Review
“A ripping yarn . . . A quintessentially Western tale of bold exploits, tough characters, brutal conditions and a lost way of life, this sounds like the sort of story that practically tells itself. Yet you only realize how little justice most popular histories do to their source material when you come across a book, like this one, that does everything right. It’s customary to say of certain nonfiction books — gussied up with plenty of 'color' and psychological speculation — that they 'read like a novel,' but truth be told, most of the time we’d have to be talking about a pretty mediocre novel. The Heart of Everything That Is, on the other hand, resembles the good ones. There were times, turning its pages, when I could almost smell the pines of the Black Hills, feel the icy wind tearing down from Canada across the prairie and hear the hooves of the buffalo pounding the earth.” (Laura Miller Salon)
“Exquisitely told . . . Remarkably detailed . . . The story of Red Cloud's unusual guile and strategic genius makes the better-known Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse pale in comparison. . . . This is no knee-jerk history about how the West was won, or how the West was lost. This historical chronicle is unabashed, unbiased and disturbingly honest, leaving no razor-sharp arrowhead unturned, no rifle trigger unpulled. . . . A compelling and fiery narrative.” (USA Today)
“Vivid . . . Lively . . . A tale of lies, trickery, and brutal slaughter . . . In telling the story of Red Cloud, Messrs. Drury and Clavin appropriately bring a number of the larger-than-life figures from that time onstage . . . [and] chronicle in considerable detail the shameful treatment of the Indians across the plains and the destruction of their ancient way of life.” (Christopher Corbett, The Wall Street Journal)
“A page turner . . . Drawing on archives, letters, and a long-lost autobiography written toward the end of Red Cloud’s life, the narrative has a remarkable immediacy . . . [and] the narrative sweep of a great Western.” (Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe)
“Valuable . . . Meticulous . . . [A] remarkable story . . . The writers don’t shy away from the atrocities on both sides of the gruesome, long-running conflict between the Indians and the U.S. forces. But when, for the umpteenth time, U.S. officials break a contract as soon as the glint of gold is spotted in the hills, one cannot help but feel that there’s all the more reason to celebrate one of the Sioux’s most impressive fighters.” (Smithsonian)
“The authors paint a full and vivid picture of the Oglala Sioux leader . . . The story of Red Cloud is presented here with all the tension and excitement of a good Western novel. . . . The narrative is gripping but not sentimental, and it is well-sourced, drawing, for example, on Red Cloud’s autobiography, lost for nearly a century, and the papers of many others who knew Red Cloud’s War.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
“Astounding . . . A tour de force of historical storytelling . . . The Heart of Everything That Is is grand in scope and beautifully observed. . . . Together, [Drury and Clavin] have managed a feat of scholarship that interweaves ethnological brilliance and an insightful reinterpretation of Indian culture from the point of view of the Sioux.” (The Wichita Eagle)
About the Author
Bob Drury is the author/coauthor/editor of nine books. He has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Men’s Journal, and GQ. He is currently a contributing editor and foreign correspondent for Men’s Health. He lives in Manasquan, New Jersey.
Tom Clavin is the author or coauthor of sixteen books. For fifteen years he wrote for The New York Times and has contributed to such magazines as Golf, Men's Journal, Parade, Reader’s Digest, and Smithsonian. He is currently the investigative features correspondent for Manhattan Magazine. He lives in Sag Harbor, New York.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Heart of Everything That Is
1
Early Life
One quiet night on the plains of Nebraska, a glowing red meteor raced across the sky. Below it, a band of Brule Lakota Indians camped. Those who saw the meteor knew it was a sign of some kind—whether it was good or bad would be determined in the future. A few days later at the edge of the camp, a woman named Walks as She Thinks spread a brushed deerskin blanket over a bed of sand on the banks of Blue Water Creek and gave birth to her first son.
When the infant’s father, Lone Man, announced to the band that he had named the boy after the strange meteorological occurrence to appease the Great Spirit, the Brules agreed that he had done a wise thing.
This is how the child came to be called Makhpiya-luta, or Red Cloud.
• • •
When Red Cloud was only four years old, his father, Lone Man, died because of his addiction to what the white man called whiskey. In reality, the drink, sold or traded to the Indians, was a shuddering mixture of diluted alcohol, molasses, tobacco juice, and crushed red pepper. Native Americans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had no more immunity to alcohol than to smallpox.
Lone Man’s death left a lasting impression. Red Cloud hated the distilled mini wakan—“the water that makes men crazy”—for the rest of his life.
After Lone Man’s death Red Cloud’s mother, Walks as She Thinks, left the Brule camp and took him, his younger brother, Big Spider, and an infant sister back to her original Oglala Lakota band, which was led by Old Smoke. Old Smoke recognized her as a “sister,” a term that meant that she was either his true sibling or a close cousin with the same status as a sister. Although Old Smoke was by then in his early fifties, he was still a vibrant war leader; he had been a head man for close to two decades, and his band was the largest, strongest, and most influential of all the Oglala tribes, if not of the Sioux nation.
The Sioux instilled in their children a respect for reserve and poise. Another uncle, a warrior named White Hawk, taught the young Red Cloud to control what he called the boy’s “unusually headstrong impulses.” In the future, these impulses would help to establish Red Cloud’s reputation for vicious behavior in war.
White Hawk was also responsible, along with Walks as She Thinks, for the child’s education. They interpreted for him the messages to be found in every birdsong and the track of every animal, the significance of the eagle feather in a war bonnet, and the natural history of the Sioux. By the age of six, Red Cloud was sitting at council fires with his elders.
When Red Cloud was thirteen years old, he watched Old Smoke suppress his own cousin Bull Bear’s attempt to take control of the band. Bull Bear—a sour man, with a face like a clenched fist—had strength in numbers. But Old Smoke had the loyalty of his brother White Hawk’s less numerous but better-armed akicita, the tribe’s select male society of warriors and marshals.
In the end, Bull Bear’s followers thought better of challenging them. Under Lakota custom and with White Hawk’s braves at his back, Old Smoke could have confiscated Bull Bear’s horses and women as punishment for his behavior. Instead, he banished Bull Bear and his followers, greatly weakening his own band in the process.
Humiliated, Bull Bear threw dust in Old Smoke’s face before riding out of camp. It was an act of disrespect Red Cloud never forgot and it is the likely reason Old Smoke’s band got a new name. Their sullen, fierce reaction to the insult may be why they became known as the Ite Sica, or Bad Faces.
• • •
The Lakota rarely stayed in any one location, following the game along rivers that acted as natural highways through the western plains, seeking fresh pasturage for their expanding herds of ponies, and camping along trails in places that had acquired mystical significance. These journeys pushed the tribe farther and farther west and southwest out of South Dakota.
Life on the lush prairie offered Indian men and boys plenty of opportunity for self-reflection and long, thoughtful conversations deep into the night as the camp’s women did most of the hard work. Red Cloud had ample time to absorb his uncles’ wisdom and insights regarding the Sioux philosophy of existence.
The Sioux regarded the universe as a living and breathing—if mysterious—being. And though they recognized the passage of time as measured by the predictable movements of the sun, the moon, and the stars, to their eyes mankind was but a flickering flame in a strong wind. Their concepts of past, present, and future were blurred so that all three existed simultaneously, on separate planes.
Americans steeped in Christian culture and Victorian science failed to understand this Indian approach to life. They often threw up their hands and resorted to the cliché of Indian spirituality as a blend of ignorance and superstition. Ignorance of Indian ways also contributed greatly to the white man’s description of Indians as untamed, savage, wild people lacking personal discipline. There was, however, a precise structure supporting Sioux religious beliefs, even if it remained largely unrecognizable to outsiders.
Sioux religious philosophy flowed from their recognition of what the famous Oglala holy man Black Elk described as the “Sacred Hoop” of life. That hoop consists of a series of concentric circles, divine rings, the smallest of which surrounds one’s immediate family. The hoops expand outward, growing ever larger to include extended households, bands, tribes, entire peoples, the earth and all its living things, and finally the universe, Wakan Tanka. 
The four pillars of Sioux leadership—acknowledged by the tribe to this day—are bravery, fortitude, generosity, and wisdom.Highlighted by 356 Kindle readers
