Cry of the Hawk

Julesburg was a small settlement compared to Denver City farther south on the river. It served as a stage stop and crossing place of the river for the Holladay coach lines going on west to Salt Lake City. The stage ranch itself was constructed of cedar logs hauled in from Cottonwood Canyon a hundred miles away. A cluster of low-roofed buildings: telegraph office, stables and corrals for fresh teams, in addition to a large store and an adobe warehouse filled with Ben Holladay’s Overland Stage property and commodities. Only a mile to the west stood the strong stockade of Fort Rankin, established in August of 1864 and garrisoned by one company of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry.

At dawn the following winter morning, Crazy Horse and six other decoys joined the Shahiyena Crooked Lance Society chief named Big Crow in riding out of the sand hills into plain sight of the settlement and soldiers. They hurried their ponies down to attack a small body of soldiers who withdrew, escaping back into the stockade. Minutes later a large body of horse soldiers and citizens burst from the fort gates in pursuit of the decoys.

Big Crow and Crazy Horse retreated into the sand hills, drawing the eager soldiers behind them.

Yet some impatient young warriors spoiled the trap and burst past the camp police too early, alerting the soldiers before they had ridden into the noose.

The soldier chief called to his sixty men, turning them about in a clumsy group, and tore off at a gallop. Crazy Horse wheeled about with the white men and was soon riding among the stragglers, hitting the frightened ones with his bow before he shot them from their horses.

Some of the white men reined up and dropped from their mounts to fight on foot. When the main body of warriors came up, most of the soldiers were quickly overrun. The rest cut their way back to the stockade, where the gate was hurriedly shut behind them, abandoning the bodies of fourteen soldiers and four civilians for the warriors to mutilate.

The rest of the thousand warriors then turned their attention to the settlement of Julesburg and the stage station. By the time the women came up with the extra ponies, the warriors were hauling plunder out of the warehouse: bolts of colorful cloth, sacks of shelled corn, flour, sugar, along with canned oysters, catsup, and an entire display case filled with gold and silver watches dragged out the door using a buffalo-hair lariat tied to a pony. Some of the warriors located a sturdy box they hacked open with their axes, finding inside bundles of green paper, which they promptly sliced apart and hurled into the cold breeze of that winter morning.

It was not until late that afternoon that the ponies were loaded with everything they could carry and the cattle herd across the river was herded south for their return to the great encampment at Cherry Creek.

Less than ten days later, the warrior force was back to pillage Julesburg again. Other parties ranged up and down the South Platte, searching for more road-ranches to plunder. Crazy Horse joined some of Pawnee Killer’s band, who carefully spread sand across the frozen river west of the plundered settlement of Julesburg and crossed to the north bank. They attacked Harlow’s Ranch and killed everyone there but a lone white woman and her child, who were taken prisoner. The place left a bad taste in the Horse’s mouth for he would never forget how the warriors found some small kegs of the white man’s whiskey and got drunk. So drunk that a Cheyenne waving his pistol around accidentally shot an Arapaho warrior in the head, killing him to the raucous laughter of many others.

Crazy Horse had escaped that place, moving upstream a mile before he halted among some willow and cottonwood and made himself a lonely camp for the night.

For five more days the warriors ranged up and down the river, cutting off the supply routes and dragging down telegraph poles, using their ponies to pull the white man’s talking wire far across the prairie. More stations were burned, their employees killed. Cattle were driven off by the young men.

By the time their week of raiding was complete, the villages were brimming with plunder. Nervous ponies were hitched to many wagons groaning under sacks of flour and cornmeal, rice and coffee. There were barrels of the white man’s pig meat and crates filled with sugar-coated citron fruits along with small tins of dark, sweet molasses. Shoes, clothing, boots, belts, and hats, besides the bolts of bright cloth the women argued over.