John Gneisenau Neihardt
The Spirit of Crow Butte
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About the print version
The Spirit of Crow Butte
Overland Monthly
John G. Neihardt
First Edition
pp 355-357
Frederick Marriott
San Francisco
November 1901
Note: Overland Monthly n.s. 38 (Nov. 1901): 226-230.
Published: November 1901
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THE SPIRIT OF CROW BUTTE.
BY JOHN G. NEIHARDT.
The Spirit of Crow Butte
By John G. Neihardt
SHOULD a European fashion a personification of Martyrdom, it would have a
white face. This is a reproach to the blind egotism of individual races. There
is a story that the old bucks tell to the staring youths huddled about the
winter fires, which is a simple plea for the brotherhood of humanity pale and
swarthy. A noble deed has many whispering tongues, and becomes a part of nature
like the wind, and the Omaha from whom I had this simple legend knew not whence
it came; it had crept into the varied tongues of the scattered tribes to be an
incentive to their youths.
On the desolate plains of Western Nebraska there rises from the banks of the
White River a steep butte of clay and sandstone. Should one take the winding
path, by which alone it can be scaled, and clamber to the summit, he would be
terrified by the loneliness of the place, with its sun-bleached bowlders and its
moaning pines. Upon all sides, save where the tortuous path struggles upward,
the yellow butte drops almost vertically to the sandy plain dotted with bunch
grass, that sweeps off on all sides in a level, unbroken stretch to where the
pure blue sky dims the vision; to the very gates of night and day. One sitting
there could not but believe that there, at least, Time forgets its fever and
sleeps. There is a spell upon the place, and the wind, the crow and the coyote
make the only sounds that break it.
Many summers ago, when the white man to the Indian was yet a name that dwelt
in the mysterious regions of the rising sun, a small band of Crows came
scurrying across these prairies, followed by a larger band of Sioux. There was
little hope for the Crows, for their ponies were jaded with a recent buffalo
hunt, and the Sioux steadily gained upon them. But a cry of joy went up from the
hard-pressed band as they beheld the one rugged way leading to the summit of the
butte. Here was momentary safety, at least. So dismounting at the foot of the
butte, which a horse could not climb, they barely had time to send an arrow into
the heart of each weary pony, and rush up the steep path, before the Sioux were
upon them, howling in their baffled anger.
There was no further pursuit. A small band once in possession of the butte
could hold it with ease against a horde of warriors. Yet there was a greater,
grimmer enemy awaiting them upon that desolate summit. Starvation was there, and
the awful torture of thirst beneath the glare of a prairie sun! When the small
band had clambered to the top, they turned and looked below. There they beheld
their enemies making ready to camp at the foot of the path. They looked about
them and saw death grinning in the desolation of the shelterless summit, strewn
with its bare rocks, where the hardy soap weed could scarcely struggle upward.
Before them was the torture of thirst and hunger; behind them the more
terrible torture of the Sioux, and they knew their enemies too well to hope for
their withdrawal from the foot of the butte. The day passed, and the sun dropped
suddenly beneath its yellow veil of plain, leaving scarcely a brief twilight in
its wake; and the Crows looked wistfully over the darkening prairie, across
which they would never again urge their fleet ponies in the dusty path of the
bison.
When the night fell they made themselves a cheerless camp, and, gathering
twigs from beneath the pine trees, they built a fire that had no gladness in it.
Then, sitting about the flame that lit up the despair of their swarthy faces,
they held a council.
There was but one way in which the band could be saved. By cutting their
buffalo robes into strips and binding these together, they could lower
themselves, one by one, to the plain below.
Yet the Sioux were watchful, and would quickly detect their absence, unless
some show of fight were kept up; otherwise, there would be little chance for a
small band on foot to flee before the well-mounted Sioux. So it was decided that
someone must remain upon the butte to keep the fires burning and to hurl an
occasional arrow or stone into the enemy's camp, until the fleeing band should
be beyond vision.
Who would die upon the butte to save his band? To remain meant death. The
desperate Crows sat and gazed questioningly at each other through the weird
glare of the flame, and, save for the wall of the pines, there was silence. In
his own rude and picturesque manner an Indian loves his home, his squaw, and his
brown-faced papooses; but more than these he loves the freedom of the plains,
the dash of the hunt, the ecstasy of fight -- all that is unrestrained he loves.
It were easy for him to die with the shout of the foe in his ears; for this
requires animal fury rather than courage. But to suffer the slow, inglorious
death of starvation and thirst upon a lonely butte, whence he could gaze, like
one dis-inherited, upon his broad free plains -- this was hard.
So each stared at the other while the pines groaned piteously like a starving
man, and the uncertain fire made the darkness weird. But suddenly, out of the
painful silence, a voice spoke:
"I am a young man," it began hoarsely, as though issuing from a throat at
which a cold, invisible hand was clutching.
The warriors raised their eyes from staring at the flames, and sought the
circle of anguished faces where the firelight danced. They saw the face of a
youth made terrible with anguish and the shadow. The lips quivered with unspoken
words, and in the eyes a cold terror glittered.
"I am a young man," the voice continued; and it seemed the articulate sorrow
of the wind. "My home is sweet to me; I love to hear the women crooning to the
children. I shall never hear them croon to mine. I love to watch the dancing of
the braves. I shall never dance with them again. The growing maize sings sweetly
in the summer winds. There is one whose ears shall be dumb." The voice wailed
into silence like a fitful night wind, and the listening braves shivered with a
vague terror. They knew the meaning of the young man's words.
The band arose, and over the youth performed the strange rites for the dead.
Then they fell to constructing a rope of their blankets. They worked swiftly and
silently; but the young man stared distractedly into the blaze, and his face was
the face of a corpse, animated with terror. Did some broad, brown face weave
itself amid the fantastic leapings of the flame, that he gazed so intently? Did
the crackling of the burning twigs sing to him of the merry camp fires of his
people?
Suddenly he raised his eyes from the embers and looked about him. He was
alone! Then an overpowering sense of loneliness rushed upon him. Running to the
edge of the butte, he found the rope of buffalo hide hanging from a jutting
ledge and swaying in the night wind. He strained his ears to catch some faint
echo of farewell from fleeing foot-steps.
The pines moaned.
He endeavored with painful gaze to form some dim moving shadow from the
impenetrable night that swallowed his fleeing brothers. He shivered with the
terror of the dusk.
Then again he found the hanging rope. Should he let himself down and run,
run, run out of this weird place where black spirits lurked? With a quick
movement, he grasped the rope, and, wrenching it from the ledge, hurled it from
him into the darkness!
He was a dead man. A dead man is not afraid of death. He must keep the fires
burning, that the Sioux might be outwitted.
So he went back to the lonely fires and replenished them that they leaped far
up into the night. But when the stars grew paler with the coming of the dawn, he
again stood upon the edge of the butte and scanned the prairie, slowly emerging
from the shadow, and saw nothing but the monotonous sweep of yellow plain,
hemmed with the faint line of light that forewent the day. Days passed, and when
the Sioux no longer noted signs of life upon the butte, ...
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