By a Road We Do Not Know

By

Timothy C. Phillips

I.

White Man Runs Him

I am White Man Runs Him, Crow warrior and Chief of Scouts for the Seventh Cavalry,

United States Army. There, on the hill called the Crow‟s Nest, we scouts gathered. We stood

with Custer, who we called Yellow Hair. We were all there: Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin,

Bloody Knife, and me. I gave Yellow Hair the binoculars that morning, and said to him, „look,

there is the great camp of the Lakota and the Cheyenne. See, they crawl in the grass like ants.”

The others urged him also, but Yellow Hair grew angry. “I don‟t see anything,” he told

us, over and over again. “Where is it?”

We knew then that the Lakota‟s medicine had placed a veil in the world, a veil that hid

them from the eyes of the white men. “We cannot attack such a village, Yellow Hair.” Bloody

Knife said. “They are too many for us.”

Yellow Hair cursed and pushed his way past us. “The attack will go in. I have no time

for this talk of magic.”

When we heard his words, many of us took off our blue coats, because we knew that day

we were to die, and we wanted to go to the spirit world in the clothes of our people. Yellow hair,

just mounting his horse to go, accused us of defeatism and sent us to the rear.

“We will defeat them easily, you will all see.” He told us, “and then we will go home to

our station.”

Only Bloody Knife had not removed his Blue Coat. But he shook his head at Yellow

Hair, and said, “Great Chief, today, we go home by a road we do not know.”

II.

Custer and Kellog

Custer on his horse. Custer with Kellog, the newspaper man, riding beside him. This

great victory is to be reported all over the country, and at last, George Armstrong Custer will

have a star on his collar to take back to his darling Libby. Custer is in fine form now, with the

brim of his hat turned up at a rakish angle, his long, blond hair flowing around his collar,

buckskin jacket over his blue cavalry shirt. The red devils know and fear Custer, the Great Indian

Fighter, he has assured Kellog. Today there will be a fine show, and Kellog with have the biggest

exclusive in the history of the plains.

“They‟ll turn tail and run when they see old Yellow Hair coming. I have never seen the

Indian who did not run when the Seventh Cavalry started up a charge. We have two hundred and

fifty troopers here. That‟s more than we will need to pacify this band of renegades.”

This is to be Custer‟s moment, and he has gone to pains to make sure that the limelight

will be his alone. Custer has sent his subordinate, the competent soldier Major Benteen, on a

fool‟s errand with three companies so he will be out of the fight and can claim none of the glory

for himself. He will not be in on the kill today. When Custer is made general, he will rid himself

of Benteen and all the other insubordinate swine. But that is for later; nothing must spoil today.

Today, Colonel Custer is going to give Kellog a show he won‟t soon forget. It will be

written up and published in newspapers from coast to coast. That will finally make Custer

famous, which is his right. “We‟ll ride around to the rear and trample the women and children.

That will have the red bastards in disarray and we will pick them off like--”

But what‟s this trooper riding up like the devil is after him?

An A Company man, from his collar button. Why has Major Reno sent him here? Custer

has sent Reno and his command around to the south end of the Indian position. He sent Bloody

Knife, his most trusted scout, along so as to insure success in finding the hostile camp. Reno‟s

attack, in fact, should be going in at this very minute. Had something gone wrong? Disgusted

with Reno‟s poor soldiering, Custer takes a deep breath and tries to look confident in front of

Kellog as the wide-eyed boy draws up next to him, his horse lathered in white sweat. Reno,

Custer thinks to himself, once I lick these redskins, I am going to have your hide.

III.

Private John Bailey

As we mount the ridge, we stare death in the face. Below us on the plain is the largest

Indian village that any of us have ever seen. Reno‟s men are off their horses in the distance, and

five hundred braves are trying to ring them in. Custer shouts orders and leads us down the hill

into a hollow. The Sioux are not running away, today; they are coming out to meet us. No one

here has ever seen so many of them in one place. They have rifles, and they raise them in the air

as they charge at us.

“Well, son,” the old trooper next to me says, better get yourself right with Jesus, because

we‟re all going to meet up with him real soon.”

Down we go, into the ravine, and the officers yell for us to dismount and form a skirmish

line, the the Indians keep firing at us and what I am supposed to do, my gun‟s not even loaded,

you have to keep it unloaded or the bullet will sweat, and the Crow scout next to me makes a

weird noise and falls over with a bullet hole the size of a silver dollar in the back of his head, and

there are so many guns going off that it sounds like somebody ripping a big thick sheet in half,

and the old geezer who was so flip a moment before wheezes and an arrow just appears out of

nowhere in his throat, and then there are hundreds of them falling all around us now, there must

be a hundred thousand Indians on the other side of that hill just firing arrows up into the air, and

suddenly there is a red-hot brand stuck through my calf, and my leg is pinned to the ground and

then something stabs me in the top of my shoulder, and men are crying like babies and there are

so many Indians around me that I must be dreaming and I start to laugh, because everybody

knows that you can‟t die in a dream.

IV.

Rain-in-the-Face

No white man lives upon the crest of the low hill. The men walk among the dead blue

coats with their knives, taking scalps and other trophies. The banner of the Seventh Cavalry lies

in the dust. Crazy Horse gets down from his pony and picks it up. He will hang it in his lodge, to

show that he has bested his enemy, Custer. The great chiefs have decreed that Custer will be

allowed to wear his scalp into the Spirit World. He has been punished enough. His scouts and his

blue coats must ride with him on a strange road tonight. Twilight is gathering in this late June

evening. We have won a great victory, and the white men will tremble when the news reaches

them tomorrow.

More blue coats will come now, many more, so we break camp and move our separate

ways; the purpose of the great gathering is done. The Lakota will cross the great divide, into the

land of the red coats, the white men who do not make war on us. There, we will hunt buffalo and

perhaps we will winter there, in the high timber lands, and listen to the stories of bravery our

warriors will tell of this and other days. We take the last of our trophies and mount our ponies. A

long road lies ahead of us, and many dread the journey.