The Earth Is All That Lasts

Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux Nation

Mark Lee Gardner

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780062669919
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Biografías de ciencias sociales

"Fast-paced and highly absorbing." — Wall Street Journal

A magisterial new history of the fierce final chapter of the "Indian Wars, " told through the lives of the two most legendary and consequential American Indian leaders, who led Sioux resistance and triumphed at the Battle of Little Bighorn

True West magazine's "Best Nonfiction Book of the Year"

Winner of the Colorado Book Award

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull: Their names are iconic, their significance in American history undeniable. Together, these two Lakota chiefs, one a fabled warrior and the other a revered holy man, crushed George Armstrong Custer's vaunted Seventh Cavalry. Yet their legendary victory at the Little Big Horn has overshadowed the rest of their rich and complex lives. Now, based on years of research and drawing on a wealth of previously ignored primary sources, award-winning author Mark Lee Gardner delivers the definitive chronicle, thrillingly told, of these extraordinary Indigenous leaders.

Both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were born and grew to manhood on the High Plains of the American West, in an era when vast herds of buffalo covered the earth, and when their nomadic people could move freely, following the buffalo and lording their fighting prowess over rival Indian nations. But as idyllic as this life seemed to be, neither man had known a time without whites. Fur traders and government explorers were the first to penetrate Sioux lands, but they were soon followed by a flood of white intruders: Oregon-California Trail travelers, gold seekers, railroad men, settlers, town builders—and Bluecoats. The buffalo population plummeted, disease spread by the white man decimated villages, and conflicts with the interlopers increased.

On June 25, 1876, in the valley of the Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and the warriors who were inspired to follow them, fought the last stand of the Sioux, a fierce and proud nation that had ruled the Great Plains for decades. It was their greatest victory, but it was also the beginning of the end for their treasured and sacred way of life. And in the years to come, both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, defiant to the end, would meet violent—and eerily similar—fates.

An essential new addition to the canon of Indigenous American history and literature of the West, The Earth Is All That Lasts is a grand saga, both triumphant and tragic, of two fascinating and heroic leaders struggling to maintain the freedom of their people against impossible odds.

A Denver Post Bestseller

A Spur AwardFinalist, Best Western Historical Nonfiction

Winner of the John M. Carroll Literary Award

1

Hóka Hé!

A charger, he is coming

I made him come.

When he came, I wiped him out.

He did not like my ways; that is why.

KILL SONG OF STEPHEN STANDING BEAR, MINICONJOU

Sitting Bull carefully dressed and painted himself. Then he cut a few small pieces of tobacco from a tobacco twist and wrapped them in supple buckskin, making several little packets. He tied each one to a thin stick of cherrywood. All this he did with great care as well, for these were offerings intended for Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit. Sitting Bull slid the sticks into a leather bag, picked up his pipe and a buffalo robe, and stepped out of his tipi to a clear night sky glistening with stars.

The Lakota holy man, now in his forty-third year, stood about five feet, ten inches tall, was stoutly built, and carried himself with an erect, stately bearing. He parted his long, black hair in the middle, and in the part he painted his skin crimson. Sitting Bull walked with a slight limp, the result of an old wound given him by a Crow chief twenty years earlier. That Crow died with a bullet in his gut from Sitting Bull’s gun, and his spirit left this world without its scalp—Sitting Bull made sure of that.

Wading the Greasy Grass River to its east side, Sitting Bull climbed a long ridge lush with prairie grasses and scattered clumps of sagebrush, finally stopping at a high prominence overlooking the valley. Below him, a thousand buffalo hide tipis, their earflaps blackened from the smoke of many fires, stretched for one and a half miles along the river’s west bank.

The village counted more than five thousand souls, most of whom were members of seven Lakota (Western Sioux) tribes: Oglala, Húnkpapa, Miniconjou, Sihásapa, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, and Brulé. Some Yanktonais and Santees, Middle and Eastern Sioux, had joined their Lakota relatives that summer. And there was also a camp circle of Northern and Southern Cheyennes, age-old friends and allies of the Lakotas. No one among the thousands camped on the Greasy Grass could remember ever having seen such a big village. It was, in fact, one of the largest gatherings of free-roaming Plains Indians in history.

But trouble lay ahead for these people. Sitting Bull, who was well known for his ability to see into the future, could sense it. In addition to being a Húnkpapa holy man, he was also the recognized leader of all the Lakotas making up this great village; he would do whatever he could to protect them. So Sitting Bull removed the offering sticks with their packets of tobacco from his bag and pushed each one into the ground, forming a circle. Then, standing, he began to sing a Thunder song. His voice was deep, and it reached far out into the still darkness:

Great Spirit, pity me. In the name of the tribe I offer you this sacred pipe. Wherever the sun, the moon, the earth, the four points of the wind, there you are always. Father save the tribe, I beg you. Pity me, we wish to live. Guard us against all misfortunes or calamities. Pity me.

The following day, as the sun climbed high in the June sky, men, women, and children sought relief from the heat in the cool waters of the Greasy Grass, its banks lined with tall cottonwoods. Many slept late, for there had been several social dances the night before, some lasting until dawn. It was a joyous time, the hunting had been good, and the Lakotas and Cheyennes were still reveling in the great victory they had won over the “Long Knives” (white soldiers) just eight days earlier.

That fight had occurred on Rosebud Creek some thirty miles to the southeast. About eight hundred warriors, dressed in their best colorful finery, surprised a column of more than one thousand United States cavalry, infantry, and Shoshone and Crow scouts. The Long Knives had come a great distance to find and attack these very same Indians.

Fierce charges and countercharges stretched over miles of rolling hills, and the feats of bravery were too many to count. When a Southern Cheyenne chief, Comes in Sight, had his horse shot out from under him, his sister, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, kicked the flanks of her pony and galloped into a storm of flying lead to her brother. The chief jumped up behind her and they raced away to safety. The Cheyennes would always refer to the Rosebud fight as “where the girl saved her brother.”

The battle lasted for hours, from early morning to midafternoon. Crazy Horse, the mysterious Oglala war chief, led several bold attacks that day, and whenever his men seemed to tire or hesitate, Crazy Horse urged them on, shouting and shaking his lever-action Winchester above his head. The white soldiers and their commanders were stunned by the aggressiveness and determination of these warriors, and when the Indians finally broke off the battle and started back on the trail to their village, the Long Knives did not follow them.

And that is exactly what Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse wanted: to be left alone. These two remarkable Lakotas were unwavering in their resolve to live separate from the white men steadily encroaching upon their lands. They recognized no treaties and no reservations. They did recognize the arrogance in the white man telling the Lakotas what they could and could not do, where they could live and where they could hunt. And if the white man would not let them follow the buffalo and live free as Lakotas, then they would fight.

In the Greasy Grass village the morning after Sitting Bull’s offering to Wakan Tanka, very few feared the coming of more Long Knives. An aged and nearly blind Cheyenne holy man in the camp named Box Elder had the gift of prophecy much like Sitting Bull, and Box Elder had been disturbed by a dream in which he saw soldiers bearing down on their village. He sent a crier to warn everyone and to tell them to keep their horses tied close to their tipis, but the people didn’t believe him.

“We had driven away the soldiers, on the upper Rosebud,” recalled Wooden Leg, a Northern Cheyenne who was eighteen that summer. “It seemed likely it would be a long time before they would trouble us again.”

Wooden Leg had danced with the Lakota girls all night long, and after taking a midday swim with his brother, Yellow Hair, they both lay down in the shade of the rustling cottonwoods and fell sound asleep. Elsewhere along the river, away from the splashing and playing, boys were sitting on the banks fishing. A number of women were out digging turnips—this time of year was known as the Moon of the Wild Turnip. Others were tending to thin strips of buffalo meat hanging and drying in the air, food to be stored up for winter. And here and there through the camps, a few lodges were being taken down, for the village would be moving soon. Such a large gathering could not remain in one place for long. The enormous herd of horses—far outnumbering the Indians—quickly exhausted the available forage, dead wood for campfires was soon used up, and killing enough game to keep the hundreds of families fed took more and more effort.

Iron Hail, a fourteen-year-old Miniconjou, had also gone swimming and was returning to his family’s tipi for food when he was approached by an uncle.

“When you finish eating,” the uncle said, “go to our horses. Something might happen today. I feel it in the air.”

All Lakotas knew that the wind carried messages, but not all could hear them. Iron Hail did not question his uncle, and he quickly finished his meal and rode off to join his younger brother, who was already herding together the family’s ponies. Just as Iron Hail reached the herd, shouts and yells began coming from the village.

Wooden Leg, still napping under the cottonwoods, dreamed there were lots of people making a terrible racket. Startled, he bolted awake, as did his brother. The commotion was real. The brothers jumped up and ran from the cottonwoods. Women and children dodged past them screaming. In the distance, they distinctly heard gunfire—pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

All the things Wooden Leg had sensed before drifting asleep—the pleasant smell of woodsmoke, the buzz of summer insects, the meadowlark’s singing, the intense heat of the midday sun—instantly vanished. The cries of the tribal elders cut through the cacophony in the camp: “Soldiers are here! Young men, go out and fight them!”

The shooting came from the southern end of the village, and the pandemonium moved as a wave down the valley and among the lodges. Horses hurriedly driven into the camps kicked up thick dust. Some of the ponies, frightened by the gunfire and yelling, snorted and reared as women and children struggled to catch and hold them for the warriors. The village dogs barked incessantly.

Men too old to fight did what they could to assist the young men: faces must be painted, old clothes exchanged for fancy dress saved for just such an occasion. Nothing but the best when riding into battle.

The Húnkpapa camp, Sitting Bull’s people, was where the Long Knives struck first. Mixed with the screams of the fleeing Lakotas was the peculiar buzzing sound of the soldiers’ conical lead bullets. When a round ripped through a hide lodge, it sounded like a bug flicking into the tipi’s side. Those that struck the tipi poles created a rattling noise. A sickening slap meant a bullet had found flesh and bone.

One Bull, a twenty-three-year-old nephew of Sitting Bull, ran into the lodge he shared with his uncle and grabbed his trade gun, an old muzzleloader. But Sitting Bull rushed in right after him and took the gun away, handing him in its place a stone-headed war club. In close-quarter fighting, a warrior had no time to reload a single-shot muzzleloader, but a stout club could crack skulls again and again.

Sitting Bull also gave One Bull his personal buffalo hide shield. The stiff shield held tremendous significance and power. It had been made by Sitting Bull’s father, who had painted on the shield’s face a bird of prey with large talons over a bluish-green sky. A thick border encircling the bird, colored red on one side and black on the other, represented a rainbow. Four eagle feathers hung from the shield’s edge honoring the four cardinal directions, thus giving the warrior who carried it luck wherever he might travel.

“Go right ahead,” Sitting Bull told his nephew as he positioned the shield. “Don’t be afraid. Go right on.” One Bull jumped onto the back of his pony and started off through the village, heading for the sound of the gunfire.

Once outside the tipi, Sitting Bull mounted a black horse and left to find his aged mother and help lead the women and children to safety—as an “old man chief,” the holy man was not expected to fight the Long Knives. Quickly disappearing into the throng of Indians hurrying to and fro, Sitting Bull could be heard shouting to the warriors: “Brave up, boys. It will be a hard time. Brave up.”

As One Bull rode through the camps, he held his uncle’s shield high so all could see. By displaying Sitting Bull’s shield, he was instantly recognized as carrying the authority of the leader of the Lakotas, and many warriors flocked to him. One Bull sang to the shield, a sacred song Sitting Bull’s father had received in his vision. This song was important to realize the full protection the shield offered. Then One Bull prayed to Wakan Tanka to have mercy on him.

In the Cheyenne camp, Chief Two Moons called out to his people: “I am Two Moons, your chief. Don’t run away. Stay here and fight. You must stay and fight the white soldiers. I shall stay even if I am to be killed.”

Wooden Leg, now astride his favorite pony, raced in the direction of the Húnkpapa camp circle. The air was so full of dust he could barely see. All he could do was keep his horse headed in the same direction as the crowd around him.

In the Oglala camp, situated near the Northern Cheyennes, impatient warriors rode their ponies back and forth outside Crazy Horse’s lodge as they waited for their leader to finish readying himself for battle. But as Lakotas, these warriors knew that entering a fight without first carefully preparing one’s “medicine” risked defeat and even death. A warrior might still be hurt, but a warrior was also meant to suffer at one time or another, and there were few greater honors than a battle wound. Nevertheless, when it came to medicine, Crazy Horse was more meticulous than most.

The Oglala leader’s battle preparations came mostly from Horn Chips, a legendary holy man and a cousin of Crazy Horse. A “Stone Dreamer,” Horn Chips’s war medicine always involved, in some way, small stones imbued with special power. He’d given Crazy Horse a black stone the size of a marble with a hole in it, encased in buckskin, and told him to wear it under his left arm, held in place by a leather thong over the shoulder.

Horn Chips also presented Crazy Horse with the two center tail feathers of a spotted eagle and told him to attach one to the stone. The other he was to fix ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Map
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• 1. Hóka Hé!
• 2. Becoming Warriors
• 3. Native Ground
• 4. Visions of the Future
• 5. The Invasion of Good Horse Grass Country
• 6. The Hundred in the Hand
• 7. Too Many Tongues
• 8. Land of Uncertainty
• 9. The Act of Thieves
• 10. Soldiers Coming with Heads Down
• 11. A Winter War
• 12. Father, I Want to See You
• 13. The End of Freedom
• 14. Ghosts
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• American Indian Informants
• Resources
• Notes
• Index
• Photo Section
• Also by Mark Lee Gardner
• Copyright
• About the Publisher