Trumpet on the Land: The Aftermath of Custer's Massacre, 1876

The next morning the white men rose early and straggled south out of the valley, finally disappearing among the green hills. With the soldiers gone, the young warriors waiting on either side of American Horse atop a high hill kicked their ponies into motion, racing down to the trampled grass pocked with hundreds of tiny fire smudges, a creek valley dotted with the droppings of so many horses and pack-mules. Here and there they found an abandoned prize: a worn-out hat, a good pair of gloves, a belt pouch, a piece of bloody blue cloth cut from a wounded soldier’s trousers or shirt, and even such treasure as some bacon and crackers, along with coffee wrapped in waxed paper packets!

It wasn’t long before the young Oglalla called Black Elk after his father discovered the patch of earth the white man had dug up the night before, then trampled with many hooves to hide the digging.

“This is surely the ground where they buried their dead!” Dog Necklace shouted.

Almost at once the two dozen or more fell to their hands and knees, scratching and scraping at the pounded soil, howling like a pack of coyotes expectant of a feast. From the unearthed bodies the warriors took scalps, tore off the thin gray blankets, then stripped clothing and finger rings.

Later that morning they discovered the body of that wounded Lakota butchered by the Sparrowhawk People who scouted for Three Stars as the army retreated out of the valley.

“Wrap our brother warrior in one of those soldier blankets,” American Horse demanded angrily as he gazed down at the dismembered remains.

“Not mine!” protested Red Horse, clutching the gray army blanket.

“Then I will use my own,” the Miniconjou war chief said. “But I will ask your help.”

Three others dismounted to help American Horse gather the scattered flesh and bone of the mutilated warrior identifiable only from the porcupine quillwork decorating shreds of his bloody leggings.

“And you, Red Horse,” he said sternly, training his wide-browed glare on the young warrior who had refused to relinquish his army blanket for a death-wrap, “it is you I want to build me a travois so that we can return this man’s bones to his family.”

By the time American Horse and the others reached the great encampment the following day, most women in the many circles were already at moving camp, dropping smoked hides rich with fragrance from their darkened lodgepoles, loading travois with a family’s possessions, with the little ones still too young to walk or ride atop the backs of gentle ponies—travois that might also transport the aged whose numberless winters prevented them from walking or riding. Camp was being moved downstream a few more miles west toward the Greasy Grass.

There the great gathering of circles would have nothing more to worry about than where to find the buffalo and antelope the young men would hunt for meat and hides to put up against the coming winter. Winter always came to this land, and with its arrival always came the retreat of the soldiers. American Horse hoped that by whipping Three Stars and his men on Rosebud Creek, the soldiers would abandon Lakota hunting ground even sooner this season.

From the valley of the Greasy Grass the villages would move slowly southwest toward the Big Horn Mountains, where the hunting was always good. In those days to come the camp circles would slowly break apart, warrior bands and family clans drifting off on the four winds as the summer season slowly aged.

Just as a man aged with the seasons of his own life.

Across the seasons the Miniconjou had known him first as American Horse, later as Iron Plume and Iron Shield, later still as Black Shield because of a dream in which a spirit told him to make a shield he should paint black so that it would protect him from bullets. But even though he was nowhere near so well-known to the whites as Rain-in-the-Face or Gall; American Horse was well regarded among his own Miniconjou for his unquestioned bravery in battle and his steadfast protection of his people.

For a moment American Horse turned to look back at the lone tepee his people were leaving behind as they migrated a few miles farther down the creek toward the valley of the Greasy Grass. A mourning family left it standing in the summer sun as a tribute to the warrior whose body lay inside—a warrior wounded grievously in the hips during the fight against Three Stars, one of those returned on travois to die among his kinsmen. With its smoke flaps wrapped tightly one over the other and the lodge door sewn shut against the elements, none who respected the dead would dare enter. Beside the body within the darkness lay the warrior’s favorite weapons—his true wealth in life—as well as his pipe and tobacco pouch, along with some venison soup to feed him on his journey toward the Star Road.