battle. When they sent for me my heart said thump--thump--thump. I
was afraid they might hang me. I went, but I told only a little. They
asked for more talk. They assured me their hearts were good toward
me. They gave me lots of money, about five dollars, I believe. Good!
My heart quit thumping. I told them all they asked, answering many
questions. Some things I kept to myself, but all that I told them was
true.
I got a wife from the Southern Cheyennes. She was my same age, twenty
years old. All of my people and all of her people appeared to be
pleased at our marriage. They gave us presents and we set up our own
lodge. She had been a girl in the Cheyenne camp at the Washita river
when Custer and his soldiers came there and killed many Cheyennes and
burned their lodges (November, 1868). Chief Black Pot was one of the
killed.
The women and children fled, the same as ours had done at the Powder
river. It was winter, and there was at that time a deep snow for
that country. Soldiers chased the women and children and killed
many of them as well as the men. My wife, at that time a girl, was
barefooted, as others also were. They had been surprised early in the
morning. She stopped and cut off pieces of buffalo robe to tie about
her feet, to keep them warm as she ran. They went to a camp of Snake
Indians (Comanches), farther down the river.
My wife told me she also was with the Cheyennes when they surrendered
to General Custer (1869) after he had smoked the pipe with their
chiefs. When they surrendered, some of the chiefs were put into
prison and had chains put upon their ankles. When I heard all of this
from my wife, as well from many others of the Southern Cheyennes, it
seemed the Great Medicine may have directed Custer to his death, as a
punishment for having broken his promise to the Cheyennes.
When I had been six years in the South, the Northern Cheyennes were
told they might go back now to their old country. The Little Wolf
people had been given lands on the Rosebud and Tongue rivers. We
could go to them or back to the White river, where the agency had
become known as Pine Ridge.
My father had died while we were in the land of the southern Indians.
My wife and myself, my mother and her two remaining children all
agreed we would move. A few of our tribal people decided to remain as
members of the Southern Cheyenne tribe. We who left them went first
to Pine Ridge. After not a very long stay there we were located in a
region I always liked, the Tongue river country in Montana.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] The movement to the South began in early May, 1877. Seventy days
were spent in the journey.--T. B. M.
XIV
_Home Again on Tongue River._
Many changes had taken place in the affairs of our tribe when I got
back among the principal body of them in Montana. Most of the men who
had surrendered at Fort Keogh went into service there as scouts for
the soldiers of General Miles, whose Indian name was Bear Coat. They
had many stories to tell of these experiences. They helped in finding
and in fighting some bands of our old friends the Sioux, who remained
hunting through the country after we had gone from it. I did not like
to hear these stories. I could not help but think these tribesmen of
mine had done wrong in this kind of warfare. That was the way the
Pawnees, Crows and Shoshones had done in past times, and we had been
enemies to them because of their having done so. There came into my
heart thoughts that possibly the death of my own brother Yellow Hair
had been brought about by reason of some Cheyenne having guided the
white men who killed him.
The Nez Perces had come through the country soon after the part of
our tribe had surrendered at the Elk river fort. The Cheyennes went
with the soldiers to fight these other Indians. They had a battle
far to the northward. Most of the Cheyennes were not in special
danger during this battle, but two of them were said to have been
very brave. These two were White Wolf and All See Him. White Wolf
received a bullet wound across his scalp. He was stunned and he fell,
but he was not killed. A Sioux scout dragged him into safety. The
white soldiers gave money to the Sioux for his action. This was the
same White Wolf who shot himself through the left thigh at our battle
with the soldiers on the Rosebud and had to lie in his bed while his
companion warriors fought the soldiers of Custer. All See Him had
been a brave man in the Custer battle. He has another name, John
Bighead Man. White Wolf also got another name after the Nez Perces
bullet had hit him. His new name was Shot in the Head.
Two Moons and White Moon were two Cheyenne scouts of that time who
were not in the Nez Perces fight. They were out with some Cheyennes
chasing buffalo as the soldier and Indian army traveled in their hunt
for the Nez Perces. In the course of the chase Two Moons accidentally
shot White Moon through the body. White Moon was entirely disabled,
and Two Moons did not feel then like fighting anybody. He helped in
taking care of White Moon, and he paid the Indian doctor a horse for
curing him.
People told me all about the journey of Little Wolf’s band from the
South, with the soldiers after them all along the way. They had come
to Fort Keogh and had surrendered to General Miles. Many of their men
also enlisted as scouts. The Cheyennes at this place stayed a part of
the time about the fort and a part of the time were allowed to live
on the Rosebud and the Tongue rivers, near the fort. These combined
Fort Keogh Cheyennes had been the beginning of our Tongue River
reservation.
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.