Man on Two Ponies (24 page)

“When Sitting Bull talked about a big war in the spring,” Short Bull replied, “your father and some others who'd been with him in Grandmother's Land went to Standing Rock to
be
with him. I told them not to go, for the Messiah will take care of the Wasicuns in his own way, but they wouldn't listen to me. They'd rather drive the Wasicuns away themselves than let the Messiah do it. They did promise to keep on dancing.”

As Eagle Pipe and his people streamed into the camp, Billy was astonished but thrilled to see Mollie Deer-In-Timber in one of the wagons, looking worried and frightened.

“What are you doing here?”

“I had no choice. I was on my way to visit my mother when
they came along, running away from the soldiers. They made me come. I'm afraid.”

“Stay with me and you'll be safe.” A young Oglala couple he knew had a small tipi to themselves, and they were happy to share it with Mollie and Billy. “They'll
think
we're married,” Billy told her. “We should be, anyway.” She looked at him wide-eyed.

“But we'll just
pretend
we're married, won't we? We won't...?” Billy frowned but nodded in agreement, for that wasn't what he wanted
to
hear. Now he had to tell Bull
Bear
and his wives he was moving out. Mollie waited while he went for his blankets and rifle. Bull Bear was away, but Bright Star and White Faun were in the tipi.

“Our leader, Short Bull, wants me to move,” Billy told the women. “I must do as he says. Maybe I can come back later.” Both looked shocked and disappointed as he snatched up his belongings and left before they could question
him
or
try
to persuade
him
to stay.

He waited impatiently for night to come, when he and Mollie wrapped up in his blankets. He could hear movements across the tipi, then the young Oglala woman moaned softly, and his heart beat faster. Mollie stiffened when he put his arm around her and pulled her close.

“Remember,” she whispered, “Just pretend.”

“You're the only one I ever wanted for a wife,” he whispered, stroking her legs. She pushed his hand away. “I was so unhappy at Carlisle I never realized how much I loved you,” he continued. Running his hand over her legs again, while she half-heartedly pushed it away. “I see your face every night in my dreams. Now, at last, I'm with you, and I'm not dreaming.” This time she didn't resist.

In
the morning, as the two of them walked through the camp, Billy was aching with love for her.
Somehow I
must
persuade her
to stay with
me.
He was suddenly aware they were being watched and turned his head slightly. Out of the comer of his eye he saw Bright Star and White Faun glowering at Mollie as if they'd like to
kill
her.

At Pine Ridge Red Cloud was nearly blind and unable to maintain his role as head chief, but he urged the Oglalas
to
remain calm. American Horse and Red Shirt still opposed the Ghost Dance, but other chiefs and many of their people camped at the agency still supported the dancers. Young-Mao-Afraid-of-His-Horses and some of his people had gone to visit the Crows. Jack Red Cloud, who'd been one of the most active dancers, now rejected the Ghost Dance and joined the friendlies.

Although the daily sight of bluecoats and the sound ofbugles
irritated the Oglalas and made them nervous, the troops had been sent to protect the agency and the families there, not to stop the Ghost Dance or provoke a war. Brooke assured the chiefs that the troops would
harm
no one, not even the Ghost Dancers. That satisfied those at the agency, but not the defiant ones in the dance camps.

The day that troops arrived at Pine Ridge, many Oglala Ghost Dancers had second thoughts about continuing the dance and talked of going to the agency. To dissuade them, the fanatic Porcupine insisted that they let him demonstrate the effectiveness of the Ghost Shirts. While Big Road and No Water and their people watched, Porcupine stood facing Bull Calf, who reluctantly aimed his Winchester at him. “Go ahead and shoot,” Porcupine ordered. Bull Calf fired, and Porcupine fell to the ground, badly wounded.

Shocked, Big Road and No Water held council. A few die-hards insisted on continuing the dance, but most had lost faith in the Messiah's coming and agreed to go to the agency. Big Road sent word to Little Wound, then he and No Water took their people to Pine Ridge. Shaken by the news that the Ghost Shirts he had learned about in a trance wouldn't stop bullets, Little Wound rode into Pine Ridge a few days later and informed Brooke that his people were following.

General Miles, who had presidential ambitions, greatly exaggerated the Sioux danger.
It
was clear that the Tetons would fight only if troops tried to stop the dancing; they had no plan for starting a general war or of attacking white settlers around the reservations. “Since the days of Pontiac, Tecumseh, and Red Jacket,” Miles proclaimed, speaking of Sitting Bull, “no Indian
has
had the power of drawing to him so large a following of his race and molding and wielding it against the authority of the United States.”
He was sure that Sitting Bull was plotting a general uprising, and
concluded that he should be arrested, but quietly, without starting
a fight. Far from attracting a large number of Tetons, Sitting Bull had only about 400 followers, more than half of them women and children. Most of the Hunkpapas opposed him.

General Miles continued to send reinforcements to the trouble spots, while stationing others in a cordon around
all
the Teton reservations. To Pine Ridge came four companies of the Second Infantry and another troop of the Ninth Cavalry. On November 26 the entire Seventh Cavalry Regiment under Colonel James Forsyth arrived from Fort Riley, Kansas. The Oglalas had good reason to remember Long Hair Custer's regiment, for the Tetons had destroyed half of it when Custer charged their camps on the Greasy Grass. Four companies of the Twenty-first Infantry reached Rosebud from Fort Sidney, Nebraska. Miles now had nearly half of the entire U.S. Army on or near the Teton reservatons. He also authorized Brooke to recruit two companies of Indian scouts, and forty Oglalas and Northern Cheyennes enlisted.

To help preserve the calm
at
Pine Ridge, on November27 Brooke ordered Royer to restore the rations to the amount specified in treaties. Their stomachs
full
for the first time in years, the Oglalas accepted the presence of troops, but hoped they'd soon march away.

Two
Strike's people looted abandoned cabins in their path and
gathered horses and cattle as they crossed the Pine Ridge reservation to Wounded Knee Creek, about fifteen miles from the agency. There they joined a party of Wazhazhas. After the other Brulé refugees reached Short Bull' s camp on Pass Creek, the whole group traveled up the White River until they met the Oglalas camped at the mouth of White Clay Creek, where they resumed the dancing.

On the morning of November 28, Short Bull assembled his people. “Last night,” he told them, “four stars came down from the sky and spoke
to
me. ‘take your people to the Stronghold in the Badlands,' they told me. ‘the Messiah is ready to come back to earth, and as soon as your people are dancing at the Stronghold, he will come to you there.' “Short Bull smiled, while the people murmured in pleasure at this good news.

Excited, Billy glanced at Mollie, who stood by his side. Her eyes were open wide, but Billy was sure she didn't believe Short Bull's
story. She seemed happy to
be
with him, but Billy noticed that much of the time she looked sad. “You don't
think
the Messiah is really coming, do you?” he asked. She shook her head.

“Our minister says it's not true, that all who expect him to come will be disappointed. All this dancing is for nothing.” He wanted to tell her that he had seen the Messiah more than once, and each time he'd promised to come, but refrained.

“I want to go home,” she said. “Why do these men threaten to kill anyone who leaves?” He didn't answer. He knew that because the fanatics refused to allow anyone to leave, Mollie was still with him. Otherwise she and the large number of nonbelievers would have left as soon as they'd been assured the troops wouldn't attack them.
I can't bear the thought of her leaving. How can I make her want to stay?

At that moment Mash-the-Kettle beckoned to Billy. “Short Bull needs to send messages and wants you to write them,” he said. Billy hurried to Short Bull.

“Tell Two Strike, Big Foot, Hump, and Sitting Bull what the stars told me,” he said. “Urge them to come to the Stronghold before the Messiah arrives. Tell Sitting Bull that as the most famous Teton chief, he especially should be there to welcome the Messiah.” Billy wrote the letters and Short Bull sent riders off with them. It was no longer safe to send men to the agencies to mail them.

The next day Short Bull and his large following, more than a thousand men, women, and children, moved down the White River to the northeast, while Two Strike's people headed north down Wounded Knee Creek, gathering stray cattle and looting cabins. On December 1 the two parties met on the White River. Now all of the remaining Ghost Dancers from Rosebud and Pine Ridge were together. There were so many warriors among them they had no fear of bluecoats.

As the long procession traveled north under a gray sky and facing an icy wind and light snow, Mollie rode sadly in a wagon. Billy's thoughts were on the new world the Messiah had promised, a world of Indians and buffalo. Mollie's words had raised some doubts in his mind and shaken his faith, but like the other believers, he still pinned
all
his hopes on the Messiah. He couldn't bear to
think
about
what would happen to the Tetons if the Messiah failed them. In
that case he might as well be dead.

They reached the shelter of the high cliffs around the plateau that joined the Stronghold and camped there, sheltered from the gale. When they rolled up in their blankets and he pressed his face against Mollie's, hers was wet with tears. She lay limply by his side, and he knew she wouldn't stop him, but he loved her too much to do more than pat her shoulder.
She won't be
happy
until she's back with her husband. It doesn't matter
if
I live or die.

In the morning they resumed their journey up a
trail
to the plateau, where there was no shelter from the bitter wind. On to the north they went, shivering in the freezing weather. At the northern end of the plateau they came to a land bridge leading to another high mesa. The bridge was barely wide enough for wagons to cross, and it was the only entrance.

This was the Stronghold the stars had referred to when they came down to talk to Short Bull. Billy held his hand before his face to keep wind-blown snowflakes from stinging his eyes. The Stronghold appeared to be about three miles long and two miles wide; the grass was tall and thick, and two springs provided water enough for people and animals. No soldiers could attack them here, and with
all
the cattle they'd gathered it would take months to starve
them out. By then the Messiah would surely have come, and their troubles would be over. Ghost Dancers and nonbelievers set up their tipis on the open mesa in the blowing snow.

With Short Bull and the tall Kicking Bear were the Brulés who had fought the bluecoats in 1876, most of the Washazhas, Two Strike's band, the people with Eagle Pipe and Crow Dog, and many Oglalas. The majority weren't Ghost Dancers; they had simply panicked at the sight of troops. They badly wanted to return to the agencies, but the fanatics still threatened to kill any who tried to leave.

At Pine Ridge a number of reporters had gathered from far and near to write about the Great Sioux Uprising that General Miles had hinted at. They found the soldiers idle and the Indians calm; there was nothing to report, certainly nothing sensational. As a result they reported every rumor as fact, and reporters from distant
cities even manufactured news. The Indians were massing for battle, the situation was explosive, they wrote, and they criticized
General Brooke for his inactivity. The firing of one gun, they said, would set off a fight to the finish. The reporters themselves, as if believing their own fabrications, were walking arsenals. Those representing papers in Nebraska and the Dakotas generally told it like it was: evetything was quiet and no trouble was anticipated. If fighting began, it would be forced on the Sioux.

Charles Moody of the
Sturgis Weekly Record
pointed out one reason for promoting the threat of an Indian war in South Dakota. “The
Mandan Pioneer
and the local correspondent of that place are entitled to an immense amount of credit for their success in having Ft. Lincoln reoccupied,” he wrote. “The Indian scare was a shrewd scheme.” A good trade with the fort had been assured for the winter.