Page 32 - Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business

the guns started firing towards the plain to catch the runaways.

Suddenly, the noise had stopped. The silence was like a banner flapping in
the wind. The soldiers lowered their rifles. What was happening? There was
something alarming about the silence. The soldiers looked at each other,
struck dumb.
Below them, the Indians were almost all dead. When the guns were
reloaded, there were two or three more explosions. Then shouts; a few soldiers
begged for it to stop. There was even a howl, but who it came from, nobody

knows.
And that was all.

A violent storm blew up. Snow fell from the sky like a divine ordinance. The
snowflakes whirled around the dead Indians, light and untroubled. They
landed on hair and lips. Every eyelid was spangled with hoar frost. What a
delicate thing a snowflake is! It’s like a weary little secret, a forlorn and
inconsolable touch of gentleness.

Then came the wind, with a terrifying hum, pitch dark and flitting
mountain tops. It snatched the soldiers’ breath away as they advanced. The
snow was so heavy that a little farther on they had to retreat into their quarters
and wait it out. They tried to sleep. Two days passed. When the storm had
calmed a little, they emerged again and were met with a horrible surprise. All
around, there were corpses. And nothing else. The plain was covered with
dead Indians.

The soldiers requisitioned a number of civilians. Huge farmers’ carts rolled
into the wrecked encampment. It was a grim harvest. You don’t often see that
kind of cart filled with dead bodies. Stiffened hands protruded from between
the bars. The flesh had frozen.
A burial pit was required. The pickaxe struck the earth, winter’s thin layer

of permafrost. Eventually, the soil became softer, warmer. Once the spades
had stopped their scraping, three men jumped down into the hole. It all took
time; the dead were passed, one by one, from one man to the next, and
stripped of everything that could be sold. They were seized by the arms and
legs: One, two, three! Whee! and thrown into empty space. The men were
dizzy from exhaustion and from the stench that rose around them. The bodies
piled up, the men worked on, scarves over their mouths. They whistled and

passed round a plug of tobacco during their break. And then it was back to
work, the arms, the feet and the body lobbed into the pit. A sleeping man.