Chapter 11
… the spirits of the Sioux dead rest in the Paha Sapa - Black Hills.
Yellow Hair pushed the vines away from his face as he reached the bottom of the hill and looked north to where he had originally come. The river was high and the water cold from the melting mountain snow. He took a drink before heading back to where he had been camping with Gray Wolf and his mother. It wasn’t long before he saw the hoof prints from the horses of his pursuers heading in the same direction he was going. He would have to stay within the trees that lined the river bank as he returned so he wouldn’t be spotted if they were still in the area.
The river took a turn to the west and he knew the camp was just around the bend. Slowly he walked down the river bank into the water. He didn’t want to leave any foot prints as he approached. What he saw next caused him to stop in his tracks. Up ahead, hanging from a tree branch that protruded over the river, were the bodies of his mother and Gray Wolf. They had been stripped of their clothes. A feeling of rage and hatred came over him and his eyes flashed as he looked around for the evil men who had done this.
The tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down his face. Sadness like none he experienced since his father’s death at sea as they traveled to America consumed him. Why did they do this? Gray Wolf and his mother were harming no one. Gray Wolf was taking them to the Sicangu, or Brule Reservation, for the spring hunt of the buffalo. They were going to join up with other Lakota Sioux who were coming together to join Spotted Owl and the Sicangu near the Grand Tetons where the buffalo had been wintering. His good friend Little Elk and his father were going to be there as well. They were all Sioux brothers coming together as one people again. But the six Wasichus changed all of that.
The boy felt weak and dropped to his knees. He tried to keep from crying, to be a man as Gray Wolf had taught him, but he was racked with sorrow and he broke down and sobbed uncontrollably.
“Why?” He asked himself again. His mind went back to that morning when this all happened, the day that changed his life forever.
It had started with the bright orange sun rising over the horizon, promising a warm spring day. The horses were grazing lazily along the river bank as a Bob White was nosily chirping and chasing her chicks through the meadow. That all changed when Gray Wolf spotted six white men, coming toward their camp. He turned, and said: “Yellow Hair, get your mother. She is down by the river getting water. I want both of you to run into the woods as fast as you can. Make sure she goes with you. I will see what the Wasichus’ want.” He said.
Gray Wolf had been calling him Yellow Hair from the first day they met. The Sioux were amazed at the bright color of his hair, which was common in his native Sweden. They constantly wanted to touch it. His mother’s hair was more of a light brown and her skin was a pale white, which earned her the name of Pale Horse among the Sioux. Neither he nor his mother was offended by the names as they quickly learned that the names the Sioux used were tied closely to their guardian spirits or the visions they had.
Yellow Hair saw his mother filling the bear bladders with water as he ran down the river bank.
“Mother, some Wasichus are coming and Gray Wolf wants us to go into the woods and hide.”
“No, you go Esben, his mother still called him by his Christian name, I will stay and help Gray Wolf. I can speak to the Wasichus and understand their words better than Gray Wolf can. We will call you when they leave. Now go, quickly.”
Yellow Hair turned and ran along the river bank until he came across a game trail that headed deep into the woods and up the mountain. Before going, he looked back and saw the men circle Gray Wolf and his mother. One man, the biggest of the group, pointed in Yellow Hair’s direction, and two other men dismounted and started to run after him. Yellow Hair saw the big man take his lariat off his saddle and throw it around Gray Wolf, pinning his arms to his side. He dallied the rope around his saddle horn and turned his horse around before taking off, dragging Gray Wolf behind him. Gray Wolf tried to keep his balance and stay on his feet but the horse was going too fast. Soon he tripped and fell. Yellow hair could hear the big man on the horse laughing as he continued to drag Gray Wolf through the camp fire and into the river. Two others grabbed his mother and took her into the teepee. Yellow Hair felt the rage boil up within before the thought of self preservation took over as he saw that the two men coming for him were quickly approaching. He turned and headed up the mountain as fast as his legs would take him.
That was the last time he saw his mother and Gray Wolf alive and now a great shame overcame him. He shouldn’t have left them. He should have stayed there and helped Gray Wolf fight them. But what could he have done? He was just a small boy. Gray Wolf was a strong man and he was helpless against them. At least Gray Wolf stayed to fight. He didn’t run.
Yellow Hair approached the bodies and saw their battered and bruised faces. Their tongues were protruding from their mouths. Their eyes were open, staring vacantly at the ground. His breath caught in his throat and a feral feeling of rage came over him. As his eyes flashed, he looked around hoping to find the pestiferous men who had done this.
He knew he had to cut his mother and Grey Wolf down, but how?
Looking around, he saw his horse, Kodah, grazing on the buffalo grass on the other side of the river. It looked like the Wasichus were able to catch Gray Wolf’s black stallion and his mother’s paint mare but not Kodah. That did not surprise him as he was the only one Kodah would allow to approach her.
Sobbing, he ran toward his horse to bring her back to help him get the bodies down so he could preserve their spirits for their journey home. To their creator, or Wakan Tanka, as Gray Wolf and the other Sioux warriors called Him.
As he neared, he softly spoke to Kodah who nickered at his arrival. She stood still as he grabbed onto her mane and swung up on her back. Kicking her sides, they took off toward the river and the tree where the bodies hung.
Yellow Hair found Grey Wolf’s knife and sheath lying on the ground next to what remained of their teepee and clothing. He dismounted and removed the knife and stuck the sheath in his moccasin. Getting back on Kodah he rode to the bodies. First he reached up and cut the rope holding his mother. He gently eased her body over Kodah’s withers and turned and rode up the river bank toward a stand of trees. He took the lodge poles from their tee pee and secured them on each side of Kodah and stretched the skins Grey Wolf had hung to dry across them, making a travois to carry Gray Wolf and his mother to the Black Hills, the sacred burial grounds of the Sioux. After placing his mother’s body on the travois, he went back and cut down Gray Wolf and brought him back and laid him beside his mother, wrapping both bodies in the skins Gray Wolf had hung from the teepee. He then gathered up Gray Wolf’s bow and arrows and what belongings he could find of his mother’s and placed them on the platform with their bodies. He chanted the death chant he heard so many times over the past years when a Lakota warrior was returned to earth. The Sioux believe at birth one receives from Takuskanskan a guardian spirit and the life-breath, or ghost, which comes from the stars; at death these return to the spirit world.
He kept Gray Wolf’s Springfield 50 caliber buffalo rifle, bandolier and deer skin scabbard along with his old .44 caliber Colt sidearm. He would need more than his bow and arrows to keep his vow to seek revenge on the men who did this. He would spend the rest of his life, if necessary, hunting them down and killing them. This he promised on the wanagi - spirit of his mother and Gray Wolf.
Mounting Kodah, he turned and picked up the tracks of the Wasichus’ heading toward the Paha Sapa - Black Hills, the sacred ground of the Sioux. By now his tears had dried and his heart hardened.