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He felt the muscles in his back stretch and groan as he pulled at the half-buried root. When he had pulled as much of it from the tight earth as he could he used the hatchet to cut it. The old man straightened up and examined the root closely. Yes, after a few days of drying it would burn long and well. He thanked Creator for the gift of the root and tossed it atop the pile on the back of his drag pony. Like the man, the horse was old and would not carry much more. He had a bad habit of dictating the limits of his load. When he had enough of a load he simply began wandering back to the village. Often the old man would yell at him and chase him but it never did much good. To others the old man would say that the stubborn and self-willed animal was worthless and should be turned loose to wander the prairies. Secretly...or so he thought...he loved the old horse and remembered better days when they had both been warriors.
Badger had been a war pony in those days. The young Cheyenne warrior would paint a circle around his eye so that he would see the enemy from afar and warn his rider. He would paint lightening on his shoulders that he would be swift and sure and carry the warrior quickly into battle and just as quickly to safety. As an extra precaution he sprinkled dust from the gopher den over the animal so that he would be invisible to his enemies. Who could say how much of this worked? No one, of course, but the fact was that the war pony had carried the bold young warrior into many battles and always brought him home again.
There had been many raids against the Utes and the Pawnees and even against the whites. No one really knew why there was bad blood among the three Indian nations. Maybe centuries of horse-stealing from each other had hardened into hatred. Maybe they were just the war games of warrior societies. Or, maybe, they were just in each other’s way. At first, the whites were left alone by the Southern Cheyenne. After all, they were merely passing through Cheyenne lands on their way to some other place to look for gold. Wood-Bringer knew of the White Man’s love of this thing they called gold but he had little respect for it himself. Creator had supplied The People with so many rocks that were more valuable. You could make nothing of gold that was worth anything. Good fields of flint or a good pipe-stone quarry...yes, he could see fighting over those things. But gold? More of the White Man’s foolishness. By the time the Indians realized that many more were coming and that many more were staying the whole land was filled with settlers and forts and towns. Wood-Bringer shook his head remembering those days. He had tried to warn Black Kettle and the others but he had been called a hot-head and was warned to keep quiet. In that earlier time he had been called Hawk Sees. It was the custom of his people to take or give a different name to stages or times of a man’s life. He smiled remembering that he had been called Fast Water when he was a child. His father and uncles had claimed that it was because they knew that someday he would be a great racer. His mother laughed and said it was because he made so much water as a baby.
Not far away a tree had fallen. Another gift from Wakan tanka. Some things died so that others might live. He took only the dead trees. There were practical reasons for this; the dead dry wood burned better and with less smoke. In the confines of a teepee the smoke made a difference. And if an Indian was patient the circle would come full around and the live trees would die. Often these days he thought of that cycle and of death. He liked being out here at this time just at dawn. It was quiet and he could say his Prayers to the Dawn undisturbed. But the quiet also gave him too much time to think about growing old and about his changing role in the life of his people. He accepted his place on the Great Hoop...the circle of life...and was happy to be where he was. Still, he thought often of earlier and better times. Besides, as he told Badger aloud, the dry wood was lighter to carry. He suggested to the old warhorse that they take this last tree for the morning and walked down the hill toward it. The trunk was too big for either of them to carry but the dead branches would add to the supply of the village.
Badger snorted and raised his head. The old man thought that he was going to have the usual argument with the old animal. The horse snorted again and pricked his ears forward. He looked off into the distance..farther than he could really see...toward the village. The old man knew better than to ignore the animal’s warning...too many times his life had been saved by those pricked-forward ears. Wood-Bringer had the eyes...still keen after what may have been eighty winters...but Badger had the gift of hearing. Creator took some things away when you got old but strengthened other things. The old man took a last look at the downed tree to mark the location and started down the hill toward the village.
He crested a hill just as the pony soldiers were setting up their howitzers. The soldiers were beyond counting. All were well-armed; most were mounted. They were milling around in excited confusion as their officers tried to form them into ranks and files on three sides of the circled teepees.
The old man drew his knife and quickly cut the sinew cords that held the dry wood on his horse. He slipped off the rope halter and slapped the animal on his rump with a prayer for his long life, sending him away from the fight. The old man started his long run to the village. Soon he was out of breath and pain shot through his old joints and a lifetime of old injuries. He paused with his hands on his knees to breath deeply and rest briefly. This is wrong, he thought. This is wrong. Black Kettle went to the soldier fort to talk of peace. The officer there told him to camp on Sand Creek...that they would talk of peace in a few days. Maybe the soldiers meant to attack Smoke Hill where the ones who doubted the White Man’s desire for peace had gone following a disagreement with Black Kettle. Some of them...Cheyenne and Arapaho alike...were hostile to the whites, distrustful and determined that they would not surrender. There were only a few of them but surely, if the soldiers were angry with anyone, it had to be them. Some of the young men had gone to Smoke Hill, many were hunting. Black Kettle’s camp was mostly women and children and the old ones like himself who were no longer useful to the hunt. Hunting had become harder since the whites had cut the buffalo trails with trails of their own and shot so many of the buffalo for their tongues or for sport. Elders like himself were given the duty of guarding the camp...as well as they could.
Still, there were about a hundred younger men left in the camp and they quickly formed a line in the wet, morning-dewed grass facing the soldiers. These brave men stopped the first attack of the cavalry. A hundred lightly-armed and surprised Indians had held off almost eight hundred well-armed and prepared soldiers. From what he had seen so far he thought that the soldiers were not very good. Most of them did not seem to know what they were doing and it seemed like they had the courage to kill but not the courage to die. What good were warriors who were not willing to die? Hope rose up in him and he felt that there was a chance his people might yet survive this attack. The old man had time...and renewed courage...to gulp more air into his chest and run the last few hundred yards into camp.
In the village, everything was noise and confusion. Women ran about trying to find their frightened children. Men too old to be warriors were searching for weapons while others ran toward the only side of the camp not sealed off by the soldiers. The crying of the little ones, the calling of their mothers...so much noise. Now another noise. He looked to the line of warriors...some of whom had pinned themselves to the ground with an arrow through their clothes...these were the Dog Soldiers, the guardians who vowed to stay in that spot until they were killed...and found that there was no line. A few warriors lay dead on the ground. Others had scattered and were looking for their families in the village to carry them to safety. The new noise...the big guns...the pull-behind guns...sending a rain of hot steel down on the village. He had never heard a sound like that....low and rumbling like thunder and cracking like lightening at the same time. Rifle-fire crackled between the roars of the howitzers but the soldiers were not firing their rifles into the village yet. They were firing at the horse herd to drive the war ponies away from the camp. A Cheyenne on foot was enough to have to fight...a Cheyenne on horseback was quite another thing. It is entirely possible that a very small number of mounted Cheyenne and Arapaho could have beaten them.
Having driven the herd into flight the soldiers returned their attention to the people in the camp. There was confusion among the ill-trained and excited troops and some of their commanders ordered a charge into the camp while the big guns were still firing. The white-hot metal of the canister shot had set several tepees afire and even killed a few of the charging soldiers. Wood-Bringer was happy to see the soldiers killing each other but knew that it would not help much...there were too many of them. The camp had been over-run.
A woman he knew ran toward him holding her baby begging him to take the infant so that she could find her husband’s weapons and fight the invaders. As he stepped toward her bullets ripped through her back and tore the baby from her arms. The same bullets that killed the mother killed the baby and she fell forward on its body. The old man felt rage that he had never known. He pulled the steel hatchet from his belt...it had cost him a good pony in trade with a white trader...and whirled around looking for someone to fight. A soldier was riding at him at full gallop with his saber raised to cut him down. At the last moment the old man dodged from one side of the horse to the other and swung the hatchet at the soldier’s leg as he brushed past. He was happy to hear the soldier scream in pain although he wished that he had knocked him off his horse so that he could have killed him. Not far away a soldier had dismounted to enter a teepee and emerged with a young woman. He grabbed her hair, lifted her head and cut her throat with his long knife. Hawk Sees threw himself at the soldier and knocked him to the ground. When the surprised soldier staggered to his feet the young warrior buried the blade of the hatchet in his chest. The blade caught fast in the breastbone and Hawk Sees felt the handle slip from his hand as the soldier fell.
All that was left was a knife...not a weapon but a skinning knife. A tool really...but it was all he had. He hastily wiped his hand on his thigh and drew the knife. Hawk Sees began the words of his Death Song. He would die in this place a warrior’s death. A soldier walking through the camp in an unconcerned and unhurried manner firing his pistol at anything that moved saw the old man, laughed, and casually put a bullet through his chest.
At dawn on November 29, 1864 Col. John M. Chivington led 750 Colorado Volunteers in a surprise attack on the village of Black Kettle on the banks of Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado. The soldiers later claimed that they had killed 500 Indians and lost 45 men. The number of Cheyenne and Arapaho casualties was probably over-stated, however, whatever the number, approximately two- thirds of the Indians were women and children and elders. The army denied that there had been wholesale instances of rape, mutilation and slaughter of children. Indian accounts of the massacre and even the testimony of some of the soldiers say otherwise. There were many medals and commendations awarded to the “heros” of this great and glorious battle.
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