Lavetta (Part 2)
A few hours after I conducted my initial interview with Lavetta, she texted me to say, “I had a close encounter with death and with two of the fatalities inside Wounded Knee. I would like to add this to the interview.” We arranged to speak again that night. Here is Part 2 of Lavetta’s story.
When I had gotten raped when I was a young girl, it wasn’t so much the act itself that scared me, although that was scary in itself. But throughout the years, what stayed in my mind was what he said, and I have been tormented by those words. He told me, “Don’t tell, or I will kill you.” Those words were embedded in my mind throughout my life and they caused me to go into abusive relationships where I became promiscuous with drugs and alcohol in order to not feel the pain.
And coming out of Wounded Knee, which was literally a war zone, every day for the next forty years until I got help, there was always something that would trigger a memory. It was either a smell or a taste or a song or that food that we ate — even when I lived here in Lawton where I moved after I had my children. There was a military base across the road, Fort Sill. So when they were out playing army and I would see the flares, it would trigger those memories of being inside Wounded Knee. Because every night at Wounded Knee we had flares going up, like they had at Standing Rock — they got lights on 24/7. So it kept triggering me.
I withdrew from the world, from life itself. I didn’t know how to cope with reality. I would have anxiety attacks in crowds. I could not go to my children’s activities and enjoy their growing up. I didn’t go to any of their graduations or their sports events. If I did go, I could only stay for a few minutes and then I would leave the children with somebody else and go home. Then it would take me three or four days just to recuperate.
Then I started seeking help and went to a mental health therapist because I was feeling like I was losing it! I needed help, so I started reaching out. When I went into therapy, I told him what happened to me in childhood. And then I finally told him about being in Wounded Knee. After several sessions, he told me, “You have post-traumatic stress disorder.”
He put me on antidepressants, and I had to go through a lot of therapy, and I started learning how to voice my opinions and how to let out my emotions through journaling. So coming out of Wounded Knee, I had to live with that PTSD for forty years — until I got help.
I’m really glad you got help, Lavetta! [Pause] Are you able to describe to me what happened at Wounded Knee and what it was like to be there?
When we decided to go in and take over Wounded Knee, I was in the old Catholic church before it burned down, and I stayed there. Up on the hill by the first massacre — the 1890s massacre — up there was the old Catholic church. I slept there; I ate there. I didn’t have to go outside. When I did go out of the church on about the third day, I looked around and you could see the armored personnel carriers; you could see the jeeps; you could see the tanks; you could see the military. That’s when I realized that we were surrounded by the FBI, CIA, the BIA police, sheriffs, highway patrol, law enforcement from all over. Just seeing that — it put a fear in me, in everybody, because we didn’t know what was going to happen.
So we had a meeting and the leaders gave us the option to stay or leave. The roads were open; there were no blockades. [Pause] Nobody left!
How many people were there, Lavetta?
It was nothing compared to what Standing Rock had. We didn’t have that many people. I think it ended up with just two or three hundred.
And you were there the whole time?
I was. And when the firefights started, it was because somebody in Wounded Knee accidentally fired off a gun. When it was really taken over — about the third day — [the authorities] closed all areas that you could come in from the north, east, west and south. There was nobody coming in or out like at Standing Rock. So they started backpacking supplies in — food, ammunition, medical supplies. They had to sneak in. And they always came in at night. They had secret ways to get in and out. Wounded Knee is surrounded by trees, hills, gullies, and creeks, so they had that to go by.
We had nurses; we had medics. We had two spiritual leaders — Leonard Crow Dog and Wallace Black Elk. We had Dennis Banks; we had Carter Camp. We had Russell Means and Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt, for a while. They became our spokespersons on the outside. We also had veterans that had just come out of Vietnam. They were showing us how to build bunkers.
After about a week, we started appointing people to be in charge of different things like food and security. There were young people who knew the area, and they would show us the ways to go and the layout of the land.
When you moved outside the buildings, did you get fired at?
We had formed a little group. We had eight areas and we set up bunkers. Our group had gone down by this little creek on the north side of Wounded Knee. There was the big Catholic church and behind it was the mass cemetery and little ways off was another cemetery for the family of those buried in the big plot. So if you walk north past the second cemetery, there was a little white building that we found out was a Lutheran church.
You had to go down to the trading post to find out what was going on — that was where everything was happening. That’s where the media would be, and if you research in the pictures, you would see this big group picture. But you won’t see me in any of the pictures because when the media was around we were down in that north-side bunker.
We had to always be on guard 24/7; nobody could leave their post. I learned how to look for who is coming through and who is going where. Your eyesight got really good at night! You had to watch and listen so your senses that you never used — they came alive!
The first firefight was after a misfire — that’s when the shooting started. I mean it went on for hours! This was during the day. And we were in that little church and there were no solid walls. But they never did hardly shoot at us unless we happened to be outside.
But they were always shooting at those people who were down at the trading post. There were times that were downpours of firefights for hours and hours. It would start in the early morning and go on sometimes all night long. When they were shooting at our bunker, we were always flat on the ground and never moving around. There was no electricity. All we had was candles and kerosene. They cut our electricity; then they cut our water off.
We learned to live off the land and use what we can. If you were a smoker, well, that was one way to quit [laughs].
That must have been terrifying — lying on the floor while they were shooting at you!
Yeah! We had a Korean veteran in our bunker and he was from Iowa, and we had three or four Vietnam veterans. At the beginning there were a lot of females because there were couples. But then when the firefights started getting heavy [clears throat], most of the couples started leaving. And we ended up getting a bunch of men. I ended up being the first female and the last and only female in our bunker. But the men never disrespected me. They all treated me like I was their little sister.
That Korean veteran, he looked at me and he said, “I want you to call me Gramps. I’m your grandpa.” I thanked him because I never got to know my grandparents. And we became close. He told me stories about his Korean days, like a grandpa would. And the Vietnam veterans were telling their war stories, stories from when they grew up.
My ex- couldn’t join in. He had lived in a foster home all his life. He was taken away from his parents. So he never knew his mother and dad. I don’t think he ever knew who he really was.…
[Pause]
Lavetta, you mentioned in your text that you wanted to tell me about the fatalities….
During this one firefight, it had been going on all day and all night. And towards morning we started checking in on each other, and somebody radioed in “Cease fire! Man down!”
[Pause] What it was … it was … it was my friend. We had become best friends because he would come to our bunker, and we sat down and talked. He would tell us about being on the reservation and being in Vietnam. But he was a quiet individual, a peaceful man with a good heart.
That morning he came to us, and he pointed at me and he said: “You are going to be my sister-in-law.” And he looked over to my companion and he said: “You are going to be my brother.” He adopted us that morning. He took off his necklace and put it on my companion. He said, “It’s yours. Take care of it and always remember me, always remember me.” [Crying] We said, “Yes, we will. We’ll never forget you!” [Crying] And that morning when they called for a ceasefire, it was Buddy Lamont. His name was Buddy Lamont. He was from Pine Ridge, Lakota, buried at Wounded Knee. He was our first fatality.*
And they had his funeral there inside Wounded Knee. We all held back our tears; we held back what we were feeling, especially me and my companion.
But in 2002 when I made my journey back to Wounded Knee, and I saw his name carved on that tombstone — buried with the other people that were massacred there at Wounded Knee — I lost it. [Cries] I talked to him and I said, “I still remember you!”
Nobody had ever taken me in like that. It’s an honor to be taken in as family. As a Kiowa girl back then I still kind of knew my ways. When he would come around, being the sister-in-law, he would become my husband. I never slept with him, but we teased each other. I would go over to the stove and get him some coffee — that’s the Kiowa way. He said, “That’s like our Lakota ways, too.”
Then there were negotiations going on and cease fires and media coming in. Our numbers were dwindling down. Supplies got low. We were down to the real nitty gritty — getting ready to make stone soup! [Laughs]
I was almost about ready to go to sleep that night — I don’t know what time it was because we didn’t have no clocks. The sun went down; the sun came up. I know it was dark and we heard some noise outside. We turned our lights off real fast; they were coming around the building — you could see the shadows. And we said, “Stop.” And they said, “We’re coming in; we brought some supplies!”
So we got happy! Mainly we wanted some coffee. So, they came in, and it was Frank Clearwater. Did you ever hear of Frank Clearwater?
No, I’m learning all this from you, Lavetta.
OK. Frank Clearwater — him and his wife and some others came in and they had supplies and medical stuff and coffee!
He said, “I’m Frank Clearwater; I’m Cherokee, from North Carolina, and this is my wife. We want to go down and see everyone, but we’ll leave you this can of coffee. So gramps walked out with him and showed him how to get to the Trading Post. Gramps said, “He’s coming back in the morning!”
We went to bed and then a firefight started up again. Early the next morning, I crawled out to go to the bathroom in a hole we had dug — because you couldn’t go through the front door. Because every time we would open that door they would shoot at us. When they were shooting at us like that, you could see the holes in the walls where the bullets were just coming through — boom, boom!
I heard Frank Clearwater had come back. And I heard a commotion inside and I could hear the zings of the bullets going by and I didn’t know what was going on inside.
Anyway I had done my business and I was just about to go back in there and my companion said, “Go back outside. Don’t come in here yet. So I just curled up, hoping to God I didn’t get shot. And I heard commotion inside and since it was men folks all I could hear was the f-word, you know.
Pretty soon, I could hear them say: “Cease Fire! Call the medics! We need a medic!” That’s when I knew that somebody got hit. And I prayed to God!
What happened was that Frank and Gramps had been drinking coffee over by the stove. I think they waited to start shooting until Frank got there.
Everybody was in shock and they finally had a ceasefire, but I was never let back into the building. I saw these guys all come running up, and they were taking potshots, even though they had a white flag up and were calling “Cease fire! Cease fire!” But they were still taking potshots.
It was Frank Clearwater that had got shot. The bullet had come through the wall and it hit him right in the back of his head and just splattered his head. He died instantly.
If you read about Wounded Knee, you’ll see different stories. But I’m telling you the truth about his death. It was my bunker!
And there was a time that I almost faced that same bullet like Clearwater. It was early one morning, I got woken up with gunfire, and it was coming through our building. And you know how you are in the morning — when you got to go, you got to go.
We had an individual with us and come to find out that he was an FBI informant, and he was in our bunker. He heard everything; he saw everything. He knew everything that was going on inside Wounded Knee.
Was he there when Frank Clearwater was shot?
Yeah, but they made damn sure that he didn’t get hit. It was kind of strange because there were times when that informant would leave our bunker and we didn’t really know where he went.
How did you find out that he was an FBI informant?
We found out when Leonard Peltier got into his trial. Because Leonard got extradited, but they didn’t extradite him. They kept him safe in Canada. We don’t know where he’s at. Last time I heard he was in Canada when they extradited Peltier.
Do you remember his name?
In Wounded Knee, he went by the name Frank Black Horse.
And was he Native American?
No, he was Italian and he passed for Indian. Dyed his hair coal black and wore it just like one of us. And picked up an accent. We don’t know if he’s dead or alive to this day. We’ve got a feeling that he’s behind everything! I think he’s behind Leonard Peltier never getting out.
So he was the one who had the great idea to build an outhouse. So he dug about a 7-foot hole, but he never did complete it. So one morning, I needed to “go to my office.” [Laughs] So my companion helped me get down in that hole. And they were taking shots at both of us, and they were missing us. He went back inside, and I was still in that hole. They were watching us with binoculars and they probably thought I went into a foxhole.
When I lifted my head to get out, they took shots at me. The first one, I could hear it go over. I actually heard a zing. The second one hit a little bit closer and the third one I felt that bullet crease the top of my head. I felt that little breeze go over the top of my head. And if I had gone up a little bit higher, I would have got my head shot off!
And this is the part I haven’t told anybody. But since I have been healed, I am telling this part. After I went back in, we made a big joke of it. We laughed. We were easing the tension. But afterwards, I kept quiet and kept to myself the rest of the day. I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to stand by the window. I had always used to look out the window at the clouds because I enjoy nature and the stars at night. After that I quit looking at the stars.
One night after that, I lay in bed awake and watched the flares shoot. I snuck outside. And I cried my heart out. [Crying] I told myself, “What the hell am I doing here! What the fuck did I get myself into?! I don’t want to die here! I want to go home and die at home!” Even though I said, “I’ll die for my people, Grandfather, I take back my words. I don’t want to die. Don’t let me die here!” So he didn’t. Grandfather let me live the rest of the days at Wounded Knee.
That last day when everything was over, [the authorities] had Greyhound buses for us. They took our names; they took our pictures; they took our fingerprints. And the name I gave them was “Lavetta Buffalo.” And they took it down. But I know they know who I am.
I got on the bus. They told us they would give us a good meal and they would take us wherever we wanted to go.
When we got on the bus, we was pulling out, I could feel the bus leaving and I stood up. I looked back and my heart got heavy. My heart got sad. Because I didn’t want to leave. Nobody wanted to leave. But it was over. We did what we did because we told ourselves, “We’re going to die for our people. We’ll die inside Wounded Knee if we have to.” We were raising our fists. We were ready to die for our people.
And I sat back down, and the bus started going. I took one last look, and I told myself “I’m never coming back.” God had mercy on me, you know. He took me out of there.
I’ve been tormented for almost forty years from Wounded Knee, but I’m well now. I’m a survivor. I’ve been to hell and back. And this is my heaven!
So I’m marching for Native American rights and for human rights and for the people that have lived a life of abuse and that are struggling to be a survivor and not a victim. You can live a peaceful life!
*Interviewer’s note: Sources list Frank Clearwater’s death as the first fatality and Buddy Lamont’s as the second. When I asked Lavetta about this later she acknowledged that her memory of chronology is fuzzy due to the absence of clocks and calendars, the intensity of the situation, and her subsequent PTSD.
[Editor’s note: This interview was conducted by phone, transcribed, and edited for length.]
