III
The Council on the Powder
Serenely now the ghost of summer dreamed
On Powder River. ’Twas the brooding time,
With nights of starlight glinting on the rime
That cured the curly grass for winter feed,
And days of blue and gold when scarce a reed
Might stir along the runnels, lean with drouth.
Some few belated cranes were going south,
And any hour the blizzard wind might bawl;
But still the tawny fingers of the Fall,
Lay whist upon the maw of Winter.
Thrice
The moon had been a melting boat of ice
Among the burning breakers of the west,
Since Red Cloud, bitter-hearted, topped the crest
Above the Fort and took the homeward track,
The Bad Face Ogalalas at his back
And some few Brulés. Silently he rode,
And they who saw him bent as with a load
Of all the tribal sorrow that should be,
Pursued the trail as silently as he—
A fateful silence, boding little good.
Beyond the mouth of Bitter Cottonwood
They travelled; onward through the winding halls
Where Platte is darkened; and the listening walls
Heard naught of laughter—heard the ponies blow,
The rawhide creak upon the bent travaux,
The lodge-poles skid and slidder in the sand.
Nor yet beyond amid the meadowland
Was any joy; nor did the children play,
Despite the countless wooers by the way—
Wild larkspur, tulip, bindweed, prairie pea.
The shadow of a thing that was to be
Fell on them too, though what they could not tell.
Still on, beyond the Horseshoe and La Prele,
They toiled up Sage Creek where the prickly pear
Bloomed gaudily about the camp. And there
The Cheyenne, Black Horse, riding from the south,
Came dashing up with sugar in his mouth
To spew on bitter moods. “Come back,” he whined;
“Our good white brothers call you, being kind
And having many gifts to give to those
Who hear them.” But the braves unstrung their bows
And beat him from the village, counting coup,
While angry squaws reviled the traitor too,
And youngsters dogged him, aping what he said.
Across the barren Cheyenne watershed
Their ponies panted, where the sage brush roots
Bit deep to live. They saw the Pumpkin Buttes
From Dry Fork. Then the Powder led them down
A day past Lodge Pole Creek.
Here Red Cloud’s town,
With water near and grass enough, now stood
Amid a valley strewn with scrubby wood;
And idling in the lazy autumn air
The lodge-smoke rose. The only idler there!
For all day long the braves applied their hate
To scraping dogwood switches smooth and straight
For battle-arrows; and the teeth that bit
The gnarly shaft, put venom into it
Against the day the snarling shaft should bite.
Unceasingly from morning until night
The squaws toiled that their fighting men might eat,
Nor be less brave because of freezing feet.
By hundreds they were stitching rawhide soles
To buckskin uppers. Many drying-poles
Creaked with the recent hunt; and bladders, packed
With suet, fruit and flesh, were being stacked
For hungers whetted by the driving snow.
Fresh robes were tanning in the autumn glow
For warriors camping fireless in the cold.
And noisily the mimic battles rolled
Among the little children, grim in play.
The village had been growing day by day
Since Red Cloud sent a pipe to plead his cause
Among the far-flung Tetons. Hunkpapas,
Unhurried by the fear of any foe,
Were making winter meat along Moreau
The day the summons came to gird their loins.
The Sans Arcs, roving where the Belle Fourche joins
The Big Cheyenne, had smoked the proffered pipe
When grapes were good and plums were getting ripe.
Amid the Niobrara meadowlands
And up the White, the scattered Brulé bands,
That scorned the talk at Laramie, had heard.
Among the Black Hills went the pipe and word
To find the Minneconjoux killing game
Where elk and deer were plentiful and tame
And clear creeks bellowed from the canyon beds.
Still westward where the double Cheyenne heads,
The hunting Ogalalas hearkened too.
So grew the little camp as lakelets do
When coulees grumble to a lowering sky.
Big names, already like a battle cry,
Were common in the town; and there were some
In which terrific thunders yet were dumb
But soon should echo fearsome and abhorred:
Crow King, Big Foot, the younger Hump, and Sword,
Black Leg and Black Shield, Touch-the-Cloud and Gall;
And that one fear would trumpet over all—
Young Crazy Horse; and Spotted Tail, the wise;
Red Cloud and Man Afraid, both battle-cries;
Rain-in-the-Face, yet dumb; and Sitting Bull.
’Twas council time, for now the moon was full;
The time when, ere the stars may claim the dark,
A goblin morning with the owl for lark
Steals in; and ere the flags of day are furled,
Pressed white against the window of the world
A scarred face stares astonished at the sun.
The moonset and the sunrise came as one;
But ere the daybreak lifted by a span
The frosty dusk, the teepee tops began
To burgeon, and a faery sapling grove
Stood tall, to bloom in sudden red and mauve
And gold against the horizontal light.
Still humped, remembering the nipping night,
The dogs prowled, sniffing, round the open flaps
Where women carved raw haunches in their laps
To feed the kettles for the council feast.
Amid the silence of the lifting east
The criers shouted now—old men and sage,
Using the last sad privilege of age
For brief pathetic triumphs over youth.
Neat saws and bits of hortatory truth
They proffered with the orders of the day.
And names that were as scarlet in the gray
Of pending ill they uttered like a song—
The names of those who, being wise or strong,
Should constitute the council. ’Round and ’round,
The focal centers of a spreading sound,
The criers went. The folk began to fuse
In groups that seized the latest bit of news
And sputtered with the tongue of fool and seer.
A roaring hailed some chanted name held dear;
Or in a silence, no less eloquent,
Some other, tainted with suspicion, went
Among the people like a wind that blows
In solitary places.
Day arose
A spear-length high. The chattering became
A bated hum; for, conscious of their fame,
And clad in gorgeous ceremonial dress,
The Fathers of the Council cleft the press
In lanes that awe ran on before to clear;
And expectation closed the flowing rear
Sucked in to where the council bower stood.
Long since the busy squaws had fetched the wood
And lit the council fire, now smouldering.
The great men entered, formed a broken ring
To open eastward, lest the Light should find
No entrance, and the leaders of the blind
See darkly too. With reverential awe
The people, pressed about the bower, saw
The fathers sit, and every tongue was stilled.
Now Red Cloud took the sacred pipe and filled
The bowl with fragrant bark, and plucked a brand
To light it. Now with slowly lifted hand
He held it to the glowing sky, and spoke:
“Grandfather, I have filled a pipe to smoke,
And you shall smoke it first. In you we trust
To show good trails.” He held it to the dust.
“Grandmother, I have filled a pipe for you,”
He said, “and you must keep us strong and true,
For you are so.” Then offering the stem
To all four winds, he supplicated them
That they should blow good fortune. Then he smoked;
And all the Fathers after him invoked
The Mysteries that baffle Man’s desire.
Some women fetched and set beside the fire
The steaming kettles, then with groundward gaze
Withdrew in haste. A man of ancient days,
Who searched a timeless dusk with rheumy stare
And saw the ghosts of things that struggle there
Before men struggle, now remembered Those
With might to help. Six bits of meat he chose,
The best the pots afforded him, and these
He gave in order to the Mysteries,
The Sky, the Earth, the Winds, as was their due.
“Before I eat, I offer this to you,”
He chanted as he gave; “so all men should.
I hope that what I eat may do me good,
And what you eat may help you even so.
I ask you now to make my children grow
To men and women. Keep us healthy still,
And give us many buffalo to kill
And plenty grass for animals to eat.”
Some youths came forth to parcel out the meat
In order as the councillors were great
In deeds of worth; and each, before he ate,
Addressed the mystic sources of the good.
The feast now being finished, Red Cloud stood
Still pondering his words with mouth set grim;
But men felt thunder in the hush of him
And knew what lightning struggled to be wise
Behind the hawklike brooding of the eyes,
The chipped flint look about the cheek and jaw.
The humming of a hustling autumn flaw
In aspen thickets swept the waiting crowd.
It seemed his voice would tower harsh and loud.
It crooned.
“My friends, ’twas many snows ago
When first we welcomed white men. Now we know
Their hearts are bad and all their words are lies.
They brought us shining things that pleased the eyes
And weapons that were better than we knew.
And this seemed very good. They brought us too
The spirit water, strong to wash away
The coward’s fear, and for a moment stay
The creeping of old age and gnawing sorrow.
My friends, if you would have these things tomorrow,
Forget the way our fathers taught us all.
As though you planned to live till mountains fall,
Seek out all things men need and pile them high.
Be fat yourself and let the hungry die;
Be warm yourself and let the naked freeze.
So shall you see the trail the white man sees.
And when your teepee bulges to the peak,
Look round you for some neighbor who is weak
And take his little too. Dakotas, think!
Shall all the white man’s trinkets and his drink,
By which the mind is overcome and drowned,
Be better than our homes and hunting ground,
The guiding wisdom of our old men’s words?
Shall we be driven as the white man’s herds
From grass to bitter grass? When Harney said
His people, seeking for the yellow lead,
Would like an iron trail across our land,
Our good old chieftains did not understand
What snake would crawl among us. It would pass
Across our country; not a blade of grass
Should wither for that passing, they were told.
And now when scarce the council fire is cold,
Along the Little Piney hear the beat
Of axes and the desecrating feet
Of soldiers! Are we cowards? Shall we stand
Unmoved as trees and see our Mother Land
Plowed up for corn?”
Increasing as he spoke.
The smothered wrath now mastered him, and ’woke
The sleeping thunder all had waited for.
Out of a thrilling hush he shouted: “War!”—
A cry to make an enemy afraid.
The grazing ponies pricked their ears and neighed,
Recalling whirlwind charges; and the town
Roared after like a brush-jam breaking down
With many waters.
When the quiet fell
Another rose with phrases chosen well
To glut the tribal wrath, and took his seat
Amid the crowd’s acclaim. Like chunks of meat,
Flung bloody to a pack, raw words were said
By others; and the rabble’s fury, fed,
Outgrew the eager feeding. Who would dare
To rise amid the bloodlust raging there
And offer water?
Spotted Tail stood up;
And since all knew no blood was in the cup
That he would give, dumb scorn rejected him.
He gazed afar, and something seen made dim
The wonted quizzic humor of the eyes.
The mouth, once terrible with battle-cries,
Took on a bitter droop as he began.
“Hey—hey’-hey! So laments an aging man
Who totters and can never more be free
As once he was. Hey—hey’-hey! So may we
Exclaim today for what the morrow brings.
There is a time, my brothers, for all things,
And we are getting old. Consider, friends,
How everything begins and grows and ends
That other things may have their time and grow.
What tribes of deer and elk and buffalo
Have we ourselves destroyed lest we should die!
About us now you hear the dead leaves sigh;
Since these were green, how few the moons have been!
We share in all this trying to begin,
This trying not to die. Consider well
The White Man—what you know and what men tell
About his might. His never weary mind
And busy hands do magic for his kind.
Those things he loves we think of little worth;
And yet, behold! he sweeps across the earth,
And what shall stop him? Something that is true
Must help him do the things that he can do,
For lies are not so mighty. Be not stirred
By thoughts of vengeance and the burning word!
Such things are for the young; but let us give
Good counsel for the time we have to live,
And seek the better way, as old men should.”
He ended; yet a little while he stood
Abashed and lonely, seeing how his words
Had left as little trace as do the birds
Upon the wide insouciance of air.
He sat at length; and round him crouching there
The hostile silence closed, as waters close
Above the drowned.
Then Sitting Bull arose;
And through the stirring crowd a murmur ’woke
As of a river yielding to the stroke
Of some deft swimmer. No heroic height
Proclaimed him peer among the men of might,
Nor was his bearing such as makes men serve.
Bull-torsed, squat-necked, with legs that kept a curve
To fit the many ponies he had backed,
He scarcely pleased the eyes. But what he lacked
Of visible authority to mould
Men’s lives, was compensated manifold
By something penetrating in his gaze
That searched the rabble, seeming to appraise
The common weakness that should make him strong.
One certainty about him held the throng—
His hatred of the white men. Otherwise,
Conjecture, interweaving truth and lies,
Wrought various opinions of the man.
A mountebank—so one opinion ran—
A battle-shirking intimate of squaws,
A trivial contriver of applause,
A user of the sacred for the base.
Yet there was something other in his face
Than vanity and craft. And there were those
Who aw him in that battle with the Crows
The day he did a thing no coward could.
There ran a slough amid a clump of wood
From whence, at little intervals, there broke
A roaring and a spurt of rifle-smoke
That left another wound among the Sioux.
Now Sitting Bull rode down upon the slough
To see what might be seen there. What he saw
Was such as might have gladdened any squaw—
A wounded warrior with an empty gun!
’Twas then that deed of Sitting Bull was done,
And many saw it plainly from the hill.
Would any coward shun an easy kill
And lose a scalp? Yet many saw him throw
His loaded rifle over to the Crow,
Retreat a space, then wheel to charge anew.
With but a riding quirt he counted coup
And carried back a bullet in his thigh.
Let those who jeered the story for a lie
Behold him limping yet! And others said
He had the gift of talking with the dead
And used their clearer seeing to foretell
Dark things aright; that he could weave a spell
To make a foeman feeble if he would.
Such things the people pondered while he stood
And searched them with a quiet, broad-browed stare.
Then suddenly some magic happened there.
Can men grow taller in a breathing span?
He spoke; and even scorners of the man
Were conscious of a swift, disarming thrill,
The impact of a dominating will
That overcame them.
“Brothers, you have seen
The way the spring sun makes the prairie green
And wakes new life in animal and seed,
Preparing plenty for the biggest need,
Remembering the little hungers too.
The same mysterious quickening makes new
Men’s hearts, for by that power we also live.
And so, till now, we thought it good to give
All life its share of what that power sends
To man and beast alike. But hear me, friends!
We face a greedy people, weak and small
When first our fathers met them, now grown tall
And overbearing. Tireless in toil,
These madmen think it good to till the soil,
And love for endless getting marks them fools.
Behold, they bind their poor with many rules
And let their rich go free! They even steal
The poor man’s little for the rich man’s weal!
Their feeble have a god their strong may flout!
They cut the land in pieces, fencing out
Their neighbors from the mother of all men!
When she is sick, they make her bear again
With medicines they give her with the seed!
All this is sacrilegious! Yet they heed
No word, and like a river in the spring
They flood the country, sweeping everything
Before them! ’Twas not many snows ago
They said that we might hunt our buffalo
In this our land forever. Now they come
To break that promise. Shall we cower, dumb?
Or shall we say: ‘First kill us—here we stand!’ ”
He paused; then stooping to the mother-land,
He scraped a bit of dust and tossed it high.
Against the hollow everlasting sky
All watched it drifting, sifting back again
In utter silence. “So it is with men,”
Said Sitting Bull, his voice now low and tense;
“What better time, my friends, for going hence
Than when we have so many foes to kill?”
He ceased. As though they heard him speaking still,
The people listened; for he had a way
That seemed to mean much more than he could say
And over all the village cast a spell.
At length some warrior uttered in a yell
The common hate. ’Twas like the lean blue flash
That stabs a sultry hush before the crash
Of heaven-rending thunder and the loud
Assault of winds. Then fury took the crowd
And set it howling with the lust to slay.
The councillors were heard no more that day;
And from the moony hill tops all night long
The wolves gave answer to the battle-song,
And saw their valley hunting-grounds aflare
With roaring fires, and frenzied shadows there
That leaped and sang as wolves do, yet were men.