a Sioux woman, and given command of a detachment of Indian police, charged with keeping the peace in the Oglala settlement, which Colonel
Collins had had the foresight to move a few miles farther away from Fort Laramie before retiring.

But Elliston was derided as a “squaw man” by the white soldiers, and the lack of respect with which he was regarded gave him little influence among them.

By the middle of May, the tinder was already beginning to smolder. But no one noticed the tiny curls of smoke. On the eighteenth, a Sioux subchief named Two Face showed up at the gates of Fort Laramie. With him was a white woman, Naomi Eubanks, and her daughter. The two women had been prisoners of the Cheyenne for several months. Two Face, thinking to make some headway in his quest for peace with the bluecoats, ransomed the two women from the Cheyenne, and brought them in.

When Two Face had arrived at Bordeaux’s trading post, it was apparent that Mrs. Eubanks had fared badly at Cheyenne hands. Her clothes were torn and dirty, her face showed bruises and other signs of abuse, and her tale of rape at Cheyenne hands inflamed all the whites, soldiers and settlers alike. One of the women at Bordeaux’s gave her a change of clothes, and George Beauvais, one of Bordeaux’s men, accompanied the Sioux and the two women on to the Fort.

A raft was sent over for Two Face, the women, and Beauvais, who was to translate for Two Face, and try to explain what the Sioux’s purpose had been. But once across the river, Mrs. Eubanks, whether from malice or the inability to tell one Indian from another, accused not only the Cheyenne but Two Face himself of having raped
her. She also accused another Sioux subchief, Blackfoot, living in a village on the White River. Captain Elliston was dispatched to bring Blackfoot in, against his better judgment.

When Ellison returned with Blackfoot in tow, both Sioux were clapped in irons and locked in the Laramie guardhouse. Beauvais protested, explaining again and again that Two Face had done nothing wrong, nothing but try to help Mrs. Eubanks.

“Why would he have come in here,” Beauvais argued, “if he had done what the woman says he did?”

“He’s a redskin, Beauvais,” Moonlight countered. “How the hell am I supposed to know what goes on in his mind.”

“Look, Colonel, no man, red or white, would put himself in the way of trouble like that. Not if he’d done anything like what that poor woman says he’s done.”

“Then why did that poor woman, as you call her, accuse him?”

“How the hell do I know? She’s scared to death. Maybe all Indians are the same to her. Maybe she just wants to see some poor Indian suffer, pay back for what happened to her.”

“And maybe she’s telling the truth. Did you consider that possibility?”

“I know the man. No way on God’s green earth he done what she says.”

“Well, I think he did, and I’m going to make an example out of him. I’ll string the bastards to a tall tree. Maybe then the other Sioux’ll get the message.”

“That’s a bad idea, Colonel, a real bad idea.”

“I don’t give a damn what you say, Beauvais. Hell, you’re not much better’n a redskin yourself.”

“You hurt those men, Colonel, especially for something they didn’t do, and this whole country will explode. You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

“It’s my nose, Beauvais. And my face. I’ll do what I want with them.”

Moonlight would not listen to reason, and word soon spread. The sutler’s agent at Laramie, retired Col. W. G. Bullock, heard what Moonlight was planning, and rushed to the fort. He was ushered into Moonlight’s office and started speaking before the colonel even had a chance to look up from his desk.

“You better think about what you’re doing, Colonel,” Bullock warned. “You hang those men and every hostile Indian for a hundred miles will come thundering down on this fort. There’s thousands of ‘em, and they’ll overrun this place in the wink of an eye.”

“They’re Indians, Mister Bullock. We have more and better weapons. That more than makes up for their numbers. And I’ll be damned if I will let anybody, even you, tell me how to run my command.”

“You better let somebody tell you, Colonel, or your widow will get a short letter from the Secretary of War right quick.”

“Get out of my office.”

“Listen to me, Colonel. You …”

“I’ve already heard enough, Mister Bullock. You think there’s going to be a massacre here at the fort, do you? Well, let me tell you, the Sioux will be
shorthanded by two, massacre or no. And that’s a fact.”

“You’re mad.”

“You’re damn right I am, Mister Bullock. Mad as hell. And those damned savages are going to pay the price.”

Bullock started to argue, but Moonlight held up a hand. “No more, Mister Bullock. No more. You will not dissuade me. Don’t even try.”

On May 26, the two Sioux prisoners were escorted to a hilltop overlooking the river. A gallows had already been built and, without ceremony, iron balls were attached to their legs and the two innocent Sioux were hanged. Moonlight would not permit the bodies to be taken down, and they stayed there on the hilltop, swaying in the breeze, until the bodies rotted and the heavy iron balls pulled the legs from the torsos.

The Sioux were furious. General Dodge, when apprised of that anger, and that there was a Sioux camp located so close to Fort Laramie, ordered that the village be moved to Fort Kearney, deeper in white-controlled territory. But the Sioux had long memories. They recalled that Conquering Bear had been a friend to the whites and had been shot down for his troubles. They remembered that Harney had attacked Little Thunder’s Brule camp without provocation, despite assurances from the chief that his people were not hostile.

When word of the enforced removal reached Sioux ears, it didn’t take long for the resentment to boil over. And when they realized that they were to be moved, disarmed, to a camp in the heart of Pawnee territory, the thought of being at the mercy
of their hated enemies was more than they could tolerate. Spotted Tail, despite his commitment to peace, was determined that he would not go. The tame Oglala, used to handouts and long removed from independence, were resolved that they would not go, either.

On June 11, the caravan moved out. Nearly two thousand Oglala and Brule, toting everything they owned in the world on their horses and travois, started to march down the Platte River. But word of the forced march had reached other bands of Sioux, and Crazy Horse slipped into the temporary camp on the first night, past the lackadaisical troopers under the command of Capt. W. D. Fouts.

Fouts, like Moonlight, was contemptuous of the Sioux and their fighting ability. So much, in fact, that he refused to issue ammunition to half his men, those marching in the rear of the caravan. Their picketing was porous, to say the least, and Crazy Horse had little trouble slipping in and out of the village.

It didn’t take much to convince Spotted Tail and the others that escape was desirable and, with Crazy Horse urging them on, possible. The next day, as the caravan moved slowly along the river bottom, the young warriors, to ease the passage of time and vent a little of their pent-up energy and simmering frustration, raced their ponies back and forth along the line of march. Fouts was furious, and ordered them to stop. The warriors ignored him.