In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse: Chapters 1–2

Jimmy McClean walked among the buffalo berry thickets along the Smoking Earth River.

The river cut through the valley below the town of Cold River. Cold River was on the northern edge of the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Jimmy lived with his parents in a modular house on the east side.

Now he found refuge, again, in the trees and thickets by the Smoking Earth River.

Jimmy let his dad rumple his hair.

Jimmy smiled ear to ear as he loped across the prairie with Grandpa Nyles.

Jimmy smiled ear to ear as he loped across the prairie with Grandpa Nyles.

He was riding Little Warrior, a small but sturdy buckskin quarter horse.

There was the stallion, three mares, their colts, and two geldings for riding.

There was the stallion, three mares, their colts, and two geldings for riding.

There was the stallion, three mares, their colts, and two geldings for riding.

Grandpa wanted to rest the horses and let them graze.

Sitting against the trunk of a giant cottonwood tree, they listened to the creek gurgling and watched the horses munch on grass.

“Well,” drawled Grandpa Nyles, a blade of grass between his teeth, “what’s their main problem?”

Today, a week after summer vacation had started, he and Grandpa were on the top of Bear Butte.

It was called Bear Butte because from the south it looked like a bear lying on its stomach. It was sacred to the Lakota.

He already had prepared two big slabs of skillet bread—just flour mixed with water.

“No, but other Lakota people did. Our Sicangu ancestors came this far south. Light Hair’s birth mother died when he was about four. Later, his father, Crazy Horse, remarried. He had two new wives. They were sisters and Sicangu Lakota. The Sicangu people hunted in this area.”

Several horses were running away from the billowing smoke and yellow-orange flames.

The ground was scorched black where the flames had passed.

Yellow Eyes joined them, his horse skittish as well.

Looking through the swirling haze of smoke, they all saw dark shapes in the distance.

White Bear and the other boys rode hesitantly down into the valley.

Light Hair watched them forlornly for a moment.

Light Hair reluctantly looked around at the burned village.

All the while, acrid smoke swirled around him.

Soft hoofbeats startled them.

“Long Knives are taking women and children north,” he told them somberly.

It was not hard to find foot- and hoofprints in the grass and soil, as well as the imprints of many drag poles.

One of the men told Light Hair how fiercely Spotted Tail had fought.