When the tree flowered

by John G. Neihardt

“In the Moon of Popping Trees [December] we heard that Sitting Bull was dead. The metal breasts [Indian police] killed him in his camp on Grand River, and they were his own people. It was cold, and we were beginning to starve, so we came back here and camped around the Agency [Pine Ridge], and they gave us some cattle to butcher. Soldiers were camped there too, but they did not bother us because we did not dance. Some of the people did not believe any more, and many were not sure that the Wanekia would come with the young grass; but many still believed.”

The old man ceased, and it was some time before he shared with me the pictured past that flowed behind his closed eyelids.

“Dho, Grandson,” he said, regarding me with a gentle look, “I found the road.

“The Moon of Popping Trees was old and dying when we heard about Sitanka [Big Foot] and his band. They were fleeing towards us from Grand River where Sitting Bull was killed. They were starving and many of them were sick, and it was cold. There were about two hundred of them and some were Hunkpapas. We heard that they had crossed White River and were coming up the Porcupine. Then we heard that the horseback soldiers surrounded them over yonder by Porcupine Butte and took them down to Wounded Knee Creek. That is where they camped that night with the soldiers all around them.

“Next morning the wind was still and it was warmer. There were thousands of us camped around the Agency, and all at once we heard shooting over there across the hills. Much shooting—wagon-guns shooting very fast! Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom! Very fast! And many other guns too, like tearing a blanket! They did not stop. They kept on shooting fast. Somebody shouted, ‘Aah-hey! Aah-hey! They are butchering over there!’

“The people were cooking and eating when they heard the guns and they went crazy. Everybody was crying, ‘They are butchering them! Aah-hey! The soldiers are butchering them yonder!’ Young men were running for their horses. Many started riding fast towards the shooting over across the hills, and I rode with them. The soldiers did not try to stop us, for our men back there were getting ready to attack. There was a fight, but I did not see it. We rode fast, and when I looked back from the top of the hill, I could see others riding fast after us, and the people running.

“The shooting ahead yonder was louder when I was over the first hills. I was riding my step-father’s horse that he brought from Grandmother’s Land, and it was a strong horse; so I was up with the fronters. My heart sang again. Maybe I would die on the prairie after all, and High Horse would be waiting and he would see me far off and come running to meet me.

“Then all at once the wagon-guns stopped shooting. It was still over there.

“When we came to the top of the last hill, we saw the butchering. There is a long crooked ravine and it runs down to a flat valley beside the Wounded Knee. Along the ravine horseback soldiers were galloping this way and that way, all mixed up. They were hunting down the women and children who were still alive. The men were dead down yonder in the valley where the butchering began.

“There were not many of us on the hilltop yet, but we could see others coming behind us, and we charged down along the ravine. Hokay-hey! Hoka-hey! But our horses were worn out and could hardly gallop. I think the soldiers did not know that we were few; and when they saw others coming over the hill, they did not wait to fight us there. They ran away towards the valley where there were more soldiers, and they were getting off their horses to dig and fight lying down.