Reap the Whirlwind (68 page)

Lying in a hospital bed in Billings in late 1978, Slim Kobold finally signed the papers that made the Rosebud Battlefield a state monument.

A year later, in 1979, the new chief historian at the Custer Battlefield National Monument made his first visit to the Rosebud site. It wasn’t long before Neil Mangum learned that in addition to being an Indian Wars’ treasure, the land is rich in archaeological terms. A four-thousand-year-old buffalo jump has been excavated nearby, showing how ancient man, the predecessors to the Indians who fought Crook, drove buffalo off cliffs before they had acquired the horse, spear, and later the gun.

The more he visited the battle site, the more Mangum was moved to tell the story of this little-heralded battle. While his own Custer Battlefield saw untold numbers of visitors every year, the Rosebud site rested in pristine beauty, undisturbed by but a few hardy visitors. In 1983 Neil completed a trail guide brochure for the Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Department to explain the battle in simple terms, and to outline locations held during important events during the fight. The next year, Mangum
compiled a “Rosebud Battlefield Historic Base Data Study” for the Montana state government.

But it wasn’t until two years ago that this nationally recognized historian published his own monumental work on the Rosebud Battle. Taking up where Vaughn left off, clarifying the gray areas, focusing in on the oft-confusing events to make them easily understood to the common layman, Neil Mangum carved out his own place among the heros of this “Second Battle of the Rosebud.”

Vaughn. Kobold. Werner. And Mangum. Men as stalwart and brave, tenacious and daring, as any of those who fought here over a century ago, red or white.

Anyone who visits the site today will see that there is an ongoing development in process. Huge metal plates have been erected which will withstand the vagaries of Montana weather, here to interpret the battle for any of the too-few visitors who wander this far off the beaten track, trekking back into some of the most beautiful country God ever crafted on this planet—among the pines and the hills, here along a stretch of a historic stream.

There is, thankfully, little development anywhere near the site. A ranch house here. Another quite some distance away over the hills. One around the bend if you look hard enough. It’s very easy for the visitor to see how this ground where I now sit, indeed this astoundingly beautiful countryside for miles around me in all directions, looked on that summer day in 1876. Indeed, this astoundingly beautiful countryside for miles around me in every direction remains all but just as it was then. Save for a ranch building here and there, but for a narrow, rutted ranch road that runs along the bottomland where Crook’s forces once unsaddled and began to boil coffee, playing cards and lounging in the sun. With no idea what fury was about to descend upon them.

There are simply far too few battlefields like the Rosebud—for here, like nowhere else, the visitor can truly experience the site, walk the ground as it existed those many years ago. Everywhere else the sites are developed, interpreted, paved and trailed, monumented and markered to death. But here, beneath the Big Sky, the Rosebud Battlefield lies waiting for the visitor to explore, to walk where
Sioux and Cheyenne ponies once charged on thundering hooves. Where the course of Indian Wars history was altered.

Here, like few other sites in the west, you can sit quietly, undisturbed by even a rare plane leaving a contrail overhead. Here you can listen to the wind. And the whispers in the grass.

After his duel with Crazy Horse, George Crook would himself visit the Rosebud Battlefield only one more time—but not until more than seven weeks had passed. One wonders what he thought about as he walked this hallowed ground that late summer evening.

That August he had twenty-five hundred men with him. That August he vowed he would not be surprised.

But the Indians did not attack. They had long ago scattered—only two days after winning their most stunning victory in the history of warfare on the northern plains.

The village circles disbanded. It was enough to have fought Three Stars to a standstill. Enough, eight days later, to have seen the glorious coming of Sitting Bull’s greatest vision.

Now fleeing to the four winds, the warrior bands would be harried by converging armies that would eventually harass the Sioux and Cheyenne, starve them, whip the warriors into submission, driving the nomadic buffalo cultures back to the reservations.

But … that is another story. Many, many more stories yet for us to share. For me to tell another time.

So, for now, I’m not in a hurry. This afternoon I sit here at the top of the conical hill, where Crazy Horse himself once sat bare-legged atop his war pony and gazed down at the soldiers he dueled. Above me the fluffy clouds pass lazily across an incredibly blue sky. Clouds moved on the same wind that whispers through the buffalo grass all around me as I write these words.

Here on this hallowed ground. Where the ghosts of the past linger, and whisper their stories to me.

T
ERRY
C. J
OHNSTON
Rosebud Battlefield
Montana Territory
June 17, 1993

Terry C. Johnston was born on the first day of 1947 on the plains of Kansas and lived all his life in the American West. His first novel,
Carry the Wind
, won the Medicine Pipe Bearer’s Award from the Western Writers of America, and his subsequent books appeared on bestseller lists throughout the country. After writing more than thirty novels of the American frontier, he passed away in March 2001 in Billings, Montana. Terry’s work combined the grace and beauty of a natural storyteller with a complete dedication to historical accuracy and authenticity. He continues to bring history to life in the pages of his historical novels so that readers can live the grand adventure of the American West. While recognized as a master of the American historical novel, to family and friends Terry remained and will be remembered as a dear, loving father and husband as well as a kind, generous, and caring friend. He has gone on before us to a better place, where he will wait to welcome us in days to come.

If you would like to help carry on the legacy of Terry C. Johnston, you are invited to contribute to the

Terry C. Johnston Memorial Scholarship Fund
c/o Montana State University-Billings Foundation
1500 N. 30th Street
Billings, MT 59101-0298
1-888-430-6782

For more information on other Terry C. Johnston novels, visit his website at
  
http://www.imt.net/~tjohnston

send e-mail to
  [email protected]

or write to
  Terry C. Johnston’s West
  P.O. Box 50594
  Billings, MT 59105