Part 19

The Little Wolf people had some trouble among themselves on their way from the southern country. One case was where a man who had become angered to craziness about something went at beating his whole family. He clubbed every one of them he could reach. All of them were put into an insane fright. An adult daughter, screaming and struggling to get away from him, stabbed him with her sheathknife. He let loose of her, walked away staggering, and soon fell dead. The young woman was in great grief because of her having killed her own father. The chiefs and all of the people sympathized with her. She was not punished. That was the only case I ever knew of a Cheyenne woman having killed anyone.

Black Coyote was the cause of one big trouble. He was the same man of our little band who was about to shoot when we were giving up our guns at the time of our surrender at the White River agency. At a camp east of Powder river, during the last part of this flight with the Little Wolf people, an old chief said to him:

“Black Coyote, you have been riding during all of the journey. Many women are walking. You should let some one of them have your horse.”

“No, it is my horse, and I want to ride,” Black Coyote answered.

“But some of the women are old, and they are very tired,” the chief persisted.

“It is my horse, and I intend to ride it,” the young man stubbornly responded.

“Black Coyote, you are crazy.”

“No. You are the crazy one.”

The chief flourished his pony whip and lashed Black Coyote. He laid on stroke after stroke, many of them. The humiliated man humped his body and stubbornly hugged his rifle. He was sitting in front of his lodge. Suddenly he jumped up and ran away. A short distance off he turned and fired at the chief. The old man fell dead.

Black Coyote ran on out of the camp. Some Cheyennes shot at him, but he was not injured. He kept on going, and he never returned. His wife at once gathered a few of their belongings and followed out to join him. Her two children and an old woman went with her. Whetstone, another Cheyenne man, also left the camp and stayed away with the outcast people.

The two men went, just after dark one night, to a camp on Powder river, where were a few soldiers having a Sergeant with them. The Indians said, “How,” and approached the campfire in a friendly way. The soldiers were fearful and were on the lookout, but they replied, “How.” After the Indians had warmed themselves a little, Black Coyote said:

“Give us some bread.”

“How,” the Sergeant answered, and he gave them bread.

As the two walked away, for some reason Black Coyote jerked up his rifle and killed the Sergeant. Then they rushed off into the darkness.

The soldiers took the body of their Sergeant and went to Fort Keogh. Soldiers and Cheyennes from there went out to search for the bad Indians. They captured them and brought them to the fort. The two men were put into jail with chains upon their ankles. A soldier chief known to the Cheyennes as Little Chief talked to them:

“Did you kill the Sergeant?” he asked them.

“No,” they answered him.

The next day Little Chief again asked them: “Did you kill the Sergeant?” Still they said: “No.” After a few days, Black Coyote said: “Yes, I killed him.”

Both of the men were hanged. I was told their bodies were not taken by the Cheyennes, but were buried by the white people. The hanging was at Miles City, I believe.

Black Coyote’s wife, the woman warrior at the Rosebud battle, died while he was in jail. Cheyennes made signs to him from a distance, through the jail windows, and told him she was sick. Every day he asked: “How is my wife today?” She was dying, but to cheer him they told him, “She is better now.” When finally somebody told him she was dead, he went entirely crazy. He would take no food, and he fought every white man who came to him. He had to be beaten and tied first when they went to hang him. His relatives said it was her death that caused him to say he had killed the Sergeant. They say the Sergeant and the soldiers were trying to kill him at the time. But I know that Black Coyote was a very excitable man. Bad Indians like him made lots of trouble for the whole tribe.

The most sorrowful new condition we found in coming back to our Cheyenne country was in the case of Little Wolf himself. Some white men about the fort were selling or giving whisky to the Indians. One night, Little Wolf got a bottle of whisky and right away he drank all of it. He went into the fort trader’s store and leaned forward upon the counter. He was quiet, but he was dizzy and stumbling here and there. The trader said: “Little Wolf, you had better go to your lodge.” But he said: “No, I want to stay here.”

Some Cheyenne men and women were playing cards at a table in the store. Famished Elk, a young man Sergeant of the scouts, was with them. He talked to Little Wolf. But the old chief paid no attention to his talk. Famished Elk took hold of Little Wolf’s arm and said: “Come, I will help you to get to your lodge.” He spoke and acted respectfully, but Little Wolf was angered because of the taking hold of him. He pulled himself away. His eyes blazed like fire. He stood a moment looking at the young man. Then he said:

“I will kill you.”

He staggered on alone out from the store. Famished Elk returned to sit in the card game. Nobody was expecting any further trouble. But not long afterward the door was opened and Little Wolf stumbled into the room. He straightened himself, leveled a rifle and fired. Famished Elk sank down dead upon the floor.

The old chief went back to his lodge and told his two wives what he had done. “We must go,” he added. The three of them went out into the darkness of the night. Soldiers and Cheyennes searched for them. They searched during the next day and the next. The missing man and his two wives appeared in Miles City and sat themselves down at a place in plain view of the people there. A Captain and some soldiers went to him. This Captain we knew as Little Chief. He told Little Wolf what it was said he had done. He further told him:

“You are no more chief of the Cheyennes.”

“That is true and just,” Little Wolf agreed.

All of the Cheyennes said: “How. It is right. Little Wolf shall be not any more a chief among us.” But their hearts were sad, not angry, when they said this. He was not punished in any other way. But he further punished himself. Before he and his wives had left their lodge he smashed into pieces his medicine pipe. Our old tribal laws required this. It was allowable for him afterward to smoke alone any small and short-stemmed pipe, such as might be made from a deer leg bone. But he did not do this. He denied himself all smoking. He never made any offer even to sit in the company of other Cheyennes smoking together. White men sometimes offered him cigarettes, but he always refused them. After a time he learned to chew tobacco, a habit never followed by the old-time Cheyennes. It seemed he did this deliberately, for self-humiliation. He never tried to intrude himself into any tribal public affairs. The people remembered his great services in past times. But nobody consulted him on tribal matters in present times. Truly, in every way he never more was chief among the Cheyennes.

Some Cheyennes who had run away or who could not be found, when we had been told we must go to the South, joined other tribes. Of these, some stayed away, others finally came back to us. Two of them came back to us on Tongue river. One was Joseph Tall White Man. He had dodged from the southern movement by escaping and joining the Blackfeet Sioux. The other was Little Crow. He had joined some tribe of the Sioux.

When I was thirty-one years old (1889) I enlisted with other Cheyennes to form a new band of scouts for the soldiers at Fort Keogh. For a long time we did not do much except to drill and work at getting out logs from the timber and building houses for ourselves. The soldier officers bought horses for us to ride. All of the new horses were wild. We had to break them. I got bucked off at times. But finally, all of us had horses that would not buck.

I learned to drink whisky at Fort Keogh. The trader at the fort sold whisky and beer to the soldiers, but he was not allowed to sell anything of this kind to the Indians. That made only a little difference. White men not soldiers would get whisky for us whenever we had money to give to them. They may have bought it at the fort trader’s store or it may have come from Miles City. I spent most of my scout pay for whisky. I never got into any trouble for being drunk, but sometimes an Indian did get into trouble.

Tall Bull and some other scouts got drunk and went at night to where some soldiers were sleeping. The Cheyennes pointed their six-shooters at the soldiers and said: “Give us blankets.” The soldiers were scared, so blankets were given the Indians. A Sergeant went to tell the officers. A Lieutenant officer came back with him. But the Lieutenant was as drunk as were the Indians. He went away without doing anything about the matter.

We had plenty to eat at the fort. A soldier named Jules Chaudel was the cook for our thirty Cheyennes. A part of my work was to haul water in barrels for him. I never got so drunk that I forgot to keep the barrels filled. He often gave me meat when it was not time for the Indians to eat.

All of the scouts went for making war the next year after I enlisted. We were taken to Pine Ridge reservation. We were told the Sioux were going to fight against the Cheyennes in that country, so we were willing to help our own people. Our scouts were led by an officer we knew as Big Red Nose.[55] Willis Rowland, the half-Cheyenne, was our Sergeant. Soldiers from some other fort came to Fort Keogh and went with us to Pine Ridge.

When we got to Pine Ridge we learned that it was mostly the other Sioux tribes, not the Ogallalas, who were wanting to fight against the white people. The Cheyennes living there did not want any trouble, so the bad Sioux were angered also at the Cheyennes. Some Ogallalas joined the bad Indians. Our Cheyenne relatives had their lodges torn down and burned. Big Foot was the principal chief of the Sioux making the trouble. We knew him, and we were sorry at having to fight against him, but we were willing to be on the side of the whites and our own Cheyennes.

We Cheyenne scouts did not get into any battle. At one time we were all dressed and ready, but the officers made us stop behind a hill while the soldiers went on and killed many Sioux at a camp on a little valley just over the hill. A Sioux started that fight by killing an officer who was taking all guns from them. The soldiers then began to shoot, and many women and children as well as men were killed. This trouble was on Wounded Knee creek. At the time of our advance up the hill I was wearing a warbonnet for the first time at any battle.

Big Red Nose, our officer, was killed by a Sioux before this fight. White Moon and Rock Roads, two of our scouts, were out riding somewhere with him. They saw four or five Sioux coming on horseback. The Sioux were riding slowly, and it appeared they did not intend any harm. But while Big Red Nose had his head turned in another direction one of the Sioux fired his rifle. The bullet went through the head of the officer, from back to front, and he fell dead from his horse. The two Cheyennes whipped their horses and got away. The Sioux scalped Big Red Nose and took all of his clothing.

As the Wounded Knee fight was going on, the Sioux fled in all directions. The soldier officer now leading us was White Hat. He sent me out to a little hilltop to watch where the people running away might go. I saw one Sioux man ride to a big house. He limped when he got off and walked into the house. I told White Hat about him. After a while he got some soldiers, and all of us went to the place. From a distance, I called out in Sioux language for all people in the house to come out and surrender. Nobody came out. We went close to the door. I called to ask how many people were in there. A man’s voice answered me that there were three of them. I told him they must come out, but he did not answer me. White Hat knocked on the door. He knocked a second time and a third time. Then he and the soldiers smashed the door and went into the house. I followed them.

A Sioux man was lying on a floor bed. A boy was lying on another floor bed. A woman was sitting beside the boy. The man had a sheet covering all of him but his head and neck. I did not know what else might be under the sheet, but I said:

“You must give up your gun. You will be treated kindly.”

He at once drew a rifle out from under the sheet and handed it to me. We learned that he had bullet holes through both legs, but no bones were broken. The boy had been shot through the left arm. The woman was not injured. The soldiers got a wagon and took them to the agency. A soldier doctor there took care of them.

The troublesome Sioux were gathered out in what the Indians knew as the Bad Lands. It was a very rough country having no trees and not much grass. The Cheyennes went out with soldiers and camped between the agency and that country. We kept watching to try to find out how many were there and how many were going there or coming back to the reservation. It was winter, and the wind blows hard there much of the time. We had some cold rides.

One night our officer gave me a writing on paper and told me to take it to the agency. He had the interpreter explain to me which officer there was to receive it. The air was full of whirling snow. The gusts of wind appeared to come from everywhere except behind me. I wrapped my blanket tightly about me and kept my body humped up as my horse moved along the trail. At first I was not afraid, as it seemed the night was too stormy for any Sioux to be traveling. Then I began thinking that perhaps the Sioux might suppose the same thing about the Cheyennes and the soldiers, and so there might be many of them along the way. I was startled and my heart was jumping at every little doubtful sight or noise. But I could not do anything but keep on going. I tried to make myself feel better by thinking of what a good sleep I should have after so hard a ride.

At the agency I found the officer and gave to him the paper. Then I lay down on the floor behind his stove and went to sleep. Pretty soon the interpreter awakened me. The officer wanted me. He said: “You are a good scout. I want you now to take a message for me back to your officer.” I was yet half asleep. But right away I became all awake again and got myself ready to go. I was as much afraid on the way back as I had been in coming. The snow and the wind whirling it were the same. I did not freeze, though, and I got to our camp and gave this paper to my officer. He said: “Good. Now you may go and sleep.” It was almost morning. I slept far into the day. Nobody awakened me this time.

All of the scouts and Long Yellow Neck, the officer now with us, were out one night after some Sioux who had been seen. The Cheyennes were afraid. We thought there might be many more Sioux not seen. I went off a little distance aside from the others, to look and listen where there was more quietude. I saw the flash of a match. I went cautiously in that direction. I got down into a deep gulch. I could hear Sioux voices talking above me. My heart seemed to be jumping all around in my breast. I kept still until the sound of the voices went beyond my hearing. I could not see anybody, but the sounds told me the direction the Sioux were traveling. I went back to the band and told of what had occurred. All of us then followed a trail along the rim of the gulch. It led us to two lodges. We surrounded them and then let them know we were there. They did not fight us. We captured ten Sioux. We made them give us their guns. I was one of ten scouts appointed to take them to the agency.

Some Ogallalas were with the Cheyennes as scouts. All together our band must have numbered sixty or more. I do not know exactly how many there were of either Cheyennes or Ogallalas, but I know there were more of the Cheyennes. Three Cheyennes and three Ogallalas were sent out one night to watch the trails. I was one of the three Cheyennes. Long Yellow Neck said: “I want you to find out how many bad Indians are going out from the reservation.”

The six of us got upon our horses and rode away together into the night storm. One Ogallala and I separated off and dismounted, to look and listen. We watched particularly for match lighting, as any Indian who had tobacco was likely to stop long enough to light a match for smoking. After a little while, we saw what we were looking for. We moved quickly, but carefully, toward where we had seen the flash. We heard voices.

“Yes, they are Sioux,” we whispered in agreement.

We rejoined our companions and told them. Everybody said we ought to go back and tell the officer. All of us went then to our camp. An Ogallala knocked on the post at our officer’s tent. “Come in,” he said. All of us went into the warm shelter. Long Yellow Neck was writing. He put aside his paper and called the interpreter. We told what we had seen.

“How many of them were there?” the officer asked one of the Ogallalas.

“I don’t know,” the Indian replied.

“You are foolish,” the officer told him.

He asked others. Each one said: “I don’t know.” I said the same. But we explained that it was too dark to see anybody, that only the flash of the match had been seen and the voices had been heard. The officer said:

“Good. Now, all of you go out again. If you see any Sioux, count them.”

We found a fresh trail of horses going toward the Bad Lands. By a creek we saw that different campings had been made. Many carcasses of cattle were there. They were white men cattle that had been stolen and butchered by the Sioux.

We three Cheyennes separated off from the three Ogallalas. The two parties scouted at a little distance from each other. After our three had traveled only a short while, I left my horse to be held by one of the others while I crept to the top of a bluff for looking and listening. A commonly traveled trail followed along past this bluff. Pretty soon I heard horses coming. I hugged close to the ground behind a rock. Four Sioux men rode past me toward the Bad Lands. They were almost close enough to reach out and strike me. I kept as still as the rock, except for my shivering from fright. When they were gone far enough I slid back a little distance and then jumped up and ran to my two companions. We found the three Ogallalas. They also had seen the four men. All six of us hurried back to our camp. The others appointed me to do the talking for our report. I told of how I had hidden behind the rock and counted them as they had passed by me. “There were four of them,” I said. Long Yellow Neck wrote my name on a piece of paper. Then he said:

“Good. All of you may go now and sleep.”

I believe I slept, but I am not sure whether I was sleeping and dreaming or was only lying there and thinking. I kept my cartridge belt buckled on me and I hugged my rifle to my body. It seemed that angry Sioux Indians were all about me. They were searching for me, to kill me. Some of them were striking at me with war clubs and slashing at me with knives. I heard calling of my name: “Wooden Leg.” I jumped up and stood there wide awake.

Long Yellow Neck and a soldier with him were in our tent. The soldier was reading off our names from a paper he had in his hands.

“The same six are to go and scout again,” he said.

Another Cheyenne was added to us. The seven of us got our horses. We were about to go when an Ogallala rode into camp. He had come from the agency. We wondered what was his errand. We waited to find out. He went to Long Yellow Neck’s tent. Pretty soon everybody was saying:

“All of the scouts and soldiers go back to Pine Ridge.”

I do not know how the others felt, but my own heart fluttered in pleasure. I did not want then to fight any Sioux. We were only a short time in getting all of the camp ready to move. When we were about to start on our way, Long Yellow Neck said: “Now, I want someone to stay behind and watch, to see if any of the Sioux are following us.” He asked if I would stay. I said, “No, I do not want to stay behind.” He asked Bad Horses, Foolish Man, White Bird, Sweet Grass and others. Some Ogallalas were asked. Everybody asked said, “No.” While this was going on, three of the Ogallalas slipped away afoot, leaving their three horses. Long Yellow Neck told us he had thought all of us were brave men, but he had learned now that we were not brave. Finally I said: “I will stay behind and watch.” Little Thunder, an Ogallala, then said he would stay with me.

We two caught the three horses left by the Ogallalas who had run away afoot. Little Thunder said: “I am hungry.” I too was hungry, but we had no food. We drove the three horses ahead of us and hurried forward. Soon we caught up with the scouts and soldiers. “Give us something to eat,” we asked. A soldier took a big box of crackers from a pack mule and gave it to us. He gave us also plenty of bread. We ate until we were full up, and then we put what was left upon one of the three horses we had been driving. We led the three now and followed on far behind the other people.

The three Ogallalas afoot came to us. They asked us for bread and crackers. “If you will stay with us we will give you some,” we told them. They agreed. We gave them all they wanted. We let them have their horses. They rode with us all of the remainder of the way to the agency, helping us in watching back to see if any Sioux were following. We kept ourselves far behind. None of us saw any of the bad Indians anywhere along the way. When we rode into the agency camp, all of the soldiers and scouts were already there. We told Long Yellow Neck that we had not seen any Sioux following us. He said:

“Good. Now you may sleep.”

During the time we were scouting for the soldiers at Pine Ridge I got a Sioux head dress. It was a cap of some kind of skin having at its front a buffalo horn. I got it while the soldiers and scouts were camped on lower Wounded Knee creek. I was wearing it as I rode into camp. A soldier Sergeant said to me: “I wish you would give that to me.” “What would you give to me?” I asked him. “Five dollars,” he said. He gave me the five dollars and I gave him the buffalo horn head dress.

About four hundred Cheyennes came with us when we left Pine Ridge to return to Fort Keogh. These were people of ours who had fled from the South with Little Wolf and Dull Knife, and who had been staying since then among the Ogallalas on the Pine Ridge reservation. But now they were allowed to come and join the main body of Cheyennes in Montana. A few Cheyennes still remained with the Ogallalas, but this movement of the big band brought together what was considered to be the entire Northern Cheyenne tribe. An officer known to us as Small Chief[56] brought us back.

Cheyenne visitors from the Rosebud and Tongue river lands were camped at all times near Fort Keogh. We scouts who had families kept lodges for them among the visiting campers. Relatives and friends were shifting constantly to or from the fort, Miles City and our Cheyenne country seventy miles south of us. I had my food with the other scouts, from the soldier supplies and at our eating room at the fort. But I spent much of my time at the home lodge. One day I saw the old man Little Wolf at the camp. I said to my wife:

“I see Little Wolf. He is my relative. One of his wives is a sister of my father. I think I ought to invite him to eat at our lodge.”

“I am glad to hear you say that,” she answered me. “Tell him to come now.” Right away she began to prepare bread and meat and coffee.