X. THE POWDER RIVER AND THE ROSEBUD

When the Sioux uprising in Minnesota
during the Civil War had been put down,
the Santee Sioux were sent to a reservation
called Crow Creek, but they found
dry, barren land in these Dakotas
where the water was alkaline
and unfit for drinking, the wild game sparse,
-- all of which, combined					8

with the harshness of the winter,
took one out of three the first year,
so that the hills were covered with graves.
Among those who visited here
at Crow Creek was a Teton Sioux,
the Hunkpapa who was known
as Sitting Bull. In his mid-twenties,
this was the lot by which he had grown.			16

He had returned to the Black Hills,
the Paha Sapa, by eighteen sixty five,
a land swept up by infuriation
as more of the white men arrived,
so much so that the people
endlessly harassed the intruders there
which only brought more soldiers
thrown into the affair.						24


And the cavalry roamed from the Rosebud
to the Powder River in quest
of villages of the 'hostiles' to destroy.
As the late summer pressed,
the Sioux and their bands of cousins,
which had gathered through the land
to commune with the sacred spirits
tried to avoid the commands.					32

But when a column of cavalry,
low on supplies, morale, and fight,
and seeking to make its way back
to join General Connor, got sight
of the Sioux bands trailing them,
now come upon their Powder River camp near
where it bends north to the Yellowstone,
in late August of the year,					40

they were not in the mood for receiving
the truce party of the Sioux
that rode in under a white flag
hoping that they might be able to
give the Bluecoats tobacco and sugar
as a peace offering, of sorts.
The soldiers waited until they were in range,
and then came the reports					48




of rifle fire upon them,
killing several before they beat their retreat.
Among the larger party was Sitting Bull
who had tried to entreat
the braves not to be so foolish,
and now he was not surprised.
When he saw the gaunt soldier horses,
Sitting Bull and his allies,					56

rode down upon the soldiers and hit them
quickly, and then withdrew,
only to reform and hit them again,
coming close upon them so to
knock the soldiers from their horses.
The soldiers were alarmed and ran,
and the Sioux followed them making
little forays as they ran frightened.				64

And through the next summer Tatanka,
together with Crazy Horse, rode
with the war parties of Red Cloud,
attacking, but more trying to goad
the whites into leaving the country,
but always the paleface reply
was to send in more soldiers
who would see how many Indians could die.		72




But after Red Cloud had effected his treaty,
Sitting Bull was not pleased:
"The white men have put bad medicine
over Red Cloud's eyes so he sees
everything and anything that pleases them."
And while Red Cloud tried to show
the people that it was suicide to fight,
that to the reservation they must go,			80

Sitting Bull gave other counsel
because he would not trust white men.
And he had seen the reservation and thought
that it would mean death to them.
There were those who went with Red Cloud,
but as the years grew more sorrowful,
as the Washitas multiplied, more and more
came to ride with Sitting Bull.				88

This was a man informed in youth,
in what he interpreted as prophecy,
that he would be a leader of his people
-- one day as he lay restfully
during a hunting trip in the bottom
of the Grand River, he dreamed
that a grizzly was poised above him
and a hawk flying nearby seemed				96




to be telling him to play dead.
When he opened his eyes, he found
that the hawk and bear were both real,
so he lay as frozen on the ground
as the great bear sniffed and then wandered off.
Later, in the Black Hills, where
he heard a call from a summit, he climbed,
and found an eagle perching there.				104

Having proven himself a bold warrior,
he was made a leader of the Strong Hearts,
an elite military society,
and proved himself worthy of the part,
fearless as the buffalo who face
the gale and plow ahead,
and became and Hunkpapa chief,
just as white encroachmetn spread.				112

Through the Civil War conspiracies,
he joined with the resistance,
a tragic, noble figure deployed
in his courageous defiance
by those who forged the Confederacy
against our common land,
and fired with an anger which arose
equally of their hand.						120




When Red Cloud signed his treaty,
Sitting Bull stayed on unceded lands,
and told his mentor, a Jesuit priest,
Pierre Jean de Smet, he'd stand
as long as his strength remained in him,
as another tragic figure came
into the struggle for the Pa Sapa,
and Tatanka knew his Washita fame.			128



XI. CUSTER'S GRAND STAND

The long columns under Custer's command
made their way through the hills,
and the word came back from Custer
that the Paha Sapa lands were filled
with gold "from the roots down,"
and like locusts swarming white men came
following the Thieves' Road cut by Custer,
as the Sioux called its name.					8

He had come to reconnoiter
where the Army might best set
a fort in the Black Hill lands
so that it might protect
the Northern Pacific workers
harangued now for several years.
Geologists found traces of gold,
and so from the frontier,						16

Custer had grabbed the headlines,
and the prospectors swarmed in.
The government had not even asked
the Indians for token permission
to violate the sacred lands
as the treaty clearly said.
As he rode, thoughts of the forays
of the last year must have filled his head.		24


He had searched the Yellowstone River
for Sioux he could defeat,
but they had found him instead,
and twice he had been badly beat,
having escaped the second time
when General Stanley's infantry
arrived just in time to save him
from massacre with certainty.					32

And to add insult to injury,
Stanley had put Long Hair under arrest
for having disobeyed orders.
This tiime, Custer would do his best
to return the favor to the Sioux.
And with him on the mission came
a corps of journalists he had invited
-- it certainly would spread his name.			40

Only barely had he been able
to accompany the expedition, much less
command it, for President Grant
disliked Custer, and unless
others had interceded and somehow
gotten Grant to relent
against his better judgement,
he would never have been sent.				48




Before the Great Wasiya came,
the Winter Giant, the Blizzard King,
the hordes were in upon them,
and the Indian commissioners would bring
an offer to buy the Paha Sapa
to Red Cloud, who spurned the request
with an outrageous price for it.
The government then moved to impress			56

upon the Sioux a show of might
-- they were all ordered to report
inside the reservation, and those
who did not were to be deemed in short
order as "hostile and treated 
accordingly by military force."
Sitting Bull and most of the non-agency chiefs
ignored the ultimatum, of course.				64

Or perhaps they did not ignore it,
for the order never reached
any winter camp of the affected Sioux
in time for them to breach
the deep snow blanketing the way
to the nearest agency.
Even if they had wanted to,
there was no way it could be.					72




In the meantime, Custer was in the east,
playing at politics and more.
He had recently had a book published
about his life on the plains. The war
seemed far away and he kept
requesting extensions of his leave.
But as soon as he returned in February
to his post in the Dakotas, he received			80

telegraphed orders from the War Department
to return at once to Washington
to answer Congressional inquiries
that all seemed to have sprung
from his opinion that there was corruption
-- in one article, it was said
that Secretary of War William Belknap
was guilty of graft. The alledged				88

charges were denied by Custer,
but Grant was furious with him now.
The Colonel's friends tried to intercede for him,
but the President would not allow
his directive recalling Custer
to be reversed. When he testified before
the Congress, it was ruled hearsay,
and he was excused from any more			96





testimony and was discredited.
And now he was not allowed to return
to the Dakotas and his command.
President Grant angrily burned.
It was not just that his friend Belknap
and the others might be wrong
-- all of that would come out
and he would resign before very long.			104

The  problem was that Long Hair
was playing politics for partisan gain
and maybe even personal ambition,
and further, it was with disdain
that Grant looked upon Custer,
in whom he saw weaknesses he thought
made him unfitted for command.
The charges the Colonel had brought			112

were never conclusively proven
-- the selling of western trading posts.
But Custer was up to something more than
rabble-rousing on the coast.
He had come from the school of Jackson
and his Secretary of War, Lewis Cass,
and the Democratic Party of Van Buren 
and Belmont and their cast.					120



It was not only the National Bank
that had been undone by Van Buren's cabal
of eastern and London bankers,
for their policies had led to all
the conflict dividing the nation 
-- and they had fostered the Trail of Tears.
And now Custer wanted the White House,
and he was receiving their cheers.				128	


XII. THE CENTENNIEL YEAR

Colonel Custer was busy with his games
and Grant's orders that forbade 
Yellow Hair from even going with
the Seventh Cavalry, so he stayed
back east. Besides, it was winter,
not the best time to be
riding across the Dakota lands
or even camped with the cavalry.				8

In March of 1876,
General George Crook led an expedition out,
ten companies of cavalry
and two of infantry for the bout
with the hostiles, but when they
attacked and burned a hundred teepees
on the Tongue River, a blizzard struck,
and they did not win clear victory.				16

Quite to the contrary, these Indians
that General Crook had found
were Cheyenne, not Sioux, who were trying
to make it onto the ground
of the reservation to avoid war.
In the past, they had been friends
of the whites, but with this unprovoked attack,
that quickly came to an end.					24


And Sitting Bull took in some
of the Cheyenne refugees who got away
-- he had been telling them all along,
and now they knew. Crook's forays
against the 'hostile' Indians out here
had been summarily without success,
and, in fact, were only making things
worse as he continued to press.				32

The nation was still in depression,
and workingmen were being organized
by a new breed of working class heroes
to counteract what had been the tide.
The labor-industrial alliance, 
and the Knights of Labor would fall
and be replaced by the British model
which bore the International's call.				40

Within a year, these radical rabble
would lead a nation-wide strike
that would shut down the whole country
-- another one of the prolonged spikes
thrust at the heart of our Republic,
by those who loudly proclaimed
that it would be divided and become
part of the Empire it once overcame.			48




And Sitting Bull, when he had learned
of the orders of the Sioux to go
immediately onto the reservation
in the midst of the deep winter snow,
knew that this had been done by design,
for it was the white man's intent
to destroy them under this pretext,
and so Tatanka quickly sent					56

work throughout all the people
to come and hold council with him
in the village of the Hunkpapa,
along Beaver Creek, high where it begins.
And cloaked in their buffalo and wolf robes,
all of the great Sioux chiefs fought
the drifts and cold to journey,
as Sitting Bull's lodge they sought.				64

Only Red Cloud among the great warriors
of the Sioux nation failed to appear,
for he was old and on the reservation.
The elders noted his absence here
in the circle around the fire,
and they agreed now that his place
should be filled by another --
they appointed Crazy Horse to fill the space.		72




Each chief spoke to the coucil
as to what his people would do,
either surrender and go to the reservation,
or stay and fight. When they were through
and the pipe turned to Sitting Bull,
he told them they knew his heart,
and so he would let his Oglala brother,
Crazy Horse, speak for his part.				80

Crazy Horse rose and stood silently
as all the chiefs gazed upon him
and then they began to chant "Hun-hun-he,"
the greatest tribute, low and grim.
He thanked them for the honor and he
pledged that he would not fail their trust.
He told them he could not ask his peoplel
women, the old, children, to be rushed			88

weak on a trail of tears through the snow
to an agency where they would find
neither food nor friendship awaiting them,
and that so it was his mind
that they should stand and fight --
"I will stay out here and be free!
I will fight the pony soldiers.
I will die a Sioux!" was Tashunka's decree.		96





When they voted, only one, He Dog,
failed to join with the rest,
and he led his little band away
to the reservation, full of distress.
The others would prepare for the battles
that with spring would lay in store
against the pony soldiers. Wasicun,
the white man, would have his war.			104

And then when the Cheyenne joined them,
another council would be held.
Cheyenne and Arapaho joined the Sioux
as the numbers quickly swelled.
Sitting Bull called for all the warriors
to join him and renedevous
on Rosebud Creek in one army
as the Green Grass in Up Moon was new.		112

The Bluecoats had begun gathering,
and with the Geese Laying Moon,
Crazy Horse broke his camp
and led his warriors off so that soon
they joined together with Sitting Bull
as the Tongue River where they
had wintered, and then they moved north
and camped at the Rosebud in May.			120



Tashunka Witko, Crazy Horse,
and Tatanka Tokanta, Sitting Bull,
were gathering at the Rosebud
just as the spring was full.
"I will stay out here and be free,"
said Crazy Horse, and he was speaking, too,
for Sitting Bull; "I will fight
the pony soldiers. I will die a Sioux!"			128


XIII. THE MOON OF MAKING FAT

As the summer of 1876 began,
there were pony soldiers on all sides
closing in upon the Sioux and their allies
-- General Crook with a tide
of over one thousand soldiers
coming from Fort Fetterman to the south,
Colonel Gibbon advancing from the west,
approaching with about						8

half that many men from Fort Ellis
in the Montana Territory.
And out of the east from Fort Lincoln
came the command of General Terry
-- 925 men -- a force
which included in its ranks
the infamous Seventh Cavalry,
to whom much of the thanks					16

for the escalation of this conflict
had to be given for its part
in spreading the overblown rumors
of gold from which it got its start.
And the impetuous commander
who had stirred up the hornet's nest
with his megalomaniac efforts
rode once again along with the rest.			24


General Crook had indeed failed badly,
and had even provoked the Cheyenne
into riding along with Sitting Bull
when he'd sent Reynolds in his plan
against the village of Two Moons.
And his old rival, General Terry,
saw in Crook's failure his chance
to build up a reputation that he				32

was a great Indian fighter,
and although he knew that he was not,
General Terry knew very well
where such a person could be got.
And so it was that in early May,
two fateful letters were sent,
one from General Terry, and one from Long Hair,
directly to the President.						40

Colonel Custer had grown weary of waiting
for orders that he could proceed
back to the Plains. President Grant
not only would not accede,
but even refused to see Custer.
The time of battle was growing nigh,
and he knew that Terry wanted him,
and so Custer proceeded by					48




rail and without permission
to the post in the first week of May.
And when the communiques had been read,
Grant telegraphed Terry to say
that he had surrendered and that Custer
could return to his command.
And now on May 17th,
Custer rode out triumphant, as the band			56

played "The Girl I Left Behind Me,"
with Benteen and Reno at his side,
anxious to join in battle
-- a longing which fate would abide.
There followed two weeks of careful marching.
And through it Custer would
disobey his orders, as he always had,
to scout the area as best he could.				64

But Terry was impatient with him,
and though he recalled him from the front,
when the news came that the trail was hot,
Terry forgot the stunt.
And then he abandoned caution.
Yet, while the trail was freshly worn,
the Indians could not be found.
Custer marched on toward Little Big Horn.		72




Early in the Moon of Making Fat,
the Sioux performed their annual rain dance.
Sitting Bull danced for three days,
and bled himself, until in a trance,
in a vision he heard voices calling,
and saw soldiers fall from the sky
as locusts. Because he would not listen,
the pony soldiers were going to die.			80

His hands and feet had been painted red;
there were blue stripes across his back
which were tokens of the sky.
He brought a scarlet blanket from his back
which he had promised Wakan Tanka,
the Great Spirit, and he offered it.
Then his skin from wrists to shoulders
was sliced with fifty slits.					88

The blood flowed, covering both arms,
to the monotonous wails of prayer,
and he sat gazing directly at the sun.
And then he arose from there,
to lean against the sacred trunk
in a rhythmic dance all day.
Without food or water, and all throughout the night
he continued to pray and sway				96




until about noon, in exhaustion,
when Sitting Bull staggered and fell
into a trance of delirium in which
he saw the vision that he would tell.
With that, the ritual was ended. 
The Sioux, whenever such times
of impending crisis faced them,
danced in such manner and were given signs.	104

Now the lodges would be disassembled
and packed on sledges of poles
dragged by their horses, the stock rounded up.
And then to the west they stole.
By sunset, the camp was empty
and the gathered bands moved away.
Over the hill, they rode into that sunset,
not fleeing, even thought they					112

were being closed in upon by General Crook.
But they had not gathered this time
to retreat. Confident in their numbers,
they had painted race and body with signs
of war. It was the next morning,
that the warriors of Crazy Horse fell
in surprise upon Crook at the Battle
of the Rosebud in which they compelled		120




in wave after wave of mass attacks,
General Crook to halt his advance
and wait there for reinforcements,
while they withdrew in orderly vigilance.
As they journeyed westward, the soldiers
followed the trail freshly worn,
all moving toward the Greasy Grass,
which Wasicun called the Little Big Horn.		128


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