Cometsevah, who lives in Oklahoma, is president of a Sand Creek descendants' group. His great-grandfather and grandmother survived the massacre. So did his wife's relatives. For the past twenty years, they have visited the gray stone monument to pray and make offerings of dried meat, corn and chokecherries. Sometimes they hear horses and children crying.
As far as Cometsevah is concerned, the massacre site has never been lost. The main Cheyenne camp lies below the marker, he says, on Dawson's property. "It's not the Cheyenne who are looking for Sand Creek," he says. "The Cheyenne have always known where it is. It has always stayed in the Cheyenne mind. Sand Creek was always there."
In June 1978, the Cheyenne tribe's highest spiritual leader, the Arrow Keeper, visited the land and blessed it, declaring it Cheyenne earth. "Spiritually and religiously, he claimed that spot for the Cheyenne," Cometsevah says. "I'm going to do everything I can to fulfill that ceremony. It's sacred to us. If we don't protect that site for our children and our grandchildren, it might be lost."
A few hundred yards from that meadow, Gail Ridgely picks through a hole where a corroded strand of barbed wire was found. Ridgely, who lives in Wyoming, is Northern Arapaho. His great-grandfather also survived the massacre. Like Cometsevah, Ridgely can't walk this ground lightly.
"The other day, I touched some of the articles that were found, and I thought that whoever used them probably died," he says. "You think that maybe one of those bullets went through someone's body. Then the sadness came. An overwhelming feeling. Our ancestor's blood is still here. They have not been properly buried."
While the Cheyenne are certain of the massacre site, the Arapaho are keeping an open mind. They've visited the search areas, studied the landscape, held tribal ceremonies and matched the terrain to oral records. From what they've learned, the bloodshed could have happened at many places along the Big Sandy. Their ancestors were told to "scatter" when soldiers attacked, and they could have scattered any number of places. For now, the Cheyenne will withhold judgment as they wait for the rest of the evidence to come in.
No matter where the actual site is determined to be, though, Ridgely wants the land protected. He wants the world to learn what happened to men, women and children "martyred just because of who they were and where they were.
"Indian people need to be heard," he says. "We're here to change the way people think. We've got a voice now. At the time, we were not listened to, but we're here to change historical perspective. It's sad to be here, but I have a good feeling to know that something is happening."
Still, as he drives some thirty miles south of the Big Sandy through Lamar and sees high-school booster banners cheering "Go Savages!" Ridgely wonders how much people really understand. But he is hopeful...and patient.
After 134 years, the land still has its secrets. But the truth will come out.
