b'The Story of Crazy HorsePART 3 By Alan RockmanP erhaps it was a bit ironic,Whether it was true, the story of Red Cloud\'s but the main challenges anddisapproving of Crazy Horse marrying his niece, and travails that faced Crazyconniving to arrange her marriage to a warrior much Horse in the five years thatmore suitable to his liking, or Red Cloud\'s subsequent followed the Fetterman fight andsubservience to white demands, or a combination of both, the subsequent signing of the Fortthe rift between the two great Sioux chieftains had begun Laramie Treaty which witnessed- with future dire consequences for Crazy Horse. But we Crazy Horse and his victorious warriors surging intoanticipate things that would happen 15 years later.the abandoned Fort Phil Kearny on August 1, 1868, and burning it to the ground, was fighting and winning battlesAnd as would be later pointed out, there is no direct against other hostile tribes. But also losing a very bitterevidence that Red Cloud had indeed schemed with No domestic one that forever left a bitter taste in the valiantDog to get Crazy Horse away so that No Dog would marry warrior\'s mouth. her (that is, if she was still single). In the meantime, thisPurported photo of Black Shawl, around 1888is one narrative of how Crazy Horse lost Black Buffalo BLACK BUFFALO WOMAN Woman and there was this one narrative, one that would Sometime in the early 1860s, the young warrior had fallenmake the circumstances of a relationship between thewere going to do to the Crows when suddenly, it is said, in love. The young woman of Crazy Horse\'s dreams waschildhood sweethearts even murkier. No Water walked in.a raven-haired, slim beauty by the name of Black Buffalo Woman who was greatly admired by the many eligibleA more recent source backed up by others suggested thatCrazy Horse instinctively went for his knife, but No warrior suitors in the Oglala camps. It is said that CrazyBlack Buffalo Woman was already married to No Water!Water was faster. Raising his relative\'s gun, he shouted Horse had desired her from a very young age when bothIf she was indeed married, well, this didn\'t deter CrazyMy friend, I have come! and fired straight into the face of were children, and it is also said that they shared a buffaloHorse one bit. According to Mark Lee Gardner in hisCrazy Horse. Crazy Horse then "fell forward into the small robe, a mark of courtship within the Sioux. 2022dual biography of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, Thefire, knocking sparks and ambers into the air. Women Earth is All That Lasts he (Crazy Horse) even enlistedscreamed. With ears ringing from the closeness of the But that\'s where the story gets a bit murkier. Black Buffalo(his cousin and friend Horn Chips, (a renowned Medicinegunshot, men dragged the wounded Crazy Horse from the Woman was the niece of the great Red Cloud himself, and itMan) to create powerful charms to cause the woman tofire while Touch the Clouds (one of Crazy Horse\'s friends) is said that while Red Cloud admired Crazy Horse\'s braveryfall in love with him (if she hadn\'t already been in lovestruggled with No Water, finally prying the revolver out and respected him as a young warrior, he may have felt thatwith him). Maybe these charms worked, maybe theyof his hand. No Water, rightfully fearing the wrath of Crazy Horse was a bit immature for the responsibility ofdidn\'t, but Black Buffalo Woman did return the shirtCrazy Horse\'s followers, ran away, jumped on the first marriage - and he apparently disapproved of the liaison.wearer\'s (Crazy Horse\'s) affections. There was one verypony he came across, and galloped off. Inside the tipi, According to Sajna: Red Cloud had connived, sometimeserious impediment to this love affair however, Blackbeneath a haze of black powder smoke from the revolver in the summer of 1862, to send Crazy Horse and anotherBuffalo Woman was already married. Not only was Blackblast, blood streamed from Crazy Horse\'s face. A close warrior whom he favored by the name of No Water in aBuffalo Woman married but she had three small children.examination revealed that No Water\'s bullet had entered war party against the hated Crow. On the way to the CrowHer husband No Water was a warrior in Red Cloud\'s Badjust below the left nostril, ripped along the outside of the camp, No Water all of a sudden grabbed his face and beganFace" band. Nevertheless, one late spring day when Noupper jaw, fractured it, and exited at the base of the skull. complaining about a toothache. Since No Water\'s medicineWater was away, Black Buffalo Woman placed her childrenCrazy Horse would likely live, (his face slightly disfigured came from the two fierce canine teeth of the grizzly bear,with relatives and left the village with Crazy Horse and aand scarred for the rest of his life) but his friends were he took the pain as a warning. Members of the war partyfew followers on a planned raid against the Crows. Theyenraged" (Ibid., pp.179-180).(including Red Cloud) knew of a warrior whose medicinereached the Powder River on the second night where they was the forepaw of a raccoon. The man had gone into a fightfound several Lakota groups camped. A number of theirThey took out their frustrations on No Water\'s poor with pain in his hand and was killed. No Water said he mustfriends were there, and Crazy Horse and Black Buffalomule said to have been a fine, fast animal, and killed it. No turn back. The others agreed and went on without him. Woman accepted an invitation to share one of their tipis"Water disappeared, only to show up at the same Indian (Gardner, The Earth is All That Lasts, pp. 177-178). encampment where Crazy Horse was. Crazy Horse had For two weeks the warriors were gone. When theyrecently recovered from his wound. When No Water returned, it was with the scalp of an old Crow chief andIn the meantime, according to Gardner, No Waternoticed that not only had Crazy Horse survived his many stories of coups. They had struck a big Crow huntingreturned to his village and was shocked to find his wifewound but had recovered well, he jumped on a mutual party and had driven it far back past the Powder (river)gone, and his children missing. A very angry No Waterfriend\'s horse and rode off. When Crazy Horse asked and the Tongue, and even the Little Big Horn. Then onlocated his children, still in the village, but his wife wasthe friend who had ridden off on his horse, the friend, a the way back to the village Woman\'s Dress appeared. Astill missing and he instinctively knew she had run offwarrior named Moccasin Tip replied that it was No Water. grandson of Chief Old Smoke and nephew of Red Cloud,with Crazy Horse. Lakota customs regarding male andCrazy Horse, jumping on his horse and riding down the Woman\'s Dress had been known as Pretty One for hisfemale relationships may have been a bit freewheeling,Yellowstone on what would be a futile quest to track down habit of dress. He grabbed Crazy Horse by the arm, ledbut there was one thing that was seriously frowned downNo Water, who fled to the Red Cloud camps, angrily him away from the others, and told him that Black Buffaloupon, and that was taking another man\'s wife. From thisresponded, I wish I had known it! I would certainly have Woman had married No Water. point on, the affair between Crazy Horse, Black Buffalogiven him a bullet in return for that one he gave me Woman, and a cuckolded husband (if he actually was one)(Sajna, p. 228).News of what happened caused Crazy Horse to take to hisNo Water took on the makings of a Native American soap mother\'s lodge. For two or three days he stayed inside theopera - sex, (possible) infidelity, a bit of violent retaliationAnd again, if this Indian soap opera wasn\'t murky lodge, no one daring to disturb him, and then emergedthrown in for good measure, and yes, consequences. enough, there was another twist to it, a consequence that to pack his horse and head back to Crow country. Crazyleft Crazy Horse in both shame and temporary disfavor, Horse did not return to the village again until the end ofHaving questioned some of the villagers, an infuriated Nofor according to Sajna\'s much earlier account, the facts the summer. He never told anyone what happened whileWater and a number of his friends rode out of their villageand the reality of the bitter quarrel between Crazy Horse he was gone, but when he entered the village he threw twoand followed the trail of Crazy Horse down to the Lakotaand No Water don\'t quite add up.Crow scalps to the dogs. They were the only scalps he hadcamps on the Powder. He entered the tipi of his relative taken in five years. He blamed Red Cloud for what hadBad Heart Bull and demanded a revolver for "hunting.""That Crazy Horse fell in love with Black Buffalo Woman happened, thus starting the great rivalry between the twoNo Water\'s behavior and body language were troublingand that she was a niece of Red Cloud there is no doubt. men. Crazy Horse believed that Red Cloud had conspiredto Bad Heart Bull but he gave him the revolver withoutBoth he and Chips provide evidence of that involvement. with No Water to leave the war party and return to thequestion. No Water then strode to a nearby tipi whereThere is no primary support, however, for that love having village to court and marry Black Buffalo Woman" (Sajna,Crazy Horse, Black Buffalo Women, and several friends,grown out of a childhood connection. In fact, according to Crazy Horse: The Man Behind the Legend, pp. 156-158). men, and women were sitting and discussing what theyHe Dog, it was not until a few years later after Crazy Horse 44 February 2023'