Less than an hour later they turned right at the exit to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Past a convenience store on the left and then a log trading post and restaurant farther up the hill, they turned right again.
A two-lane road led up to a tiny stone building just in front of the entrance and exit gates. Grandpa Nyles paid the fee and took a brochure from the young park ranger.
Jimmy looked around at the hilly landscape. He had the same strange feeling he'd had at the Hundred in the Hands battlefield. He felt like he should be quiet or talk only in a whisper. There was one thing that he could not figure out. The whites had lost the battle, and yet they wanted to remember it.
Past the gate they followed the road toward the parking lot. Off to the right were houses. At the western edge of the parking lot was a two-story stone building. The parking area went farther to the south, bending slightly to the east. South of the stone building was a cemetery with rows and rows of white headstones.
At the southern end of the parking lot were two more buildings. The first housed bathrooms, and the other, larger building was the visitor center.
Grandpa Nyles drove slowly through the parking lot, a slight frown on his face. "Tell you what," he said. "Let's do the battlefield first, then finish at the visitor center."
Jimmy nodded.
The parking lot was nearly full of sedans, SUVs, pickup trucks, and even a few motorcycles. Along the side of the road were large motor homes, some with cars in tow. Making a slight right turn, they drove up the hill. They got out of the truck and walked to the monuments. On the left was a new one dedicated to the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. It was a wide circular pit with two openings, one on the east and the other on the west. On the hilltop to the right was an older monument. It was large and four-sided, and it sat atop a mass grave. In the grave were the white soldiers who had died 138 years before.
Below the monument were white headstones inside a black iron fence. There were no graves, only markers, each indicating where a soldier had fallen. One of them bore the name of George A. Custer, the commanding officer of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. The Seventh was the regiment defeated by the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho on June 25, 1876.
The hill that the monument was on was known as Last Stand Hill.
Grandpa Nyles cleared his throat. "Many still believe that Custer and his soldiers fought to the last man, until all of them were killed. It's true that all were killed, but there was no last stand."
"There wasn't?" asked Jimmy. "What happened?"
"Less than thirty soldiers reached this far. One of them was Captain Tom Custer. He was the younger brother of George Custer. The other two hundred had fallen along the way. They were all down along a mile-long ridge. You'll see the markers when we go that way."
The paved road passed between the monuments and turned south. Grandpa Nyles decided they would drive to the far end of the battle site. It was a place called Reno-Benteen Hill, four miles from Last Stand Hill.
The way it was—June 25–26, 1876
The encampment filled the river bottom for two miles along the meandering river. To the Lakota, the stream was the Greasy Grass. It wound north to south and had many bends. The encampment was on the west side, among some very large and tall cottonwood trees.
This enormous village of one thousand lodges had moved to the Greasy Grass River only two days before. But the people had been together for two months by then. The first gathering was far to the east, and smaller. At first there were only a few hundred people, but, as the days went by, more and more people came. The village slowly grew to a few thousand. They were responding to Sitting Bull's message to gather and talk about the encroachment of the white people. A month ago Sitting Bull had conducted a Sun Dance, the most holy and powerful of Lakota ceremonies.
People from all seven Lakota bands were there. So was a small group of Nakota. The Cheyenne numbered several hundred; the Arapaho were fewer than that. Some people had even slipped away from the reservations to join the gathering. By the time they moved to the Greasy Grass, there were nearly ten thousand. Almost one thousand two hundred of them were warriors.
Never before had there been so many horses in one place. Large grassy flats west of the village were filled with nearly fifteen thousand horses. Such a herd was very colorful on the green prairie. Most of the horses were bays (brown) or blacks, but there were buckskins (tan) and sorrels (reddish) as well; only a very few were white or gray. A herd that size could eat all the grass on a large prairie very quickly. That was one reason the encampment moved several times. The people moved to new areas where there was grass for the horses to eat.
Horses were very important. Every Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho family had several. Horses for riding carried people. Other horses hauled lodgepoles and folded lodges when the people moved from one place to another. Still others were used as warhorses, meaning they carried warriors into battle. The fastest runners were trained to chase buffalo. Horses were one reason the Lakota became a strong nation and controlled a large territory.
Eight days after the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother, people were still talking about it. That battle had occurred a long day's ride to the south, along Rosebud Creek. Crazy Horse and five hundred warriors had fought a thousand Long Knives. With the Long Knives were three hundred Shoshone and Crow warriors.
After that battle, those Long Knives had turned back south.
The Moon of Ripening Berries, or June, was a hot month. This day was already hot at noon when Crazy Horse walked north through the encampment. People were busy visiting, cooking, hauling water, and taking horses to the river to drink. Children ran and played. Young men and older boys were posted around the large horse herd to keep watch. All in all, it was an ordinary day.
The sun was in the middle of the sky when a Lakota man appeared on the hill across the river. He was shouting.
"Long Knives!" he yelled as loud as he could. "Long Knives are coming!"
Only a few people on the south end of the encampment heard him. Some, though they could hear him shouting, could not hear his words clearly.
Gunshots suddenly boomed from the south—many gunshots. The first warriors who heard reacted immediately. Running to their lodges, they grabbed weapons—guns and bows and arrows, war clubs, and lances—and ran toward the sound of the guns. Some got on horses and rode.
Everyone at the south end of the village could hear the guns now. So much gunfire was not good and usually meant danger. So much gunfire usually meant enemies. It was better to think that and do something than to wonder and be confused. Enemies attacking were nothing new to the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho people.
Mothers and grandmothers gathered up children to take them to safety. Old men helped them, or instructed the young men to grab weapons and meet the enemy.
People shouted warnings. "Long Knives are coming! Long Knives are coming!"
The frightening news swept through the camp, moving like a sudden gust of wind. More and more people heard the gunfire. It was not long before everyone in the encampment seemed to be running somewhere.
Warriors emerging from the south end of the village saw two lines of mounted Long Knives. They were charging toward the village. Suddenly they slowed, and one line turned west and the other turned east. They made one long line, then stopped and dismounted. Some of the soldiers grabbed the reins of horses and led them away, behind the line. The dismounted soldiers began firing toward the village.
Crazy Horse had sprinted back to his own lodge. He had to avoid the men, women, and children who were also running. Black Shawl had his weapons ready. Taking them, Crazy Horse hugged her for a moment, then jumped on his horse and rode toward the firing.
Nearly a hundred warriors were already among the trees and shrubbery and firing at the line of soldiers. Crazy Horse joined a big, tall man named Gall, a Hunkpapa Lakota war leader. They talked and decided to charge the west end of the soldier line. At that end were many of the Shoshone, Crow, and Arikara scouts.
Crazy Horse and Gall shouted to the mounted warriors close by. Gall led the charge and Crazy Horse followed, and forty or so mounted warriors were close behind them.
Firing from the soldiers and the warriors was constant. Every moment was filled with the sound of gunshots. The mounted charge was fast and furious. The pounding hoofbeats of galloping horses mixed with the gunfire.
Grandpa Nyles paused. He and Jimmy were near a marker overlooking the river, which was below them and to the west. Grandpa Nyles pointed at a large building in the distance. It resembled a western movie–style fort.
"See that?" he said.
Jimmy nodded.
"Major Marcus Reno's soldiers—he was the one in command here—and the army's Indian scouts were in an east-west line even with that building and us. It wasn't there in 1876, of course. There were about a hundred and twenty soldiers, and the scouts. They were firing north toward the village—the south end of it. Gall and Crazy Horse charged that end of the line."
"What happened then?" Jimmy asked eagerly.
"The Long Knives and their Indian scouts retreated. Mounted fighters always have an advantage over an enemy on foot. The warriors chased the soldiers this way, toward us. More and more warriors from the village joined the fight, as many as two hundred, maybe three hundred.
"Major Reno ordered a withdrawal, into the trees along the river. As the soldiers fled, the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho fighters rode in among them. The soldiers did not fight back very well. Some were running; others managed to catch horses and ride. They seemed very confused. For darn sure they were very scared."
Grandpa Nyles pointed to groves of trees below them, along the west side of the river. "About there," he said, "the soldiers tried to take cover, in trees like that. But our men were relentless. They fired guns and bows and started fires. They forced the Long Knives out of the trees. They fled this way, across the river and up the slope. They suffered many casualties crossing the river. Same when they scrambled up the slope. Soldiers were falling, hit by bullets and arrows."
Grandpa Nyles turned and pointed east of where they stood. "They managed to get that far," he went on. "There, in a meadow, they took cover. They put up barricades with saddles, boxes, with anything they had, even the bodies of dead horses. They dug shallow pits in the ground."
Crazy Horse listened to the excited young Cheyenne warrior. The two of them were with other warriors on the west slope of a ridge. They could see the fallen soldiers on the slopes below them. The blue clothing was easy to see against the green grass.
Above them the sun was high, and the air was hot.
"The Long Knives are digging holes, piling saddles and boxes, anything they can," the young man reported. "Some are on the hills to the south, digging holes. I think they know we have them surrounded. Our men are all around. Some are trying to get in closer by crawling in the grass."
Black Moon, another Lakota war leader, looked at Crazy Horse. "Some of our men think we should overrun them, get them all."
"What do you think?" Crazy Horse asked him.
"The Long Knives still have lots of bullets," Black Moon said. "They keep firing at us. One way is to wait them out. They may be low on water and food."
Gall was climbing up the slope. Crazy Horse waited until he joined them.
"I think we should wait," Crazy Horse said. "The soldiers cannot go anywhere. We can wait and talk about what to do next."
It was easy to see that Gall was angry. He was a big, strong man. The angry scowl on his face made him look very scary.
He was about to speak when a high-pitched sound filled the air. All the men near Crazy Horse looked north. They saw a horse and rider racing toward them. The man on the horse seemed to be making the sound. They watched and waited.
The man on the horse stopped to talk to a group of warriors along the river. A warrior pointed up the hill, toward Crazy Horse's location. It was plain to see the man was in a hurry. He galloped his horse up the hill.
He was a young Lakota warrior Crazy Horse recognized. In his hand was an eagle-bone whistle. It had a high-pitched sound. The young man was agitated.
"Uncle!" he said to Crazy Horse. "Long Knives at the crossing! They tried to ride across the river into the village! They were stopped!"
"How many?" Gall asked, looking toward the north.
"I do not know," replied the young warrior. "Many of them, I think."
Crazy Horse looked at Gall and Black Moon. "We will leave a small number of warriors to keep the barricaded soldiers from leaving. All other warriors should ride fast to meet the new attack."
"So there was another attack?" Jimmy said.
"There was," Grandpa Nyles said. "The Battle of the Little Bighorn was not one battle. It was really three. The attack that the young warrior told Crazy Horse about was the second—Custer himself trying to cross the river into the north end of the village."
"He was stopped, right?"
"Sure was, by a group of old men and boys. They delayed those Long Knives long enough for the warriors sent by Gall and Crazy Horse to get to the crossing." Grandpa Nyles pointed to the truck in the parking lot. "What do you say we go and pick up the story from there?"
After a drive of a few miles, they came to a wide, flat gully. It was known as Medicine Tail Coulee. They pulled over near a historical marker with a picture on it. Grandpa Nyles pointed toward the river.
"The soldiers could see the village," he said. "They thought it would be easy. Custer thought that Major Reno and his men were coming from the other side. He didn't know that Reno had been chased across the river and up the hill. Custer didn't know that Reno couldn't help him.
"Those old men and boys stopped the Long Knives before they could cross. Not long after that, warriors came from the south. Custer had to turn and go that way"—Grandpa Nyles pointed up a slope going north. "He had no choice. Warriors came from behind him, and then on both sides of his column. North was the only way he could go. So let's go again and trace their path."
He put the truck in gear and drove back onto the paved road. In a few minutes they were at the top of the hill. After driving through a cattle gate, he stopped at another set of historical markers.
They stepped down from the truck. They were now on a ridge that led to Last Stand Hill, which was about a mile to the north.
"Somewhere here," Grandpa Nyles began, resuming the story, "one company of the Long Knives stopped. One company stopped twice or two companies did the same thing. Anyway, they stopped, dismounted, and faced the oncoming mounted warriors. It was a good attempt, but it didn't work. Our warriors were coming, and they were angry. The gunfire they directed at the soldiers was too much. The soldiers got back on their horses and rode north. From this point on, Custer's soldiers, his five companies, began to suffer casualties. That is, soldiers were being hit by bullets and falling."
Grandpa Nyles pointed across the meadows to the north. "Remember those white markers? They start right over there. Each one shows where a soldier was found, where he fell."
Jimmy was silent for a moment. "There are a lot of markers," he said somberly.
"Yeah, there sure are," Grandpa Nyles agreed. "Custer had, oh, about two hundred and thirty men with him. He and only thirty or so made it to Last Stand Hill. So if you do subtraction, how many soldiers fell between here and Last Stand Hill?"
Jimmy said, "Two hundred."
"Yeah," Grandpa Nyles agreed. "That's about right. And if we do a division to figure out percentage—divide thirty by two hundred and thirty—the answer is about fifteen percent. So Custer had lost about eighty-five percent of his men by the time he got to Last Stand Hill. No military commander wants those kinds of losses."
Grandpa Nyles paused and shook his head. He removed his straw hat to wipe a bit a sweat off his forehead. "Of course, the sad fact is that Custer lost all his men, including himself. Every man in the five companies he led was killed in this second part of the battle. That's why there are so many white markers.
"That's the sad part about war and battles," he concluded. "Doesn't matter who you are, what side you're on. It's still sad, no matter what kind of uniform you wear or the color of your skin. It's still sad."
Jimmy looked across the meadow. He could imagine all those soldiers falling in the grass, falling to the ground. Somewhere inside, he wished he would never, ever see the real thing. After a moment he looked up at his grandfather.
"What did Crazy Horse do, in this part of the battle?" he asked softly.
"Well," replied the old man, putting his hat back on, "I'll tell you, but first let me tell you what Gall did."
Dust rose from the hooves of the galloping Long Knives' horses. They were struggling up the long slope. Gall and the warriors were closing the distance.
They had raced across the uneven western slopes above the river. Arriving at Medicine Tail Coulee, they saw the soldiers running away. Most of the Lakota and Cheyenne warriors in the encampment had been in battles before. Furthermore, they had been trained to be war fighters since they were children. Eight days before, many had been in the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother. They knew what to do.
Some mounted warriors veered to the right, others to the left. A third group stayed behind the soldiers. If the soldiers stopped, they would be immediately surrounded. If they kept going up the hill and beyond, they would be cut down as they rode.
At the top of the ridge, a group of Long Knives stopped and dismounted. They formed a line to face the oncoming warriors. The soldiers fired, but it did not slow the warriors. They returned fire even as they galloped.
Most of the dismounted Long Knives fired again; then all of them remounted. They hurried to the north.
The onrushing warriors kept riding and firing from horseback.
Farther north along the ridge, some Long Knives dismounted again. This time only a few fired at the warriors before remounting. They hurried to catch up with the other soldiers, who were galloping north.
The galloping horses were raising a dust cloud that hung just above the ground.
Warriors were on either side of the Long Knives, and behind as well. Soldiers were being hit and falling from their horses.
Gall whipped his horse to run faster. He was on the slope below the soldiers. He shouted to the warriors near him. "Get ahead of them!" he yelled. "Get ahead of them, dismount, and shoot at them from the ground."
Eight warriors urged their horses faster. They raced recklessly over the uneven ground and outran the Long Knives' horses on the ridge. The warriors dismounted, formed a line, and knelt to get a steady aim. One by one they opened fire with their rifles at the fleeing soldiers.
All the while soldiers were falling, and falling. Many of their horses were galloping without riders.
"So that's what Gall did," Grandpa Nyles said, pausing for a moment. "He was one of the main war leaders, after Crazy Horse. The warriors with him below the ridge were all very good marksmen. They hit a lot of the soldiers. No one knows exactly how many, but a lot of them."
He pointed to the truck. "Come on," he said. "Let's go back to Last Stand Hill."
Jimmy hurried and climbed into the truck. "So where was Crazy Horse?" he asked.
Grandpa Nyles started the truck and drove north, following the paved road. "When Gall was here, Crazy Horse was on the other side of the river. He had gone through the village, gathered a lot of warriors, and ridden north. Somewhere beyond where the visitor center is now, he crossed the river and went east. He took his warriors up the hills, and there they encountered some soldiers who had gone ahead. They chased those soldiers back.
"So what Crazy Horse did was to block the soldiers from going beyond Last Stand Hill," the old man went on. "Gall's warriors and others, Crow King and Black Moon, were leading warriors, too. They were chasing the Long Knives from behind. There was no way the Long Knives were going to escape. By then, oh, maybe five or six hundred warriors were involved. It was all but over for Custer and his soldiers."
Grandpa Nyles pointed west toward the river. It was at the bottom of the slope behind the trees. "Right about here, some of the soldiers went toward the river," he said. "They made it to a deep gully and were surrounded there by warriors coming up from the village. Those soldiers didn't make it out. They say they are still there, buried in that deep gully."
Jimmy looked down the slope. He saw several white markers on the slope below them. He was beginning to understand how difficult it must have been for the soldiers.
They drove into the parking spot near the large stone monument. From there they could see back along the road they had driven. Jimmy could see a lot of white markers.
"Crazy Horse led a charge against a group of soldiers, right about here," Grandpa Nyles said, "probably a company. He saw they were organized and fighting strongly. He inspired other warriors to follow him, and they wiped out the company. At first he was the only one riding at the soldiers, far ahead of the other warriors."
"Wow! Wasn't he afraid?"
"He probably was," Grandpa Nyles said. "But remember his dream, when the rider was untouched by bullets and arrows? Crazy Horse was untouched at the Battle of the Hundred in the Hands, and he was unhurt here, too. Sometimes you have to do things no matter how scary it is, or how scared you are. For days, and weeks, months, and years after that, the warriors who were there talked about that—how Crazy Horse charged ahead of everyone else. Look, we're still talking about it now."
Jimmy nodded slowly. The tall stone marker was nearby, and several white markers were on the slope. Below the tall monument were more headstones—those inside the black iron fence.
"So," he said quietly, "the battle was over, after that?"
Grandpa Nyles nodded. "Yeah. The last group of soldiers with Custer fired a few shots. The warriors had them surrounded and fired back. Maybe once or twice more there was light exchange of firing. Then it was over. They say it became very, very quiet."
"Then what happened?" Jimmy asked.
"People came up from the village, the women mostly," the old man said. "They were looking for their husbands, sons, and grandsons. They wanted to know that their loved ones were safe. Many of them were angry at the Long Knives. So that's when it started."
"What? What started, Grandpa?"
"Well," Grandpa Nyles replied, his voice low, "the first thing was probably someone taking something off a fallen soldier—you know, a gun, bullets, maybe boots. Then someone took a knife and cut a soldier's body. All that anger was hard to hold back. So they began stripping bodies, taking things, and then mutilating them."
"?'Mutilating'?"
"Cutting arms and legs."
Jimmy didn't know what to think. "Why?"
"Like I said—the people were angry because the Long Knives probably would have hurt women and children—shot them, even. And Long Knives had done the same thing to Indians—like at a place called Sand Creek, in Colorado—mutilated people, I mean."
He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "I personally think it's a bad thing no matter who does it. But that's the way it was then."
Jimmy felt a bit sick to his stomach.
He could imagine Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho women and children crossing the river and walking onto the battlefield. He could understand why mothers and grandmothers would be worried about their sons and grandsons. That's the way his mom and his grandmothers were.
"So, what happened after that, Grandpa?" he asked.
"Well, the second part of the battle ended here," Grandpa Nyles replied. "But remember those soldiers on the hill, back there above the river?"
Jimmy nodded.
"They were the first part of the battle, and they would be the third part. We'll talk about it in a bit, but right now let's go see that monument to our people. How's that?"
Jimmy and his grandfather followed the path to the monument to the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho people. It was unlike the tall stone marker for the soldiers. This monument was round and sunk into the ground.
They entered it from the east opening. It was like an open-air room. Jimmy liked it immediately, even before he looked closer at all the pictures and words on the walls. The first thing that caught his eye was the metal sculptures outlined against the sky. The north wall was lower, and on the stone ledge were three metal figures. Each looked exactly like a pen-and-ink outline sketch of a man on a horse.
Grandpa Nyles noticed Jimmy looking at the figures. They seemed to be moving from left to right. "Those represent the three tribes who fought here on our side: Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho," he explained. He indicated the third figure, the last one. That one had a hawk on his head and was reaching to take weapons from a woman on the ground.
"That's Crazy Horse," the old man explained. "Or at least someone's idea of him."
Jimmy pointed to the woman figure. "Who's that?" he asked.
"I'm sure that's his wife," Grandpa Nyles replied. "It was customary for Lakota wives and mothers to hand weapons to their husbands and sons. And they had a saying that gave them encouragement and reminded them of their duty as warriors."
"What was it?"
"The women would say, 'Have courage and be the first to charge the enemy, for it is better to lie a warrior naked in death than it is to turn away from the battle.'?"
"What does it mean?"
"It means that courage was a warrior's best weapon, and that it was the highest honor to give your life for your people."
"Oh," Jimmy said, in a low voice. "That's kind of scary, I think."
Grandpa Nyles put his hand on the boy's shoulder and nodded. "Yeah, it is, but that's what being a warrior was all about: facing the scary things no matter how afraid you were. That's what courage is. And what's more, it doesn't happen only on the battlefield. You can have courage and face the tough things that happen to you anywhere."
"Oh."
"Come on," Grandpa Nyles said, pulling on Jimmy's arm and pointing to the polished walls around them. "Let's go look at those carvings and the inscriptions on the panels."
There were twelve thick granite panels on the walls inside the circular monument. All were nearly four feet high and just over seven feet wide. They had images and words connected to the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
The words were from the warriors who had fought here, from Lakota warriors and the Cheyenne. The words of Wooden Leg, a Cheyenne warrior, were simple: "We had killed soldiers who came to kill us."
"That about sums it up," Grandpa Nyles said quietly.
The panel devoted to Crazy Horse also had words on it. They were not about fighting or battles. "We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home. You had yours … We did not interfere with you. We do not want your civilization!"
Jimmy was a bit puzzled.
"I think that explains why he fought so hard, why he didn't want to surrender," Grandpa Nyles said. "He was fighting just as hard for those who had lived before as he was for those living at the time and those who would be born later."
"Like us?"
"Exactly."
Some of the other panels were about the enemies of the Lakota and Cheyenne: the Crow and Arikara scouts who were with the Long Knives that day.
"They fought bravely, too," asserted Grandpa Nyles.
They finished looking at the granite panels, lingering reverently at the panel devoted to Crazy Horse. They walked slowly out the west entrance and followed the stone-covered path. Crossing the road, they walked east of the visitor center and paused on the path leading to a long, sloping meadow.
Jimmy looked toward the meadow and then turned to look down the slope toward the river. "Why did the Long Knives attack our people?" he asked.
"Well," said Grandpa Nyles, "there were a lot of reasons. The big reason was they wanted our land. So they had to get us out of the way, put us on reservations. In 1876, two groups of Lakota were still not on reservations. One was Crazy Horse's band, and the other was Sitting Bull's. The other Lakota bands were at Fort Robinson, in Nebraska, including the Sicangu, Mniconju, and Oglala. Their leaders, like Spotted Tail, Touch the Clouds, and Red Cloud, had already surrendered to the whites."
"Why did they surrender?" Jimmy wanted to know.
Grandpa Nyles sighed deeply. "Oh, the main reason was because they were afraid of the power of the whites. The whites had more guns, more bullets. They had big cannons. Spotted Tail and Red Cloud had traveled east to Washington, D.C. They saw the big cities of the whites. But the one thing that scared them most of all was how many whites there were."
"What do you mean?"
"There weren't many of our people left by 1876," Grandpa Nyles explained, "compared to the sheer numbers of whites. There were probably twenty thousand Lakota. At the same time, there were twenty-five million white people."
Jimmy's eyes grew wide.
"So the Lakota leaders, like Spotted Tail, knew the odds were against us. It was like one cricket trying to fight off a thousand hungry ants."
Jimmy could actually see that, a thousand ants against one cricket. He knew about ants. He knew how strong they could be just because there were always thousands, even tens of thousands, in one colony.
"What about Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull?" he asked. "Did they know the odds?"
Grandpa Nyles nodded. "They did, but they also knew what surrendering would mean. It would mean giving up being free. It would mean giving up living the old way. It would mean Lakota people would be forced to accept the ways of the white man. So they believed it was better to resist them. That's why this battle happened, here along this river.
"The whites knew they were a symbol to other Lakota," Grandpa Nyles continued. "As long as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull stayed free, they were dangerous. The whites were afraid they might inspire other Lakota to leave Fort Robinson and fight. Many of them did that. They left and joined Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse here."
Jimmy looked down the slope toward the trees. Beyond them was the river, which they could not see.
Grandpa Nyles saw that he was confused. "Hey, let me finish the story of this battle, and then we'll go inside and grab a cold drink."
Jimmy nodded.
The last engagement—soldiers on a hill
For the first time today, Crazy Horse felt tired. He lay on his belly and looked through his binoculars at the soldiers in the meadow. After the soldiers running toward the north had all been wiped out, he hurried back toward the soldiers who had been left surrounded. Through the glasses he saw the barricades that had been hurriedly built.
Another column of soldiers had ridden in to join those already on the hill. As far as anyone could tell, there were over a hundred soldiers behind the barricades. Now and then, one or more would moan or scream in pain. Those were the wounded.
"They've been digging holes, too," Black Moon told him. Black Moon was a battle leader. His face was dusty, his clothes soiled, and dried blood spotted his arms. "They tried to charge out," he went on, "but we beat them back. What do you think we should do?"
Crazy Horse lowered the binoculars and looked around. The air was hot, and he was sweating. Though hundreds of warriors lay hidden all around them, none could be seen.
"All we have to do is wait," Crazy Horse replied. "Let the sun and the heat get to them, make them do something stupid. We can rest and wait."
Black Moon nodded. That seemed like a wise approach. He had seen much death today and was not ready to see more.
A young warrior scurried on hands and knees through the grass and found Crazy Horse. "Some of the old men want to know what is happening," he said. "They sent me to find you. They want to know what you plan to do."
"What's your name?" Crazy Horse asked the young man.
"My name is Good Weasel, Uncle," the warrior replied. "My mother is Grass Shawl—she's a Blue Sky. My father is No Horse, Mniconju Lakota."
"Ah, yes." Crazy Horse nodded. "I know your family. Tell the old men we have these soldiers surrounded. Most of our men came back from the second fight. I think the soldiers might try to break out, but we're ready."
Good Weasel nodded. "I will tell them that, Uncle," he said, and crawled away.
The afternoon passed slowly on the ridge above the Greasy Grass River. Unseen warriors on a high hill to the south fired a few long-range shots at the soldiers behind the barricades. A group of soldiers tried a mounted charge. They were forced to retreat, unable to break past the fierce Lakota and Cheyenne firing.
Good Weasel returned as the sun was dipping toward the western horizon.
"The old men are talking," he reported to Crazy Horse. "Many of them say we should not risk any more of our men. They say the heat and lack of water and food will defeat the Long Knives here."
Crazy Horse nodded thoughtfully.
Black Moon's eyes flashed, and he tried to catch the war leader's attention. "Many of our men are ready to attack," he reminded Crazy Horse. "We are ready to die in defense of our people. I think it would take just one or two well-planned attacks to wipe out all those Long Knives."
Again Crazy Horse nodded.
Grandpa Nyles led Jimmy to the visitor center. In a room just off the small museum stood a topographic diorama. It was a miniature model of the Greasy Grass River, the hills to the east of the village site, and the flood plain where the village had stood.
He pointed to a high point west of and above the river. "Here is where the Lakota snipers were," he said. Then he indicated the location of the soldier barricades. "That's a few hundred yards. A long shot for those snipers. Soldiers behind the barricades say they fired back and hit the snipers on that hill. That's very far-fetched, in my opinion. My great-grandfather—your great-great-grandfather—who was there, said the snipers ran out of bullets. That's the reason they stopped firing."
"So what happened to those soldiers on the hill?" asked Jimmy impatiently.
"Well, they lived," Grandpa Nyles told him.
"They did?"
"Yeah, for two reasons. First, the warrior leaders couldn't decide exactly what to do, and Crazy Horse was being cautious. He didn't want any more warriors wounded or killed. Then, secondly, scouts came back from the north and reported more soldiers coming. More soldiers than they had already fought."
"Wow!" Jimmy exclaimed. "How many men did we have?"
"A lot less than the white historians say we did," Grandpa Nyles explained. "I'd be surprised if we had fifteen hundred. Probably more like twelve hundred."
"So then what happened?"
"Sitting Bull and the other old men decided that the people should take down their lodges and go south. Remember, most of the people there were women, children, and elders. So they wanted to keep them safe."
"So the village was taken down?"
"It sure was. The warriors on the hill, those surrounding the soldiers, really wanted to wipe the soldiers out," Grandpa Nyles said. "But they saw it was even more important to take care of their families. So Crazy Horse left warriors there, probably less than a hundred, to make sure the soldiers stayed behind the barricades. So all that those surrounded Long Knives could do was watch thousands of men, women, and children leave and go south. They were lucky. If the new soldiers had not been so close, their fate would have been different. The barricaded soldiers probably would have all been wiped out."
Jimmy stared at the diorama, imagining a long column of people and horses. A column made up of Lakota, a few Dakota and Nakota, Cheyenne, and a few Arapaho. He wished he had been there.
"That was the end of the third engagement," Grandpa Nyles told him. "That was the afternoon of June twenty-sixth, 1876. That was how the Greasy Grass Fight ended, also known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn."
Somewhere in his mind Jimmy could hear people shouting and guns firing.
Grandpa Nyles touched his grandson on the shoulder. "Hey," he said, "there's a tipi out back. Let's go see it, maybe rest a bit before we head on."
As it happened, the tipi was a real one. That is, it was made from buffalo hide. It did not rattle in the soft breeze, like canvas lodges did. They sat inside it, leaning against the replica Lakota chairs, also called "backrests."
"Can we come back here next year?" Jimmy asked hopefully.
"My thoughts exactly," his grandfather responded. "Maybe we can make it a family trip. We can bring your parents and your grandma."
Jimmy nodded and smiled.
Looking through the door, they saw other people walking around and cars driving into and out of the parking lot.
"A lot of people come here, huh?" Jimmy asked.
"Yeah. I think I read somewhere about six hundred thousand a year," Grandpa Nyles told him.
"Wow! For reals? That's a lot of people."
"For sure. But you know what? I'll bet, except for a few Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, and Arikara people who come here, no one has the connection to this place that you do."
"Because your great-grandpa was here?"
"Yeah, but also because the Indian people here were our ancestors. Because Sitting Bull was here, and Crazy Horse."
Jimmy stared out the door, deep in thought.
"You've walked a lot of places in the past few days," Grandpa Nyles reminded him. "Places where Crazy Horse and our ancestors also walked. We occupied the same space they did, saw the same kinds of plants, heard the same kinds of birds. The only thing separating us is time."
He waved his hand. "Crazy Horse led a charge through here, maybe right where we're sitting," he pointed out. "A Cheyenne warrior later said it was the bravest thing he had ever seen. That charge took out an entire company of soldiers—probably a big reason Custer's five companies were defeated."
Jimmy nodded, again hearing shouts and gunfire in his mind.
"The Greasy Grass Fight happened a hundred and thirty-eight years ago," Grandpa Nyles said. "Crazy Horse and the warriors were not the only courageous ones that day. The mothers, the grandmothers, and the old people in the camp had to be brave, too. You know what the message is that they left for us?"
Jimmy shook his head.
"The message is 'Do not forget what happened here.'?"
Jimmy nodded. "I won't forget," he promised resolutely.
In a strange way, Jimmy felt like he was leaving a part of himself behind when they drove out of the gates. He was determined to come back as often as he could.
They ate lunch at the trading post café across the road from the battlefield. It was full of tourists. Jimmy paid little attention to them. As he ate his buffalo burger, he relived the stories Grandpa Nyles had told.
"We have one more official tour stop to make," Grandpa Nyles said.
"Where?"
"Fort Robinson," his grandfather said.
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