In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Long Knives. Light Hair and Slow watched, too young to join. Warrior guns cracked and boomed; the men swung clubs and thrust lances. The soldiers seemed helpless because the warrior attack was swift. Many soldiers fell, and some ran away. Those fleeing were chased and cut down, except for one. He was sent back to the Long Knives’ fort. The soldier leader, Grattan, had been one of the first to fall
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    Light Hair and Slow watched some of the warriors ride toward the Long Knives’ fort. They heard later that the Long Knives would not come out to fight
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    The badly wounded Conquering Bear was taken to his lodge. There Light Hair’s father and other medicine men treated his wounds. But their efforts could not save the well-liked old man
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    When Conquering Bear died, a man walked through the village shouting the terrible news. Light Hair was very sad when he heard. Without thinking, he found his horse, mounted, and galloped away across the prairie
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    He was angry. He understood now why many Lakota did not trust the white people. They were loud and quick to anger, and eager to shoot their weapons at the Lakota
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    Light Hair rode aimlessly, his thoughts full of the sounds and images he and Slow had witnessed. Sounds of the Long Knife rifles, and the big gun; images of the brief and furious battle, and of soldiers falling
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    He found himself at the base of a hill. Tying his horse to a plum tree, he climbed the hill and took shelter in the shade. Later he took his horse to drink from a small creeknearby. Then he went back up the hill. He could not take his mind off the battle or off the old man who had died. When night came, he fell asleep
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    Light Hair had no food. The next morning he awoke hungry, his stomach growling. So he drank water. Very slowly the day passed. He sat in the shade and walked around the hill. He took his horse to water again. Evening gave way to night once more, and he slept. Sometime in the night, the dream came
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    It was a strange dream. A warrior on a horse rode across a lake. Mountains and storm clouds rose to the west. There was the sound of thunder, and a red-tailed hawk flew above the man and horse. As the horse galloped, it changed color, from black to blue to white and then red. Bullets and arrows flew at the man but did not hit him. Then the horse and rider reached the dry ground, and other men, who looked like the rider, rose out of the earth. They surrounded the horse and pulled the rider down
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    Light Hair could almost feel their hands pulling. Then he awoke. His father and another man were shaking him
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    â€œWake up!” they said. “What are you doing here alone?”

    â€œWhat happened then?” Jimmy asked, after his grandfather had paused for several long moments.
    â€œThey went home, back to the village,” Grandpa Nyles said. “Light Hair’s dad scolded him for wandering off without telling anyone.”
    â€œWho was the other man?”
    â€œHigh Back Bone, but he was called Hump,” his grandfather replied. “He was Light Hair’s teacher. He taught him how to be a hunter and a warrior. The two of them were friends for life, until Hump was killed in a fight against some Shoshone. He was a strong man and a very good teacher.”
    â€œWhat about the dream?” Jimmy asked.
    â€œWe all dream when we sleep. Sometimes the dreams don’t mean anything. But Light Hair’s dream had a very strong meaning. He didn’t tell his father until months later. Then his dad and another medicine man told him what it meant.”
    Jimmy was very curious. “What did it mean?”
    Grandpa Nyles smiled and ruffled his grandson’s hair. “That I will tell you later,” he said.

4
    The Bozeman Trail
    INTERSTATE 25 CUT FROM SOUTH TO NORTH ACROSS Wyoming. From the city of Casper it traced the route of an old road.
    â€œThis interstate pretty much follows an ancient trail,” Grandpa Nyles told Jimmy. “It was marked