Red Devils - 9 Cora Sue reads Pretty Shield's Version of Events

I found Cora Sue an article that appeared to be written by a friend on Custer’s side, and also the Medicine Woman,  Pretty Shield, wife of Goes Ahead.  

"Goes Ahead was with General Custer on the day he was killed on the Little Bighorn, was he not?"

"Ahh," she smiled, with great pride in her eyes, "and for that the Great Chief in Washington sends me, every moon, a paper that I trade away for two dollars. And I need it for my children. I wish it were more," she added, a quick change in her expressive face.

"Tell me about this," I urged. "Tell me all that you remember about the fight on the Little Bighorn."

She got up and went to the door, stood there looking out at the hill that is thickly covered with gleaming white monuments.

"Were they ever buried?" I asked, standing behind her. (Goes Ahead on right, Curly on left. Overlooking burial site.)

"I do not know, Sign-talker," she answered, with uncertainty in her voice. "I do know that this country smelled of dead men for a whole summer after the fight, and that we moved away from here, because we could not stand it.

"I remember when Son-of-the-morning star [General Custer] fought our old enemies the Lacota and Cheyenne, on the Little Bighorn," she went on, speaking slowly, as though collecting her thoughts.

" When Son-of-the-morning-star left the camp of the blue soldiers at the mouth of Tongue River he went up the Rosebud, The country was filled with Lacota and Cheyenne. They were like ants on a freshly killed buffalo robe that is pegged to the ground. Of course the Crow wolves knew this by the sign that the enemy left, tracks, old fires, and dead buffalo whose meat had been but half taken, many such things that told the truth. Such things tell a good deal, show that men are traveling, and that they are in a great hurry to reach some place.

"Goes-ahead, White-man-runs-him, and Hairy-moccasin, were ahead of Son-of-the-morning-star and his blue horse-soldiers.

"They knew that there were more Lacota and Cheyenne somewhere ahead than there were bullets in the belts of the blue soldiers who were with Son-of-the-morning-star. They believed that they ought to tell him this, so they went back, and told him. But he only said, 'Go on again,' and then drank from a straw-covered bottle that was on his saddle.

" Goes-ahead, and the other two Crow wolves, went on again, as they had been told. But when they came once more to the place where the big Lacota village had been, they waited there for Son-of-the-morning-star to come to them with his horse-soldiers

"When he got there, and had looked around a little, Son-of-the-morning-star asked  Goes-ahead, if there was a better place to camp and Goes-ahead showed him.

" The sun was not yet near the middle of the sky when they saw the biggest village they had ever looked upon in their lives. It was on the Little Bighorn River. The flat was white with lodges, and the hills black with Lacota and Cheyenne horses, as far as they could see.

" Goes-ahead felt afraid when he saw so many lodges.   They met Son-of-the-morning-star coming down the creek, and told him what they had seen. They said that there were more Lacota, more enemies, than there were bullets in the soldiers' belts, that there were too many to fight.

"But Son-of-the-morning-star was going to his death, and did not know it. He was like a feather blown by the wind, and had to go."

She pressed her fist against her forehead, and bent her head. "Tst, tst, tst! He would not listen," she murmured. "And he was brave; yes, he was a brave man.

"The soldier chief wanted to fight. He had to fight, because he had to die. And this made others die with him," she added, speaking slowly and with deep feeling.

"Goes-ahead said Son-of-the-morning-star drank too often from the straw-covered bottle, and that as soon as Two-bodies told him that he might yet get away he made a big mistake by dividing his blue horse-soldiers into three parties, sending two of them away from him."

Pretty-shield was deeply affected here. She stood up, leaning over the table. "It was now that Goes-ahead, stripped himself for battle, tying some breath-feathers in his hair," she said, speaking rapidly. "And it was now that Curly, who said he was sick, ran away. Ahh, I know these things are true, because my man, Goes-ahead, was there and saw them happen.

“Goes-ahead, was with Son-of-the-morning-star when he rode down to the water of the Little Bighorn. He heard a Lacota call out to Two-bodies, who rode beside Son-of-the-morning-star, and say, 'Go back, or you will die.'

"But he did not go back. He went ahead, rode into the water of the Little Bighorn, with Two-bodies on one side of him, and his flag on the other - and he died there, died in the water of the Little Bighorn, with Two-bodies, and the blue soldier carrying his flag.

"When he  fell in the water, the other blue soldiers ran back up the hill. It was now that Goes-ahead, ran fast. He told me that the fighters were so many, and so crazy, that in the thick dust and powder-smoke, anybody might easily have run away.

"They ran up the little creek that comes into the Little Bighorn just above the spot where Son-of-the-morning-star fell down from his horse. They kept running fast until they came to the packers, who had all the blue soldiers' bullets and grub.   Goes-ahead  said that when he and the others got there the packers had formed a circle with their pack-train, and that the mules were falling dead, that bullets were coming like rain, and that he, with the two other Crow wolves, stopped there to help the packers fight. They dug pits there, and beside these holes, the dead mules stopped many, many bullets."

 Goes-together, our interpreter, who had been sewing buckskin with an awl and sinew, laid her work aside, as though she too had been stirred by Pretty-shield's expressed feeling.  

"The sun was more than half way between the middle of the sky and the world when the yelling and shooting stopped," she said, evenly. "It was now that White-man-runs-him spoke in Crow to my man, Goes-ahead, and Hairy-moccasin.  'We had better get away from here before the enemy charges this place,' he said.

"The three Crow wolves got up to go. They had good soldiers' guns now, and thought that they could make out to reach their people.

"'Where are you going?' the chief packer asked.

"'We are going to get a drink of water,' signed White-man-runs-him, cunningly.

"The packer chief gave each of the three Crow wolves a canvas-covered, flat bottle to fill and bring back.  The three Crows did not go after the water, did not even keep the flat bottles. They cut across to Reno Creek, following it upstream until they reached pine trees. Here they saw four Lacota wolves who had been sitting on the high hills to watch for more blue soldiers. They had not been in the fighting. One of these Lacota wolves was quite a way behind the others. He was riding a gray horse, and leading a sorrel mule that must have got away from the blue soldiers.   Goes-ahead, killed this Lacota, and scalped him. The sorrel mule got away from Goes-ahead, but not the gray horse. The rope that the dead Lacota had dropped when my man's bullet struck him, got tangled in the gray's legs, so that Goes-ahead caught him. He gave this horse to White-man-runs-him. They took turns riding him, because they had no other horse. They had lost them in the fight. I well remember that old gray Lacota horse. His back was sore, and he was so old that he was no good.

" When Goes-ahead, reached the Bighorn River with the two others, he found it high, bad to cross. The water had spread out very wide. Rain was falling, and it was dark besides. They could not see the other side of the wide river when they began to swim, so that when they reached land they thought that they were across the stream. But it was only an island they reached; and here they rested before going the rest of the way.

"They had no clothes, because they had stripped themselves to fight, and did not go back to look for any clothes. But now they felt pretty cold, and they were hungry, having had nothing to eat since the morning before the fighting on the Little Bighorn. While they were resting the day came, gray and rainy. Goes-ahead saw two wolves on the hills across the Bighorn. He believed they were Crows. They came down to the water's edge on their side, and said, in signs, that all the blue horse-soldiers were dead.

"One of these Crow wolves, who had been with The-limping-one [General Gibbon] was named No-milk. The other's name was Plenty-butterflies. No-milk crossed the river and gave my man and the others some bacon and soldiers' bread, and part of his clothing. He said that more blue soldiers, walking-soldiers, were coming, and that they had six wagons with them that made their traveling very slow. He said that the soldiers had told him that White-swan, and my uncle, Half-yellow-face, the two Crow wolves who had, by mistake, gone with the little soldier-chief [Reno] when Son-of-the-morning-star divided his men, were dead. While he was talking some other Crows who had been with The-limping-one [Gibbon] and The-other-one [Terry] crossed the river, and did not go back to the walking-soldiers.

"Our village was on Arrow creek when these Crows came to us. When our wolves saw them they signaled that the Lacota were coming. A war party rode out to meet them, and even attacked them, by mistake. Goes-ahead, had to kill two of their horses before the Crow war-party saw its mistake and stopped its foolishness. By this you can see how nervous my people were during these days of trouble. Everybody looked exactly like a Lacota to us.

"This time the home-coming of our warriors was not a happy one. I saw Goes-ahead, and felt glad; but when the men who had been to war told us that Half-yellow-face and White-swan were dead, my heart fell down to the ground. They were both good, brave men, and besides, Half-yellow-face was my uncle, my father's brother. The mourning was terrible to hear. The relatives of the two missing men gave away all their horses, and clothing, cutting themselves on their arms and legs and heads until they were bloody all over. But when my father began to mourn for his brother, Half-yellow-face, Goes-ahead, stopped him. 'Wait four days,' he said, 'and then if your brother does not return I will mourn with you.'

"All that night the people mourned, crying for their dead, and for Son-of-the-morning-star, and his blue soldiers, who had so foolishly died."

She ended, abruptly, staring at the wall over my head. "Sign-talker," she said, severely, "too much drinking may have made that great soldier-chief foolish on that day when he died. I have seen whiskey do such things. Our own chiefs have signed too many papers with their thumbs when whiskey was doing their thinking for them. Our old men were not whiskey drinkers. But lately our men drink, and do not care who laughs."

"Tell me about Half-yellow-face and White-swan and Curly," I suggested, to get her back to her story.

"Ahh, Curly did not come back for a long time," she said. "He found the blue soldiers who were with The-other-one and The-limping-one, and went with them to the place where the big fighting had been. It was not until after some white men took him to Washington that Curly talked, and then his tongue was not very straight.

"When Half-yellow-face and White-swan got back we heard their story, and it was like hearing the dead speak, because we thought they had been killed. They said that they had not understood, and had gone with the little chief [Reno] by mistake.  

"The Lacota set the country afire to drive them off. It was here that White-swan got shot in the hand. His hand was never any good after that day. He was also shot in the foot and in the shoulder. But the bullet only burned his shoulder, making a bloody mark there that was not bad. They stayed in that hole, even when the smoke of the Lacota fire nearly smothered them, for two days and two nights; and some of the Arickara wolves were in there with them.

"Finally the Lacota and Cheyenne left the Little Bighorn, and then the walking-soldiers came. Half-yellow-face said that they were very glad to see the walking-soldiers, because White-swan's wounds were swelling, and looked very bad, and because they all wanted to get something to eat."

She hesitated a little now, and then as though to wipe away any possibly detracting statement that she had made about General Custer, she said: "Even if Son-of-the-morning-star had not divided his men he would have been whipped and killed, because he was being blown by the winds. If The-other-one, Three-stars, The-limping-one, and Son-of-the-morning star had kept together they would have whipped the Lacota and Cheyenne; but no one of them could have done this. There were too many Lacota, too many Cheyenne.

"Two years after this bad day Half-yellow-face took my man, Goes-ahead, and me, over the ground where all these things happened. Yes," she added, "and for more than a year my people found dead blue soldiers and dead Lacota far from the Little Bighorn. I remember that in the summer following the big fight my people found four blue soldiers together, one of them a chief, beyond Big-shoulder, on Bear-in-the-middle creek. This is six miles from the fighting-place on the Little Bighorn. Our men said that, by the clothes he wore, they knew that one of these dead horse-soldiers was a chief."

Here, suddenly reminded of her duty, Pretty-shield stood up, her blanket falling to the floor. "Ahh!" she exclaimed, glancing at the window, "the sun is low down. I have talked about war until I forgot my children. I will come again. Ho!"