Crazy Horse

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Authors: Larry McMurtry
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hardly the sort of husband to take this sort of behavior sitting down. When he returned from his hunt, he immediately borrowed a pistol from a warrior named Bad Heart Bull and went in pursuit of the lovers. This too was a violation of Sioux custom—Black Buffalo Woman had a right to go if she wanted to. But No Water went after her anyway.
    The lovers enjoyed, at best, a very short idyll, perhaps only one night. They had not had time to go far before No Water found them, burst into the lodge where they were staying, and shot Crazy Horse just below his left nostril. Horrified, Black Buffalo Woman crawled out of the tent and skedaddled.
    Versions of this violent incident differ. Some say Crazy Horse might have been able to grapple with No Water had not Little Big Man grabbed his arm just as he was rising to meet the challenge. No Water said, “Friend, I have come!” or words to that effect; then he shot. If Little Big Man did grab Crazy Horse’s arm, it of course foreshadows what he did in the fatal struggle at Fort Robinson six years later; it also fulfills Crazy Horse’s dream, in which it was prophesied that he would only be injured if one of his own people held his arms to prevent him from fighting.
    That is the poetic version, but there are otherversions, none of which mention Little Big Man at all. He Dog, who was much exercised by this grave misbehavior, doesn’t mention him. Since He Dog had to do much of the peacemaking, it would be odd that he doesn’t mention Little Big Man if the latter had indeed been an actor in this old drama. He Dog says the lovers had been in the lodge of Little Shield when No Water caught up with them.
    In any case, quite a mess had been made. No Water was brother to the prominent Sioux twins Black Twin and White Twin, of the Bad Faces, Red Cloud’s village. No Water went to his brother Black Twin, who made a sweat lodge, purified No Water of what he supposed was a murder, and prepared to fight Crazy Horse’s people, if necessary.
    Fortunately for all concerned, Crazy Horse wasn’t dead. The bullet broke his jaw, but after a day or two it was clear that he would live. Still, feelings ran high in both camps. The peacemakers had to work skillfully and quickly to prevent what could have become a bloody feud. Black Buffalo Woman, like many a wife taken in adultery, fled, but was eventually persuaded to return to her husband. Crazy Horse made it a condition that she not be punished, and she wasn’t. No Water gave Crazy Horse his best horse as a peace offering, but the two never really made it up. No Water and Black Buffalo Woman went to live with Red Cloud’s band. Once Crazy Horse encountered No Water while on a hunt and chasedhim all the way across the Yellowstone River before allowing him to escape.
    He Dog, remembering this sorry sequence of events sixty years later, was still indignant at the thought of the damage it had done to tribal harmony. No Water blamed the medicine man Chips, saying Chips had made Black Buffalo Woman a potion that had caused her to lose her reason; but among the elders of the band, Crazy Horse was judged to be the most at fault. He had taken another man’s wife and had done it with complete disregard for custom and propriety, thus seriously threatening tribal unity. Much diplomacy had to be practiced to prevent war between one band and the other. No Water, in particular, never forgot. He was an eager member of the party that went to the Spotted Tail agency to arrest Crazy Horse at the end.
    Crazy Horse could not, after this, be a Shirt-wearer. He had failed in the Shirt-wearer’s first duty, which was to put the interest of the tribe first. When Elinor Hinman asked He Dog all those years later who had been made a Shirt-wearer in Crazy Horse’s place, He Dog replied that nobody had. The institution itself fell into disuse after this foolishness, which left such a bad taste in people’s mouths that the whole

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