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   It has been six moons that we have been here. The white man calls this an agency, I prefer to call it a prison. My people are hungry all the time and they squabble amongst themselves, urged on by the white agents and soldiers, eager to divide a people once united so tightly. If we are divided we are easy to control and this is what it is all about.
   The food that was promised to us is always late arriving, if it turns up at all. When it does arrive then the crooked traders take all that is good and we are left with what is bad. All the flour they supply has to have the worms and maggots picked from it first.<O:P>
   The meat smells bad and tastes worse. The land they have allocated for us to grow crops is dry and barren and produces nothing at all. It is simply another way of keeping us busy. As if we can farm anyway. Farming is not our way. We are used to riding across the plains taking the buffalo and antelope as we need them. We did not always have food, sometimes we were hungry but eventually we would find something to eat and we would store the food not eaten immediately for later consumption.
   Now we are hungry all the time with no sign of it abating, no sign of relief.<O:P> </O:P>

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   I hear through the whispered gossip of the woman that my youngest daughter is ill. My wife cries to herself when she thinks I do not see her because she does not want to burden me with one more problem. She knows I feel this life badly. She knows I feel responsible for the plight of herself and our children because it was I who made the decision to come into the agency as bidden. I feel stupid to have believed the promises of a race I knew I could not trust. I feel small to have put myself at the mercy of a people I despise so much, a people who walk only the black road, having no idea about the good red road. People who like right angles and straight lines too much. Huh! These are strange creatures indeed, nothing like the true Human Beings, not even as worthy as the Bigbird people or the Pawnee. And yet, we now live in one of their cabins with corners and straight lines. It is no wonder we are always ill.
   I would like to see my daughter, to see how ill she is but we are not allowed contact with our own children. They have been taken away and put in a school, segregated from their parents who love them so much. Their hair has been cut short, they have to speak the language of the Washitu and they are taught to pray to the Washitu god. It is no wonder they are ill if they turn their backs on Wakan Tanka, who is in all things.
   I have heard of this Washitu god. He is said to love all men and forgive all sins and yet he seems to have no love for the Lakota people and many sins against us appear to take place in his name. Who is there to forgive him? The strange Holy Men in their black clothes do not try to help us; they simply want us to convert to their religion. They collect us as a woman would collect berries from the forest. I can not understand their ways or their motives.<O:P> </O:P>

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   The talk of the agency is that the Grandfather in Washington has declared that all Lakota and their brothers the Shah-y-ela who do not come into the agency will be hunted down like lowly dogs and killed where they stand. There is no logic to this. The winter is very bad this year. The Grandfather must know that we do not move when the snow is on the ground. This winter is so bad it is almost impossible to move here. On the plains it would be foolish to even try.
   The messengers they have sent to our brothers who are still free will not even be able to make it to them on time. The deadline will have passed by the time the message has reached them. Many say this is as it is meant to be, that the whiteman only wants an excuse to wipe us out. Perhaps we will be the next to die. I do not know these things. I am a simple man who only wanted safety for his family. I do know I was wrong to bring them here. I can not promise them safety and it hurts me to see so many people hungry and ill. We have never been like this, why should we be so now? We have always been the greatest warriors on the plains, the tribe that others feared. Now we are as low as worms upon the ground after rain. My heart is sad but through this sadness I feel the anger that enables me to keep going. My hatred of the Washitu enables me to put up with him for another day at a time.
   I pray many times each day to Wakan Tanka for some relief from this hell but he appears not to hear me. Perhaps the Washitu god has put his fingers in the ears of the Great Spirit and covered his eyes so he may not hear or see the plight of his downtrodden people. I can not think that Wakan Tanka has turned his back on his people for we always lived well and followed the red road as he bid us to do. We always treated everything around us with the reverence due it, as he had instructed to do and we always followed the sacred rituals. Perhaps he makes us suffer so we may know suffering and be truly free when it is over and he has had his revenge against the people. I do not know and my head spins from all the questions that go through it.<O:P> </O:P>

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   I yearn for the freedom of my former life. I crave the feel of the wind against my skin as I ride across the plains to fight an enemy (one who fights with honour, not like the Washitu fights), or to chase down the mighty buffalo upon which we rely so much.
   I want so much for my children to know the ways of the people. I do not want them to speak this English, but to talk in the Lakota tongue as my grandfather and his grandfather did in the past. I want them to be proud of who they really are, not to be a poor reflection of those who are treating us so badly. They should be singing and dancing around the fires of the village, not learning the white man’s ways in some stuffy schoolroom. Together we should be free and praise Wakan Tanka and get on with our lives, free from interruption and the rules of others. Such has it always been and so it should be now. We are a free and proud people who have never bowed down to an enemy. We have not lost a battle against these white dogs. We have simply lost everything because we could not fathom their ways. We thought that when we signed a paper that the words on that paper would hold true for always. We trusted another man’s words as we expect hem to trust ours. It is only when it is too late do we discover that the written words are only good for as long as the white man says they are good. If he wants to change things he simply changes the words.
   If they had not killed all the buffalo for either skins or sport then there would be enough food still for us to live free but this is what they have done. Only with subterfuge and deceit have they managed to bring us down.
   I talk, of course, with the other men of the agency. They mostly feel the same as me, although some still see the white man as our saviour. What has turned their heads from the true ways? I can not understand them. Our chiefs talk of peace with these people as they get old and are content to do nothing although some will try hard to make things better for us. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail talk eloquently but appear to get little results. What hope is there for those of us who do not talk so well?
   There is talk among some of the men about leaving the agency and heading towards the setting sun again, once the weather is good enough for travel. I am given to going with them but my wife is fearful of such notions, saying we will be hunted down and killed for trying to escape. I have to think of her and of our children. That is why we are here after all. If I had not had the responsibility of a family I would still be in the village of Crazy Horse at this moment, enjoying the long winter of story telling and making weapons and other pastimes of this season. I have to make the decision, and it has to be good for all of us.<O:P> </O:P>

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   The snows have melted and the sun is at least getting warm again. It is good to be on the back of a fine pony again. The decision has been made and we are riding with others of a same mind back to our people and our freedom. We have taken the children from the school, packed a few belongings and left that agency for good.
   As we have travelled we have met up with many others doing the same thing, all in the same frame of mind. The talk is of a big camp meeting up near the Tongue River, the Rosebud or the Valley of the Little Bighorn. We hear that the great leader and Holy Man, Sitting Buffalo Bull is leading these people assisted by great chiefs such as Crazy Horse, Crow King, Gall and others. We hear that the Sun Dance this year will be a great gathering of the Lakota people, possibly the greatest there has ever been. It will feel so good to be back with the people.
   My wife still worries a bit about being hunted down but as she gets further from the agency and nearer to our people I see her spirits rise and her fears diminish. She smiles a lot at me and at our children as we near our home and see the trails of others who have been there before us.
   There are still a few who worry about what we do, saying that the soldiers will surely come. I say to them.
   “It is better to die on your feet then to live on your knees,�?and they have to agree with that. The life on the agency was not a life but a living death. Better to fight and die properly than go through that again.
   But for now I think only of the good things that are to come. I think of the home we are approaching and the people we will soon meet. If we are to fight beside them again then so much the better. For now we have tasted defeat and degradation. It is time for us to fight again for our way of life, for our freedom and most importantly perhaps, for our children’s right to the same life.
   This is why we ride away from the agency. This is why we sing songs as we go. This is why we head towards the Valley of the Greasy Grass, the Valley of the Little Bighorn.<O:P>   </O:P>

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