His hair was undressed; it fell like a dark cloak around his shoulders and back. He carried no lance, nor yet a steel hatchet, so he was clearly not Cheyenne.
The pony the man rode moved a foot to one side; the sun went behind the shoulder and the glare fell away. The rider’s shadow dropped over Craig’s face and he saw more clearly.
The pinto pony was neither piebald nor skew-bald as most Indian mounts. It was a pale fawn, known as a golden buckskin. Craig had heard of that pony.
The man on it was naked but for a breechcloth around his waist and moccasins on his feet. He was dressed like a simple brave but had the authority of a chief. There was no shield on his left forearm, implying that he disdained personal protection, but from the left hand dangled a stone war club. Therefore, Sioux.
The war club was a fearsome weapon. Eighteen inches of haft, ending in a fork. Into the fork was rammed a smooth stone the size of a large goose egg. This was tied with hide thongs which would have been soaking wet when applied as lashings. Drying in the sun, they would shrink and tighten, so that the stone never fell. A blow from such a club would smash arms, shoulders or ribs, and crush the human skull like a walnut. It could only be used at close quarters, thus bringing much honour.
When he spoke again it was in the Oglala Sioux tongue, which being closest to Cheyenne the scout could understand.
‘Why did you tie the wasichu like this?’
‘We did not, Great Chief. We found him thus tied, by his own people.’
The dark gaze fell on the thongs still tied to each of Craig’s ankles. The Sioux noticed, but said nothing. Sat, lost in thought. His chest and shoulders were covered with painted circles to represent hailstones and from his hairline a single black lightning bolt ran to his bullet-scarred chin. He wore no other ornamentation but Craig knew him by repute. He was looking at the legendary Crazy Horse, undisputed chief of the Oglala Sioux these past twelve years, since the age of twenty-six, a man revered for his fearlessness, mysticism and self-denial.
An evening breeze came off the river below. It ruffled the chief’s hair, the long grass and the feather behind the scout’s head, which came to rest on one buckskin shoulder. Crazy Horse noted this too. It was a sign of honour given by the Cheyenne.
‘He lives,’ ordered the war leader. ‘Take him to Chief Sitting Bull for judgement.’
The warriors were disappointed to lose the chance of so much loot, but they obeyed. Craig was hauled to his feet and hustled down the hill to the river. As he went the half-mile he saw the aftermath of the massacre.
Across the slope the 210 men of the five companies, minus scouts and deserters, were strewn in the strange postures of death. The Indians were stripping them of everything in the search for trophies, then carrying out the ritual mutilations, different according to each tribe. The Cheyenne slashed legs so the dead man could not pursue them, the Sioux battered skulls and faces to pulp with stone clubs. Others severed arms, legs and heads.
Fifty yards down the hill the scout saw the body of George Armstrong Custer, naked but for his cotton ankle socks, marble white under the sun. He remained unmutilated save for the punctured eardrums and would be found that way by Terry’s men.
Everything was being taken from pockets and saddlebags: rifles and pistols of course, with the copious supply of ammunition still remaining; tobacco pouches, steel-case watches, wallets with family photos, anything that could constitute a trophy. Then came the caps, boots and uniforms. The hillside swarmed with braves and squaws.
At the riverbank there was a cluster of ponies. Craig was hoisted onto one and he and his four escorts splashed through the Little Bighorn to the western bank. As they rode through the Cheyenne village the women came out to scream abuse at the one surviving wasichu, but they fell silent when they saw the eagle feather. Was this a friend or a traitor?
The group trotted down through the camps of the Sans Arcs and the Minneconjou until they reached the village of the Hunkpapa. The camp was in uproar.
These braves had not faced Custer on the hill; they had met and driven back Major Reno, whose remnants were even then across the river, besieged on their hilltop, joined by Benteen and the mule train, wondering why Custer did not ride back down the hills to relieve them.
Blackfoot, Minneconjou and Hunkpapa warriors rode hither and thither waving their trophies taken from Reno’s dead, and here and there Craig saw a blond or ginger scalp being waved aloft. Surrounded by screaming squaws, they came to the lodge of the great medicine man and judge, Sitting Bull.
His Oglala escorts explained the orders of Crazy Horse, handed him over and rode back to seek their trophies on the slope. Craig was roughly thrown into a teepee and two old squaws were instructed to watch over him with knives in their hands.
It was long after dark when he was sent for. A dozen braves came for him and dragged him out. Campfires had been lit and by their light the still-painted warriors were a fearsome sight. But the mood had calmed, even though a mile away, beyond the cottonwood stand and across the river, out of sight, occasional shots in the dark indicated that the Sioux were still crawling up the hill to Reno’s defensive circle on the bluff.
In the entire battle, at both ends of the huge camp, the Sioux had taken thirty-one casualties. Although 1,800 warriors had been involved and their enemies had been virtually wiped out, they felt the loss. Up and down the camps widows were keening over husbands and sons and preparing them for the Great Journey.
At the centre of the Hunkpapa village was one fire larger than the rest, and around it were a dozen chiefs, supreme among them Sitting Bull. He was then just forty but he looked older, his mahogany face even darker in the firelight and deeply lined. Like Crazy Horse, he was revered for once having had a great vision of the future of his people and of the buffalo of the plains. It had been a bleak vision: he had seen them all wiped out by the white man, and he was known to hate the wasichu. Craig was thrown down twenty feet to his left so that the fire did not block the view. They all stared at him for some time. Sitting Bull gave an order which Craig did not understand. A brave unsheathed his knife and moved behind Craig. He waited for the death blow.
The knife sliced through the cords binding his wrists. For the first time in twenty-four hours he could bring his hands to the front of his body. He realized he could not even feel them. The blood began to flow back, causing first a fiery tingle and then pain. He kept his face immobile.
Sitting Bull spoke again, this time to him. He did not understand, but replied in Cheyenne. There was a buzz of surprise. One of the other chiefs, Two Moon of the Cheyenne, spoke.
‘The Great Chief asks why the wasichu tied you to your horse and your hands behind you.’
‘I had offended them,’ said the scout.
‘Was it a bad offence?’ For the rest of the interrogation Two Moon interpreted.
‘The chief of the blue uniforms wanted to hang me. Tomorrow.’
‘What had you done to them?’