“They do that sort of thing,” said Chance “almost without thinking about it. It’s just what soldiers do. Put up guns, have drills. It’s like a parade.”
Running Horse looked at him.
“The United States Army,” said Chance, a bit irritably, “doesn’t go about shooting down innocent people.”
“Look,” said Running Horse, pointing into the distance.
Chance looked closely. He could see horses, in dozens of groups of five or six, being led away from the soldiers’ camp, out into the prairie. Chance was puzzled. If the soldiers were going to ride those horses to escort the Indians to the agency what was the point of leading them out into the prairie, taking them several hundred yards away?
“Why are they taking the horses away?” asked Running Horse.
“I don’t know,” said Chance.
“Why would you take horses away?” asked Running Horse.
“I don’t know,” said Chance.
“I would take them away,” said Running Horse, “so they should not be killed, so they would not be in the way when people shoot.”
“Those men,” said Chance, “are United States soldiers.” Even to Chance what he said sounded a bit naive, in the face of the movement of the horses. “United States soldiers,” he said, asserting it as if it might almost be on act of faith, “do not attack without reason.”
Running Horse watched for a bit longer. Then he turned to Chance and said, “Maybe they will find a reason.”
Drum, an eagle feather high in his hair, stepped up to Running Horse and Chance. “I have come to Wounded Knee,” he said, “for this morning.” He pointed to the guns on the ridge. “Those are guns of many rifles,” he said. “Now we must fight or we will all be killed.” Then he added, “Old Bear was a fool to trust Long Knives.”
Drum turned abruptly and left, beginning to move about the camp, urging the warriors to be ready to fight.
Already in the camp several of the warriors had begun to chant their death song.
The squaws gathered the children together, holding them closely.
The children watched the distant soldiers and the guns with curiosity.
Running Horse turned to Chance. “You are my brother,” he said simply. “It has made my heart glad.”
Chance looked at the young Indian. “You, too are my brother,” he said. “And, too, it has made my heart glad.”
Running Horse and Chance now watched four riders approach the camp. Instinctively, Chance drew the Indian blanket more about his shoulders.
The first man was an army officer, of a rank that Chance could not make out at the distance. He was followed by two troopers, one of whom held a flag of truce. The fourth man, a large man, wore a heavy, brown, fur-collared mackinaw coat; leather gloves; and a fur cap with its earflaps turned down and tied under the chin. It was Grawson.
At the edge of the camp these men met Big Foot and Old Bear.
Chance could watch them talk, and he could see that the officer was impatient, judging from the way his white-gloved hands jerked as he talked. He pointed several times to the guns on the ridge.
Behind the officer, Grawson casually surveyed the camp until, from a distance of about seventy-five yards, he made out Chance. Then the big body in the brown coat, like a satisfied bear, seemed to relax on the horse, almost somnolently.
Meanwhile the soldiers of the Seventh, afoot, were rapidly deploying in a hollow square about the camp, taking advantage of the flag of truce,
Chance was not a military man, but even to him it looked a bit stupid, what was going on. The soldiers were extending their lines very thinly and, if fighting started, they would catch each other in their own cross fire. Nonetheless, whatever happened, of course, the Indians would be caught in the middle. Chance supposed that the officer in charge of the troops was not counting on any trouble. Chance found that reassuring, at any rate. He wondered if the officer understood the presence of men in the Indian camp like Drum, who could never forget that they were the sons of men such as Kills-His-Horse and in whose hair had been fixed, as of only days, the feathers of eagles.
Naturally the Indians were well aware that while the parley was taking place the Long Knives had moved into position.
The soldiers had removed their cumbersome greatcoats and stood shivering in their blue campaign uniforms, their rifles at the ready.
Chance looked at the officer again, the man talking to Big Foot and Old Bear. The carriage of his body, the motions of his hands, suggested the mien of a conqueror addressing the servile vanquished.
Chance looked at the surrounding soldiers, seeing here and there faces of hate, of anticipation, of fear, of distrust, but mostly they looked like simple men anywhere look, like the faces of men on any street in any town, clerks, carpenters, farmers, teamsters, coopers, smiths, cartwrights, merchants, barbers, just men.
They all looked cold.
Here and there one of them tucked his rifle under his arm and blew on his hands, stamping his feet and cursing to himself. “Goddam it’s cold,” Chance heard one of them mutter, and Chance agreed with him.
A Sioux child, a small boy with unbraided hair that hung to his waist, walked timidly over to one of the soldiers, his eyes fastened on one of the brass buttons on the man’s jacket.
Slowly the boy put out his finger and touched the button. The trooper gently shooed him away. The little boy turned to go, looked at the trooper again, then smiled and ran back to his mother.
Big Foot and Old Bear now turned to face the Sioux.
As they did so, the officer and his party, the parley ended, withdrew rapidly, the hoofs of their horses sounding on the frozen prairie.
The message which Big Foot and Old Bear communicated to their people was simple.
The leader of the Long Knives had ordered the Sioux to turn in their weapons. They must give up their guns, after which the march to Pine Ridge would resume.
A wave of protest swept through the Indians. They supposed that it had been intended simply that they were to go directly to Pine Ridge. They were supposed to see, as they had understood, the agent at Pine Ridge, who was not a Long Knife, and get rations for their families, and be at peace with the Great White Father. Now the Long Knives, out on the open prairie, where the men of the Great White Father in Washington could not see, were going to take away their guns. After this, what would they do, these Long Knives of the Seventh Cavalry, some of whom had lost friends with Long Hair in the unavenged defeat on the Little Big Horn many snows ago?
The Indians looked at the four guns on the ridge.
Some of the squaws began to keen, as if wailing for their dead.
“Do not give up your guns,” called Drum, his fierce eyes blazing with excitement.
“Be quiet,” said Old Bear.
There shortly appeared in the camp a detail of twelve men, led by a sergeant, a heavy, swaggering man, authoritative, not well shaven, with an open holster, who stumbled a bit as he walked, glaring about himself to the left and the right at the silent Indians.
He stopped and, with the heel of a boot, scratched a large, irregular circle in the dirt.
“Bring out yer weapons and put ’em in a pile,” called the sergeant, pointing to the center of the circle he had drawn on the ground.
Drum turned to the Sioux. “They will kill us when we have no guns,” he said.
Old Bear called out to the Sioux. “Give up your rifles,” he said.
Several of the Minneconjou clustered there looked past Old Bear to Big Foot, who stood nearby leaning on one of his wives. The chief could hardly breathe. His eyes were half shut, marked with fever. Weakly he nodded his assent to the command of Old Bear.