CHAPTER TWELVE THE FIERCE BATTLE
We were now traveling towards the Crow country. I think our Indians were a little afraid that the Crows were going to try to stop them; but Washakie said that he was going through if it cost him half of his tribe, for he was not going to be bluffed off his best hunting ground any longer.
I thought something was up, because small bands of Indians kept joining us, until we had gathered about seven hundred warriors. We sent all of our surplus horses down the Snake River with Indians to guard them until we came back. Washakie and mother kept fifteen head for pack horses, and I kept two horses to ride. After the extra horses and packs had gone, we started for the disputed hunting grounds.
The men all went out ahead, followed by the pack horses, with the women and children and old men in the rear. Mother warned me to keep close to her, for Washakie said that the Crows might tackle us that day. I said that kind of talk was too thin. But we had not been traveling very long before one of our scouts came tearing back and said that he had seen where a very large band of Crows had passed, and had sighted smoke in the timber ahead.
The men all stopped and bunched together. I heard Washakie tell them to go ahead, to keep a good lookout, and if the Crows pounced on them, to fight as long as there was a man left. I thought that they must be getting brave.
We started again with the men in the lead as before, but riding very slowly. Six or eight Indians kept riding back and forth along our line to keep the squaws and pack horses from getting scattered.
Pretty soon we stopped again and the War Chief ordered us to camp there for the night. “We know now,” he said, “that we must fight or go back, and we have gone back so much that the Crows begin to think we are afraid of them. I feel that we ought to give them a lesson this time that they will not forget soon.”
“That is the way I look at it,” said Washakie. “Now is the time to show them that we will fight for our rights.”
This seemed to be the way most of the warriors felt, for I heard them talking about it in their council that night.
We camped right there, all in a bunch, with hardly room to make down our beds. A strong guard was sent to look after the horses, but the night passed off without any trouble. When morning came, ten men were sent to see if they could find any signs of the Crows. They were gone about an hour, when back they came and reported that about a thousand Crows were camped over the ridge just ahead of us.
“We will go on to our hunting grounds,” said the War Chief, “if there are ten thousand of them.”
The Indians painted up in grand style. They drew black streaks all over their faces to make themselves look fiercer, and then we got ready and started forward. We had not gone far when the squaws were ordered to stop. The warriors went on and passed over a small ridge out of our sight.
Pretty soon we heard shooting, then an Indian came and told us to go back until we came to good water and stay there until we heard from the chief. “They are fighting now,” he said.
We had hardly reached the stream of water before we saw Indians come up on the hill and then disappear, then come in sight again. They seemed to be fighting fiercely, and they were yelling to beat Old Billy. They had not been fighting over an hour before half or two thirds of them were on top of the hill and slowly coming down the side towards us.
Dr. T. M. Bridges
A Shoshone brave (Fort Hall, Idaho).
The squaws began to cry and say that the Crows were getting the better of our Indians and were driving them back. They kept coming closer and closer to us. When I looked around I saw that the squaws were getting their butcher knives; they were ready to fight if they had to. Then I noticed that our men were not coming towards us any longer. I could see Washakie on his big buckskin horse dashing around among the Indians and telling them what to do, and very soon the driving turned the other way; they began to disappear over the ridge again, and I could tell that our Indians were beating the Crows.
We could tell the Crow Indians from ours, for they had something white over one shoulder and under one arm, and they wore white feathers in their hair. There were about fifteen hundred Indians engaged in the fight on both sides, as the battle ground covered quite a piece of country. We could see a good many horses running around without riders.
I believe that the squaws would have taken part in the battle if it had not been for the guard of about fifty old Indians that kept riding around us all the time to keep the squaws and papooses and horses close together.
When our men had driven the Crows back to the ridge, they seemed to stick there; but they were still fighting and yelling and circling around. It looked as if they could not force the enemy back any farther. I got so excited that I jumped on my horse and said to another Indian boy, “Come on, let’s go up and see what they are doing and try to help them.”
Mother grabbed my bridle and said, “You crazy little dunce; haven’t you one bit of sense?”
“I might kill a whole flock of Crows,” I said, “for all you know.” But she would not let me go, and I guess it was a good thing I did not.
After about six hours of fighting, one Indian, badly wounded, came in and told us to go back to the lake, but not to unpack until we got word from the War Chief. We went back and when we got to the top of the divide we could still see the Indians fighting, although they were about two miles away, and we could see loose horses all over the prairie. The sun was nearly an hour high when we reached the lake.
About dark half of our Indians came to us and the War Chief told us to unpack and put up the tepees, for very likely we should stay there for a while. He told us that about sundown the Crows broke and ran and that Washakie with the other half of our Indians was following them to try to head them off and keep them from getting away. Washakie thought that he and his warriors could stop them until morning, and then all of his band could attack them again. The War Chief sent twenty Indians with one hundred fresh horses to overtake the Indians that were following the Crows, for their horses had been on the go all day and were about worn out. He said that he had seen twenty-five of our Indians that were dead. How many more had been killed he did not know. Mother told them that they might take two of her horses and I let them have my roan pony to help them in their chase after the fleeing Crows.
By this time three or four hundred squaws and papooses were wailing and moaning till they could be heard for two miles. I asked mother when our turn would come.
“Do hush and go to sleep,” said Hanabi; but there was not much sleep that night.
When day came, I saw such a sight as I had never seen before. About one hundred Indians had been brought in during the night, all very badly wounded. Mother and I went around to see them. One poor fellow had his nose shot off and one eye shot out. He said he didn’t feel very well. Many of them were so badly hurt that I knew they could not live until sundown, and I thought about half of them would die that day. A few old Indians were sent over to the battle field to keep the eagles and wolves from eating the Indians that had been killed. The War Chief had been shot in the arm and in the leg, but was not very badly hurt. He had gone before I got up that morning and had taken with him all of the warriors that were able to go.
Creel
Indian grave among the rocks, Utah desert.
That night a little after dark all of our Indians returned. Washakie said that the Crows had gone into the thick timber from which he could not get them out, but that there were not many of them left anyhow. Our men brought in a very large band of Crows’ horses and saddles and when they were unpacked I never before saw such a pile of buffalo robes, blankets, bows and arrows, and guns. The next morning we all started out for the battle ground to bury our dead and oh, what a sight! There were Indians scattered everywhere all over the battle field. The squaws and papooses wailed pitifully when they saw their dead Indians lying around. Wives were hunting for their husbands; mothers were looking for their sons.
I went about picking up arrows. I had gathered quite a few when mother saw me with them.
“Throw them down quick,” she said, “the old Indians will come around and gather them. Don’t touch anything.”
“What do they want with them?” I asked.
“They will keep them for another fight,” was her answer.
The squaws scalped every Crow they could find.
“Why don’t you scalp our Indians and send their scalps to the Crows?” I asked her.
“Go away,” she said, “you don’t know what you are talking about.”
Our Indians carried our dead to a deep washout in the side of the hill, put them in and covered them with dirt and rocks. The dead Crows were left to the wolves and the buzzards.
That night when I got back to camp I was very tired and hungry, and I had seen so many Indians scalped that I felt sick and wished from the bottom of my heart that I was home with my kindred.
About two hundred and fifty horses were captured from the Crows. Thirty-one Indians on our side had been killed and about one hundred wounded. Eighteen of these afterwards died from their wounds, making forty-nine in all we lost in that terrible fight. The Crows had suffered far worse than we did. The men sent out by Washakie to count the killed came back and reported that they had found one hundred and three dead Crows. Washakie thought this number would be increased greatly by those that died from their wounds.
I began to change my mind about our Indians being cowards after seeing that fight. I have seen other fights between the whites and the Indians, but I never have seen greater bravery displayed than was shown by our Indians in this fierce battle with the Crows.
We had to stay in this place about three weeks to give our wounded warriors a chance to get well. When we could move them, it was too late to go the grounds that Washakie had planned, so we began to get ready for winter. Our camp was moved over on the Angitapa (Rock Creek), and the hunters began to kill buffaloes while the squaws dried the meat. There were a good many widows and orphans now to take care of. The worst of it was the man who was best at cutting the hamstrings had been killed in battle, so we could not get on so fast with our hunting. However, we soon got all of the buffaloes that we wanted and the squaws began to make the hides into robes.
Poor old mother and Hanabi worked very hard to get ours ready for the journey to Salt Lake. Washakie had a good many robes. Besides those he had got from hunting, he had bought a lot from other Indians, and he had his chief’s share of those captured from the Crows. We had six packs of dried meat and our camp outfit made three more. Altogether it made so heavy a load that we could not travel very fast.
When we got over the divide Washakie said that mother and I had better stay there with some of the others to take care of the extra horses. I did not like to do this, for I wanted to go to Salt Lake this time; but I would do anything that Washakie advised. He told us that we could come on slowly after them.
Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution
Chief Washakie (center) and two of his Shoshone braves (Wyoming).
When they started for Salt Lake, they took with them about thirty head of the Crows’ horses to swap for anything they could get for them. After they were gone, there were one hundred of us left behind, mostly squaws and papooses and old and wounded Indians to take care of, besides six hundred head of horses.
“He said that it … would have to be cut off.”