"This interstate pretty much follows an ancient trail," Grandpa Nyles told Jimmy. "It was marked out by a white man named John Bozeman. So it was called the Bozeman Trail. He marked it out back in 1860 to show the way to gold fields in Montana. Soon other whites came along and used it. Problem was, it went right through Lakota territory."
"Our people didn't like that?" Jimmy ventured.
"No, they sure didn't. And there were even older trails here before Bozeman. One was called the Powder River Road. It was used by our people."
He lifted a finger and pointed without taking his hands from the steering wheel. "See those mountains over there to the left?" he said. "Those are called the Bighorn Mountains now. Our people called them the Shining Mountains."
It was hard not to notice those mountains. They filled the entire western skyline.
"Why?" Jimmy asked.
"Because the snow on the peaks shines in the sunlight," explained his grandfather.
They turned off Interstate 25 at a sign that said KAYCEE, drove past a convenience store, and eventually turned onto a dirt road. Kaycee was a small town, even smaller than Cold River. They drove through it in less than five minutes. A few miles farther on they came to gullies and low spots.
Jimmy noticed that the grass was sparse here and the land looked like a desert, no longer like the grass prairies to the east. His grandpa pulled to a stop, and they stepped out of the truck. Everything felt different as well. Perhaps it was the jagged mountains to the west.
"There was an army post here," his grandpa said, waving his arm in an arc. "It was called Fort Reno."
"Was Crazy Horse here, too?"
"He sure was. But there was another fort to the north. That's where the interesting things happened," said the old man.
"Then why did we stop here?" Jimmy asked.
"So you can see what he saw. Smell the sagebrush and feel the same sand under your feet."
They walked a ways into the desert. In the distance a small whirlwind swirled behind a rise, raising dust. Jimmy imagined it was a group of Lakota warriors on horseback galloping their horses.
After a few minutes they walked back to the pickup. Shortly after that they were back on Interstate 25, going north. Just over an hour later they saw a large brown-and-white sign: FORT PHIL KEARNY STATE HISTORIC SITE. They exited, then drove through an underpass and onto a narrow two-lane road. It took them to a turn-off to a gravel road.
As they approached the historic site, Jimmy saw a wall made of upright logs. It was not that high. Off to the right was the Interpretive Center, according to a sign.
"What happened here?" Jimmy asked. He already suspected that Crazy Horse had been here. Otherwise they would not be stopping.
"This is where young Crazy Horse became a war leader," Grandpa replied as he parked the truck. "He was only in his twenties, unusual for a war leader. It's one of the reasons Crazy Horse is considered so exceptional."
Inside the building were dioramas—three-dimensional displays of the fort's history. They showed soldiers and Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. A man in a tan uniform approached them.
"Welcome to Fort Phil Kearny," he said. "I can try to answer any questions you might have."
"Thank you," said Grandpa Nyles. "We're Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. I'm taking my grandson on a tour of Crazy Horse sites."
"Ah, I see," the man replied. "Then you probably know more about Crazy Horse than I do. But let me know if I can help in any way."
A half hour later they drove away from the Interpretive Center. On the access highway they turned north and parked at the top of a hill. There the highway ended. Nearby was a tall, upright monument made of stones.
"That's about where the battle came to an end," said Grandpa Nyles.
"A battle? What battle?"
"We call it the Battle of the Hundred in the Hands. The whites call it the Fetterman Battle. Some even call it the Fetterman Massacre."
"Why?"
Grandpa Nyles pointed at the monument. "Come on. Let's look at that plaque."
ON THIS FIELD ON THE 21ST DAY OF
DECEMBER, 1866,
THREE COMMISSIONED OFFICERS AND
SEVENTY SIX PRIVATES
OF THE 18TH U.S. INFANTRY, AND
OF THE 2ND U.S. CAVALRY, AND
FOUR CIVILIANS,
UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAIN BREVET–
LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM J. FETTERMAN
WERE KILLED BY AN OVERWHELMING FORCE OF SIOUX,
UNDER THE COMMAND OF RED CLOUD.
THERE WERE NO SURVIVORS.
"They got it wrong," Grandpa Nyles said. "There were survivors of this battle: hundreds of Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. And Red Cloud wasn't involved in it."
"But it says Red Cloud was the leader," Jimmy said, pointing to the plaque.
"Well, Crazy Horse was the biggest reason the Lakota and Cheyenne won the battle. December twenty-first, 1866, was the start of winter. The temperature that day was thirty degrees below zero."
"That's really cold, Grandpa."
"Yeah. When it's that cold, it's hard to take a deep breath. Imagine what it's like to ride a galloping horse."
The way it was—December 1866
Smoke rose into the frigid air from eighteen conical lodges, thin undulating columns rising upward. Footsteps crunched on the snow. One by one a few young Lakota men wearing elk-hide robes ducked into a lodge.
The lodge was on the west side of the village. The village was one of twenty-three along the Tongue River. This particular lodge was the home of a Lakota medicine man named Worm and his two wives, their daughter, and their two sons. One of the sons was Crazy Horse.
Worm had been called Crazy Horse. He was given the name by his father, the first Crazy Horse. So when he passed it on to his son Light Hair, he himself took the name Worm.
For the entire day and into the evening, dozens of young warriors came to talk with Crazy Horse. The elders, the old men leaders, had chosen him for a special task. This was part of a plan to defeat the Long Knives stationed in Fort Kearny on Buffalo Creek. Every warrior wanted to be chosen to help him with that task. But he would choose only a few.
For several years those Long Knives had been living in Lakota territory. That was against Lakota wishes. Furthermore, the Long Knives were there in violation of their own promises. They had built their fort even though they had promised they would not. All in all, the Long Knives were part of a bad problem for the Lakota.
That bad problem was because of gold. A long way to the northwest were the goldfields. Hundreds, if not thousands, of whites used the Bozeman Trail to get to the gold. They traveled by foot, on horseback, and in wagons. And the trail ran straight through Lakota territory.
Two other forts stood along the Bozeman Trail: Fort Reno, to the south, and Fort C. F. Smith, to the north. That made three in all, built to protect the gold seekers from the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne—to protect the invaders against those whose home it was. That made the Lakota and Cheyenne angry.
What was more, the Long Knives were reluctant to leave their forts. When they did, they did not stay out long. That made it difficult for the Lakota and Cheyenne to engage them in battle. Therefore, they could not fight them and send them away.
After many failed attempts to fight the Long Knives, a new plan was made. First, lure them out of the fort. Second, lure them into an ambush. Young Crazy Horse was given the second task. It was a dangerous assignment. If successful, it could mean the defeat of the Long Knives. And, once defeated, they might leave Lakota territory. So every young warrior wanted to be selected to help him.
Crazy Horse's part of the overall plan was simple. There was a ridge several miles from the fort. He and his warriors would act like a mother grouse leading a coyote away from her nest. She pretended to be injured. When the coyote came close, she flew away but landed close by. Each time the coyote approached, she flew away again. Doing this, she led the coyote far away from her chicks. Crazy Horse's task was to decoy the Long Knives. To lead them to the ridge—and to the ambush.
The chances of success were small, though the plan was good. For that reason, Crazy Horse had been selected to lead. In order to ensure success, the warriors he selected had to be very skilled and very brave. By the time he went to sleep, he knew the warriors he wanted.
A bitterly cold dawn revealed the landscape. There was already activity in the villages along the Tongue River. Hundreds of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors were on horses and riding north. It was the first day of winter and very, very cold. Every man was bundled in a thick buffalo-hide robe. Many had elk-hide coats beneath that. They also wore elk- or bear-hide mittens on their hands. Just as important, they carried weapons. After all, a battle could occur today.
No one really wanted a battle. But it was a necessary way to defeat the Long Knives. Every man was afraid. Most would not admit that to anyone but themselves. But part of being a warrior was facing their fears. That was called courage.
The cold was very intense. Mist billowed from the mouths of men and horses. Warm breath turned into vapor. It took a lot of courage just to be outside in such intense cold. Horses' hooves crunched sharply on the snow. On dry ground they were a loud clop, clop, clop, clop.
After they had ridden twenty miles, the plan for the day was put into action. Some five hundred warriors hid on either side of the high, narrow ridge—about half of them in the gullies on the east side and the others on the west. These warriors were the main body of fighters; they would wait in ambush.
Two smaller groups of warriors rode farther south. Nine were led by Crazy Horse. They were the decoy warriors: five were Lakota, two were Northern Cheyenne, and two were Arapaho. All were skilled riders and experienced fighters. Little Hawk, Crazy Horse's younger brother, was the only teenager in the group. As a small boy he had been called Whirlwind.
There was another small group of warriors that was also an important part of the plan. This band would attack the horse- and mule-drawn wagons that came out of the fort. Those wagons regularly drove west toward the forested slopes, where they loaded wood for the stoves in the fort. When the wood wagons had been attacked before, soldiers always came out of the fort to save them.
Grandpa Nyles gestured, indicating the north-south ridge. It was very narrow in one spot, with steep slopes going down on both sides.
"This is where the battle started and ended," he said. "On this ridge. But we have to imagine the land covered with snow, though not completely. And remember, it was very, very cold."
Crazy Horse took his warriors to a thick stand of leafless bushes. Hidden there, they waited. The other group—the wagon attackers—kept going and found another place to hide. Then everyone waited to see if the wagons would emerge from the fort. Everything depended on that.
Before noon the wagons did roll out of the fort, through a large double gate. They rumbled west on the road toward the forest. Two or three men rode in each, along with their axes and saws. They were going to gather wood.
The wagons followed the road. Soon they were even with the long, low ridge to the right. From a thicket of shrubs, the wagon attackers burst from hiding. Making their horses gallop over the frozen ground, they rode toward the wood wagons. Gunfire erupted from the warriors' rifles and pistols. More gunshots blasted as the men in the wagons shot back at the attacking warriors.
The gunshots cracked loudly across the ice-covered landscape. A battle between the attacking warriors and the wagon men ensued. After several minutes, the fort's west gate opened and soldiers hurried out. They moved in a column of twos, eighty in all. The first forty were mounted. The forty behind them were on foot. The column hurried toward the gunfire.
The Long Knives had carried out such tactics before. Each soldier had a rifle and a pistol in a holster. All wore heavy blue overcoats, thick leather gloves, and fur caps.
Crazy Horse and his warriors saw the soldiers emerge through the gate. An important step in the plan was happening. He held his men back, waiting for the soldiers to get farther away from the fort. If he attacked too soon, they might run back to the gates.
The commander of the Long Knives was in a hurry, so the soldiers on foot had to run to keep up. Before long, the mounted soldiers were far ahead. From his hiding place Crazy Horse could see them. He waited until he could see most of the column.
In spite of the intense cold, Crazy Horse tossed off his buffalo robe so he could handle his weapons more easily. His warriors did the same. He turned to them as he took out his pistol.
"Follow me," he called out. "We do this for our people!" Without looking back, he urged his horse out of the thicket. In the open he coaxed it into a gallop. The nine other warriors were close behind him, all of them with rifles in hand.
Though it was warm, Jimmy shivered, imagining how cold it was for those warriors and soldiers.
"Was it really cold, like you said?"
"Sure was. Thirty degrees below zero, according to the thermometers in the fort. The decoys and Crazy Horse had been in that cold since leaving their villages before dawn. It had to be brutal for them."
"Does it ever get that cold at home?" Jimmy asked, trying to remember if he had ever been so cold.
"A few times," Grandpa Nyles replied. "Any temperature below zero is dangerous. You can get frostbite and lose fingers and toes. I saw a man who lost the tip of his nose. Worse yet, you can freeze to death."
"Man!" exclaimed Jimmy. "I hope that never happens to any of us. Did those warriors get frostbite?"
"I wouldn't be surprised. The stories don't say, specifically. But they were all outside in that cold for the entire day. I'm sure some of them suffered frostbite."
"So what did Crazy Horse and his men do, exactly?"
"Well, they distracted the soldiers, tricked them into turning and chasing them, the decoys. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be telling you this story."
Crazy Horse led his warriors into a meadow thinly covered with snow. The horses' hooves sounded like two dried sticks hitting together. The blasts of gunfire were loud, too, in the cold air.
The mounted Long Knives followed them, as Crazy Horse had hoped they would. Now came the most dangerous part of the plan. Crazy Horse and his decoy warriors had to act like the wounded grouse. They had to stay just ahead of the oncoming soldiers. To avoid being hit by a bullet, the warriors kept moving. They scattered over the meadow. Each warrior rode in a different direction, then turned and went in another direction. This made it very hard for the Long Knives to aim their guns. Moving targets are very difficult to hit. Amazingly, so far, none of the warriors had been wounded or killed. Now and then a warrior fired back.
Between the boom of the guns, Crazy Horse could hear the shouting of the Long Knives. Their leaders were in front, yelling at their men. Crazy Horse assumed the leaders wanted their men to move faster.
In the middle of the meadow, Crazy Horse did a very brave thing. He stopped his horse and dismounted. Then he lifted one of his horse's front feet, curling it back at the hock. Yanking his knife from its sheath, he scraped snow and ice from the bottom of the hoof. The snow and ice could make the horse slip and fall, taking its rider with it. When he finished scraping that foot, he picked up the other front foot.
Meanwhile, the Long Knives were still coming, and gunfire still blasted the frigid mountain air. The lead Long Knives saw that one of the warriors had dismounted and was attending to his horse. That made a very easy target. Much of the gunfire was aimed at Crazy Horse.
Bullets whined through the air above Crazy Horse, like angry mosquitos. Those bullets were very high. The ones that hummed like yellow jackets were close, very close. Now and then, a bullet erupted in the snow and bounced off into the air. That kind of bullet made a very high-pitched whine, almost like a scream.
Crazy Horse finished with his horse's front hooves and next took up the back feet. The bullets were getting closer and closer. His tan-and-white mare did not flinch at the booming of rifles as her rider scraped the ice from her hooves.
"Wow!" exclaimed Jimmy. "He really did that?"
"He did," affirmed his grandfather. "But he was smart, an experienced warrior. He watched the soldiers. As long as they were firing from moving horses, he knew they couldn't aim very well. And the foot soldiers, who were still running, were too far back to be on the mark, especially since they were panting from the effort. So overall, the odds were in Crazy Horse's favor. Still, one of them could have gotten off a lucky shot. But, as we know, that didn't happen."
"Did the soldiers know it was Crazy Horse?"
"No. They hadn't heard of him. No one among the whites had … yet. All they could see were ten warriors, a small force against eighty well-armed, well-supplied soldiers. Their commander, Captain William Fetterman, was confident. He was sure his soldiers could defeat any number of warriors. By all accounts he hated Indians. He didn't think they were as good as soldiers."
"Oh. So then what happened?"
"Well, when the bullets were getting really, really close, Crazy Horse finally, calmly, mounted his horse and loped—not galloped—farther away. By then, the other nine decoy warriors were pretty much doing the same kinds of things."
"They were?" Jimmy's eyes were big.
"Oh, yeah," said Grandpa Nyles. "They were doing everything they could to make the soldiers angry. To make them keep chasing them. Remember, the place where the other five hundred or so Lakota and Northern Cheyenne fighters were waiting was four miles away. Also, all of this was happening when it was thirty degrees below zero."
"They did, didn't they, Grandpa? I mean, they took the soldiers to the ambush place, right?"
"Yeah, they did. Over four miles of frozen and uneven ground, covered with snow and ice. When they came near the ambush place, the warriors went down a steep slope. It was hard for the horses and men not to slip and fall. It wasn't easy for the foot soldiers, either. But they followed. They were angry—or too afraid not to follow their commander's orders.
"So on they came, following Crazy Horse and his warriors. They followed until they came to a long flat hill. It was called Lodge Trail Ridge."
The northern side of Lodge Trail Ridge sloped down to a wide gully. There it led to the Bozeman Trail, used by white gold seekers heading farther north. It was a familiar trail to the Long Knives.
From the bottom, Crazy Horse looked up and saw the Long Knives. Several of them were at the edge of the crest, looking down. They finally seemed to be hesitating. Perhaps they had spotted some of the warriors waiting in ambush. Crazy Horse and his men fired their pistols at the soldiers. Return rifle fire splattered bullets in the snow near the warriors. After another moment, the soldier in the lead rode toward the decoys. Others immediately followed him. Soon there was a line of soldiers coming down.
Crazy Horse signaled his men to fire again. Then they rode onto the Bozeman Trail and turned north onto a very narrow ridge. It ran north to south. On either side were very steep slopes and deep gullies. In those gullies on the eastern and western sides, the warriors were hiding. They had been waiting in the frigid cold since dawn, their weapons ready. They were eager for something to happen. They were waiting for Crazy Horse's signal to spring the trap.
For the first time since early morning, Crazy Horse felt confident that the ambush would happen. Now, on the trail, he and his men acted confused. To the soldiers they appeared to be uncertain what to do. Meanwhile, the column of soldiers and horses poured down the slippery slope. Crazy Horse let them get close, and then the decoys galloped away, as if trying to escape. The mother grouse was luring the coyote closer and closer.
Crazy Horse stayed back and sent his men on along the trail. He waited as the soldiers came closer. Suddenly he felt the intense cold as the wind blew across the ridge. He heard guns firing, and bullets hummed by. Still he waited. When he could see their faces clearly, he turned and urged his horse into a lope.
The last of the foot soldiers came off the ridge. Crazy Horse stopped again to watch them. He heard the thud of horses' hooves on the frozen ground. His heart thumped in his chest. The plan was succeeding.
He urged his horse on again. Catching up with his men, he raced northward with them. At the bottom of a slope, a creek curved across a low meadow. They rode for it, five men in one line, the other five in another line. They came to the frozen creek and crossed the ice carefully. Once on the other side the two lines of warriors separated. Then they rode toward each other, with one line crossing the other, like the fingers of two hands interlacing.
Two warrior scouts, one on each side of the ridge, saw Crazy Horse and his warriors. That was the signal! Rising up from hiding, the two scouts each fired two rifle shots.
All the soldiers were past the narrow ridge now, hurrying after the fleeing warriors.
From behind leafless shrubs and out of narrow old creek beds, the waiting warriors emerged. Many had been hiding and waiting under buffalo- and elk-hide robes. All of them had been holding their weapons beneath the robes, to keep them warm.
In a few heartbeats, the gullies were suddenly filled with warriors. Everyone was scrambling up the slopes. The warriors on the south side closest to Lodge Trail Ridge climbed upward. Their task was to get behind the soldiers.
As soon as the warriors could see the soldiers on the ridge above them, they started shooting. Once the Lakota and Cheyenne guns started firing, and their arrows started flying, they did not stop.
Crazy Horse and his decoys had carried out their plan. The soldiers were in the trap!
The old man looked at his grandson. Jimmy was completely enthralled by the story.
"Are you with me so far?" he asked.
"Yeah, Grandpa. The battle was starting, right?"
"Darn right! Our warriors scrambled up the slopes from both sides. The footing was treacherous, slippery. Their winter moccasins didn't have lug soles, you know. And it was cold, really cold! But that didn't matter to them."
Jimmy looked down the slope to the west and turned and looked down the slope to the east. He could see them, hundreds of Lakota and Cheyenne men. He could see the mist from their breaths as they panted. They scrambled up the slopes, some of them slipping and falling. All of them were carrying weapons.
"What kind of weapons did the warriors have?"
"Most of them had only bows and arrows. Some did have guns of some kind, a six-shot pistol or a rifle. But ammunition—lead balls and powder—was hard to get. So everyone had bows and arrows. It was said Crazy Horse had only four round balls for his rifle, so he used his pistol until he ran out of powder. Then he used his war club and bow."
Crazy Horse and his decoys turned their horses back to the north. They galloped across the meadow and up the slope. Already they could hear the continuous gunfire.
Crazy Horse saw warriors scrambling up the western slope. The eastern slope was obscured from his view. On the ridge all the soldiers had turned back south. They were scrambling as well, trying to hurry. The soldiers on foot were running. Those on horses were whipping their horses, trying to make them go faster. They were all trying to get back to the safety of the fort. Many of the soldiers were falling, hit by bullets and arrows.
As he rode closer to the fighting, Crazy Horse could hear the screams and shouts of the soldiers. Frightened horses were screaming, too. Then he saw something utterly amazing.
Many of the soldiers were running, crowding together on the narrowest part of the ridge, and warriors on both slopes were firing arrows at them. Crazy Horse saw a narrow dark line, the same shape as a rainbow. For a moment he was puzzled by it, but then he knew what he was seeing. It was arrows. Thousands of arrows coming up from both slopes! Thousands of arrows flying at the soldiers! For a time they formed a black arc. Inside the arc soldiers were falling, hit by the arrows.
Crazy Horse heard later that Lakota and Cheyenne fighters were hit by arrows as well. The arrows from the east slope arced and flew down the west ridge. Arrows from the west slope arced and flew down the east slope. Some of them hit warriors scrambling up the slopes.
Crazy Horse and his fellow decoys joined the battle. Little Hawk stayed with his older brother. By then the soldiers were boxed in. Their initial frantic retreat southward had been blocked. They had nowhere to go. So the Long Knives tried to find cover from the enemy guns and arrows. Some of them hid behind rocks large and small. Some hid in any depression in the ground. Others huddled together in small groups and fired at their attackers. But many had already fallen, struck down by bullets and arrows.
Crazy Horse and Little Hawk stayed to the west side of the battle ridge. They joined a group of warriors firing at a few Long Knives behind a large rock. Those soldiers were firing rapidly and had wounded several warriors.
Crazy Horse talked with a Cheyenne warrior leader. They decided to flank the Long Knives behind the rock. One group of warriors, with Crazy Horse, would move left, or east. The other group, with the Cheyenne leader, would move right, or south.
At a nod from Crazy Horse, the warriors moved out, keeping low to the ground. Often they ducked behind bristly soap plants for cover. Crazy Horse spread out his men, instructing them to stay low and to aim carefully. They could not afford to waste their powder and bullets.
The flanking maneuver was successful, though some of the warriors were wounded. After a steady exchange of gunfire, only two Long Knives were firing back. At a signal from Crazy Horse, the flanking warriors charged the remaining soldiers. Crazy Horse struck one down with his war club.
That small victory was one of many that day. They were also battling the dangerous cold. Fingers and toes, not to mention noses and ears, were numb. Cold fingers dropped bullets and lead balls. They spilled powder. Still, the firing was steady, though from the Long Knives it was less and less.
Jimmy looked around from the narrow ridge on which they stood. He could imagine them, the warriors and the soldiers. He could hear the loud blasts of gunfire and even the shouting and screams of pain.
"How long did the fighting last?" he asked.
Grandpa Nyles was looking around, too. "Oh, less than an hour, I think. Maybe even only about half an hour from when Crazy Horse and his men gave the signal."
"Is that a long time for a battle?"
Jimmy saw a strange look come into his grandfather's eyes. His grandfather was a Vietnam War veteran, a U.S. Marine infantry sergeant.
"Sometimes ten seconds feels like ten hours," Grandpa Nyles replied softly. "So I think for both the warriors and the soldiers who fought here, the battle probably seemed to last forever."
"The words on that monument said there were no survivors. That means that all the soldiers were killed, right?"
Grandpa Nyles nodded. "Yeah, they were all killed. All eighty of them."
Jimmy stood silently for a while. "How did it end?"
"Oh, the last small groups of Long Knives were overrun by the warriors. It got down to hand-to-hand fighting. Scary and gruesome, at the end."
"How many warriors were killed?"
Grandpa Nyles shaded his eyes and continued to look around. "Well, there were a lot of warriors wounded. Nobody knows exactly how many. Some say around forty warriors were killed. One of those was Crazy Horse's best friend."
Jimmy looked up at his grandfather. "Who was that?"
"His name was Lone Bear. They'd been friends since boyhood. They were separated in the fighting. After it was over, Crazy Horse was looking around for him." He pointed down the eastern slope of the battle ridge. "He found him, down there somewhere. Lone Bear had been shot through the chest. But it was so cold, the blood froze around the wound and stopped the bleeding."
"For reals?"
"Yeah. He was still alive when Crazy Horse found him. He held his friend in his arms until he died. Everyone who saw that said Crazy Horse cried like a baby."
Jimmy noticed that his grandfather had brushed something out of his eyes.
"I would be sad, too," Jimmy said. "It's kind of sad just to think about it."
"Yeah, it is. Come on, let's start back for the truck."
Near the tall stone monument were some large rocks. They stopped, and from his trouser pocket Grandpa Nyles pulled out a bundle of gray sage wrapped in red cloth. He placed it gently on the largest rock.
"This is for the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors," he said quietly. "We should never forget them and what happened here. But we have to remember the soldiers kindly, too. They fought hard. Their people shouldn't have been here, like they promised. If they had kept that promise, those eighty men probably wouldn't have died here."
From the rocks they walked to the truck in silence. Jimmy could still hear the gunshots, the shouting, and the screams in his imagination. Grandpa Nyles was very good at telling stories. When they arrived at the truck, Jimmy looked back toward the battle ridge.
"What happened to Crazy Horse after this?" he wondered aloud.
"Well, this was the battle that established him as a leader of warriors. Word spread quickly among the Lakota, the Cheyenne, and the Arapaho. He became a hero. But he was a reluctant hero. He didn't want to be a leader. He just wanted to be a good man and a good warrior."
"He was a good warrior, wasn't he?"
Grandpa Nyles unlocked the truck. "One of the best. But he was a good man, too. He was quiet and humble. He didn't brag. He didn't even speak loudly. That's what I like about him. There were a lot of good and brave warriors in those days. But not all of them were really good men. Not all of them were humble, like him."
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