THIS BOOK is about Crazy Horse, not Custer. That erratic egotist has been studied more than enough; he has even been the subject of one of the best books written about the west, Evan S. Connell Jr.’s Son of the Morning Star. Historians have speculated endlessly about why he did what he did at the Little Bighorn, on the twenty-fifth of June, 1876; and yet what he did was perfectly in keeping with his nature. He did what he had always done: push ahead, disregard orders, start a fight, win it unassisted if possible, then start another fight. He had seldom done otherwise, and there was no reason at all to expect him to do otherwise in Montana.
It may be true, as several writers have suggested, that he was covertly running for president that summer. The Democratic convention was just convening: a flashy victory and a timely telegram might have put him in contention for the nomination. Maybe, as Connell suggests, he thought he could mop up on the Sioux, race down to the Yellowstone, hop on the steamer Far West, and make it to the big Centennial parade on July fourth. So he marched his men most of the night and flung them into battle when—as a number of Indians noted—they were so tired their legs shook when they dismounted. As usual, he did only minimal reconnaissance, and convinced himself on no evidence whatever that the Indians must be running away from him, not toward him. The highly experienced scouts who were with him—the half-breed Mitch Bouyer and the Crows Bloody Knife and Half Yellow Face—all told Custer that they would die if they descended into the valley where the Indians were. None of them, in all their many years on the plains, had ever seen anything to match this great encampment. All the scouts knew that the valley ahead was for them the valley of death. Half Yellow Face, poetically, told Custer that they would all go home that day by a road they did not know. The fatalism of these scouts is a story in itself. Mitch Bouyer, who knew exactly what was coming, sent the young scout Curly away, but then himself rode on with Custer, to his death.
Whatever they said, what wisdom they offered, Custer ignored. It may be that he was running for president, but it is hard to believe that he would have done anything differently even if it had been an off year politically. Reno and Benteen, whom he had forced to split off, both testified much later that they didn’t believe Custer had any plan when he pressed his attack. He was—and long had been—the most aggressive general in the American army. It didn’t matter to him how many Indians there were. When he saw an enemy, he attacked, and would likely have done so even if he had no political prospects.
In the week between the fight on the Rosebud and the one at the Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse went back to the big party. The great General Crook had been whipped—the Indians felt invincible again, though some commentators have suggested that a sense of doom and foreboding hung over the northern plains during this fatal week: Indian and soldier alike were said to have felt it. Something dark and terrible was about to happen—and yet it was high summer in one of the most beautiful places in Montana, the one time when that vast plain is usually free of rain clouds or snow clouds. But this summer, Death was coming to a feast, and many felt his approach. On the morning of the battle, when most of the Sioux and Cheyennes were happily and securely going about their domestic business, never supposing that any soldiers would be foolish enough to attack them, Crazy Horse, it is said, marked, in red pigment, a Bloody Hand on both of his horse’s hips, and drew an arrow and a bloody red hand on both sides of his horse’s neck. Oglala scouts had been keeping watch on Custer, following his movements closely. Crazy Horse either knew or sensed that the fatal day had come.