Joseph M. Marshall III by The Journey of Crazy Horse a Lakota History Page B

until he took a long knife from a soldier, then killed him with it. Only grievous wounds had stopped him.
    Light Hair went out to hunt alone and took his turn guarding the horse herd with Lone Bear and He Dog. But even to them he told little of the attack on Little Thunder’s camp. They noticed that his eyes hardened at the mention of whites or the fort or the Holy Road.
    One evening he returned from a long outing with High Back Bone and waited for his father in their lodge. When Crazy Horse returned, the boy held out a bundle of tobacco. It was a gift, an offering to a holy man when one needed to speak from one’s heart. Light Hair needed to tell of a dream—a dream that had come to him the second night he had spent alone on a sandstone bluff. It had been with him every day and night for these many months, he told his father.
    Dreams were important, Crazy Horse said, as he took the offering of tobacco from his oldest son.

Eight

    Waves of heat would roll through the small, enclosed space each time Crazy Horse poured water over the glowing hot stones in the center pit. There was only the darkness and the heat. Crazy Horse sat to the right of the door inside the low, dome-shaped structure of red willow frames covered with hides. Light Hair sat across from his father.
    “All my relations,” said Crazy Horse in a low and respectful voice as he pushed aside the door cover. In came the welcome cool air and light. Light Hair sat quietly, the sweat running off his body as though it was water from a pouring rain. Both he and his father were completely naked.
    They had ridden away from the great gathering at Bear Butte, only the two of them and a packhorse. After a few days, they finally made camp below the crest of a grassy butte above a narrow little valley with a little stream, though its flow was only a trickle in this early autumn. The father watched his son and knew that the words and the ways and the lessons of High Back Bone had taken root in the boy. He was still slender but his arms and legs were thicker, his voice deeper, and his movements were those of a man rather than an impulsive boy. His younger brother did not resemble him at all in appearance or in action. Where Light Hair was calm and deliberate and given to long moments of quiet introspection, young Little Cloud was always darting about and busy. He was still far from adolescence, while Light Hair was on the verge of manhood.
    Everything happens for a reason, many of the old ones liked to say. The ash stave used to make a bow could be cured and seasoned over five years as it hung below the smoke hole of the lodge—or it could be tempered quickly over a bed of hot coals. In either case, the bow made from it would perform well. Crazy Horse knew that his light-haired son had a purpose beyond fulfilling his roles as a hunter and a warrior. His light hair and skin had made him the object of taunts and teasing, but not once had he seen the boy’s lips tremble in response, nor did he resort to anger. He had taken the teasing in stride as though sensing he was being held over the fire, being tempered by the difficult moments.
    Crazy Horse had been expecting something to happen. Then came the offering of tobacco from Light Hair. There was a change in the boy, the kind caused by more than passing time. Reflected in the boy’s eyes was something that the medicine man’s experience and insight told him was prompted by a memory rising out of a dream.
    Along the banks of the little stream, they built the low, dome-shaped lodge, working together to cut the red willow poles. Together they dug the outside fire pit and the inside pit for the hot stones. They spent most of day on the crest of the butte, sometimes talking but mostly sitting in silence and watching the land and the sky. Hawks, eagles, butterflies, grasshoppers, ants, antelope, elk, and even a lone buffalo in the distance passed by them in one direction or another. A coyote peered over the edge at them and