He had the soul of a poet and they wondered a lot
how it was he wore Cavalry blue.
Perhaps it was horses. That could sure be poetic.
But no one ever really quite knew.
It seemed he was always putting words on a page
every brief rest the regiment made.
He’d get wrapped up so much that he’d miss out on meals
as he sat in deep thought in the shade.
Now don’t get me wrong he was quite a good soldier.
Laughed a lot and took most things in stride.
You could tell when he watched the flags wave in the breeze.
He was filled with a strong sense of pride.
Sometimes he would read what he wrote to his friends.
They would chuckle at some of his poems.
Sometimes they would quickly wipe tears from their eyes.
As he wrote of sweet memories of home.
They said he’d make corporal in six or eight years
If he kept his nose clean and rode hard.
But he just had no thirst for more pay and promotions
He just liked to ride fast with his pards.
He was cool when in battle and they had quite a few.
They were bloody affairs then, it’s true.
He looked out for his friends and protected their backs.
He was mentioned in dispatches too
But that one Winter day all things changed in a blink.
No one could have predicted the scene
when the regiment charged on that Indian village
near the banks of a half frozen stream.
He’d seen battle before but this was much different.
There was hardly a Brave to be found.
Old women and children screamed in terror and pain.
As the horses hoof beats shook the ground.
It was slaughter that day, no good way to describe it.
It was simply raw murder and death.
The Troopers charged in and the officers bellowed.
Clouds of steam from the horses hot breath.
Sometimes a man is forced to make choices.
in an instant his whole life is altered.
And the writer’s heart broke in his chest at that instant,
and he rode straight ahead, never faltered.
A small boy stood up in the chaos and blood
by the form of his now still grandmother.
And the private reached down and pulled the boy up.
There was no time so save any others.
With the boy in his arms he spurred his mount forward
through the smoke from the teepees on fire.
No one noticed his actions as he galloped away
cross the creek through the hills even higher.
Later on they would call him deserter and dog.
Put a small traitor’s price on his head.
But the Army spent only a moment on him.
As they counted the captives and dead.
With that small young Lakota crying there in his arms
he turned his horse through frigid air.
In a few days they found a small town in the pines
and he took off his uniform there.
Further north he moved onward, far away from pursuit,
crossed the border, turned his back on his land.
Found a place in the springtime by a smooth flowing river
And he raised up a cabin by hand.
The years passed sometimes very fast, sometimes not
as the young boy grew into a man
By and by, a young lady from somewhere back East
Gave the brave poet-soldier her hand.
Sometimes a man is forced to make choices
A decision made quickly in strife
With two paths to choose from, he took the hard one
But he never regretted his life
And they lived a good life on that small ranch up there.
He was buried in his coat of blue.
He gave all that he had, and I called him Father.
Bravest white man that I ever knew.
