Little Big Man

One night in early July, it must have been, and we was camped in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains and had got some buffalo and ate its juicy hump that evening, spicing it with the bitter gall of the beast, into which we’d first dip our knives. It had been a hot day, but cooled off rapidly at that height, and the fire was right cheery to feel against your greasy face, being made of pinewood, crackling and fragrant, for we was close to real timber. After a time it got so warm inside the tepee that them little kids throwed off their blankets and scampered around with their tiny brown arses bare.

The chief’s fat wives was chewing on a big hide to soften it, one on each end, and chattering gossip between each bite, about the love life of Crazy Horse who had married a Cheyenne girl. I seen that great warrior once before we split off by ourselves: he had a face full of sharpened edges, wore no ornamentation whatever, no paint, no feathers; he was like a living weapon. He surrendered a year later to the military and was stabbed to death in a scuffle at the agency while his arms was being held by another Indian called Little Big Man. —Not me. He was a Sioux and therefore it was a different name though Englishing the same.

Old Lodge Skins wiped his knife blade on his legging and belched like a trumpet call.

I asked him then what he had meant by his remarks up on the ridge. For I saw it as queer that he had turned more pessimistic after the Indians had won than upon the many occasions when they lost.

“Yes, my son,” he says, “it is finished now, because what more can you do to an enemy than beat him? Were we fighting red men against red men—the way we used to, because that is a man’s profession, and besides it is enjoyable—it would now be the turn of the other side to try to whip us. We would fight as hard as ever, and perhaps win again, but they would definitely start with an advantage, because that is the right way. There is no permanent winning or losing when things move, as they should, in a circle. For is not life continuous? And though I shall die, shall I not also continue to live in everything that is?

“The buffalo eats grass, I eat him, and when I die, the earth eats me and sprouts more grass. Therefore nothing is ever lost, and each thing is everything forever, though all things move.”

The old man put his knife into its beaded scabbard. He went on: “But white men, who live in straight lines and squares, do not believe as I do. With them it is rather everything or nothing: Washita or Greasy Grass. And because of their strange beliefs, they are very persistent. They will even fight at night or in bad weather. But they hate the fighting itself. Winning is all they care about, and if they can do that by scratching a pen across paper or saying something into the wind, they are much happier.

“They will not be content now to come and take revenge upon us for the death of the formerly Long Hair, which they could easily do. Indeed, if we all return to the agencies, they probably would not kill anyone. For killing is part of living, but they hate life. They hate war. In the old days they tried to make peace between us and the Crow and Pawnee, and we all shook hands and did not fight for a while, but it made everybody sick and our women began to be insolent and we could not wear our fine clothes if we were at peace. So finally we rode to a Crow camp and I made a speech there. ‘We used to like you when we hated you,’ I told those Crow. ‘Now that we are friends of yours, we dislike you a great deal.’

“ ‘That does not make sense,’ they said.

“ ‘Well, it wasn’t our idea.’

“They said: ‘Nor ours. We used to think you Cheyenne were pretty when we fought you. Now you look like ugly dogs.’

“So it was an emergency, and we had a big battle.”

Old Lodge Skins shook his head. “Those Crow,” he said. “They were good fighters in the olden time, but nowadays they are full of shame, riding with white soldiers. I heard they ran off at the Greasy Grass, and it did not surprise me.”

Well, speak of shame, there was me. I still had not commenced to explain my presence with Custer. If indeed it could be explained. I had to try.

I says: “Grandfather, few people have your great wisdom. The rest of us are often caught in situations where all we can do is survive, let alone understand them. So with me, Little Big Man—” I realized my error soon as I said it.

“Ah,” says Old Lodge Skins, “a person should never speak his own name. A devil might steal it, leaving the poor person nameless.”

I apologized and started in again, but the chief yawns and says he was going to sleep, so he did.